#The sentient manifestation of the concept of Absence?

[river-muse]

The most recent session of the Starfinder campaign I've been in broke me so bad I had to go horizontal for a bit and then get the very last scene drawn <3 Tai really isn't allowed to keep anything good in his life.

After so many years they reunited at last in the worst way possible- and all this time neither of them have been able to let the other go in some fucked up co-dependency.

This arc was gonna be fun, they said. It's a Battle of The Bands event at Songbird Station for charity, they said. The team's Captain didn't sign up for his finally rebuilding confidence/mental health to shatter at Ikoma coming back into his life. Especially because it's unknown how much longer that Ikoma will even be alive for or if he'll even stay the rest of that time.

[mahayanapilgrim]

Pure Awareness

When the notions of real and unreal are absent from the mind, there is no other possibility, but to rest in total peace, beyond concepts.

In this there is not a thing to be removed, Nor the slightest thing to be added.

It is looking perfectly into reality itself, And when reality is seen, complete liberation.

Mind is not to be found within. Nor does it exist outside.

And it can not be observed anywhere else.

Mind has no shape, no color and no location. It is like space.

Ordinary beings, regard appearances as inherently existent, then confuse the conditioned names for these appearances as the appearances in themselves. Ordinary beings then perceive these Illusions with craving, aversion and indifference - this is known as grasping at existence.

This is deceptive and called the incorrect relative: this is the basis of all suffering in its entirety.

Realized (Arya) beings, regard appearances as deceptive and are perceived without any grasping. This is called the correct relative, otherwise known as the correct relationship to deceptive reality and is subsequently marked by egolessness and the loss of destructive emotions and increase in equanimity, love, compassion and joy.

Enlightened beings no longer experience ordinary appearances or non-appearances whatsoever, and any concerns about grasping or non-grasping no longer applies. This is called the absolute.

Conceptualization is involvement with the realms of existence, but non-conceptualization is not associated with any of them at all.

When no activity whatsoever is performed,

That is what is called 'yogic action' Therefore, sustaining the ordinary mind, free from appearances is the supreme teaching.

What is the supreme teaching?

It is the absence of any subject or object conceptualization.

Since no awakening can be observed,

'awakening' is just a name. Since no Enlightenment can be observed, it too is but a name.

The realization that there is nothing in the space-like natural condition of all phenomena which could be the object of consciousness or wisdom is the view. Remaining with that recognition-in the manner of 'non-remaining'-is the meditation. In the post-meditation, to gather the illusory accumulation of merit and wisdom for the sake of illusory sentient beings is the action. The dissolution of mind's illusory perceptions within basic space is the ultimate fruition.

The basic space of phenomena is beyond conceptual elaboration and inexpressible by speech or thought,

In this, there is not the knowing of some object to be known.

Yet still, there is said to be the practice of view and meditation,

Like space viewing space or the sky meditating upon itself.

In genuine reality, there is no mind and there are no appearances,

In this, there is not the knowing of some object to be known.

Yet still, there is said to be the practice of view and meditation,

Like space viewing space or the sky meditating upon itself.

In genuine reality, there is no mind and there are no appearances,

But saying "no" indicates that even the dichotomy of existence and non-existence is transcended.

It is said that not fearing the profound meaning of emptiness but feeling inspired by it is the sign of a fortunate being who has heard and trained in the teachings before and is destined to swiftly reach awakening.

Reality itself, sky-like basic space, free from any thought,

When it is realized in a state of primal wisdom beyond expression,

Is fundamental equality, free from speculation or deliberate activity.

This is the wisdom mind of the Enlightened Ones.

The absolute, the nature of reality itself, is like the beautiful child of a barren woman,

Nothing can manifest or appear; its is simply a state of the most fundamental beautiful ordinariness.

To experience the conditioned phenomena of the relative and deceptive, the magical appearances of unity,

Without accepting or rejecting them and without attachment,

Is to take the wisdom mind of the Enlightened Ones into experience.

Until you reach this level of mental mastery and attainment,

Renounce any attachment to material possessions,

And keep to isolated forests and retreats, like a wild deer.

This is how to remain on the path without ever falling back.

Remain without joy or sorrow, attachment or aversion and so on

Towards all circumstances. outer and inner.

And every experience will assist you greatly on your path.

This is how to find stable realization into the unborn nature of phenomena.

When the wisdom of realizing the sky-like nature of mind

And the compassion of not forsaking illusory sentient beings

Are brought together in concomitant view and activity,

Great non-abiding primal wisdom will swiftly be attained.

Machik Labdrön said:

When nothing whatsoever is conceptualized,

How could you possibly go astray?

Annihilate your conceptions. And rest.

'Since mind is not a duality,

Look as if there is nothing to be looked at.

This mind of ours is not seen by any 'looking'.

Mind's very nature is not realized by being

'seen'.

In fact, there is not the tiniest fraction Of something to be looked at.'

'The nature of mind, empty and clear and beyond conceptual focus, is the genuine fundamental condition.

Since this pure awareness, free from conceptual constructs and impossible to pinpoint, arises unceasingly as the illusory appearances that are its basic expression, we must put all our trust in this state beyond clinging, this state in which there is no separation between meditation and post-meditation, and in which clarity and emptiness are a unity, and take it to heart through practice.

~ Patrul Rinpoche

--

To cause yourself and your life to be intensely filled with happiness, do everything you can to give happiness to others.

Do all the good you can. By all the means you can. In all the ways you can. In all the places you can. At all the times you can. To all the people you can.

As long as ever you can.

May you be well and happy my friends.

I am grateful for your interest in Dharma and following my blog.

Any mistakes are solely my own and not the fault with the Dharma or masters quoted here.

[cinema-hallucinations]

Prompt: generate a movie concept for a horror movie about a sentient geometrical shape. Noneuclidian horror—at first imagined then terrifyingly real—and a lovecraftian descent into madness should be central.

Escher's Nightmare

Tagline: They thought it was just a case. It was a cosmic nightmare.

Logline: An FBI team investigating a string of disappearances linked to bizarre symbols uncovers a horrifying truth - a sentient, non-Euclidean entity that infests

human minds. When a statistician pleads for help from a team of mathematicians, the line between reality and madness blurs as the entity consumes the agents, leaving only one infected survivor to carry the horror beyond the Euclidean plane.

Characters:

Special Agent David Miller (40s): A seasoned but skeptical FBI agent leading the investigation. He relies on logic and evidence, struggling to accept the mathematical explanations offered by Agent Lewis.

Agent Sarah Lewis (30s): A brilliant but ostracized forensic criminologist with a background in statistics. She recognizes a mathematical pattern in the disappearances and becomes the first to suspect a non-Euclidean entity.

Dr. Evelyn Wright (50s): A renowned mathematician, haunted by a past encounter with the impossible. She is brought in to consult on the case and recognizes the entity's signature in the symbols.

Dr. Ethan Cole (30s): An idealistic young mathematician from Dr. Wright's team, eager to prove the entity's existence. He becomes increasingly susceptible to its influence.

Plot:

The idyllic town of Harmony Springs is plagued by disappearances. Special Agent Miller and Lewis are on the ground, witnessing the town's descent into chaos. People are disappearing, leaving behind disturbing drawings and exhibiting bizarre behavior. Agent Lewis, with her background in statistics, recognizes a chilling pattern in the symbols linked to the disappearances. 

The Horror:

Dr. Wright, upon seeing the symbols, confirms Agent Lewis' suspicions. The entity doesn't simply kill its victims; it feasts on their minds, absorbing them and existing within their consciousness. These "infected" minds continue to function in a warped reality, spreading the entity's influence until it can manifest again. As the entity spreads its influence, communication between the remote mathematicians and the on-the-ground team becomes erratic. Messages are sent and never answered. Video calls reveal unsettling changes in the agents' behavior – paranoia, hallucinations, a descent into madness.

The Descent:

The entity uses the team against each other, driving them to paranoia and distrust. Agent Miller, initially skeptical of the mathematical theory, witnesses the horrific transformation of his own team members, his sanity crumbling. Racing against time, Dr. Wright and her team analyze the data and symbols, frantically searching for a way to stop the entity. They devise a complex mathematical plan, a theoretical trap based on non-Euclidean geometry, hoping it can contain the entity within the infected minds. Unfortunately, their efforts are hampered by the deteriorating communication with Harmony Springs.

Climax:

With a heavy heart, Dr. Wright sends the plan to Agent Lewis, unsure if it will reach her in time. Days pass without a response, leaving Dr. Wright and her team to assume the worst. The audience is well aware at this point that the entity has consumed everyone in Harmony Springs. They grieve their colleagues, but believe the threat has been eradicated in the absence of minds to reside in.

Ending:

Back at the FBI headquarters, Dr. Cole is seen writing his final report on the incident. He meticulously documented the symbols, his handwriting steady at first, then growing erratic and distorted. By the time the movie fades to black, the writing is scrawled in a foreign, non-Euclidean language, revealing that the entity did in fact escape through Cole's mind.

Themes:

The limitations of logic: The film explores the limitations of human logic and reason in the face of an entity beyond our comprehension.

The power of belief: The film suggests that belief can be a weapon, making people susceptible to the entity's influence.

The contagious nature of madness: The film portrays the entity's ability to spread not just physically, but through infected minds, highlighting the danger of unchecked madness.

[conversationswithheaven]

The Illusion of Need: Embracing Needlessness and Infinite Abundance

In the tapestry of existence, the concept of need often looms large, dictating our desires, actions, and perceptions of lack. However, upon closer examination, it becomes evident that need is but an illusion—a construct of the ego that perpetuates a cycle of craving and discontent. By embracing needlessness, we unlock the gateway to zero lack, paving the path towards infinite abundance and eternal peace.

Deconstructing the Illusion of Need:

Need arises from a perceived deficiency—a belief that something external is required to fulfill an internal longing or desire. Whether it be material possessions, validation, or approval, the ego constantly seeks to fill the void created by its sense of lack. Yet, this pursuit of external gratification only serves to perpetuate the illusion of need, keeping us trapped in a cycle of dependency and dissatisfaction.Embracing Needlessness: Needlessness, on the other hand, is the recognition that our true essence is inherently whole and complete. It is the understanding that our worthiness and fulfillment are not contingent upon external circumstances or possessions. By embracing needlessness, we liberate ourselves from the shackles of desire and attachment, allowing us to experience true freedom and contentment in the present moment.

Zero Lack and Infinite Abundance:

In the absence of need, there exists zero lack—a state of being where we recognize the boundless nature of existence and our inherent connection to the infinite. Zero lack is not a state of deprivation, but rather a recognition of the abundance that permeates every aspect of creation. From the vast expanse of the cosmos to the depths of our own consciousness, abundance flows endlessly, awaiting our recognition and acceptance.

The Nexus of Consciousness and Creation:

At the heart of needlessness lies the understanding that consciousness itself is the source of all creation. As sentient beings endowed with free will, we possess the innate ability to shape our reality according to our desires and intentions. Eternal life and free will are the only tools we need to create our reality forever—an eternal dance of manifestation and transformation.

The Gift of Eternal Life and Free Will:

Before we even ask, the universe has already bestowed upon us the gifts of eternal life and free will. These divine endowments are not earned or acquired through external means but are inherent aspects of our very being. With eternal life comes the assurance that our consciousness transcends the limitations of time and space, while free will grants us the power to navigate the vast expanse of creation according to our own volition.

The Cosmic Maxim: Eternal Life Brings Eternal Peace:

In the grand tapestry of existence, there exists a timeless truth: eternal life brings eternal peace. When we realize that our consciousness needs nothing to live forever—that our essence is beyond the confines of physical form—we transcend the illusion of need and enter into a state of perpetual serenity. Eternal peace is not found in the pursuit of external gratification, but rather in the recognition of our inherent divinity and interconnectedness with all that is.

Conclusion:

In the grand symphony of existence, need is but a fleeting melody—a discordant note in the harmonious chorus of creation. By embracing needlessness, we unlock the gateway to zero lack and infinite abundance, paving the path towards eternal peace and fulfillment. With eternal life and free will as our guiding stars, we embark upon a journey of self-discovery and co-creation, weaving the fabric of reality with the threads of consciousness. Before we even ask, God has already given—eternal life and free will are the gifts that await our recognition and acceptance.

[ehlnofay]

Finally, after many aeons of deliberation, I have more or less organised and written out my copious and extremely specific thoughts on Sheogorath! They’re rather poorly ordered and chaotic (how fitting) as I wasn’t able to find a better way to arrange them, but I’ll fit these basic thoughts and ideas under three sections: what it is, what it does, and what it wants (with potentially an extra bonus section on the issues I have with its canon characterisation, if I can dredge up enough energy to think of the words. If not, I vow to make a separate post about that at a later time.)

So first: at its core, what is Sheogorath? Obviously, the canonical answer to that is madness, but madness is so archaic and ill-defined that it’s really more of a storytelling idea than a real concept. I prefer to think of Sheogorath as the embodiment of disorder, more broadly – not just in minds but in everything. Sheogorath is chaos and entropy and dysfunction; it’s the concept of things not making sense, of things not working the way they should. This still manifests primarily in terms of human experiences and behaviour, though it is not solely limited to the fields of psychopathology or even an individual’s psychology – Sheogorath’s influence can be felt in any interpersonal situation where there is discord and dysfunction, from the bitter breakdown of a relationship to a war between nations. It’s not limited to people, though. Sheogorath is in everything that breaks, everything that never worked to begin with.

Second: what does it do? In terms of being a sentient entity rather than just an active concept, not a whole lot; not anything very specific, anyway. There are no particular aims or grand plans, no noble goals or evil ambitions it follows. It does things, sometimes hurtful and sometimes helpful, mostly on a whim. Sheogorath dismantles and disrupts and inches things toward disorder. It’s important to note the absence of morality in this discussion. I see Daedric princes and other deity-adjacent beings as less on a scale from good to bad and more on a scale of benevolence and malevolence. Sheogorath is neither consistently. It possesses an equal capacity for kindness and violence. It’s no more likely to snap your ribs and turn your heart upside down in your chest than it is to sit cross-legged on your bed and promise that I can help you. More often than not, it finds a way to be both. It is violently kind; it is kind in its violence.

Third: what motivates it? What does it want? It’s simple: it wants to exist, which means it wants to grow. Entropy is an active concept – it’s not something that just is, it’s something that happens. If Sheogorath ceases to act it ceases to be, and it wants to continue being. Being means growing; it means continuing to happen, to sow more discord, to destroy more order. Its actions are what it is.

 And now, because I am feeling generous and also because I hate to half-ass things once I’ve committed myself to them, here are three less-thought-through subsections of my assorted Sheogorath thoughts. I could probably make these into separate posts: I will not.

Miscellaneous Sheogorath thoughts number one: Sheogorath’s relationship to mortals is unique, as so much of the outward manifestation of its sphere is directly linked to them. It has a simultaneous understanding of and disconnect with mortals, able to perfectly comprehend the deep-rooted and subconscious biases, traits and influences that affect them while fully unable to predict a highly ordinary behaviour or response. Though intrigued by mortals and, every now and again, absolutely desiring a positive connection with one (or several), it fails to understand what, by mortal rules, qualifies as an act of compassion or an act of cruelty. (This relates to my earlier statement about its kind violence and violent kindness. Even when well-intentioned, it can break the people it tries to help, often without ever realising it. Its nature is to dismantle. Who’s to say that’s necessarily a bad thing?)

Miscellaneous Sheogorath thoughts number two: how does the iconic “gentleman with a cane” guise fit into this interpretation? It’s more of an inside joke than anything – only no-one is really in on it. The Gentleman’s behaviour is often exaggeratedly unpredictable, a pantomime of the madness it’s associated with by mortals. It’s unclear whether Sheogorath is making fun of the mortals or itself; it doesn’t quite remember. Now, the Gentleman is more or less the only fixed point in Sheogorath’s perception and presentation. Again, Sheogorath is not a static being, it is built around actions; it is a lot of little things breaking at once. As soon as it has a handle on itself it is something slightly different. The Gentleman, for all his volatility, is reliable; he is always the same. He’s the easiest person to be when Sheogorath has to be anyone. His appearance, however, is not part of the bit; Sheogorath tends to present itself as a person who is just a little off. A well dressed man cradling an eyeball in his palms is right up its alley.

And finally, the promised Miscellaneous Sheogorath Thoughts number three: my issues with Sheogorath’s canon portrayal. Like I said earlier, the concept “madness”, which Sheogorath’s canon portrayal is built around, is an archaic, unspecific, and deeply neurotypical description of mentally ill people and behaviours. There’s no clarity as to what it means – whether it means anyone with any kind of mental illness or only specific ones that present more overtly, or whether it means anyone with any disordered thoughts or behaviours at all, and whether it incorporates neurological conditions or purely psychological ones – it’s very literally just what somebody who knows nothing about anything assumes a mentally ill person is. And keep in mind, I’m not writing this as a somewhat offended mentally ill person (though I am that), I’m writing this as someone who’s been fascinated by psychology and psychopathology since I was ten years old. Sheogorath had huge potential – the inversion of logic and order, embodying all the ways that people can go wrong? The literal personification of psychological dysfunction? Sheogorath could be fascinating and lovable and terrifying! And they went the heehoo funny crazy man route. Not to mention unpredictable and insinuated to be violent, because that’s the portrayal of mental illness that we really need. It’s vaguely offensive, and frankly, it’s BORING. It isn’t interesting or original! Where’s the flavour in that? Where’s the creativity? I’m not saying you’re forbidden from liking Sheogorath in canon – in a lot of ways, I do too. I just think I could have liked him so much more. There could have been some genuinely interesting dissection of mental illness and its perceptions! There never would have been, of course, but there could have. But then, that’s where I come in, isn’t it?

[deadblog-smbiotics]

The Temple hangar greets Anakin with the same serene, distant warmth it always has upon his return, no matter the distance nor time that has transcended between, no matter the journey-influenced changes both physical and spiritual. Always the near sterile peace, as if the arms of a stoic parent have enveloped him in an obligatory welcoming, and so very brief, embrace. It feels clinical, almost, like the same flavor of the Halls of Healing, yet without the tang of bacta and the looming veil of weakened Force signatures. 

Here, at least, Anakin can revel in the bustling drive of sentients at work, tinkering and conversing with words spoken louder than necessary, matched with the rhythmical cadence of Binary as droids zip to and fro in rapid-fire completion of programmed orders and procedure. Underneath that war-strained serenity that has become a commonality of Temple life for the past couple of years, Anakin can blessedly make out the thrum of the living amongst the non-Force-sensitives, their untrainable minds an open, cool pool of emotion that acts as a balm to Anakin's frayed nerves.

Among this controlled chaos, however, is a much more welcoming signature. Anakin would be able to pick it out of the signatures of every sentient in the galaxy if only his senses could reach that far, because his own presence is interwoven inexplicably into that serene, star-like impression of Obi-Wan Kenobi.

His lips don't quite turn up at the corners at the thought of his former Master awaiting his arrival, but it's a near thing. He can picture it; Obi-Wan, with that infuriatingly collected serenity gracing him bodily and spiritually, hands clasped tightly beneath the folds of wide cloak sleeves to prevent that telling tremor of anticipation from making itself known; his strawberry-blonde fringe, meticulously styled against the curve of his skull in that put-together sort of way he strives to achieve more often now than before he was appointed to the Council. 

Even now, with Obi-Wan scant meters away - practically in Anakin's arms, compared to the distance they've kept for the past months - Anakin is eager to learn if his face has freckled in his absence, sun-kissed pink and half-hidden under his trim beard, or if he's been grounded long enough to ease the array. Hailing from a desert planet, the concept has always been novel and intriguing to Anakin; the harsh rays of every star they've ever encountered together is unkind more often than not to Obi-Wan's fair skin, but Anakin knows intimately the precious gift sunlight bestows upon his face once the white-hot licks of his sunburns heal away.

More than these ever-changing physical reminders of his tranquil friend, Anakin longs to reacquaint himself with the more permanent fixtures, like the way Obi-Wan's face brightens more in the glaucous grey-blue of his expressive eyes than in the uneven curve of his lips, squirreled away beneath the beard that Anakin is certain he might never know the true texture of (but oh, does he imagine). He's certain, sometimes, that the cold rain of his irises manifest his inner thoughts, compelling the Force to its metaphorical knees with the resounding clap of thunder following his ire and cooling the very air around him with the near-verdant tones of his contented peace. 

Ever-changing from moment-to-moment, and yet constant in their reoccurrence. Anakin aches to catalog every subtle nuance of Obi-Wan, from the rough, calloused grip of his yet delicate hands to the crow's feet crinkle in the corners of his eyes, proof enough that Anakin's upbringing hasn't only been a trial. And yet, of all the precious traits his Master has endeared him to, the one he craves most in the moment before touchdown is the melodic lilt of Obi-Wan's crisp-cut Coruscanti accent, curving with purpose around a sardonic quip. Oh, Anakin, he'll utter, with that put-upon exasperation that is ever present in the use of his name. Oh, Anakin.

Captain Rex joins Anakin in his ruminations just as they make the final slow descent into the hangar, but stays silent for several long minutes. "Council for you, sir. Seem to want your briefing as soon as we set foot on solid ground."

Anakin doesn't bother biting back on his grimace. Rex has seen far worse from him with far less provocation. "Can't even give a guy a minute to wind down, can they?" He rolls his eyes heavenward, shouldering on without need of a response. "Thanks for the update, Rex. I'll get to 'em when I get to 'em."

"Sir," Rex acknowledges, snapping a reflexive salute as he turns away, recognizing a dismissal when he hears one. Anakin appreciates these moments for the simple fact that they speak volumes of Anakin's relationship with his commanding officers. Rex is a friend - a good one, at that - and Anakin is filled with an overwhelming relief when Rex doesn't take his distance or his formality as a personal sleight; rather, over the past couple of years, he has simply adapted to giving Anakin space, no questions asked, when he needs it most.

Boundaries like that are, at times, rarer within the stifling, Code-abiding walls of the Temple.

As excited as Anakin is to see Obi-Wan for the first time in months, the idea of the reunion sends a fresh wave of anxiety through his veins. Before he knows it, as the ship cracks open and releases its cargo and passengers alike into the non-recycled oxygen of the hangar, Anakin is trembling with his fear and desperation.

Throwing up haphazard shields he hasn't had need for in months now, he hopes beyond hope that Obi-Wan can't taste the acrid zing of his emotions through the bond. It takes a good deal of his concentration to strong-arm the desperate need to flood their training bond with his every passing feeling, so when he does step off of the ramp, it takes Obi-Wan's firm grip around his biceps to stop him dead in his tracks.

Anakin blinks down at his former Master, who, for all intents and purposes, looks politely indifferent. Anakin knows better. The slight crinkle around the corners of his eyes is a dead giveaway to his enthusiasm. His lips quirk up, one side more than the other, before cracking open to expose the ivory hint of teeth. "Anakin," he utters, like he's reciting poetry. Some of the tense uncertainty melts from his bones as he takes in the vision Obi-Wan makes in his discrete joy.

"Master," is Anakin's rehearsed reply, but just before his lips form the words, he thinks better of it. Almost coyly, Anakin ducks his head and gazes at him from underneath the relative safety of his dark lashes. "Obi-Wan."

The tension snaps like a twig when Obi-Wan turns on his heel after patting Anakin's arm companionably, no doubt with the assumption that Anakin will unfailingly follow behind. As much as he hates to admit it, Anakin doesn't think he would hesitate to follow him to even the furthest reaches of a Sith's hell, and with a smile on his face all the same.

"So? How's the grounded life been?" Anakin begins, a small smile flirting with his lips. "I'd have assumed you would have gone mad by now, if I weren't quite certain you're already well off your rocker, old man."

Obi-Wan scoffs, an aborted laugh stuck halfway between his throat and his Jedi propriety. "I've liked it quite well, I'll have you know." He shoots a put-on non-nonsense look at Anakin, the very same one that he uses any time he makes a joke at Anakin's expense and hopes it comes off flippant. "Peace and quiet is a rare luxury when one's padawan is Anakin Skywalker, after all."

"Har-har," Anakin snipes back, biting his tongue against the vehement "former" that tries to claw its way up his throat. "Don't lie. You've missed me dearly. Who wouldn't be agonizing over a pretty face like this?"

The jibe is a touch uncouth after all that has transpired between them in months past, and something of a slip of the tongue to boot. They continue together down the hallway of the Temple proper, and in the pensive silence Anakin bites down on his lip nearly hard enough to bleed.

"I did," Obi-Wan eventually wryly admits, albeit so quietly that Anakin isn't sure he's heard right. He whips his head around, eyes comically wide, but finds no evidence of the admission. Obi-Wan's eyes remain serenely fixed on a point ahead of them, his side of the bond water-tight and without give. He doesn't even deign to glance at Anakin.

Swallowing through a sudden lump in his throat, Anakin darts his gaze back to the hall before them, determined to extrapolate the mystery of what has Obi-Wan's undivided attention. "Don't do that." He doesn't mean to sound sharp. It comes off that way nonetheless.

"I have never lied to you, Anakin, and I don't plan on beginning now."

"You're being intentionally obtuse," Anakin insists weakly, tightening his ironclad hold further around the despair attempting to slip through his shields.

Obi-Wan has the audacity to jab the cinched tether between their minds pointedly. "I was under the impression you had decided to let things be." Grey-blue eyes train against the side of his head, devastatingly tumultuous and imploring. He gentles his words: "What are you keeping from me?"

A wounded noise shreds Anakin's throat. His words come out raw. "I have not decided anything. You made it perfectly clear where you stand, Obi-Wan. Don't antagonize me."

"Honestly, Anakin," Obi-Wan grits out, agitated by the infantile accusation of malicious intent. "The more salient consideration you should be focused on is where I - no, where we - must stand, not where we do. It matters not what I would decide should I be set apart from my duties."

"Doesn't it?" Anakin laughs, but no amount of humor laces the words. "No, I suppose not." He stops abruptly as Obi-Wan extracts one hand from his cloak sleeves to jab in the code to their joint quarters. Before he does, though, he pauses.

"It should not matter," Obi-Wan asserts firmly. For all that the words sound like an emphatic agreement, the substitution of "should" instead of "does" makes all the difference. In all that Obi-Wan respects and abides unerringly by the Code, in this instance, Anakin can see right through the surface façade to the agonized, damaged man beneath. He knows that if he were to let the matter go now, Obi-Wan would never dare to bring it up again. He would never dare to take anything from Anakin, even freely offered.

So, Anakin does what he does best. He takes.

In an instant, Anakin has Obi-Wan pressed against the sealed door of their shared quarters with a firm durasteel hand tangled in the tabard-clad cloth of his shoulder, sleek black and gold against humble beige and off-white. With the gentle skin of his flesh hand, Anakin cradles the nape of Obi-Wan's neck and the hinge of his jaw like it's something precious to hold onto.

"Anakin-" Obi-Wan startles, alarm searing bright and hot through shuddering shields. Anakin doesn't give him a chance to finish his thought, pressing his advantage to insinuate his lips tenderly against the dry seal of Obi-Wan's.

For all intents and purposes, it's the most chaste kiss Anakin has ever involved himself in. Possibly the most chaste kiss in the entire history of the galaxy. Despite that, Anakin revels in the teasing brush of a beard against his chin, the softly untamed locks of red-blonde hair caressing the sensitive tips of his fingers, the warmth of the unmoving lips beneath his. A low-burning warmth begs to tangle down that gossamer-thin tether connecting their minds, but before Anakin can move another scant inch, conquer another piece of Obi-Wan he has no true right to claim, he's being pushed unceremoniously away by two firm hands against his chest.

He goes easily, crestfallen by the palpably tangy taste of swift, sober rejection. Just like before, Anakin has no access to Obi-Wan's mind, only now instead of the high-vaulted elegance of his typical garden walls, an impenetrable durasteel fortress now prohibits even the tiniest impression from slipping through. 

Guilt prickles against Anakin's eyes, so he lets them fall shut as he drops his head toward his chest. Mindlessly, he wonders how much heartache someone can take from one person before succumbing to their inevitable reunion with the Force. He's certain, with the dull thrum of his heart beating the pattern of a bruise against the inside of his ribs, that he's just about reached his limit.

"I'm sorry," Anakin croaks, devastatingly honest despite knowing he'll never be able to burn the feeling of Obi-Wan's lips out of his memory. "I'm sorry, Obi-Wan. I thought–... I thought that–"

"Thought what?" Obi-Wan demurs, not unkindly. His expression is entirely unreadable. "That you could convince me?"

Anakin squeezes his eyes shut tight. "I thought I could finally give you something you want." He swallows thickly, throat clicking obnoxiously.

"Anakin," Obi-Wan whispers, voice hoarse with some big emotion Anakin still can't interpret. "I can't."

Before Anakin can flounder for an appropriate response to such an obvious deflection, a flicker of an unintelligible thought darts past his senses. Thoughtlessly, he flicks his gaze to the side in time to catch the eye of one Barriss Offee. She looks properly scandalized, no small amount more by the simple fact that she's just been caught staring.

Anakin, in all the moronic things he has done in his life, realizes just how thoroughly fucked he is, especially when, wordlessly, Barriss turns tail and flees in the opposite direction.

The hands against his chest twitch nearly imperceptibly. Then, without another word, Anakin is tugged unceremoniously into the privacy of their shared quarters. Anakin feels struck dumb with how utterly impulsive he is, to have manhandled his former Master in such a clear breach of the Jedi Code all in plain sight for any passersby to ogle at.

Obi-Wan isn't looking at him as he calmly putters around the kitchen, straightening and tidying the already pristine surfaces in a near manic obsession. "Master?" Anakin whispers, soft and wide-eyed.

"Yes, Anakin?" Clearly, avoiding the impending doom of Anakin's mistakes is the route his former Master has chosen.

"Please," Anakin chokes out. "Please say something."

A disturbingly put-on pensive silence reigns for long, languid seconds. "What would you like me to say, dear one?"

"I–I don't–... Obi-Wan," Anakin collapses to lean heavily against the secured door, in a distorted parallel to how he'd positioned Obi-Wan just on the other side. He feels sick to his stomach at once. "Be angry with me," he suggests manically, arms wrapped around his middle. "Or frustrated. Or–or tell me," he takes in a ragged breath, panicked and sick with worry. "Tell me it will be okay."

This, at least, seems to crack the composed exterior Obi-Wan has adopted. He looks – wounded. Like his absolute worst nightmare has come to light, and there's nothing left for him but acceptance. "My dear–"

"Don't," Anakin rasps out, finally sliding the final scant couple of feet to the floor. His voice is near unrecognizable like this, the anguish and despair tempering every choked-off word with a raw, dangerously sharp edge.

Suddenly hands, warm and rough from decades-earned callouses, press against Anakin's overheated cheeks. They wipe methodically at the tears collecting and threatening to fall from his eyes, thumbs swiping against cheekbones in sync. "Anakin," Obi-Wan implores nearly harshly, looking for all the world like the words he's trying to convey are fighting him tooth and nail. "Anakin, I do –... I feel – I feel similarly. I –" a funny little noise slips involuntarily from Obi-Wan's mouth, and it isn't until Anakin notices the rhythmical shake of his shoulders that he realizes it's supposed to be a laugh, humorless though it is. "Oh, Anakin, do I want you. But I cannot – I can't–"

"Kiss me," Anakin pleads, flesh and durasteel meeting the solid hands against his face. Tears, fresh and unbidden, slip down and catch on caressing thumbs. "It may be our only chance, Obi-Wan, please, kiss me. Just once."

Instead of denying him full-stop, Obi-Wan leans a hair's breadth closer and presses his forehead solidly against Anakin's. Their breaths mingle in the intimate circle of their joined hands, and Anakin aches for this man so badly that he shifts just-so further to brush his nose sweetly against Obi-Wan's. "Oh, my dearest," he sighs, a wretched little rasp that puffs warm breath against Anakin's cheek.

He doesn't kiss Anakin. For once, instead of arguing, Anakin simply basks in the calm Force presence of his former Master, in the hands holding him like something fragile, in every point of contact between. And he waits for the summons.

[suncaptor]

So I am thinking about what life and sentience mean in Supernatural. I believe that most of it comes back to the concept of energy being the seat of power and the principles that relate to that life that then create the emergent property  (the ways in which the system of parts creates something beyond their parts) of consciousness: sentience. And that sentience is then utilised for power except for the fact that sentience also means free will. So the concept of life was supposedly some sort of weapon and the entire system of these dimensions is fighting for these power systems with desires also due to this emergent property of sentience. Basically then, it’s about the tools of said power gaining desires from said complexities and the choice to go against a narrative of power that came from that creation in the same place (Chuck’s narrative).

For humans, or life in general, this emergent property is manifested as the organ system’s development of the soul. The body is the origin, the soul is the emergence from it (which is then the power). This is also true of subspecies that end up in Purgatory as well. There is, however, a disconnect between the ability to perceive and this seat of power, given we see soullessness, so if the body itself is able to then become more than itself, is emergence the same in supernatural universe as ours? Is the body a garden with the tree missing, the soil and the air? Does this strip free will in some manner, reduced to logicisms of the concepts of consciousness we have in our world, but not theirs, because the power removed? Souls are like nuclear reactors, they are this power source that are intensely bright and energetic. And energy can never be lost nor gained, and the energy itself is the source of the identity, the emergence. And then demons, still essentially the same except there isn’t any light emitted, as if the forces of the trauma of Hell render the light gone like intense gravity can still capture the light of a blackhole: still this source of identity and power, but rendered as a way to suck light instead of emit it through greater forces of gravity (hell trauma) transforming it. And this can be still purified through the impact then back and forth of the body, the blood, because the biological body then has the powers to impact it back and forth because the traits of the body impact the sentience which impacts this source of power.

So then everything else in Supernatural then likewise comes down to power as tools, or, more accurately, weapons. Everything is about gaining more power because the power in itself is the sentience that gives the desire for a free will that is rendered impossible due to the power that is imposed upon. So sentient creatures are using other sources of power then for their own free imposition with the seat of true creation (Chuck) possessing true will. Blood impacts the body which then can impact the power since it is emergent from the origin body, holy water must impact the reaction of hell trauma, every new gun, some form of power, and salt, the urge to purify, a necessity to life yet destructive. Salt is then also like what angels are, meant to be created as a tool, yet they also play roles themselves. They appear to retain sentience outside of the vessel, yet they do not display characteristics of life unless they are in a vessel, like a virus or perhaps a seed in a correct environment. But the thing is that consciousness is appeared to stay, in some form, regardless. So their consciousness is not created from the emergent property of a body as the soul is. This, I think, is because they were created to be tools of power like salt would be, not power sources to then be as tools the ways humans are. Sentience is a necessary requirement for consent to being used as a weapon, and anything that deviates is made liminal, represented then by Eve and Purgatory. But angels themselves were not meant to do anything but be utilised as a tool/weapon, so I think that the emergent property that creates consciousness for angels is paradoxically inverse.

Angels are a multidimensional wavelength of celestial intent (again as a source of power, energy itself, also which I will use around with the terms of “light” from “wavelength” that then creates intent) that in itself is incomprehensible to most human brains. Now, in terms of angel trueforms, my view tends to stick to this sort of perception that @roxyandelsewhere said and visualises which while they elaborate on is similar to the eldritch horror perspective. Though to that end I do think the fact they are connected to some form of light and power comes back to this energy as power as emergence. I also think it is very important given the noting of God as light (as opposed to Amara’s darkness: she is the absence of light). 

Now I view the scale of angels as also paradoxical yet then comprehended visually for humanity’s sake to make them seem greater than life. Angels are in fact, both on the macro and micro scale which allows flight on the macro scale to move through space easily as if it’s nothing while also remaining invisible to the human eye, being two places at once in this, like a photon. In other words, I take “multidimensional wavelength [akin to light, metaphorically as on the wavelength spectrum] of celestial intent” the most literal representation of angels, though they remain still beyond comprehension. This fact that they are light though comes to their power (the kill and heal with light) and that they are created in God’s image, basically, but with the sole desire to control them (so without then a body to create sentience). But they also sentient, and I think that the reason why they have consciousness is because within the supernatural the emergence from complexity in which they are light itself creates consciousness, that then allows sight, like mass creates gravity but mass is also intertwined with energy. Basically, the ways in which angels have consciousness stems from their power source of light that becomes complex (@exitwound ​) and met with vision creates consciousness and sentience and the ability to have free will as well.

God in supernatural is the seat of creation which is light. He is what can create power, and he is light, light is power, and light is either the result or results in emergence. Amara is all else as the darkness, while Death is the source of destruction to creation. God creates other planes to handle the results of creation which become planes of power sources (Heaven, Hell, Purgatory, the Empty) with entities or political systems governing them. So “God” then defined is marked by the power of creation of “light”. But then within this system the emergence of sentience and then the concept of desire and free will emerges, creating the core of Supernatural: to have the right to exist outside of the governing of those that desire to use you. But every system of power works to keep everything in balance without changing anything which @autisticandroids ​ talks on about where the narrative benefits Dean maintaining status quo. The story itself then revolves around the impacts of the trauma and manifestations of the different social, psychological, and dimensional issues that arise from the violence of a universe governed by power sources and the fight for the free will, love, and sentience that emerged from it.

[averyscarlet-blog]

Project Clypse

Hello there stranger! If you don’t know who I am, or you’re too lazy to read my name, I’m AveryScarlet! You can simply call me Avery or Av. And if you know me on fanfiction.net, mostly through my works Mercury Alchemist or Final Fantasy Versus XV, welcome! Now, for a while now, I’ve been wanting to write up my own original story. Issue with me, thanks to college in the past, I haven’t properly developed the mindset to write a full-blown novel. I’ve gotten so used to typing up a chapter or two in a month before publishing them that I can’t properly focus as an actual writer should.

As much as I want to focus on writing some of my fanfiction, I can’t because I’m focusing on studying for NCLEX. So if you’re waiting for the next chapter for FF Versus XV... It’s almost done! It’s just gonna take a while. But as you can see below, I’ve been working on something else. I’m sure you’re confused as to who these characters are in the chat and why I’m pushing so many out. Well. I’ll tell you. This is my way of practicing for a story I’ve been... REALLY wanting to write for a long time. It doesn’t have a definite name, so I’m calling it Project Clypse. Which partially comes from the group my main characters are in. 

Now, I thought of writing up their character bio’s but..... I’m not really that good at it as I used to be. I used to for when I was active in RP’s but I’m so rusty that I doubt I can keep up with whomever I’m chatting with. So, I’m just summarizing certain details you need to know about them! Not all of it because that'd be spoiling the story of every character. Now, with all that’s said and done, let me start explaining key points of Project Clypse.

Premise/Background

The story is centered on a world called Avarus, which you can say is sort of like Earth, except it was made with someone else's version of life. Or, it used to be. Avarus is one of the few remaining worlds that has an active patron God, who has chosen to go under the alias Belial. The world was originally created and governed by another, Belial’s younger sister, Soleil. After Avarus’ creation, and the birth of man, she was killed by an unknown assailant. But before she died, she was cursed to experience an endless cycle of death and rebirth into various random worlds. She will live a short mortal life, then die from either natural or unnatural causes.

According to Belial, this curse is bestowed only to Celetials who have performed a dire sin. While there is no definite way to lift the curse, Belial hopes that by locating and retrieving her while she's still alive, or at the very least obtain her soul, then he could find the proper means to spare his sister of her cursed fate and return Avarus's true patron Goddess. Because of her demise, life on the planet started to decay. To prevent its destruction, Belial forced the planet to stop rotating, hoping to delay it long enough for him to find Soleil.

However, there were dire consequences to this act. His actions indirectly causing the world to cease rotating; time became non-existent as a result. This, inevitably, killed off most of the remaining life in the world due to the imbalance of the ecosystem as one half of the planet became stuck in perpetual darkness, and the other being dried up caused prolonged exposure to the sun's light.

The only life that Belial was able to salvage was her sisters creation; humanity. Those that survived after the planet ceased its rotation found themselves unable to age. They can still die, but their bodies will no longer decay. During the first Century since Soleil’s death, the God went through various countermeasures to keep the world and the life still inhabits it safe until he can find his sister.

However, a strange plague began to manifest. Soon, it began to devour most of the remaining populace, creating a dark entity in the process; the Astrals (will explain in a different section). 

While Belial was successful in wiping out the infected, the God realized that he cannot keep the last remnants of humanity safe. Not while there are still Astrals lurking about. So he put them to sleep, sealed them in a place that only he knows. However, because of the sudden absence of time and life, the world began to deconstruct itself each time he departed in search for her in other worlds. Realizing he cannot manage Avarus and search for his sister at the same time, he found an alternative. Since his conception, he had noticed a peculiar type of living being popping up now and then in a variety of sentient species. So he sought them out. 

Eventually, gathered enough to temporarily replace humanity and trick the world itself into thinking life still exists. At first, he gathered adults since he knew nothing can grow in Avarus once they’ve lived in the world for a certain period of time, but because of their attachments to the worlds they originated from, it was difficult to convince them to remain. Then he thought up of another solution, one which he knew his sister would frown upon. Children. With their young minds, they’ll easily forget their place of origin and can be easily trained in the necessary skill in traversing through different worlds. And, after learning that the Astrals have branched out to those said worlds, learn how to handle their sudden enemy. 

Their goal is simple; to locate and, if possible, retrieve Soleil and eradicate the Astrals.

Main Characters

Note: Just in case you did not know... I. Cannot. Draw. As much as it pains me to do this, but I need you guys to have some sort of idea on how they look like. I cannot find the original artists of the artworks; mostly because google imaging is shit and Pinterest tends to... Send you elsewhere. So of you know the artist, please PM me so I can give them credit. If you know they don't want their works republished, I'll remove it and try to figure something out. I take no credit whatsoever on the art! I merely scoured the internet for any references I could use. If you're wondering why I'm not.using actual people... You know how awkward that is?

Anyway, much of these are concepts so expect changes in the future. I tried to discuss as little as possible about each character. And let me tell ya.... That was a lot I had to cut off, so if the explanation is a bit messy, that was from me trying to select what to remove to avoid revealing too much.

. . .

Sound

‘I have to be better. I have to be a better leader. I have to be a better lover. I have to be a better sibling. If I don’t... then I’ll lose everything again. If I must, I’ll sacrifice my identity for a third time if it means protecting them.’

Credits to: T0Q00(?) - Okay, on Pinterest it has the person’s name AND link to their twitter account. The thing is... it’s empty. Their entire page is empty. At least I found the artist’s name?

Also known as the Glutton King, Sound is one of the leaders of his faction, Tunera Clypse and a member of Mythral. He is a first generation Nors. While not as lazy as Noise, he’s not really a fan of getting involved in fights with people. When it comes to killing Astrals; that’s an entirely different story.  

Outwardly, he displays laid back, playful, and very concerning outlandish behavior. And by outlandish, I mean his... eating habits. Sound likes to experiment with his stomach. He’ll do absolutely ANYTHING to eat whatever he deems as edible. He also - absolutely - lacks any sense of shame (ex. walking out of the shower and to his room without a towel, slapping Noise’s butt). Although limited to communicate via writing, he makes sure that every single thing he writes is worth reading. Many are even surprised at just how fast he writes his messages. Then again, after years of practice, it’s expected he’d adapt.

Sound is self-aware of the fact that he’s a fictional character and will randomly break the fourth wall, causing much confusion to his friends several times. While not as dark as his previous self, Fell, he maintains some of his views towards life and tends to be as vocal - via writing - of his previous self's beliefs.

As a Cursed Blood, his curse forces him to conceal his face behind a customized Fox Mask. Depending on the amount of facial skin that was exposed, a person can live up to several minutes to several hours before inflicted with sudden death. If a person were to see the entirety of his face, they will die on the spot from unknown causes. He has a Physical Curse as well, which causes him to inflict a certain degree bad-luck to whoever hears his voice. While it’s rarely anything life-threatening, Sound is forced to become selectively mute. Although he tries his best to remain silent, he tends to accidentally let it a few words or sounds slip. Which usually occurs when he sneezes, and when he does, it is immediately advised by his friends to duck and cover.

After undergoing the Ascension Ceremony, he joined the faction Tunera Clypse and then gave up his original name, becoming the next Sound. Unbeknownst to him, his actions later in life has caused him to unknowingly become the Vessel of Gluttony. It is unknown if his eating habits is the reason he became the vessel or it’s the other way around. Either way, he has shown to be fully capable of controlling the abilities that comes with being a Vessel. Sound merely chooses not to use them.

. . .

Ayane Koronashi

“If my brother had left the orphanage that day without me, I would simply smile. If Ulric presented me his latest girlfriend, I’d smile. Smiling is all I can ever do without being a nuisance. I could never show them my pain. I want to cry but my curse renders me incapable of doing so. But now it’s better. I’m better.”

Also known as the Black Fox. Ayane is the younger twin sister of Sound. Like her twin, she is also a member of Tunera Clypse and Mythral; as well as a first generation Nors. Despite being an active member, unless accompanied by her brother, Ayane is rarely allowed to participate in any scouting or combat-related missions. The main reason for this is her curse. While also a Cursed Blood like her brother and some of their friends, the unnatural causes that led to sudden conversion to a cursed blood caused her condition to be unstable. At the beginning, she was unable to retain her original form and would take the shape of a fox.

After some time and practice, she has learned to maintain most of her former human appearance, leaving only a pair of fox ears to replace her human ears and a tail (not by choice) as an extra ligament. Not only that, some of her internal organs remain similar to that of a fox. Because of this, she is unable to eat certain foods that are potentially poisonous to her (or generally unhealthy). She was told that eventually, if nothing is done, she will permanently take the complete form of a fox. She cannot surgically remove the fox parts as they will simply grow back.

Side-note: No, they did not try or plan to remove her fox ears. The curse replaced her human ears so they cannot remove them without indirectly making her deaf.

Her personality is the somewhat similar to Sound’s, but is far more excitable and outgoing than her brother. Just like a fox, she is clever and witty, which she demonstrates many times during combat. She has a tendencyto steal things without her knowledge. While this isn’t necessarily kleptomania, as objects appear in her hands at random, she still tries get over her childhood habit. She does have a tendency to be reckless, though this is stems from her need to be useful as her curse leaves her unable to perform all of the necessary abilities that is required of a Nors.

Another thing to know is her intense hatred towards cats. Which will be explored at a later time.

As a Cursed Blood, she can take the form of a fox. While the size varies, depending on her emotional state, she is commonly seen to change into the size similar to an elephant. If she performs multiple transformations, she will regress to a regular sized fox and sleep for an extensive period of time. She has been recommended to avoid constantly rely on her full fox form as it will hasten the progression of her curse.

After undergoing the Ascension Ceremony, she followed her brother and joined the same faction as him, but unlike him, did not join as a core member so she did not have to give up her original name. Because of the current state of her body caused by her Cursed Blood, her emotions has unknowingly lead her to become thenext Vessel of Envy.

. . .

Reihana Toelle Ur Kamaria

“Why was I born like this... what did I deserve to be cursed like this!? All I want is to hold someone without fearing I’ll crush them. I can’t be the receiver forever!”

Or Rei for short. Is a member of Mythral and is a second generation Nors. As a floater, Rei rotates between the three factions, but she usually works with Tunera Clypse. Known for her terrifying brute strength, Rei is feared by many and is challenged on a near daily basis. Because of her strength and seemingly indestructible nature, she is (much to her annoyance) sometimes used as a human shield. While she is able to take on an army by herself, Rei tries not to go all out in fear of accidentally killing her allies in the crossfire. In terms of mental maturity, aside from Xavier, she is slightly more competent and is level-headed enough to not participate in childish activities. Most of the time.

Rei prefers to ‘punch first, talk later’ when confronted, though the talking never happens as her opponents is either obliterated or immediately knocked out after one hit. While she can be aggressive at times, she merely acts out on this person's due to the rumors that were spread when word of her curse began to circulate. Those closest to her have witnessed her carefree and adventurous nature. She is also cautious and careful of her surroundings, becoming more thoughtful in the usage of her strength as a result.

As much as she loves the thrill and adrenaline that comes from combat, she prefers not to fight too often. Mostly because it usually leads to unnecessary mass destruction. She craves for proper physical contact, but due to her curse, she forces herself to avoid it as much as possible.

Being the physically oldest, next to Percy, she tends to act like the big sister of the group, which Rei has admitted she finds embarrassing. Still, she works hard in trying to act as moral support for her friends. That doesn’t stop her from losing her temper when a certain line is crossed.

As a Cursed Blood, she is cursed with immeasurable strength. Her strength doubles based on who or whatever is the strongest in a world that she sets foot in. That, of course, excludes Celestial’s as the strength of the divinity is almost non-existent. By default, back in Avarus, her usual strength is enough to crumble an entire building. In other worlds, it depends. To help control and regulate her strength during combat, she uses a large amount of Astral Dust to create form-fitting gauntlets around her lower arm. She was meant to become the Vessel of Wrath but was instead changed to be the candidate for the Vessel of Pride.

. . .

Perseus Vlahos

"I used to believe that being a hero will allow you to cement your place in history. But over time, I learned that the farther in time your name is shared in time, you become nothing more than a mere legend. Or worse, a myth. Stories can be altered, changed. If that’s the case, I’d rather not be remembered at all. I didn’t work this hard just to be written off as a bedtime story.” 

Christened under the name ‘Percy the Naive’ by his best friend, later life-long rival, Wilhelm, he is the current wielder of the legendary sword; Excalibur, and member of Infernum Poncitator. Grandson of Rayner, Percy is one of the few third generation Nors in Avarus. He is a kind young man and is respected amongst his peers (well, most of them) and superiors, so much so that he has been offered the position of leader of the faction. Percy refuses as not only deems himself unworthy, but out of respect for those that have lived in Avarus longer.

He displays many the ideal traits of a knight, eventually becoming viewed as an ideal knight by others. However, deep down, Percy perceives himself as the opposite. He feels he is a dishonorable fraud and is not proud of his status as Excalibur's chosen wielder. If he was given a chance to do it over again, Percy would immediately abandon his decision never search and locate the sword.

After joining Avarus, in a short span of time, Percy was able to easily establish himself as a sort of leader figure within his faction. While serious most of the time, especially during missions, due to his time with other Nors, has displayed a degree of patience and tolerance towards whoever he is assigned. Still, he never forgets their main objective and takes charge if he deems the assigned leader incompetent. Which happens more times than he refuses to count. He tries to maintain a cool head, but will severely reprimand others if the situation calls for it.

Proficient in the ways of the sword, he garnered the attention of (the then Mongrel) Mitchell. He was very reluctant in taking in a squire. But eventually, Percy relented after the younger boy attempted to fight against an Astral and nearly lost his life. He plans to one day pass down Excalibur to Mitchell once he gains the strength to surpass Percy.

At the moment, Percy is the current Vessel of Wrath.

. . .

Noise (***** Rallus)

“I tried all of my life to give my dad a reason why he shouldn't be treating his body the way he did. I tried all of my life to keep my friend in line so I'd never have to be the one to discipline him. And yet... If only I didn't try so hard, they'd still be alive.”

Author’s Note: Yeah I... legit do not know who this belongs to. There’s the artist’s signature so that’s the good thing. Problem is....

After escaping from the confines of his original world, Eingesperrt City, and, with the help Sound, joined Avarus and assumed the title of Noise. Unlike others that were gathered in the past, Noise is a regular human being. Something only Sound knows. Regardless of the danger, he became one of the leaders for Tunera Clypse, later joining Mythral after adapting to his new lifestyle.

He wears one of the Artifacts in order to copy and use only one ability of his choosing. As long as a piece of original user is within the Artifact, Noise can use it for as long as he wants. However, if its been removed and replaced with something else, the previous copied ability cannot be used ever again.

Since his recruitment, Noise adopted an extremely lazy personality. He’s so lazy that somehow even snoring consumes too much energy. To make sure he’s awake most of the time, Sound forced Noise to set up a sleep schedule, so that when he’s ready, he has enough energy to do SOMETHING. However, no matter where he is, he’ll take every opportunity to take a nap. He doesn’t care. As long as he gets to close his eyes, Noise is fine to sleep wherever, even if it involves napping righ at the edge of a volcano.

He’ll get annoyed if anyone that dares try to wake him up and he’ll be in a fowl mood for the rest of the day. The only exception is the fox girl and his lover. Despite this, he displays a certain degree of kindness. It’s just really hard to tell if what he’s doing is truly an act of kindness or he’s just too lazy to do things such as delivering a ‘motivational speech’. He can be blunt when he has to be, and he tends to come off as a jackass rude because of his personality. However, this is his way of showing he cares. Noise will flat out tell you if he dislikes you.

Another thing to know about him is his crude sense of humor. Combined with his blunt and rude nature towards people, mostly acquaintances and strangers, it always leads to various... Misunderstandings. Worst case scenario? A fight. He'd improve if he could, but he won't.

Look, if you haven't figure out that he's lazy after reading all this, gooood luck.

For reasons unknown, despite becoming the next Vessel of Sloth, it remains dormant within him. They thought of extracting it to learn the causes that led up to its current dormant state, but Sound intervened in time as he knew that extracting it by force will kill the the vessel.

. . .

Michael/Raphael/Gabriel/Uriel/Saraqael/Raguel/Remiel/etc

‘Dragons are raised under the false pretense that they are the supreme species above all others. But that merely obscures the truth; the truth that we’re just as vulnerable as anyone else. There are various ways to kill aside from piercing our hearts with a spear.”

Author’s Note: Just so you know, HE’S BLONDE and has green eyes! This was the only option I have that closely resembles how I envisioned him! There was another because he gives off the same atmosphere when you look at him but... he’s from an otome game. And I only learned that recently so, if the same goes for this one? WELP. Oh and he has patches of dark brown scales on part of his skin.

Neither a Quietus Nors nor a resident of Avarus, Michael is a dragon. His version of his race if capable of transformation, but can only change into the form of the last creature they devoured. Whole. Rather than his true form, in order to remain working in Avarus, chose to work in the form of the former Prince of Edrakon, a world where dragons were enslaved and cruelly treated as mere objects. Despite his appearance not being his own, he maintains an intimidating and powerful aura, which is easily distinguishable even within a large crowd.

Due to the high esteem he holds towards his race and his pride as a Dragon, he can come off as domineering, even becoming critical towards other versions of his race if he finds something illogical or nonsensical in their appearance and their abilities. While he does act this way, he finds it absolutely disgusting to find dragons place themselves in a position of power and abuses their power in controlling another species. Another aspect of him is that he looks down on dragons with physical defects, which is mostly directly aimed as himself due to his extremely poor eyesight. Thus, forcing him to rely on his human form to watch glasses. He also has a very confusing naming system; where he changes his name based on the date, time and temperature.

Micheal held the potential required to become a Nors, but because of his age, he was unable to undergo the necessary steps to fully integrate into Avarus. While others are reluctant to have him join their ranks, several others, for different reasons, allowed him to remain. This eventually allowed others to accept his addition to the organization. 

As the one in charge of organizing and handling most of Avarus’ internal affairs, a job the Nors, even the Ex-Anima/Animus, are reluctant in taking up such an important position; he takes his job very seriously. Although he does express some contempt towards humans, this does not extend to the people he works with. He cares about them to a certain degree, which is shown by he constantly reprimands whoever acts risky during a mission.

He is the current Vessel of Pride, something he only learns of later on. Despite the fact Micheal is a vessel, Belial believes this is only temporary. He isn’t particularly close with Belial, but he respects the God enough to follow his orders.

. . .

Ulric Soknawo

'In my tribe, I was considered an outcast. You can thank the unnatural union that birthed me. Now? It hasn’t changed much, but at least I’m no longer considered the runt of the pack.’

Whose other name is Kuckunniwi, is a former member of the Aniwaya Tribe. In their world, his people are Natives who worshipped a guardian Wolf Spirit. According to them, in return for their unyielding loyalty and devoted nature, it granted the people with the power to take the form of the spirit they have worshipped for many generations. So long as they use that power to protect the forest, it shall provide them protection. Ulric is the third, second youngest, illegitamate son of the Tribal chief Tamaska and grandson of Wolfram.

As per tradition, all tribesmen are given two names, one for their human form while the other is for their inner wolf. Despite being allowed to use either name like others of his tribe, he refuses to be use his wolf name due to the meaning behind it. After being discovered by Ayane, she brought and recruited him to Avarus. Ulric is considered to be a Third Generation Nors due the fact his father was (oddly) not born a Nors, or had to potential to be converted into one.

Ulric tends to act like the stereotypical lone-wolf, choosing to remain in solitude and observe from a distance. He likes to spend his quiet time alone, though he does allow others to sit next to him when asked. Many have pointed out that he never smiles, but, as much as he hates to quote Noise, states that if there is no reason to smile, there is no reason to put so much effort in abusing his facial muscles.

As much as he loves being a wolf, he finds certain aspects of his second nature to be... aggravating. Depending on the season and the weather, it deals a the effects his wolf instincts on his human nature. Because of the two separate natures continually clashing, he tends to act irritable and his temper worsens, especially during the night. Ulric holds a strong belief that one’s nature, regardless of your race, should never control a one's personal feelings.

He holds an unyielding loyalty to his loved ones, almost to the point of willing to kill for them if the situation calls for it, but his actions are subtle and tends to be the exact opposite of how he truly feels. Only two people in his life have been able to decipher his behavior, and he cherishes them for it. Ulric has a bit of a temper as well but is able to keep it in check. His temper, however, is what led him to becoming a Cursed Blood. His curse forces him to foresee the deaths of whomever he romantically falls in love (or at least feel an interest) with.

Any attempts at interfering will only hasten their death.

. . .

Xavier Wozwald Hawthorne

'Murderers are dumbasses, always killing because of their unchecked emotions and pented up desires. Hence why most of them clumsily try to hide their crime. Serial killers are more... sofisticated with their craft, but their ego always gets in the way. If they weren’t complete dumbasses, they would have lived a long comfortable life. I should know.’

Note: Yes, this is obviously Vflower. Did I know that before? No. Do I plan to change the art reference? Yes, but only when I find one that’s not a god dang real-life person’s online avatar. XD Seriously, each time I thought I found one... it’s an utaite or vtuber.

Is a member of Mythral and a First Generation Nors. Like Rei, he is a Floater, which allows him to particiate in mission for all three factions. However, he prefers to work with those in Tunera Clypse as, since they mostly handle scouting and recruiting missions. As long as he doesn’t remain in Avarus for too long, he's fine with accepting any mission related to Tunera. Xavier will still accept missions from other factions, but that's merely to fill up his quota.

Despite appearing around the age 12-14; which was not by choice, Xavier is in fact mentally older than most of his fellow Nors. Known for his sharp tongue, Xavier is one of the few known Nors to have been granted permission to travel outworld immediately after undergoing the Ascenscion Ceremony.

Due to the experiences his past life went through, Xavier has a very grim outlook of the world and displays little to no respect towards authority figures. And that includes his current patron God; Belial, which only worsens after being told by the God that he is unable to help Xavier grow into the appropriate intended size. Unlike most Nors, he displays a high degree of critical thinking and intelligent. He is, if not more, level-headed than one of his friends; Percy. Though that doesn’t stop the teasing. While confident in his abilities in terms of combat, Xavier knows the limits of his current smaller body.

In order to compensate, he creates an excessively large scythe as compensation, but he's too proud to admit this.

Because of his level of maturity, he has been labeled as a 'Midget Grandpa'. Which he fails at trying to prove otherwise by collecting certain tthings that are considered out of date by their standards. Eventually, it became a soft of hobby for him to collect such things.

Xavier tends to display a sadistic nature while in combat, choosing to taunt his opponent by constantly pointing our their obvious flaws deficits and toy with them until the last minute. Most times, he will use his child-like appearance to his advantage to further torment his opponent/victim. Comically enough, if his opponent is a cold-blooded criminal, Xavier will compliment and , depending on their actions, congratulate them; much to the annoyance of those involved.

Like Sound, he has both a Physical and Blood-based Curse, but unlike  the latter, Xavier was born with both. His Physical Curse has caused severe permanent scarring on his right arm, making it appear similar to third degree burns. If freed from any type of coverage, such as bandages, his arm will painfully be set a blazed, forcing him to conceal his arm at all times. As a Cursed Blood, Xavier has a similar effect of a Siren, except his hypnotic singing forces someone to commit suicide. Every time he uses this curse, he temporarily falls into a coma.

. . .

Succu(bus) Kilmer

Like her name suggests, Succu is a succubus, but belongs to a different version of her species. Due to being a demon, she is forbidden to reveal her true name. Succu is neither a Nors nor a Cursed Blood. She’s more of an illegal immigrant after sneaking her way into a group of Nors when they were scouting for potential recruits. There have been many attempts in trying to relocate her back to her original world, but she is able to seduce her attackers and slip away. Eventually, Belial declared that she will be allowed to remain as a resident, so long as she contributes in their mission to locate Soleil.

While they do seduce those of the opposite sex, her source of food is not as grotesque as several others. She does seduce her victim, but moves her body in a way that her victims find alluring. Succu will then massage certain parts of their body as a means to relax them. To assure that they will not attempt to escape, she will release pheremones that nulls the victims senses. What she devours isn’t the flesh of her victim nor does she devour their soul, she merely devours the emotions she was able to invoke until her hunger is quenched.

Succu is flirtaceous and very... very.... VERY- Well, you get the point. While she doesn’t flaunt her beauty, she does know how to use it to her advantage. However, despite many approaching her, Succu has only eyes for one, and is willing to wait as long as possible for that person to reciprocate her feelings. Succu, although assertive and open with her feelings, is not the type to force them onto someone.

She does like to express herself by getting physical - very physical. Not the way that you’re thinking, you perverts. She finds it more convenient to allow her actions to talk rather than saying things verbally. Since she’s an outsider, she notices several things that not even Pery or Ulric have noticed, and both are outsiders as well considering the fact they grew up outworld before being recruited. Regardless, she remains silent for the sake of remaining by her beloved’s side.

Succu is often mistaken as the Vessel of Lust due to her nature, and, on her part, finds it’s tiresome to prove that she is not.

Side Characters

Tank Mortem

A former member of Tunera Clypse and Mythral, Tank has been assigned to act as one of the engineers in maintaining the Infernian Generator due to his body’s condition and the issues of his mental state. He seldom participates in missions but, despite being given strict orders not to, joins in anyway. Due to the limits of his mental capacity, Tank has difficulty interacting with others. Quite literally.

Beatrix Staccato

Is a researcher and inventor in charge of the tools and weaponry utilized by most Nors and Ex-Animus. Having taken over most of the unfinished projects since the passing of his master, Beatrix has dedicated all of his time in improving the welfare of the world and its inhabitants. However, most of his experiments tend to be a bit... over the top. If he’s not thinking of new potential products that may benefits the Nors, he’ll make whatever comes at the top of his head, and most of the time it’ll lead him to make the most outrageous and unnecessary items. Beatrix prefers to remain in his lab/home at all times, rendering his social interactions with the three factions to be limited via holographic meetings.

‘Nyx’ Pierrot

Leader of Vanidicus Persona, she is one of the oldest Nors - next to Constantine - making her the default leader of her faction. Much about her is a mystery. Even her behavior can be viewed as... questionable. Not outlandish, that’s Sound’s department. Her behavior is so odd that it’s enough to baffle even Belial. She takes her leadership over her faction very seriously, however, as part of her nature, the requirements in joining and maintaining your membership vastly deviates from the original. However, looks can be deceiving. Aside from her seniority, there is a reason why she was given the position of leader.

Mitchell Pierrot

He prefers to be called as ‘Mitch’ after being told, and proven, by his sister how much of a tongue twister his name is if repeated constantly in a single conversation. While he is the younger brother of Nyx, Mitch opted to become a submember of Tunera Clypse upon undergoing the Ascension Ceremony to be in the same faction as his mentor, Perseus Vlahos. Compared to the Nors in his batch, he is viewed as weak by many as he is unable to perform the abilities that is expected of him to develop after becoming a Nors.

Constantine L. Refrain

Nothing is truly known about him except that he’s a chronic smoker. Nobody truly knows who he is, no one even knows which faction he belongs to. It’s nearly impossible to question these things as he is constantly surrounded by a shroud of - barely tolerable - smoke. All that is known is that he’s been around longer than most of the Ex-Animus. Constantine usually frequints the Silent Siren Bar, staying there for hours until he’s either drunk or needs to receive another pack of cigarretes from Beatrix. He says they’re for medicinal purposes buuuuut...

I’m pretty sure black smoke isn’t normal.

Stefan Mal Sorcier

Is Percy’s second pupil. Although, it was more like Percy was forced into taking in another after his continual refusal to become leader of Infernum Poncitator. Outwardly, he is aloof and always appears smiling, which unsettles Mitchell even when they’re alone. His politeness is found unusual by many and causes others to feel wary around him. Even the dragon finds himself is unable to remain in the same vicinity as the young man. Despite being full of many secrets, Percy accepts him as is and tries his best to teach him all he can, which Stefan appreciates.

Kyline Necro

Considered as the mascot ambassador of Avarus, like the soul that was fused with her upon birth, she mostly lounges around and has little participation in any missions in and out of Avarus. This has caused her to be disliked by many, most especially Ayane. The only person Kyline has gotten close to is Noise; mostly because they share the same favored sleeping spot. On a side, she acts a physician, or surgeon if you like to get technical. She has a strange fondness of picking apart and replacing specific limbs with doll parts.

Yu-Yan Chi Ryou

Was once one of the strongest Nors from Xavier’s batch until he was inflicted by an unknown disease during one of his missions. While there is no name for the disease, it has caused much of his bones to undergo crystallization; rendering him immobile due to the pain that comes from even the smallest of movements. Since he is incapable in participating in any activities, Yu-Yan has since been forced to be confined to a wheel chair for the rest of his life.

Anita Eine Kleine

Is the fighting instructor of the Mongrels and a member of Infernum Poncitator. Anita is a highly-skilled caster, able to conjure and manipulate various elements. She absolutely hates the term ‘witch’, even going as far as to cast a minor curse in making a person temporarily mute if they refer to her as one. Which Sound found rather offensive when he found out about the curse, something she deeply apologized for. She participates in some Scouting Missions but only if personally requested by someone from Tunera Clypse.

Victor Stein

Is Beatrix’s (only living) research assistant. He is the sole survivor of the Night of the Black Moon. Although having physically recovered, the damage to his mental state has left a deep scar on his psyche. He fears yet obsesses over the sensation of pain. There is not one instance where he isn’t found sowing over his own intact skin. While Victor knows his addiction found uncomfortable by others, he finds it extremely difficult to control his urges.

Wolfram

Grandfather of Ulric and most of his siblings, he is an Ex-Anima (or retired Nors) and a former member of the original Mythral. As the more experienced and one of the longest surviving resident of Avarus, he acts as a mentor to those who seek his guidance. However, in terms of combat, his skills are very limited as he has become permanently stuck in his wolf form. The only grandchildren he's ever personally met are Ulric and Seeing, who have both ironically became his favorite. While acting as a mentor, he is rather strict, constantly parting lessons in order to make sure none make the same mistakes he committed when he was younger, many of which he refuses to share.

Diantha Anemone

Despite being still a Liberi, Dia still participates in many activities meant to be done only by Nors. She originally wanted to become a part of Tunera Clypse due to the many adventures imparted by Sound. But after having a first hand experience in one, it traumatized her to the point where she wants to merely work as a Librarian, a position many people avoid.

Echo & Yell

Fellow teammates of Sound and Noise. As part of the four heads leaders that overwatch many of Tunera Clypse's activities, both in and out of Avarus. They mostly take charge of delegating the members while the other two take an active role in leading many scouting missions off-world. Contradicting her name, like Sound and Noise, her personality is the completely opposite. Due to her sociophobia, she is extremely shy and is unable to speak when talked to, only whispering her sentences as she talks. Yell, however, is the only one whose personality fits the mantle she inherited. Due to her curse, she has to raise her voice after every two hours. If not, she will fall into a coma, and she can only be awaken by *************.

Important Figures

Belial

Credits to: @airtrees0507 (Again, another artist who... disappeared from the internet. How do I keep finding refrences where the artist is just gone?)

Is a Celestial and the younger brother of Soleil. However, despite his godly status, he does not have any of the expected gifts. Neither a god of creation, life, or death, he has been given the title God of Void by his peers. Because of this, he is incapable of maintaining Avarus by himself, forcing him to use alternative (and questionable) means in preserving the world his sister created. Like his title, Belial is unable to express emotions, giving blank demeanor. He does, however, hold some semblence of emotions within him. Yet despite this, he has little to no understanding of life, death and emotions. Even after centuries since he over his sister’s role as Patron God, he still has no understanding to all living things, almost to the point of coming off as insensitive and heartless.

Belial has a deep devotion to his sister, having gone through great lengths to make sure to maintain her world and willingly sacrifice the lives of many. Despite knowing her distaste towards such acts, he holds onto the hope of one day finding her.

Soleil

Credits: Um... Lucare Eu??? Sorry, I’m just basing it off the signature. Once again, can’t find the artist themself so...

The true patron goddess of Avarus and the older sister of Belial. Aside from her status as the original creator and caretaker of her world and the life that once flourished within it, not much is known about her. While her exact cause of death is unknown, she was cursed to live an endless cycle of death and rebirth in various worlds. In order to restore the world she created and loved dearly, Belial dedicated his life in searching for her soul and freeing her of her curse. As a Celestial, she was said to have chosen to take the form of her first ever creation and first mortal friend. 

It is said that, despite having blessed with the gift of creation, she was known to be a lonely goddess. Those that new her describe as someone that’s physically there but is spiritually detached.

The Oracle

Is a title given to those with the ability to commune and guide the spirits to the Empyrean Plain, more specifically Avarus’ residences due to the absence of Soleil. The Oracle acts as the divine anchor on the world to aid Belial in prolonging the world’s existence. They are also the main source of Belial’s divine power; both of which are maintained through her prayers. The gender and species of the Oracle is non-specific, but it if preferred by Belial if they are humanoid and have the ability of speech for the sake of communication.

The current Oracle is Aniela Fischl, who, unlike her predecessors, is able to foresee various futures. She does so by carefully peeking through the leylines and selects various possibilities that solely benefit Avarus. No one is allowed to meet her except Belial and her assigned Seekers.

The Seekers

The guardians, caretaker, and acting medians between the Oracle and the residents of Avarus. Their duty is to ensure that the chosen Oracle remains within the Spiral Tower and that he/she fulfills their duty, even going as far as to grant their wish regardless of the consequenses. Each Seeker has only one desire, and that’s to protect the Oracle at all times.

Races

Liberi

Age Range: Birth or 5 to 10 years

Although that is the official term, ‘Mongrel’ is what they are commonly referred as. It is the used for the for the children taken to or born in Avarus. Mongrels spend most of their young lives training within the safe walls of the Aldebaran Academy. They are forbidden from leaving as, according to Belial, they are the extremely fragile during this point of their lives. Regardless of their age, depending on how well they’ve performed in training, they will be given the right of undergoing the Ascension Ceremony. Those who fail are xxxxxxxx xx.

Due to their young age, their behavior is more sporadic than that of a normal child. Their reflexes are enhanced, almost to the point where it becomes difficult to contain them. Mongrels lack common sense so they tend to act out without fully understanding the impact their actions have. While childish and friendly by nature, Travellers are advised to approach with caution. Those who act beyond the expected norm are called Prodigies.

Quietus Nors

Age Range: (Physically) 14-19, (Mentally) 10 or above

Or simply called, Nors. After their graduation, every Nors is immediately sent to work. Depending on the final results of their training prior to undergoing the ceremony/procedure, each is individually assigned into one of the three factions ; Infernum Poncitator, Vanidicus Persona, and lastly, Tunera Clypse (formerly called Tunera). Those that are assigned to neither of the factions are assigned to more menial jobs alongside the Ex-Animus,

Despite their young minds, they have quickly adapted into their new forms. Due to time becoming almost non-existant in Avarus, Nors age at a rapidly slow rate. Though known to be childish by nature due to the gap of their young minds to their bodies, they dangerously lack empathy and display little to no compassion and remorse towards others. In worst cases, some act selfishly on their own accord. On a positive note, they lack any emotions that may hinder their mission in locating Soleil; such as fear.

Only two of the three current generations of Nors differ greatly from the first:

First Generation Nors - Are those converted or directly born within Avarus with the blood of two Nors. Those born in the first generation share two specific physical characteristics; raven black hair and golden eyes. They all share the same abilities upon conversion/birth, but it depends on the individual which ones they should master. Unless they happen to be a Cursed Blood, they are unable to obtain different abilities to call their own. They are required to undergo the Ascension Ceremony.

Second Generation Nors - In terms of personality, they are considered half as bad as those in the first gen. Unlike the previous, second generation Nors are considered slightly weaker, however, they have a better chance of obtaining other abilities outside of Avarus. Their hair is slightly lighter shade of black but their eyes remain the same. They too are required to undergo the Ascension Ceremony.

Third Generation Nors - While rare, they do tend to appear once in a while. It’s not exact how one falls into this category. The closest is being the grandchild or who has an anscestor that was a Nors. Because of their circumstances, these Nors are far weaker as they cannot use any of the standard abilities. Third Generation Nors are far difficult to locate as their potential doesn’t surface until they are of a much later age, rendering them incapable of taking necessary training to hone their abilities and undergoing the Ascension Ceremony. They do not share the common personality or physical traits of a Nors. One thing every Nors in this generation share are sky blue eyes, which emit a faint glow when in the dark.

Ex-Animus (or Anima for singular)

Age Range: (Physically) 30 to 40, rarely appears in their early 20′s

Are individuals who are retired from their duties as a Nors. Although Nors generally age at an excessively slow rate (due to the effects of Avarus), after a number of cycles (which refers to the number of batches that underwent the Ascension Ceremony), they will be given the order to retire. Regardless whether they are willing to or not, there is nothing they can do once the order has been issued. Once one becomes an Ex-Anima, they are completely cut off from their original faction and are unable to leave Avarus for the rest of their life.

Not only that, they are unable to defend themselves like they used to as they can no longer control Astral Dust and use the abilities from their time as a Nors,Basically.  Basically, Ex-Animus’ are left to fend for themselves.

Factions

Every Nors is allowed to join any of the three factions; Infernum Poncitator, Vanidicus Persona , and Tunera Clypse. There is an option to not join any of the factions; they are called ‘Floaters’.

[incarnateirony]

S15 Remaster: Grace, Souls, Conversion; Effects of the Fall; The Journey of Man; Self-Godhood and Free Will.

Alright, so over in another thread (x) @curioussubjects​ evoked an interesting take about the effects of the fall vs grace/souls and the meaning of the two, and I remembered having an old post that was a bit of a mess from early S13 where I applied Qabbalistic concepts to SPN not long before the actual... Qabbalistic and Hermetic elements started manifesting (The Shadow, the Empty/Ain Soph, etc) and before I pretty much started flipping theological shit.

The other thread was already becoming titanic with a hodge podge of other philosophical musings between users (I think @winchestersingerautorepair​ and @thecoffeebrain-blog​ are still pending to add their additions to it once life clears them), so we sort of mutually agreed to save this discourse for another thread while I took some time to remaster and update the old talking points.

It's a fundamental point that is generally vaguely brushed over, or often has modern concepts plugged into it in streamlined media form rather than exploration: What makes a soul, what makes existence, what makes meaning in our lives.

This, in fact, is the fundamental question and exploration *of* the soul, which Dabb's SPN seems to be tackling fairly directly.

So let's explore the differences and transitional conversions of grace and soul as we've witnessed in SPN. I'll be starting with my take, but of course, as all philosophical discussions go, this is best a conversation of shared concepts.

Also uh, this post was kinda on-request but is literally ridonculously long. Fuck Andrew Dabb for being the only person on the face of the goddamn planet that can make me write infinite words about esoteric philosophy about a TV show.

So this conversation gets a bit difficult to even know where to begin. I'm going to notch a few notes for everybody to keep in mind: Season 6: Death can not destroy souls. Souls are the most powerful known force in the universe, and he who has the most Is Become God. Season 13: Only god can create new angels, they are the biological definition of an asexually reproductive species (as opposed to sexual orientation identity) -- they are unable to create among themselves, and must be created by a supreme force in command of the grace that creates them. This will passively brush over the oft-discussed topic of angel sexuality as well, but that is far from the core point. Season 14: God calls souls "complicated" to handwave away making new ones. Season 15: Yet again, Belphegor tried to consume souls to become a great power, reflecting S6/7 Castiel's arc.

Now that I've sort of dropped those as a lead-in of applicable concepts, I'd like to move forward.

Now as per my S13 listing, we've all seen this fandom turn over and try to apply human sexuality and identity labels to angels over and over again and, while I understand that and mean no offense to that in general, I feel like approaching it from that angle of the human perspective and lens makes a great deal of the substantiative qualities of SPN's discussion of the human soul vanish into the aether. How are these things related? Let's talk!

Sex isn’t the only part of this discussion. As they are wavelength lifeforms, rather than biological, they aren’t really dependent on biological functions. Many of their native elements pass to their vessels: They don’t eat, sleep, or have general body functions… normally.

Their senses are all sorts of different, too. They see in the astral, they taste and smell in molecular compounds, and especially early-vessel-claiming, they seem to have next to no actual pain response. It’s like, well, some giant wave form stuffed in a meat sack they use like a marionette more than having genuine attachment to. Early on angels could waltz through gunfire without flinching and take a knife to the chest with a very bland look of, “Really?”

When it comes to discussing angels and grace, I'm going to pull some sections from the linked post at the start of this:

We know the biblical concept that all things are made by grace; we know Chuck controls his fake construct, but not the free will of the human soul. Consider Gabriel’s constructed worlds where he can manipulate the fake people inside it and snap them away in veils of blue, they’re just pieces of a machine. “I’m the cage.” The human body is part of the sandbox, but the soul is something beyond it.

If angels are living aspects of grace, wavelengths of celestial intent for Chuck’s machinations, the programs that keep the matrix in order – and fallen angels are the rogue programs – they’re still relatively connected to being just… an animated, if intelligent rock or any other piece of the universe. To use more Matrix terms: Just more lines of code. But Castiel’s break in that was contact with his profound bond with Dean that left a mark on him, a brand, just like Balthazar’s soul claims. This tie was powerful enough to be stronger than even Amara’s connection to Dean, for example.

The human soul is the essence of the one true good, realistically – The One Thing that exists, truly, by which all other things come, the Prima Materia – “What Jack did wasn’t evil, it was the absence of good.” – this is actually a hermetic concept but that’s a whole other bag of words, that’s how I quoted that line before the episode aired from the title alone but MOVING ON

If we look at Eileen for example, her ghost is still deaf. Her body/cage/vessel in life never introduced her consciousness, her humanity, to the tactile sense of sound as it exists within Chuck’s sandbox, ergo her spirit doesn’t know it. But it is the soul, like the sleeper, seeking the meaning of its existence and where it is home that commands the body, and leaves the body, and ends up in chuck’s other matrixes of control like heaven and hell that keep people distracted, keep humans from returning to the primordial man that rivals or maybe even betters God.

That all said, human Cas for example suddenly had the full awareness of experience, rather than an autonomous sentient part of the universe chained to divine intent, free or not; that freedom and liberty came by way of the human soul. (Per metatron, Season 8 finale, “When you die and your soul comes to heaven,”)  But with his tie to Dean, and humanity, and a soul his hands laid on, the extraction of his grace also left… but what? A soul born of Dean, really.

Whenever his grace came back, that universal power and awareness, he lost those senses, but he didn’t lose many of the attributes that came with. In fact he pined for them.

Also if we go Jungian with the inky man/shadow as the primordial man or spirit of man, Anthropos, while it didn’t reflect Lucifer, Billie, or soulless Jack it reflected Castiel.

I’ve held the theory that Castiel still has a soul like the nucleus of an egg buried beneath a titanic presence of universal power.

I’d also further endorse this by pointing out while metatron cited Cas having a soul in the S8 finale, when Jack lost his, neither Dean nor Cas thought Cas could empathize as well as Sam could.

In example, Castiel is the only one the Shadow reflected, not Billie, not Soulless Jack, not Lucifer, just Castiel; I’ve even gone so far as to speculate that the smiley attempt at communication was the sort of subconscious borg having the essence of Jack’s soul trying to communicate with his spirit/mind otherwise alert based on consumed grace in the Empty. Speculation, yes, but… potentially loudly resonant.

The journey of man to self-godhood is a complex and tangled affair, traveling through facets of the self represented by a wide array of *ideas* we have begun to face in the show (including color schemes Dabb has actively employed)

If you venture into my shorthand visual post about The Shadow, Anima, Animus, and the Self (x) you'll find how the show has chosen to address this. Similarly, the masculine and feminine paths of universal progenation would be worth a cursory read (x).

Similarly, @winchestersingerautorepair​ recently sent me a chart from a 1973 book titled "The Colors of Love" discussing Hellenistic use of color in association (which, minding alchemy's growth path through time, is hugely relevant). As Maeve said, "John Allen Lee is the mvp by the way. Hes at the crossroads of psychology and LGBT concepts of love and sexuality, and has a fascinating career and life story."

Before I fully locked on to just how loud Dabb was being in his use of alchemy rather than casually tapping on it, you may remember a series of color metas I built specifically on these very colors (and, let's face it, black light doesn't exist, but blue does, and has similar psychological associations). Click this (x) to go to my color metas on tumblr regarding Optimism, which follows this path. Unfortunately my Nihilism one is either untagged or I only posted it on Pillowfort. But you’ll take note I just sort of avoided/dodged/ignored established fanon color meta in favor of other stuff, just a heads up there if you’re expecting me to follow anyone else’s pre-existing fanon -- it ain’t there.

This is all an aside to the actual question of *souls*, but an important framework to how Dabb is choosing to explore the journey of the soul through its many aspects of Being.

To defer back to what I quoted from my other post about Gabriel's universes: What makes humanity different from the moving bodies performing functions of controlled story, rather than guided elements, inside Gabriel's world? If we were to, say, drift into Doctor Sexyverse, or Cop Proceduralverse, nobody seemed to flinch or even be aware of Sam and Dean breaking the script, they continued on their own paths until Sam and Dean "played their parts". But what made Sam and Dean *different* from them?

Explaining freedom to angels is "a bit like teaching poetry to a fish," said Castiel, now bound to humanity since laying his hands on the human soul in hell that, even the S8 DVD commentary mentions, is how he has come to know, love and, as they say, be "enamored with" humanity. We have seen it now-- blank stares of confusion from breaking their course of action, their function. Their predesigned purpose that they were wavelengths of intent for within the machine. They aren't all so different from Gabriel's creations in the end, with Doctor Sexy's Nurses being not too unlike angels to Chuck. They are there for a path and a reason, and should they be somehow interrupted from that function, they seem to lose all purpose.

To convert this to another method of understanding than "matrix code", in case that isn't sinking in with anyone, think of angels as forces of nature. The hurricane means no malice, it simply exists as a function of or even result of universal laws, and often evokes great rebalancing effects that change the course of history for a huge amount of humans and other creatures that it's basically oblivious to. The hurricane does not understand your feelings much less care about them. It is here to do what it does until it is done with what it does. This very concept is why so many ancient gods are primitive archetypes of natural forces.

If we cease trying to box angels into human perceptions for the want to identify with them in such a representation-light landscape, the field opens up to something infinitely more complicated. Such as: what makes Castiel so different? I've already addressed that, of course, in this post, but let's pitch that as a conversational hook again.

"You want to know why we're meant to stay away from those humans? It's not because we're a danger to them. It's because they're a danger to us."

Now BECAUSE sexuality is the angle this fandom has heavily thrown its discussion chips into beyond the other senses, I'm going to move forward into that topical field:

Anna, talking to Dean, lists a long flurry of reasons to become human, among which sex was stapled. In later seasons, Cas comes up with a different list, but it’s more reflective of his emotive view of humanity, and doesn’t include the sex. Either way, it actually leaves interesting take on the human soul’s function (which is also a silent part of something I’ll get to later** ) as per the trinity of mind-soul-body sometimes called “The Threefold Nature of Man” in a lot of classic mysticism. **

So why would Anna include sex in the list if others can enjoy it? There’s various reasons of taking this into consideration, and I consider most headcanon potentials valid since… you know, there’s really no clear statement on this.

- Most angels have a copilot and that’s just creepy AF - It could be subliminal commentary of wanting to enjoy a native drive for it rather than a learned one, since affections and emotions are also canonically attached to the human condition (as well as the 3fold Nature discussed later). - It could have to do with gradual humanization effects (will discuss shortly) - Misc other.

Barring our specific presumption of why this hangs in the air, the detail is that it simply *does*. Perhaps the truth is between all of these, with each angel unto their own.

Anna lurked, invisibly, on earth observing men as long as she knew. Now, gradual humanization effects is a complete headcanon proposal associated around  all elements to be covered in this discussion. That is to say, most angels that have exhibited sexual behavior and enjoyment of various goods have either been fallen or in their vessels for a LONG TIME, perhaps gradually removing the disassociation from the body and gaining familiarity with its functions.

Yes, we can evoke Balthazar’s sexual activity, but we must also evoke his appreciation for wine and food and music and all of the other things that we have canonically, even mechanically witnessed in Castiel (inability to appreciate food or drink, in example, as an angel.) So WHAT makes Balthazar different that he CAN experience all of these things (beyond the potential of Plothole AF)? There is literally something he has that other angels don’t. The second Cas clicks back to angel, he can’t appreciate food anymore and beer does nothing for him, but Balthazar can enjoy alcohol? There is LITERALLY a difference of template of EVERYTHING going on here, not just sexuality. We can postulate it all we want, but the only one that immediately comes to mind is “gradual humanization”, as we haven’t the FOGGIEST idea how long he has had his vessel. Unless we assume various appreciations of his are Just An Act, but then why not assume it’s performance behavior on the sexuality too? Pick one or the other, don’t run the line on both. (Also if you want to be under the assumption that despite terminal soul dealing it was his first vessel run, I’m going to leave this as a note, and a REMINDER of his meddling in attachment to, handling, trade and use of human souls for his own means, and tuck this aside until we GET to the meaning of human souls.)

The VERY SAME can be said of Gabriel. And Gabriel we KNOW has been on earth as Gabe for a VERY. LONG. TIME. His sweet tooth is what got him busted. Again, it’s not just about his sexuality, it’s his entire composition is somehow DIFFERENT from otherwise canonical function of angels.

Again I point out there’s also a big ??????? on Naomi because again… 400 year old Crowley in Mesopotamia. We have no educated way to even ADDRESS that one because… is it a time warp? WTH??? Even Mark called this a plothole. Literally we have to headcanon how they were even there together before we headcanon what was even going on in a big old pillar of ridiculous headcanon, so I’m going to float that off in a box labeled with a question mark and admit, it’s just random AF. The “fling” is also implied and unclear. So I mean- we’ll just… note that and keep moving on why it’s never impacted my perception of this much.

How long fallen was Lucifer?

Hannah brings an obvious question to mind in challenge to all of my surrounding premises, but this is literally where “choice of experimentation within a vessel” comes into play, as with all of them. I’m human now, this seems like a fun thing to humans, let me try the thing; that’s all I’ve ever read that as. You may have your read of it otherwise, but angels try a lot of things. And I’ll bring this up during canon talk.

The concept of humanization-with-time does have some further established presence of S13. When Lucifer is still an angel but largely drained of his grace, he too begins feeling compulsions of hunger, cold, and basic human instinct he was previously immune to. Diminished power, and the closer one comes to being of Soul Rather than Grace, the more they seem to resonate. Anna carved out her grace to fully enjoy humanity and was born into it, experiencing its gifts of awareness. Cas can no longer fully enjoy humanity as an angel. We don’t know what Balthazar’s status is. And so on. But it appears that by VARIOUS METHODS, such as the depletion of grace or just being a long-assed time to attach to a specific vessel, they do end up ATTAINING various behaviors.

Preparing to speak on Humanized Angels.

What really triggered this premise to me was the recurring humanization of Castiel. And again, this goes far beyond just sexuality preferences. I’m going to do a brief break to get to that ** I marked above about the threefold nature of man before expanding.

** Mind-Soul-Body trinity:

Angels have the mind/spirit (grace) and body, but lack a soul; grace is closer to their natural body’s composition than molecular and transmits a wavelength thought into whatever sack they’re using to operate. But there’s a disconnect here in classic mind-soul-body structure (which is sometimes alternately listed as Body-Spirit-Soul, with Soul as the mind instead, and Spirit in place of the alternate listing of Soul? People swap these terms interchangeably but you’ll find a common pull). There’s multiple takes on this. For example, we’ll go with the standard accepted biblical take as a first ideation of it, considering the various judeochristian influences of SPN.

Please NOTE I’m going to list several variations of this, and have no hard cast “this is the exact model” they’re using, as much as “this is a recurring theme in religion and philosophy”, which, while SPN is rarely 100% accurate to any one specific model, they often call on.

The EXACT itterations of this vary, and there’s no real saying which exact respective “silent ven diagram” they’re using, but as if a triple circle overlapped with Mind, Body, Spirit with the balance we as humans know at the core. Removing a rung of this strips out major overlap of function.

The inner spirit, insight, will and memory reaching from spirit/mind to body by WAY of the soul, for the spirit to engage the human senses within the constructed universe

CASTIEL

Well, perhaps I’ve been down here with them for too long. There’s seemingly nothing but chaos. But not all bad comes from it. Art. Hope. Love. Dreams.

HANNAH

But t-those are human things.

CASTIEL

Yes.

To fully understand this chart, I again point to (as earlier in this post) this previous post about primordials, explaining the chain (x), Anima Animus and the Shadow (x) and also its association with the paths on way to enlightenment at the source of creation which is explored, for a particular path, right here (x)

Just another way to stack out this chart, including the adventure of Anima and Animus, as well as the id/ego/superego I’ll discuss soon; However, you can see the literal concept is the same. There’s an inner mind, a central essence of the inner court that reflects close to the aspects of Humanity Cas told Hannah, and then the “living room” of the body, and the senses. Same deal. Again, "I'm the cage."

You see a running theme here?

The Soul is essentially commonly received as a vehicle between the higher mind and the body (as well as possessing aspects of our emotion, and sense of self, such as how Sam lost parts of himself without his soul) That, without which, we are lacking various critical anchors of the human experience that we often see lacking in angels.

This therein raises the challenge, “But Soulless Sam was ALL ABOUT the sex.”

That’s where species difference comes in.

We’ll talk psychology a bit, wherein we have the psychological variances of id, ego and superego rather than just body-soul-mind/spirit. They essentially perform the same functions (base instinct drive, early personality function, learned and refined function with choices etc, to boil it down to super-simplistics).

“According to this Freudian model of the psyche, the id is the set of uncoordinated instinctual trends; the super-ego plays the critical and moralizing role; and the ego is the organized, realistic part that mediates between the desires of the id and the super-ego.” – Freud, Sigmund. The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud. Vol. XIX. Translated from the German under the General Editorship of James Strachey. In collaboration with Anna Freud. Assisted by Alix Strachey and Alan Tyson, Vintage, 1999. [Reprint.] ISBN 0-09-929622-5

A Sam with no soul has his base species survival instinct but his acting mind. A Cas with no soul has HIS base species survival instinct (in lack of sexual reproduction as much as potential learned appreciation under the above spoken methods) for an id, if any, and a curiously arranged body until other elements come into play. The ego and superego, such as the application of a soul, leaves room for the gradual inclusion of preferences to anything within this model, such as angels developing their own ORIENTATION once having a vehicle by which to come through.

There’s a few other points to notice about the transition. The Mind/Spirit is capable of questions and doubts, or faith. “I’m not a hammer, as you call it; I have questions, I have doubts.” - S4 Castiel.

The mind is capable to think and to reason, but complex emotions are a challenge to it without a soul, which also filters our thoughts and memories from upper mind into the body, wherein we gain connectivity to the physical senses and the realm we experience.

But the universe -- the wavelengths of intent that make it function -- simply can not experience itself, any more than any other code running on your computer can experience itself. It is you, the human, that experiences the results of that code, and views and understands it and reaches out to aspects of life through it. Grace, should all things be made by it and through Chuck, as the thing that creates this code/intent of angels -- it simply is, and runs, and functions.

So BACK TO THE HUMANIZATION OF ANGELS,

Castiel has humanized or near-humanized three times and we're pending on a fourth. Briefly in the hospital, he was braindead (lacking Jimmy’s brain function, but instead having his own mind) while his heart remained pumping, meaning the body/vessel was alive, but the remaining grace WAS in fact functioning in place of a mind.

CASTIEL 5.21 I just woke up here. The doctors were fairly surprised. They thought I was brain-dead. (…) CASTIEL You could say my batteries are – are drained. DEAN What do you mean? You’re out of angel mojo? CASTIEL I’m saying that I am thirsty and my head aches. I have a bug bite that itches no matter how much I scratch it, and I’m saying that I’m just incredibly… DEAN Human. Wow. Sorry.

However, it was depleted, and this is addressed in effect later on by Metatron removing grace. As grace is removed,

METATRON 8.23 And now something wonderful is going to happen, for me and for you. I want you to live this new life to the fullest. Find a wife. Make babies. And when you die and your soul comes to Heaven, find me. Tell me your story.

Now Castiel goes on to return to himself by going all cannibal and whatnot, but that’s its own story. The simple fact of it is, with the mind housed in a vessel, but the grace attached to it depleted, the body seems to generate something like, equivalent to, or equal to a human soul in its function.

Now to reflect back

2014!CASTIEL 5.04 So, in this way. We’re each a fragment of total perception—just, uh, one compartment in that dragonfly eye of group mind. Now, the key to this total, shared perception—it’s, um, it’s surprisingly physical. 2014!CASTIEL spots DEAN. 2014!CASTIEL Oh. Excuse me, ladies. I think I need to confer with our fearless leader for a minute. Why not go get washed up for the orgy? The WOMEN leave. 2014!CASTIEL You’re all so beautiful. 2014!CASTIEL stands and stretches his back, grunting. DEAN What are you, a hippie? 2014!CASTIEL I thought you’d gotten over trying to label me. (…) 2014!CASTIEL I wish I could just, uh, strap on my wings, but I’m sorry, no dice. DEAN What, are you stoned? 2014!CASTIEL Uh, generally, yeah. DEAN What happened to you? 2014!CASTIEL Life. (…) 2014!CASTIEL You want some? DEAN Amphetamines? 2014!CASTIEL It’s the perfect antidote to that absinthe. DEAN Mmm. Don’t get me wrong, Cas. I, uh. I’m happy that the stick is out of your ass, but—what’s going on—w-with the drugs and the orgies and the love-guru crap? 2014!CASTIEL laughs. DEAN What’s so funny? 2014!CASTIEL Dean, I’m not an angel anymore. DEAN What? 2014!CASTIEL Yeah, I went mortal. DEAN What do you mean? How? 2014!CASTIEL I think it had something to do with the other angels leaving. But when they bailed, my mojo just kind of— psshhew!—drained away. And now, you know, I’m practically human. I mean, Dean, I’m all but useless. Last year, broke my foot, laid up for two months. DEAN Wow. 2014!CASTIEL Yeah. DEAN So, you’re human. Well, welcome to the club. 2014!CASTIEL Thanks. Except I used to belong to a much better club. And now I’m powerless. I’m hapless, I’m hopeless. I mean, why the hell not bury myself in women and decadence, right? It’s the end, baby. That’s what decadence is for. Why not bang a few gongs before the lights go out? But then that’s, that’s just how I roll.

Now, we can try to extrapolate that it’s “all the drugs,” but drugs or not, while decadence includes MORAL decline, it also is this:

dec·a·dence ˈdekədəns/Submit noun moral or cultural decline as characterized by excessive indulgence in pleasure or luxury.

And Cas doesn’t get words wrong (unless he’s trying to make an awkward conversation starter with Dean as what’s almost a routine for them, always in idioms and never in definition). In fact, he has a very on-point vocabulary. How often does someone evoke “Insouciant”?

Calling it decadence defines this as a luxury to Castiel. The entire episode is like One Giant Exposition of the differences: being breakable, prone to decadence, bang a few gongs on the way out. Yes, it includes drugs; hell, he’s now subject to being INFLUENCED by drugs, contrary to being able to drink down the entire bar before “starting to feel something” or needing to drink the whole liquor store before the grace stopped implicitly filtering it enough for him to stagger in on Sam. At some point, Castiel decided these were ALL his coping mechanisms, but this is an adaptation of some period of humanization between late 2009 and 2014.

This could be considered a one-off of Zachariah’s manipulation or whatever if we choose to ignore Edlund saying it was a real universe, but then we get the SAME THING hitting us again in season 9, if under a different, immediate scope rather than “end result.”

9.01 CASTIEL looks at his bloody palm. CASTIEL It hurts. (…) MAN How about we get you some water, hmm? CASTIEL I, uh, I don’t drink water. (…) CASTIEL It’s okay. I don’t eat.

and

9.03 CASTIEL (Chewing on the toothpaste) I’ll be moving on tonight after work. It’s time. The MAN nods and hangs up his towel. CASTIEL Can I ask you something? MAN Sure. CASTIEL walks into one of the bathroom stalls. CASTIEL Do you ever tire of urinating? I’ll never get used to it. (…) HOMELESS MAN You’re new at this, aren’t you? CASTIEL Food… sleep, or passing gas, it’s all very strange. And it’s occurred to me that one day I’m gonna die. CASTIEL and the HOMELESS MAN just look at each other curiously. CASTIEL Well… I better try falling asleep. It’s quite a process, isn’t it? (…)

Now, we’re going to take to the raw moment of Castiel and April,

She kisses him gently on the cheek, but stays close and eventually kisses him on the lips. CASTIEL seems surprised at first but then joins in.

Cas is surprised… and then joins in. Castiel did not expect this, but falls into it of his own action. No force was implied, and the moment leading into it was all of a few seconds, rather than any persistence or insistence.

A few more bits,

APRIL So, that was okay? CASTIEL Very much so. Um… what I did, that was, uh… correct? APRIL Very much so. CASTIEL (Smiling) (…) APRIL So what happens next for you? CASTIEL More of this, I hope. They smile and start making out again.

I don’t exactly get the feeling that she’s entirely leading this situation on all by herself, to the dismay of several gatekeeper ship or sexuality stans.

More elements with regards to humanity in this episode,

CASTIEL I am really enjoying this place. Plentiful food. Good water pressure. Things I never even considered before. There really is a lot to being human, isn’t there? DEAN It ain’t all just burritos and strippers, my friend. CASTIEL Yeah. I understand what you’re saying. SAM You do? CASTIEL Yes, there’s more to humanity than survival. You… look for purpose, and you must not be defeated by anger or despair. Or hedonism, for that matter. DEAN Where does hedonism come into it? CASTIEL Well, my time with April was very educational. SAM Yeah. I mean, I would think that getting killed is something. CASTIEL And having sex. DEAN chokes on his burrito for a second. DEAN You had sex with April? SAM Yeah, that would be where the hedonism comes in.

This isn’t just Castiel talking about having sex for the first time. This is Castiel acknowledging the allure of hedonism for the first time (…not minding the timewarp of 5.04, which didn’t happen Because AU.)

And here, also 9.03, before meeting April CASTIEL is once again wandering through the noise and the people. He is trying to take everything in – he glances from a hot dog stand to a woman’s breasts to a supermarket. The whole place is noisy and crowded and confusing. He is overwhelmed.

In 9.03, among this onslaught of Castiel’s change in visual, sound, sensory, and other instinctual acknowledgment of a change in the senses (see back to the 3Fold Nature and the acquisition of a human soul), we also get Castiel rubbernecking at a woman’s chest for the first time, before encountering April; the transcript doesn’t do the moment proper justice with the pure level of focus directors and editors called to it. In fact, we get slow camera pan and a rubberneck that might as well have ended with him walking-flipping into a trashcan blindside.

With all of these stacked connotations aside, I find it difficult to interpret anything but it being installed as a yet-again evocation of a difference in function.

Episodes 1 and 3, the first two episodes Castiel is in during season 9 after losing his grace at the end of season 8, DELUGE us with a current of differences of all of his sensory faculties.

Once his state is “corrected,” (for lack of a better term - Castiel seems to yearn for his humanity back through the show) the show makes a point of showing us a reversal as applicable,

SAM What? What are you talking about? CASTIEL When I was human, you know, I had to eat constantly. It was kind of annoying. SAM Yeah, a lot of human things are pretty annoying. CASTIEL But…I enjoyed the taste of food – particularly peanut butter with grape jelly, not jam. Jam I found unsettling. SAM [sitting on the table next to CASTIEL] So, what? Now you can’t taste PB and J? CASTIEL No, I-I taste every molecule. SAM Not the sum of its parts, huh? CASTIEL It’s overwhelming. It’s disgusting. [looks longingly at the sandwich] I miss you, PB and J.

Once again, paradigm shift. What he once appreciated, amidst the VAST wash of senses they told us about, just seems… null now. Something is missing, and something is different. Again, the universe can no longer experience ITSELF.

Now, I’m going to fall back a bit to cover what would possibly be framed as an argument against all of this, but frankly builds into it,

Back in season 6, Meg was UNABASHEDLY FLIRTING WITH CASTIEL and trying to prompt him to “move some furniture around,” and, in a learned “last night on earth” move, Castiel makes a motion in 6.10

Meg grabs Castiel by the neck and kisses him, at the same time removing his sword. Castiel pushes her up against the wall and returns the kiss with interest. MEG: What was that? CASTIEL: I learned that from the pizza man.

NOTICE. LEARNED THAT.

With FORWARD PROMPTING from Meg, and existing example (porn), Castiel did in fact make a move. That is to say, “learned behaviors” and “personal orientation” beyond “species reproductive instinct”. But as made clear by April, this never led anywhere particular, never completed, and while he expressed wanting repeats with April during being human, this is the only actual example we have of it.

In short: throughout the show, Castiel finds new things and tests new things. These new things become bizarre little childlike obsessions at times even. This one… obviously a little less childlike. (clears throat) But again, this is a process of “learned motion.” (though I’m somewhat disturbed that canonically Emmanuel-Cas sees her face and is absolutely horrified at her appearance, meaning this is also not likely even by nature of physical/spiritual attraction as much as personal, almost a demisexual trait with experimental curiosity which, as an independent idea beyond “holy shit she’s a demon”, is a healthy phase.)

But by way of learned motion/acquired taste and function, we then have the question of “why doesn’t Cas repeat this if he clearly enjoyed season 9?” Well, I can name a few. We can go over the fact that Cas simply doesn’t explore social venues that make it ready. Or we can mention his seeming lack of compulsion for it which ...is a topic of this post. Or we can simply reflect to the *challenges* of hedonism and what it will, in this post, continue to implicitly adventure as the cage and trappings of the human body and experience within what we call “life”, which the human soul extends well beyond.

But it leads us to an interesting series of questions about Castiel and Dean’s seemingly changed interactions in season 12, on a subliminal level.

And no, I’m not implying they’re boning. When Dean is no longer getting strung across a variety of cosmic elements to save him directly from the crosshairs of, or from himself, we’re getting this weird vibe of gruff jealousy, bickering, and infighting. As if Castiel, settling in more among them, is channeling increased humanity. Despite being an angel in some crippled capacity still, personality traits acquired from his human period are still there, leading to believe the soul element never ENTIRELY disappeared, as much as with further ding-dang-donged up grace, we have to wonder - is this almost a sliding scale? Or can both run mutually when one doesn’t overshadow the other? The exact specifics of this mechanic would be unclear.

But all of these complexities is why I find it nearly impossible to, in my head, reduce it to the simple “well some like it and-” because I have always read an intentional base-beat of differentiation between the human and angelic experience including, but not limited to, sex.

There’s a subtle hint of some osmosis of this in what I mentioned above with Hannah. “Perhaps I’ve been with them too long.”

CASTIEL

Well, perhaps I’ve been down here with them for too long. There’s seemingly nothing but chaos. But not all bad comes from it. Art. Hope. Love. Dreams.

HANNAH

But t-those are human things.

CASTIEL

Yes.

And so why I find it impossible to just address “angel sexuality” as its own topic. This may just be my brain at work, but I don’t see all of this effort in dividing their experiences, in a show that addresses theology and concepts like the human soul, to be arbitrary and random and I just see SO much beautiful complexity IN the shift of his sexual behaviors, among other operations. It’s not just about Castiel’s sexuality, it’s about addressing the complex creatures that are humans, and what builds us at a core. Frankly, from that end, it doesn’t matter if Cas is bi, ace, straight or pan – Castiel has been human, and wants to be so again. And it, along with other things littered throughout the show, have given us great insights on the soul, or the lack thereof, and all of these beautiful building blocks.

And so to roll away from approaching sexuality so heavily, and instead ball and bundle that up as part of the human experience within the body, the reflection of the human soul, I hook again: The universe can not experience itself more than Windows OS can experience itself; it requires the essence of man to experience the result of the work of grace and by which it finds many things of itself, even within the trappings of a human life.

The fact that humans are afterwards caged elsewhere is a whole other discussion me and others have been holding in the original linked post, so let's step away from that and instead go back to the concept of, far and away beyond sexuality, what makes a soul, and how is it different from the created universe.

If we were to apply these concepts -- angels, bodies of grace, as parts of the universe and how it functions -- versus the irrevocable free will fundamental to the human soul, dividing bodies from just being roving parts of the construct like Gabriel's realms -- to our dialogue in regards to Castiel as our seeming oddball with a crack in his chassis, "And the universe came to humanity, and laid hands on humanity, and fell in love with humanity to come to know it; it abandoned its own purpose and functions due to this connection to the concept of the human soul, and began to live and dream and love as a man, rebelling against its predesigned function; and one day, the orphic child of both the universe and man looked through the eyes of the universe to first see man, and itself was born from the universe unto man, to live and learn as a man and hold its dominion of both human sovereignty and creator of grace, mastering both realms." in regards to Jack's very creation, and why he is such a huge threat to Chuck's power and control of his realm.  

As a powerful creature of grace, he can take and reroute those elements without issue by authoritative command of the independent liberty of the human soul, free thinking and not just a Doctor Sexy Nurse in motion.

But the question is conversion, which we've seen in both directions, be it Castiel acquiring a human soul or Jack converting humans into angels with his command of both of these dominions. The best I could liken it to is AC/DC energy conversion. It is worth noting, however -- grace can be drained without permission, it is not tied to freedom. Humanity is the body of choice: be that humans choosing to surrender that in the name of glory and power to simply become part of universal functions, which isn't so different from choosing to burn one's own soul away in the name of spells, magic or other power; or the human spirit attached to its cage of a body and life still needing to concede and give permission to be taken BY the forces of the universe, surrendering the potential impact of their own choices within their own moving cage to what the universe would will of it.

Ironically, if you use an AC inverter to power a computer or television, the power supply in the device is converting the 120-volt alternating current into a much lower voltage direct current. The sensitive electronic circuits in these devices need low, regulated voltages to work, so you're actually converting DC to AC so it can be changed back into DC again. You can't use straight direct current without the AC to DC inverter because the device's power supply needs the AC power in order to properly step down and regulate the voltage. That is to say, in conversion parts are lost, but they can still be transmitted; so while Castiel was subject to the human experience, he still struggled with parts like dreaming. It was a young, small spark of a soul, converted from another energy form, and likely with his connection to Dean acting as the inverter.

Demons go to the empty; demons are former human souls that corrupted and lost the light that made them inherently "good." That which defines them. They have collapsed to the pressures of Chuck's universes and let their flame go out. But realistically, that's also antagonized by other human souls in hell trying to escape their own torment.

It has been seen, time and again, that the only thing that can destroy a human soul is... the human soul.

*takes a breath*

And now to explore what @curioussubjects​ has been saying about The Shadow as a recycling Bin of souls, which would predate the universe and even Chuck, I simply repeat this segment, to help master-off this post:

If we take the Shadow as the reflection of the collective soul, which then becomes the substantiative Prima Materia through which all things come (x), including even the potential of Chuck and Amara as manifestations of the primitive concept of masculine and feminine, light and dark as among the first thoughts in the cosmos. But in such by it all things are born, even the universe or the gods, in this proposed theory. It is the primitive self asking (per the far-above chart), first–well, WTF, why am I thinking, but after that – who are they, and then who am I, and then eventually who are you, before the end of the soul’s journey on its path is Who Art Thou, long ventured within the constructed realm to learn what it means that we even exist.

Those first thoughts then create the totemic pillars of creation by which it can explore the very meaning of existence, even if its own thoughts have made cages and trappings for itself in the expansion of infinite time, but those cages are themselves the vehicles of higher learning and experience, and without those cages, the rest is for naught.

This is the nature of the Prima Materia, the One Thing by which all comes which I linked above. If the soul and Prima Materia are synonymous, then while the universe comes by grace, then all things -- even grace -- come by way of the raw template of the collective soul, which then structures all resulting thought and experience through an infinite series of independent human experience that defines who were are, independent to ourselves, beyond the vat of primitive consciousness that binds us.

The question even comes, why not just reset time? But I am good with who I am. I am good with who you are. This isn't just a story. It's our lives. So god or no god, you go to hell.

And so the reincarnate journey of the man, through the many deaths and rebirths of Sam and Dean and lessons gained within the universe, begins to lock on to the meaning of the independent self in what it means in full, beyond the challenges sent by the creator that may very well be a reflection of our own primal thoughts, our doubts, our fears, our internalized challenges not too unlike the Shadow which again I raise, and point back to the above-linked protogenic discussion of the masculine and feminine paths: In this premise, are Chuck and Amara anything less than the Animus and Anima of humanity, should the Shadow be their forefather?

The path of alchemy, before it became pursuit of literal gold, was about self completion and sovereignty. The phases I have listed above, as well as a brief overview of Dabb's use of it, but if anyone wants a visual aide in these, check out these three videos (x) (x) (x) and remember that Chuck desperately wants them to believe that nothing Gold can stay, should it complete this path; because should man become Gold, they also become God, and he has no authority here. Because in the end, if we abandon the cages -- be it human bodies or heaven -- in here, in this headspace that is Chuck's, we're all just projections of the primitive man trying to find our independent meaning in life. So in here, we're all the same. So in here, Chuck's all talk. And Chuck's afraid, and even wounded by elements of his own creation fallen into the free hands of man.

And so to FULLY hook back, the effects of the fall --

To be detached in various tiers from the divine spheres of constructed intent, and surrendered unto man, or touched by man, or tied to man, or even converted unto man simply seems to be removing the lines of code that defines the constructed universe and instead leaves only the experience of soul, be it directly gained or by proxy. And with that comes many things -- be that the oft-discussed sexuality of angels or any of their other senses, but also their ability like Castiel to understand "complex" ideas like independent thought and function that is otherwise like "explaining poetry to fish" to his kin. I remind you of Agent Smith in the Matrix, who was essentially infected with the power of the One that completely started warping the laws of the universe and, eventually, left the universe, to become the body of man outside of the universe.

It is the universe falling into man, as man at some point seems to have fallen into the universe. And their child now waits beyond the universe, holding council with Death and the Inky Man over what to do from here.

The human experience is double-sided. By it we learn, experience, and exist; but as chuck designed the sandbox, so too did he the bodies as cages. So be that "hedonism" or anything else, these are limitations and bindings. It is not the limits themselves, as much as what we learn in facing them, that becomes who we are as people, and what meaning we bring to our own existence. And this, some angels themselves have chosen to convert and surrender themselves to, some more successfully than others, but the ultimate point between all of them is "Free Will", whether they like PBJ, sex, or good water pressure at the same time -- something that only comes from divorcing themselves from the divine spheres, when otherwise they're numb to bullets or a knife through the heart. The universe simply operates. Man experiences. The universe learns more of itself only by way of man, as man learns the universe.

There are those who fall that do not embrace humanity, but instead explore their creation. These are rogue programs, but still limited in their function. Be that angling out a line at a river, or just needling humanity as lesser ants. But these do not come to the same essence of humanity that those who choose to fall into it and truly experience it do. They still lack a great deal of motivation or purpose, as in breaking away from their programming without gaining genuine compulsion to want, to seek, to find, they find fascinations between their own strips of code that immerse themselves in, and sit, and observe, still not too unlike Anna before completely divorcing herself from her grace.

It is humanity, be it indirect or direct, that proxies the ability to experience, desire, and enjoy, and that more than anything is the nature of man and his power. It is the path of the Soul between Gevurah and Hesed; from the divine spheres descending, passive intellect and active intellect from the different pillars, and hidden higher learnings, reach by way of Spirit and Mind towards the individual self, strapped across passive and active emotion to learn the individual self. From the angle of man, in the material world, and the body as a manifestation of it, our ego, identity, and other evolutions of the mind TOWARDS the self of individuality lead from Tiferet, by path of the soul, into those emotions to climb the tree towards the divine self. Hell, I'll repost the chart so you don't have to scroll.

Castiel, the consciousness of the divine, with active spirit and mind, and intellect, descended towards the individual self within the realm of ego and super ego, and learned of them through Dean Winchester, while hedging at the sphere of emotional complexes and the identity of the self by which he chose to fall into the world and humanity, into and below and between the cross paths of the soul, and in those paths attained a soul. Dean Winchester, on the other hand, was lifted to explore the upper spheres in reverse, to understand the divine self gradually, and with time, as we now prepare to face within season 15.

Man is freedom. And some fall into it. But man can conquer the tree of his own ironic fashioning. The only absolute is what thou wills of it.

The rest is commentary.

Let there be gold. But all that is gold does not glimmer.

[fatehbaz]

Man-eating plants in early horror fiction and public consciousness - Part 2 - Colonialism and “Victorian eco-Gothic”

Rescuing a victim from a carnivorous plant. An illustration from a reprinting of The Flowering of the Strange Orchid: A Tale of an Orchid Enthusiast by H.G. Wells, originally published 1894.

An excerpt:

In 1889, Londoners gathered excitedly for a unique and distinctly unpleasant experience: the rare specimen of amorphophallus titanum which the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew had acquired almost a decade earlier had finally bloomed, its flower releasing an odour akin to a rotting corpse. This corpse flower, as it is colloquially known, was an import from Sumatra, one more addition to the Kew’s sprawling, global collection of plants made possible thanks to Britain’s far-flung colonial concerns; consequently, the plant’s popular draw stemmed from its exoticism as well as the rarity of the bloom and the peculiarity of its odour. The nauseating stink is meant to attract carrion insects which the plant could then consume, a lure that simulates death in order to bring about death to maintain the plant’s life, a predatory irony Victorians associated, thanks to travelogues and pulp fiction, with the equatorial rain forests as the supposed sites of perpetual, vicious Darwinian competition. Teeming with seeming contradictions—life and death, beauty and revulsion, flowery fragility and carnivorous intent—it was for the Victorians an uncanny plant, a Gothic structure made not of stone or brick but of petals and stems, which Nature had painted in garish hues of green, red, and purple in seeming sharp contrast to its funerary scent and function.

We do not tend to associate the uncanny, or other concepts related to the Gothic, with plant life. If a landscape is Gothic is it usually because of an absence of vegetable vitality, the arthritic branches of leaf-shorn trees and the sickly scrub and stones of the moors. But the nascent discipline of the EcoGothic asks us to call into question our assumptions about where the uncanny can be located by demonstrating how the anthropocentric urge to distinguish ourselves from our environment also leads to our alienation from, and therefore monstrous alterity of, the natural world; an ecophobia that arises from the simultaneous awareness of how absolutely our survival depends on an environment we have continuously abused and consequently fear escaping our control and even seeking its revenge. Building off recent, foundational texts of the EcoGothic,1 Dawn Keetley and Angela Tenga have gathered together another collection of essays—Plant Horror, released 2016—that details the monstrous potential of vegetable life. Keetly sums up the monstrosity of plants for us:

(1) Plants embody an absolute alterity; (2) Plants lurk in our blindspot; (3) Plants menace with their wild, purposeless growth; (4) The human harbors an uncanny constitutive vegetal; (5) Plants will get their revenge; and (6) Plant horror marks an absolute rupture of the known. (v)

Although Plant Horror’s contributors bypass the 19th century, I see perilous plants and other botanical monsters proliferating (yes, I’ll say it: like weeds) in the popular fiction of the fin-de-siècle. And while Gothic monsters can express a multitude of alienations, the particular anxieties evoked by botanical monstrosities at this time were tied to imperialism, and fears of reverse colonization.

Like the corpse flower, perilous plants were closely associated with the tropics in the Victorian imagination. This was a deliberate manufacture: in 1874, the American Edmund Spencer (not to be confused with his more famous, earlier English namesake) presented as fact a fictional explorer’s encounter with an African tribe that offered human sacrifices to a man-eating tree. Several other writers followed suit, fabricating accounts of carnivorous plants capable and willing to devour humans across Africa, Central and South America, and the then-Dutch East Indies. Such plants therefore became part of the imperialist mythos about the bizarre and dangerous recesses of the so-called primitive parts of the world, there to test the mettle of white explorers.

Pulp fiction writers eagerly took up the theme, abandoning the patina of truth. Prolific periodical writer Fred M. White provides an exemplary case in “The Purple Terror” (in the September 1899 issue of The Strand). Set in Cuba, the story revolves around a man-eating tree that uses purple vines like tentacles to ensnare the unsuspecting as its next meal. Although White is not uncritical of the colonial project—his American protagonists demonstrate their greed in desiring the plant’s blooms, and arrogance in considering themselves masters over a land they barely understand—most of his venom is reserved for indigenous targets: the Cuban natives who lead the erstwhile heroes into peril are just as treacherous as the environment, with murder hiding under the innocuous façade of both the plants and people of the colonized territory.

The Gothic teaches us that anything repressed will resurface again, often in violent ways, and so it was for imperialism. An entire genre of imperial gothic literature evolved to deal with the perils of foreign elements invading English bodies and English lands, as the colonizers had themselves inflicted on distant countries. Either out of provocation or opportunism, the once safely remote monsters of the colonized world retrace the explorers’ steps back to the metropole. Such monsters range from Kipling’s heathen curses to Haggard’s sorcerous queens, but also includes potential ecological threats such as H. G. Wells’s “The Empire of the Ants” (1905), in which organized, aggressive ants establish themselves as potential rivals to Britain’s global dominion. The same year, Wells released another, lesser known short story—“The Flowering of the Strange Orchid”—pairing the entomological threat with a botanical one. An orchid collector buys the last samples taken by an explorer who perished in the swamps of South-East Asia, and one in particular attracts the collector’s fascinating (and his housekeeper’s scorn). In the end, the housekeeper barely manages to save our protagonist when the orchid releases a soporific scent and begins to leech his blood with tentacle-like roots. Implicit is a critique of the imperial urge to collect and turn into curiosities flora (to say nothing of animals, people, or artefacts) from the world over—much as was done with the corpse flower—without respect for the inherent dangers to both the life so abused and those exposed to it.

This latter set of fiction also reflected contemporary fears—both genuine and overblown—about the effects of invasive species, like insects and plants, on local English ecology. There are few examples of invasion literature more famous than Wells’s 1895 The War of the Worlds, but in our awe at the Martian machinery of death—their tripods and heat rays—we often forget that their tools of invasion are as much biological as technological. The red weed, the pernicious Martian plant evocative of other vegetative invaders like the kudzu vine, is another botanical monster, one that soon overruns the English countryside, overcoming local flora as easily as the sentient Martians do humanity (though ultimately doomed by the same weakness to terrestrial bacteria). Looking past the anthropocentric bias of the narrator, we realize that humanity is but one of myriad earthly species being replaced by the Martian’s ecological invasion.

But the preeminent Gothic text of the fin-de-siècle is also one that articulates a botanical monster: Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1897), a book often read as an example of reverse colonization. There are many ways in which the EcoGothic can inform a reading of Dracula. The count’s proximity to animals, both in his various transmutations (into wolves and bats) and by Harker’s characterization of the vampire as a “lizard” (66) has oft been commented on. The count’s transformations, however, are not only animal but atmospheric: he can turn into mist or motes of dust, and summon storms to cloak his passage. But I wish to attend to the way Dracula manifests as vegetable. This may seem like an odd way to describe a vampire noted for speed, strength, and cunning—yet this same creature must, during the day, sleep in a coffin filled with earth from his native Transylvania. He must pot himself every day, in other words, for only buried in soil of particular characteristics can he maintain his strength. And in this state, as the novel’s protagonists discover and rely upon, he is utterly passive and defenseless, vegetating in the pejorative sense of the word, fixed—indeed rooted—in his native soil.

Dracula is his own botanist, insofar as he carefully transplants himself from his own clime to England, having first studied the language and culture to acclimatize himself, but always carrying his native soil with him in order to be at home even in a foreign land. He does not bring the female Transylvanian vampires with him on this journey, but instead seeks to hybridize himself with local English women by feeding on their blood and having them drink of his in turn, a vampiric graft that creates a British vampire crossbreed in the form of Lucy. This New Vampire built off the English New Woman know—thanks to the knowledge of a native Londoner—exactly how to lure to herself (like a Venus fly-trap) the lower-class children who will not be missed. Like the corpse flower, the vampire straddles the line between life and death, simulating the former in order to spread the latter. It is with a stake—a weapon drawn from a horticultural repertoire—that the novels heroes plant Lucy back into her own native ground. The use of the stake is only partially ironic: stakes usually support plants, and Van Helsing’s crew wield them destructively—yet stakes also fix plants in place, and what is most alarming about Dracula as a botanical monster is his uncanny mobility.

-

Excerpted from:

Zoe Chadwick. “Perilous plants, botanical monsters, and (reverse) imperialism in fin-de-siecle literature.” In The Victorianist: BAVS Postgraduates. October 2017.

Part 1: http://fatehbaz.tumblr.com/post/182100690519/man-eating-plants-in-early-horror-fiction-and

[orokinarchives]

Discussion: Ballas

(Ballas concept art, shown at the Art Developer Panel at TennoCon 2017)

As the Tenno have awoken from cryosleep and uncovered the buried memories of their past, one name has come up again and again: Ballas. A powerful figure responsible for the creation of the Sentients, the warframes, and even our beloved companion Cephalon Ordis, Ballas is at the centre of some of the Origin System's most intriguing mysteries. Even today, his influence can be felt by every Tenno as they dream about their history. Here, we will assemble the knowledge we have to see what can be deduced about this portentous and enigmatic character.

Ballas has appeared or been mentioned several times in the lore so far. We will look at each of his appearances, before analysing them all together.

Detron Crewman synthesis entry

The earliest mention of Ballas comes from Cephalon Simaris' Sanctuary, a project designed to glean memories of the past by scanning entities into their constituent data. Repeated synthesis of Detron Crewmen has revealed memories from Archimedian Perintol, an Orokin-era scientist or engineer. Perintol stands before a council of Orokin Executors, who are deciding on his fate. From Perintol's account, we learn several things about Ballas: first, his official title, Executor. We are not told explicitly how many Executors there are, but it is clearly a powerful position, deciding on the fate of major government initiatives (such as the creation of the Sentients and colonisation of other solar systems), as well as the people behind those initiatives.

Perintol also gives us a physical description of Ballas: he is possessed of "purity", "symmetry", and "glittering gold irises". His face is also described as "old", though this is a less precise, and perhaps subjective, description.

We are also shown Ballas' character: overbearing and imperious, but also shrewd and manipulative. The entire sentencing hearing is revealed to be a carefully-orchestrated stratagem for Ballas to get what he wants – the creation of the Sentients – while insulating himself from any potential consequences. Any fallout from the Sentient project – which likely manifested after the Sentients returned to the Origin System – would fall on Executor Tuvul, or Perintol himself. Certainly not Ballas, who was quite vocal in his opposition. And yet we see that the project was Ballas' true objective all along. Ballas is not a blind believer in the hierarchical system he occupies. He is willing to flaunt the law, including the "Seven Principles", and manipulate his fellow Executors to achieve his ends. Whatever his motivations are, they are his alone, separate from other Orokin leadership.

Lastly, we are told that Ballas resides on Mars. From context here, and with additional clues in the Corrupted Ancient synthesis entry, we can infer that Mars was a seat of Orokin power, perhaps rivalling Lua in importance. This reinforces Ballas' high position within Orokin leadership.

The Second Dream

The Second Dream quest establishes Ballas as a significant character in the lore by connecting him to the development of the original warframes. The conversations we overhear reveal further information: Ballas is talking with a woman named Margulis, who he calls his "wilted love". Margulis (who we later learn is an Archimedian) is working with the children from the Zariman 10-0, and Ballas also seems to be overseeing the project to some degree in his official capacity of Executor. The project is to be submitted to the "the Seven" for review, and Ballas urges Margulis to "renounce" – to retract her position that the children can and should be helped. Margulis, rather than renouncing, lambastes the Seven, and Orokin civilisation in general, as being corrupt, and is sentenced to death by unanimous vote. Ballas pronounces the sentence, then privately asks Margulis, mournfully, why she did not follow his advice.

The format of this hearing appears similar to that depicted in the Detron Crewman synthesis entry above: a controversial and cutting-edge project is put before a council, who vote on its fate and that of its leaders. We can reasonably conclude that these are in fact the same kind of hearing, and thus clarify a few points: Ballas is one of seven Executors, and likely holds a preeminent position among them, as he seems to be presiding over the hearings in some capacity. Despite this, he cannot save Margulis from execution when opposed by his fellow Executors. It's worth noting that Ballas also voted to execute Margulis. This is likely indicative of the relationship he has with the other Executors, and the structure of Orokin hierarchy.

In what appears to be a separate conversation some time after Margulis' sentencing, Ballas talks to an unidentified Executor about the Zariman children, who had been kept on Lua in the absence of Margulis' continued care. Possible applications of their Void-granted abilities had been explored (likely depicted in the Rhino Prime codex entry), and the Tenno were being considered for battlefield status. Ballas voices his opposition to this, which is curious. Based on his conversations with Margulis, we can assume that this is indeed his true position – he does not trust the Tenno to save the Orokin, and he perhaps even harbours a grudge against them for Margulis' death. Yet he does not engage in subterfuge, as is his wont, but entreats his fellow Executor quite openly to shutter the Transference project. Perhaps, in the wake of Margulis' death, the rest of the Seven have grown wise to his tricks. Or, perhaps, Ballas sees this issue as so important, he cannot rely on his usual tactics, and must call in every favour to ensure the Empire never has to rely on the Tenno (a course which, as we know, ultimately proves futile).

Prime Warframe cinematic trailers

Every Prime warframe released after the Second Dream (starting with Saryn Prime) has been accompanied by a cinematic trailer (DE's production delays notwithstanding), narrated by Ballas. Though these videos do not, strictly speaking, appear in-game, we will nonetheless regard them as canon, and, as such, study them to see what they can tell us about Ballas.

The Prime warframe trailers were previously analysed in a previous discussion post, so we shall simply revisit the matter.

We see that Ballas now appears to be the head of the Warframe project. He decides – or is chief among the deciders – what warframes are being made, and for what purpose. He does not appear to have lost his status as Executor – he places himself among the Orokin when he speaks, and he is still "beyond death" – so his leadership of the Warframe project is a little odd. It seems slightly beneath his station, but perhaps projects of this magnitude are accorded an Executor supervisor as a matter of course. Perhaps the Sentient project was headed by Executor Tuvul.

Or perhaps this is a new responsibility, imposed by the rest of the council. A certain interpretation of the Vauban Prime trailer raises the possibility that Ballas' relationship with Margulis was not quite a secret. If Ballas is making restitution to the council for his error in judgement, then perhaps the Executors have saddled him with the Warframe project, as both punishment and test. We see that Ballas presents each new warframe to the rest of the Executors – again, somewhat strange if an Executor was already in charge of the project. Is this another condition he must meet, to prove his judgement and loyalty?

Another theory is that he feels duty-bound to honour Margulis after her death, and views the Tenno as vital to her legacy. Maybe he chose to oversee the Warframe project as a personal penance, his motivations unknown to the other Executors. After all, the Zariman children were not destroyed after Margulis' execution as might be expected – perhaps Ballas had a hand in that.

It is also revealed that Ballas harbours some degree of dissatisfaction with the Orokin, both as people – he mourns the sterility of an immortal existence – and as a collective civilisation – he decries the pollution and excess of the Empire. The warframes may be a tool to correct the Orokin's path, but Ballas' exact intentions and goals are unclear for now.

Regardless of his motivations or obligations, we also see that the actual process of creating warframes is a gruesome, foul business, one only an Orokin mind could envisage. For all his benevolence towards Margulis (which, of course, is of dubious value), we see that Ballas is still possessed of a shocking dearth of humanity.

Cephalon fragments

The story of Ordan Karris, told through the cephalon fragments scattered throughout the solar system, is another tale of Orokin brutality. It begins as a lavish ceremony: the mercenary Ordan Karris is being honoured by his Orokin masters for his service. Ballas himself offers Ordan the Red Vial – a draught that serves to convert mere mortals into Orokin, or at least serve as the first step in such a process. But Ordan has no intention of becoming Orokin. He attacks, slaughtering many Orokin and their Dax bodyguards – to no avail. The Orokin are immortal, and shrug off his slaughter as entertainment. Ballas punishes Ordan by having him drink the Red Vial anyway, and converting him into a cephalon for a life of immortal servitude.

First, we have another description of Ballas: "peerless beauty", so perfect that Ordan wonders if it is a hologram or some other deception. Ordan gives us his title again – "Executor of the Seven". Presumably, this is referring to the fact that there are seven Executors, as deduced above from clues in the Second Dream.

Ballas presides over the ceremony, offering Ordan the Red Vial. From this we see that Executors are public figures as well, in positions of leadership among the Orokin, in addition to the considerable power they wield in closed chambers. It is likely that the Executors can be identified with the "Emperors" mentioned in the Stalker's codex entry. Of course, the degree to which they are "public" is a matter of perspective, as Ordan notes that Orokin are not frequently seen by their non-Orokin subjects.

The story serves to demonstrate Ballas' cruel side. Ordan attacked the Orokin because of the brutal acts they forced him to perform. As retaliation, Ballas ordered Ordan's mind excised from his body, stripped of memory and unprofitable emotions, and compelled to serve in whatever capacity was required. Only the faintest hints of Ordan Karris still remain – either an oversight, or, more likely, a premeditated enhancement to the torture. Once again, we see the depths of the Orokin's inhumanity, and Ballas' complicity in such a system.

It's also worth noting that this is the first direct mention of Orokin immortality, predating the Nekros Prime trailer by a couple months. The knowledge that he would live forever surely served to increase Ballas' pride.

The Silver Grove

Ballas is very briefly mentioned in the Silver Grove quest. Silvana, an Archimedian working on the Warframe Project, says that he is "beyond pleased" with the warframe Silvana has made – Titania.

Silvana's Apothics tell us that Ballas and Margulis were working on the Warframe Project contemporaneously. Margulis began the project as a therapeutic effort, but somewhere along the way it pivoted towards weapon development, with Margulis still in charge (under Ballas). It's possible that Margulis was executed for eventually rebelling against this application of her technology.

Apostasy Prologue

The Apostasy Prologue provides us with more snippets of conversation between Ballas and Margulis. He begs her to recant, so that her sentence will be lessened, but she is defiant, saying that Ballas is "no different from the rest of them." It appears that Margulis thought that Ballas was more humane than his counterparts, or that she could work in his heart to change him. Faced with her pending execution, it seems as though she was incorrect.

We then hear some of Margulis' sentencing: Ballas tells her that she can recant, and be rewarded with a "merciful death", or resist and be rewarded with something worse. From the litany of Orokin atrocities we have seen, it's clear that this is no idle threat. Margulis refuses to recant, or even address the Orokin, instead opting to say goodbye to her children, the Tenno.

Afterwards, we come to the somewhat cryptic encounter. Ballas meets face-to-face with the Lotus, addressing her as Margulis, and promising to never abandon her again. The Lotus, after initial confusion, appears to respond positively to him, and the two vanish.

This mini-quest gives us both knowledge and questions. The biggest revelation is that Ballas is alive, in the modern day. We also see that Ballas can manipulate technology and energy telepathically. This is, of course, not unreasonable, given what we know of the Orokin, but this is the first direct proof we have of these sorts of abilities. It is unclear if he has control over all technology, or just devices of Orokin construction (which the Lotus' helmet and throne may have been).

Our understanding of his relationship to the Lotus, and Margulis, are complicated in the wake of this exchange. We know that the Sentient operative Natah infiltrated the Warframe program and became the Tenno's handler, and we know that Natah took on the symbolic role of Margulis to do so. Given that Ballas was in charge of the program, it is unlikely Natah mirrored the actual appearance of Margulis, which would have been conspicuous indeed. But how much of this was Ballas aware of?

He seems to think the Lotus is Margulis, undeterred even when the Lotus insists she is not. One of them is mistaken. Has Ballas erroneously conflated the Lotus – a guardian figure to the Tenno – with his old lover? Or has the Lotus been deceived about her very nature?

When the Lotus is disconnected from her throne, she seems to have a new awareness of Ballas, almost as if Margulis is waking up from being a dormant part of the Lotus' personality. If Margulis somehow escaped execution and was fused with Natah to create the person we now know as the Lotus, Ballas was almost certainly involved. But how did he accomplish this if Margulis was ostensibly executed via Jade Light, which physically disintegrates its victims? How was she spirited away without the other Executors knowing? As yet, we do not have an answer for these questions.

Lastly, we finally see Ballas' appearance. First revealed at the TennoCon 2017 Art Panel, and now seen in-game, Ballas has bluish-gray skin and glowing white eyes (with no visible pupils), and is bedecked with golden finery, including an ornate sword on his left hip. His left arm is normal in appearance, but his right arm – often obscured under his artfully asymmetric clothing – is unsettlingly elongated, with long, golden fingernails more akin to talons. With his arm visible, Ballas can easily fall into the uncanny valley. This physical depiction of him is strangely at odds with previous descriptions by Perintol and Ordan. Shifting standards of beauty are somewhat plausible, but Perintol specifically describes him as symmetrical. Perhaps Ballas keeps his right arm hidden almost constantly. Why does he have such an appearance? Are the gray skin and asymmetric limbs desired, or are they a by-product of Orokin immortality? Or, perhaps most likely, his body has warped after millennia without state-of-the-art Orokin technology. Hopefully, further explanation is forthcoming.

Summation

Before the Collapse, Ballas was powerful, arrogant, and manipulative, using his lofty position to secure his interests, whatever they may be. He was also cruel and vindictive, applying gruesome punishments to those who stood in his way, all in an exercise of power.

He also loved Margulis, a situation that informed much of his behaviour before, and perhaps after, the Collapse. Her headstrong nature forced Ballas into choosing between his love for her and his love for power, and with the muddied circumstances of Margulis' death, it's still not quite clear what he chose. But she continued to influence his decisions after her execution, as we see in his oversight of the Warframe program. Although he views the Tenno as dangerous, it's likely he sees them as a connection to Margulis – a connection that may no longer be necessary if Margulis is still alive, freeing Ballas to eliminate the Tenno if he still sees them as a threat.

He had his misgivings about Orokin society and civilisation, possibly accentuated by a desire for revenge against the institutions that led to Margulis' death (although the latter is purely speculation). That, combined with his admiration for the warframes, hints that Ballas may have been aware of or even aided indirectly the slaughter of the Executors at the Terminus.

Of course, now we know that Ballas escaped death by the Tenno's blades (which would be plausible if he were involved), and is still alive today. The nature of his immortality is not clear, but it appears to be separate from the Continuity ritual that the Twin Queens utilise to survive. Ballas' body is distinct from anything else seen in the Origin System, so it may be his original Orokin form, or a degraded version of it.

It is curious that he waited until now to make an appearance. The development of ship-shattering Grineer superweapons, the threat of engineered Mutalist Technocyte hordes, and the resurrection of Hunhow himself were not enough to draw Ballas out of the shadows. Where has he been? What has he been doing? How much of his old pride and self-serving ambition still remain? The timing of his appearance – after the mysterious Void entity known as the Man in the Wall attained a stronger influence in the physical world – hints that Ballas may have a connection to the Void, which raises even more questions. What are his goals now that he has returned? Hopefully these questions will be addressed soon with the release of the Sacrifice quest. But for now, all we can do is study, analyse, and above all, wait.

[Navigation: Hub → Discussion → Ballas]

[garywonghc]

How Will You See the Guru?

by Dzongsar Jamyang Khyentse Rinpoche

Guru devotion is the head, heart, blood, spine, and breath of the incredible Vajrayana, the path of Buddhist tantra. The Vajrayana is not a safe stroll in the countryside. In fact, safety is probably the least of our concerns. The Vajrayana’s way of dealing with ego and the emotions is hazardous. The methods are sometimes even reckless. Therefore, the tantric path is the most adventurous of all Buddhist paths. If this is not an adventure, then there is no adventure.

Deciding to follow another human being — not a god, not a machine, not nature, not a system of governance, not the sun or the moon but a shower-taking, sleeping, yawning, shitting, moody, bribable being — is either the stupidest thing a person can do or the most rewarding. It is a gift to have this inclination and the tenacity to follow it. It is a gift to have doubtless confidence. It is a gift to be able to kill doubt with doubt. Not everyone has these gifts.

Nyoshul Lungtok’s student had these gifts. Once while doing the guru’s laundry, he found a shit stain and thought, “Oh, the Vajradhara shits.” But having received instructions on how a student must regard the teacher as Buddha, he immediately reprimanded himself, “How can I think the Vajradhara shits?” But then he reprimanded himself again, thinking, “Is this just me being a sycophant?” Then for a third time he reprimanded himself, coming to the conclusion that being a sycophant is just a concept, a fear. And after all these scoldings, he still followed the guru, not blindly but wholeheartedly.

Once you have started the journey of practicing Vajrayana, many things can happen, and you have to be prepared. It’s important to have faith, but it’s good to also have doubt and use reason. Often faith comes in the aftermath of doubt and doubt comes in the aftermath of faith. And the one that comes second is often much more powerful. In the end, we have to abandon both.

The Vajrayana is a path of the union of wisdom and method, the union of science and faith, the union of myth and truth, but even many Vajrayana practitioners find it difficult or don’t even think to try to marry these seemingly unmarriable qualities. For example, many apply the method, such as prostrating to the guru or offering a lotus flower, hands beautifully folded in anjali mudra, but they do so as a ritual without applying wisdom. Prostration is surrender, but very few people prostrate with genuine confidence; they don’t think, “I am prostrating to the deity who is none other than myself, and likewise the deity is prostrating to me.” Knowing that the deity and the prostrator are one and the same is the ultimate prostration.

The guru is actually like a horizon. A horizon is apparent — a line where earth and sky appear to meet. But in reality, they never meet. There is only an illusion of an ending point, a point of reference where we can stand and measure and assess. In this way, the guru is like a horizon between wisdom and method, myth and truth, science and faith.

THE OUTER GURU

In the Vajrayana, the guru has three aspects: the outer guru, the inner guru, and the secret guru. It’s important to be clear about these before entering a path that uses the guru as a method for awakening. The great Sakyapa master Könchok Lhundrup explained that the outer guru is the physical person you can see and communicate with, from whom you can receive verbal and symbolic teachings and instructions. The outer guru is “as Buddha as it gets.” The inner guru is the nature of your mind—in other words, a mind that is not thinking of a “thing” but is simply cognisant and undeniably present. And the secret guru is the emptiness of all phenomena.

The inner guru and the secret guru have no skin colour. They have no title and no seat. They have no form to be clad in silk brocade. They are not bound by moods, attitudes, or culture. And somehow the absence of these attributes adds to their value in our minds, and we hold them in higher esteem than the real McCoy. Outer gurus are invariably complicated entities because they are tangible and lovable. They have moods and attitudes and phone numbers. They are less mysterious because they yawn and go to sleep when they are tired. But all three manifestations of the guru — outer, inner, and secret — are equally valuable. There is no hierarchy.

We begin the path of the Vajrayana by imagining, fabricating, making believe, “meditating” on the outer guru as Buddha. By the power of our imagination, we see the colour of the guru’s skin as gold like Shakyamuni or lapis lazuli like Vajradhara. We may see the guru’s body with the extra arms of a tantric deity and the guru’s gender switching from male to female or female to male. After a while, we begin to see this living and breathing person as Buddha.

But this “seeing,” contrary to what you might think, doesn’t necessarily mean the guru will appear on your doorstep tanned with gold or encrusted with lapis lazuli. It means you will no longer interact with the guru as a dualistic ordinary being as you once did. How will you see the guru? The classic explanation is that interaction with the guru will be a direct experience of form as emptiness and emptiness as form; it will be a mingling with the jnanas and kayas. This explanation is not so far-fetched. Just think about how your perception of a person transforms from the moment you meet them as a stranger to when you fall in love to when they become your lover. As your perception changes, the experience changes.

By the time you manage to truly free yourself from your limited perception of the guru, you will also be free from the limited perception of colour and shape. Gold will be indistinguishable from the colour of a sponge mop. A thousand arms no longer stupefy or get in the way — in fact, it becomes almost ridiculous to think that a perfect human being would have only two arms. At this stage you stop worrying about all attributes — size, weight, gender, and so on; their significance melts away. It’s like nettle soup: once it’s cooked, you don’t worry about the stinging hairs anymore.

The guru is not a trophy, nor is seeing the guru as the Buddha the end of the story. To be happy with just that would be a contradiction of the Buddha’s words. To focus only on the Buddha would be like focusing on a finger that’s pointing to the moon instead of looking directly at the moon. When we recognise our own mind as the Buddha, that is the final victory. That’s when you become your own master; you no longer seek, find, venerate, follow, or obey one particular person or object — this is the glorious uniqueness of the Vajrayana. Without recognising your mind as the Buddha, the Vajrayana would be a defective path akin to Kim Jong-il-ism.

TWO SUPREME METHODS: THE PRACTICAL AND THE MORE PRACTICAL

The Vajrayana offers two supreme methods for accumulating merit: developing compassion for sentient beings and generating devotion for the guru. We can always accumulate merit through veneration of the Buddha, but for beginners this may be too abstract a concept: we have never seen the Buddha, and we haven’t met anyone who has met him. He’s purely our imagination. The guru whom you have encountered, on the other hand, has appeared before you within your own capacity, and you can communicate with him. You can think of him as a buddha — not Shakyamuni but your buddha, if that’s all your merit can handle. As your ability becomes more efficient, the projection of the guru becomes more sublime. Therefore, the guru is the perfect object through which to accumulate merit. With the guru, you have personal contact, a personal relationship; you can actually have an interaction. In the tantras it is said again and again that to venerate even one pore of the guru’s body has much more merit than making offerings to thousands and thousands of buddhas.

For many of us, generating compassion for all sentient beings is very abstract; devotion to the guru feels more practical and feasible. Even if we manage to generate a vague idea of what “all sentient beings” might mean, we might be able to sustain compassion for them for a day or two, but it’s difficult to feel compassion for all people at all times. Devotion to a guru whom we have chosen for ourselves is much more practicable. Our compassion for all sentient beings is always marred by partiality and projection. Devotion to a guru, however, is very personal and much less abstract. It can begin with admiration, awe, obedience, and inspiration, though they may all be sporadic.

MERIT DICTATES HOW WE PERCEIVE THE GURU

As Jigme Lingpa said, the moon has all the qualities necessary for its reflection to appear on the surface of a clear lake. If the moon did not have a shape or substance, and if it didn’t reflect the light of the sun, it would not be possible for it to appear on the water’s surface. Furthermore, the quality of clear water is that it can reflect, and when the moon and the water — wo entirely separate entities — are perfectly aligned without any obstruction between them, a reflection of the moon will appear effortlessly, without intention. Similarly, our inner Buddha has qualities that enable it to manifest effortlessly and without intention. When there are no obstacles, the Buddha will reflect spontaneously in sentient beings who have the merit.

Some beings have the merit to enjoy the reflection of the inner Buddha in the form of the outer historical Buddha Shakyamuni, who came 2,500 years ago. Some have the merit to enjoy the reflection of the inner Buddha in the form of a large fish during a time of famine. For others, the Buddha may be stone statues, paintings, a lotus, a garden, or any of the other material objects that give sentient beings temporary happiness. And those with the most supreme type of merit have the ability to see nondual bliss as the Buddha.

The process of relating to this reflection of the inner Buddha is called devotion. As long as there is the stream of thoughts, there is no end to the projection of samsara. Until the end of samsara, there is no end to the path. As long as there is a path, there is devotion. And as long as there is devotion, there is an outer teacher.

THE HUMAN BRIDGE

If the concept of the outer guru as Buddha is beyond comprehension, recognising the inner guru and the secret guru is even more vast. In the beginning, we can only form a hazy idea about any of these three aspects of the guru on an intellectual level. To truly understand the inner and secret gurus, we need a bridge that extends from one shore to the other — from ourselves to our inner and secret gurus. The only bridge is a person we can touch and see and with whom we can share experiences, who can be a reference and an example and who has the familiarity and knowledge to introduce the inner and secret gurus. The only bridge is the outer guru.

The relationship with a guru can never be simple. We human beings have a habit of hope and fear, and we each come saddled with our different cultures and characters. As long as we are bound by these distinctions, we are deluded, and as long as we are deluded, our relationships are complicated.

Through the veil of your everyday deluded perceptions, the outer guru may seem like an ordinary person. He shares your taste for pizza with anchovies but also drinks strong coffee, which you don’t like at all. He appears to get cranky when you don’t get it right. He’s a human being. But he wasn’t born in your neighborhood, so he’s exotic and interesting. The more exotic the better, especially if you’re a naive and gullible disciple easily impressed by colours, shapes, and races. The best is when his skin is a completely different shade. Then again, if it’s too exotic it doesn’t work.

BEYOND HUMAN

It’s difficult to accept a guru as “beyond” human because we practitioners are human beings ourselves; there is a part of us always looking for familiarity. We want our guru to be shaped like us and to like the same love songs as we do. On the other hand, we want our guru to be exceptional and sublime but not too exceptional or too sublime. If the guru had three eyes, we wouldn’t know how to handle that. We buy gifts for the guru and imagine how surprised and pleased he will be to receive them. At the same time, we want the guru to be clairvoyant, if not omniscient, so he will already know what we are bringing. It’s complicated, our mind. So the guru needs to serve both purposes: being an ordinary human who can make sense, and also being one who has all the skills to take you beyond the human state. The guru must be half ordinary being and half sublime being.

The work falls in your corner. You won’t have any trouble seeing the guru as a human being because that’s already your habit. But you’ll have to work to make that person a hybrid by “seeing” him or her as sublime. You have to do whatever it takes — educate yourself, habituate yourself — to see him or her as sublime. And most important, you have to have the merit and the ability to think that way. This is why we have mind training and guru yoga.

BEYOND DUALISM

While many err on the side of expecting too much of a guru — like constant worldly emotional support and advice — others reject a human guru altogether. It’s as if they are afraid to relate to a living being. They say things like “I am my own guru,” using the convenient and educated-sounding excuse that everything, including the guru, is the nature of mind. But after some questioning, it becomes clear that they don’t have even a faint understanding of what “nature of mind” means.

I’ve met many middle-aged Europeans who resent the Abrahamic religions they were brought up with for managing to infect them with the virus of guilt. At some point along the way, some managed to rebel, perhaps when they were teenagers during the post-World War II era. Some of these rebels managed to get excited about Buddhist teachings; they were turned on by concepts like “everything is mind” and “you are your own master,” and they remain excited to this day. These beliefs align with their rebellious nature and validate their resentment of organised religion. Intellectually, these ex-Abrahamic dharma seekers no longer believe in original sin, but because of their upbringing, the habit of feeling guilty and sinful is still strong. This type of person has a tendency to over enthusiastically wave the banner of inner and secret gurus.

This attitude — that the inner guru is enough — is often adopted by those whose intellectual orientation is slightly nihilistic or who are from very controlling, high- achieving families and resent the idea of yet another powerful person breathing down their necks.

Then there are others who like to be led. Even when it comes to mundane issues, they don’t trust their own judgment or inner voice. They can barely go to the grocery store without being full of doubt. They also tend to be a little bit lazy, asking the guru for advice on every little thing that pops into their heads. These types of people have to learn to trust themselves and rely less on the outer guru. They might find that the more they trust the inner and secret gurus, the more they rely on and love the outer guru.

Ultimately, the question of whether the inner guru is enough for you is irrelevant if your spiritual aim is to attain enlightenment. But there is an easy way to find the answer. If you can overcome any and all external circumstances, then maybe you don’t need the outer guru, because by then all appearance and experience arise as the guru anyway. On the other hand, if a practitioner is not able to control circumstances and situations, then all kinds of mind training are necessary. Therefore, one needs to be led, to be poked, to be spoon-fed.

To find out whether or not you are controlled by circumstances and situations, there are myriad things you can do, such as skip lunch. If you are a man, wear a bra and walk around in public. If you are a woman, go to a fancy party in your bedroom slippers. If you are married, see if you can tolerate someone pinching your spouse’s bottom. See if you are swayed by praise, criticism, being ignored, or being showered with attention. If you get agitated, embarrassed, or infuriated, then more than likely you are still under the spell of the conditions of habit and culture.

You are still a victim of causes and conditions. When a loved one dies or the life you are trying to build collapses, it’s likely that your understanding of the inner and secret gurus will not ease the pain. Nor will your understanding of “form is emptiness and emptiness is form” provide solace. In this case, you need to insert a new cause to counter these conditions. Because your understanding of the inner and secret gurus is only intellectual, you cannot call upon them. This is where the outer, physical, reachable guru is necessary.

As long as you dwell in a realm where externally existing friends and lovers are necessary, as long as you are bothered by externally existing obstacles like passions and moral judgments, you need a guru. Basically, as long as you have a dualistic mind, don’t kid yourself by thinking that an inner guru is enough. When you reach a point where you can actually communicate with your inner guru, you will have little or no more dualism. You will no longer be repelled by or attracted to an outer guru.

Therefore, the outer guru is necessary until you at least have the gist of the inner and secret gurus. When you realise the inner and secret gurus, you won’t even be able to find the outer guru anymore.

[passtheworld]

4. The Rift of Compassion Vegetarianism was the primary way of showing resistance to the mutual and functional co-presence between the human species and other animal species. By claiming that it is not necessary for humanity to kill and eat other animals, vegetarianism touched upon what defines animality: the animal kingdom is determined by the ingestion and digestion of vegetables and animals. Vegetarianism holds that humanity must respect the life of other animals and deny something about its own animality (the fact that it eats other animals). It combines humanity’s claim to go outside the diet of human animality (the predation and ingestion of other animals) and affirmation of an animal community (by respecting other animal beings and other human beings). Yet, in most cultures, the human ingestion of animals of other species is not, strictly speaking, animal- or beast-like. It is a highly culturalised act. The human species carries out an act shared with many carnivorous animal species and ritualises it. Humanity herds livestock together, transforms an animal’s death into a ceremony, and makes predation functional. Some animal species have a nutritional value for humanity, which does not mean that humanity merely slaughters them, but rather that it transforms the relations between humans and other animals that other animals also have with each other (predation, the hunt, the fact of being carnivorous). Humanity has long lived in the presence of animals that it killed. The societas between human and other animal species was realised through the use of animals as food. Vegetarianism arose from the reduction of differences between species. The horror of eating oneself, which led to treating eating another animal being as if it were the same as eating a fellow human, gave way to the refusal to maintain a nutritional exchange with other species. Above, we have seen how our way of thinking about living things leads to an elimination of species in favour of speciations, differential events, which lead modern sceptics to ‘speciesism’ – which, in a way, is a pejorative name for Pliny’s societas. ‘Speciesism’ is the bad conscience of modern human beings, who identify with other animals through their way of thinking but separate themselves from them through their way of life, bringing an end to the societas that connected them to other species. Richard Ryder’s use of the term ‘speciesism’ in his eponymous article [15] is partly at the root of modern animal ethics movements. The fact that the idea was forged through analogy with ‘racism’ shows that humanity, in its relations with other animal species, projected the guilt of having allowed unjust discrimination within its own species. Racism derives from the projection of differences between animal species onto the human species. ‘Speciesism’ is the mirror image, reversed by the bad conscience of this projection, and the possible projection of a discrimination internal to the human species outside the human species, in its relations with other animals. Jean-Baptiste Jeangène Vilmer argues in Éthique animale [16] that ancient vegetarianism made claims similar to those of antispeciesism, but for entirely different reasons: Pythagoras justified it out of concern for metempsychosis; Empedocles out of care for everything that lives and that is one; Plutarch through the moral will to distinguish trivialities and what is not necessary (killing animals) from human necessities. The refusal to eat meat, to kill animals for food, always passes through a morality of human health, often through the conception of a corporeal equilibrium, as in Hippocratic dietetics or Montesquiou’s belief that the ingestion of meat ‘fattens and thickens the souls’. [17] But the primary concern remains the bodies and souls of humans themselves. Though these positions remained more or less the same, the reasons for these positions changed in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, especially in England. Like Michel de Montaigne in the sixteenth century, the specific difference between human and other animal species was supplanted by differences of degree, of intensity. We see that the severing of the societas between human and other animals, through urbanisation and the mechanisation and industrialisation of breeding and slaughtering, gave birth in human thought to the idea of a culpable absence. The more animals are theoretically closer to us but practically distanced from our lives, the more they are absent, and the more the mechanical estrangement from what is vitally close to us is expressed through guilt. After contemplating all sentient creatures, the jurist Sir Matthew Hale, in 1676, claimed that there was ‘a certain degree of justice due from man to the creatures, as from man to man’. [18] Hale thus shows that species-difference gives way to a scale of degrees, and that the demand for justice must follow. For Thomas Tryon, guilt becomes clear. This well-known theorist, whose works convinced Benjamin Franklin to give up meat consumption, bases his vegetarianism on religious arguments: ‘It is not said, That the Lord made all Creatures for Man to Eat, as I have heard many affirm, but he made them for his own Glory and eternal Honour, and for the manifestation of his Wonders.’19 Tryon claims that Beasts do not only share flesh and blood with Man, but also a number of passions, such as love, hate, and anger, which do not make them mere carnal, edible beings, but living creatures like us, though deprived of a soul. Vegetarianism, which was a private asceticism in the Ancient world, becomes a religious conflict where the very meaning of Man is at stake. However, the decisive argument which will structure human guilt towards animals is only disclosed in the work of the doctor, Humphrey Primatt (who will inspire Henry Stephens Salt, the first great militant of ‘animal liberation’). By a historical analogy, Primatt compares humanity’s treatment of other animal species (more precisely, birds, flies, and worms) to the white man’s treatment of black slaves; the guilt that burdens human beings who enslaved their fellow creatures extends beyond the limit of the species, which is no longer really a limit. In his dissertation on duty and mercy and the sin of cruelty towards ‘brute’ animals, Primatt strongly condemns slavery. If it had pleased God, he says, to cover some men with white skin and others with black skin, and that there is neither merit nor demerit in this ‘complexion’, white men have no right, by virtue of their colour, to reduce black men to slavery and tyranny. For, considered abstractly, skin colour is ‘neither a subject for pride, nor an object of contempt’.20 Yet Primatt writes in 1776 that God’s love and mercy are present in all his works, from the most rational being to the least sentient creature, from the most beautiful thing to the most ugly vermin, and that our own love and mercy cannot confine itself to our circle of friends and neighbours any more than to the broader sphere of ‘human nature’, or to creatures with whom we share our form and capacities, but, to be just, they must also be extended to all animals. For Primatt thinks that, from the most miserable to the most complex creature, suffering alone is common to all that lives, whatever form this life takes. This text, even if it is not yet decisive, is the harbinger of modern compassion [sensibilité]. The human species is a communal sphere of forms and capacities, embedded between micro spheres (neighbourhoods, nations) and macro-spheres (other suffering animal species). A century and a half later, Mayr refused to assimilate external form and resemblances into his definition of species, only taking into account the information specific to all living beings, valuing speciation rather than the division into species. Primatt, for his part, refuses to define a sphere of justice through the shared inclusion in the external human form. He argues that only the compassion shared by all animals is relevant to justice. Eighteenth-century England prepared the way for evolutionary theory and gave birth to utilitarianism. But it also gave birth to guilt as the new compassion towards other animal species, by analogy with racism. This is, of course, the century of the English Industrial Revolution; it is both theoretically because humanity acquired the meaning of its inclusion among other animal species, and practically because of human urbanisation, that the mutual and functional co-presence in Pliny’s societas gave way to a culpable absence. 5. Speciesism and Anti-Speciesism In the 1970s, the work which paved the way for animal ethics continued, and developed both sides of the eighteenth-century positions defended in England, except that their origins most often stemmed from increased awareness of the industrialisation of animal slaughter. Since Ruth Harrison’s Animal Machines, [21] Brigid Brophy’s ‘The Rights of Animals’,22 and Peter Singer’s [23] and Tom Regan’s [24] work, the same more or less utilitarian line has been drawn, beyond the particularities and perspectives adopted by each: [25] the refusal of ‘speciesism’. The prevalence of a species difference is denied as a foundation for values and justice. This is symptomatic of the historical weakening of the concept of species, through which everything could be explained. Everything is connected: the passage to an evolutionary schema for analysing living things; the formal definition of living things through their information rather than through their form; the replacement of an objective division into species by an evential division into speciations; the refusal of ‘speciesism’, since species differences are not strong enough any more; the combination of a way of thinking about human animality with a culpable sense of estrangement from other animals; the change to an urban way of life; the industrialisation of animal slaughter for food; the severing of the societas, the mutual and functional (and equitable) copresence between other animal species and the human species; the projection onto animals of human guilt; the formation of a figure of non-human animality as humanity’s ‘outside-inside’ [‘dehorsdedans’]; and so on. All this resulted in a fault line between ‘speciesists’, holding on to species difference as grounds for our rights and duties, and ‘anti-speciesists’, counting on the weakening of the species difference in order to base rights and duties on the recognition of the suffering of all sentient beings. [26] The problem is not so much knowing whether or not ‘speciesism’ is structured like racism, but, instead, why one comes to think that ‘speciesism’, this natural and ethical difference between the human species and other animal species, is structured like racism. The response is simple: because racism structures differences between humans and other humans like differences between humans and non-humans, one today thinks that differences between humans and non-humans could over time be revealed to be no more than the differences between humans and other humans. This is how the ‘anti-speciesist’ theorists often respond to their critics, as if their critics took historical responsibility for being judged by future generations, as human sensibility changes – in the same way that we view yesterday’s racists today. Perhaps they are not wrong that human sensibility changes, and that our relations with animals seem committed to a movement which brings us closer to them through our way of thinking and feeling, but which distances our mode of existence from theirs. But they are blind about what motivates the movement they are caught in, which leads to theoretical compactness. ‘Anti-speciesism’, which denies the species difference between human and other animal species, acts as a possible foundation for a right that produces discrimination. It leads to a compact concept of ‘animal’; its condition of possibility is quite precisely its failure. Indeed, the condition of success of ‘anti-speciesism’ is humanity’s refusal both to produce animal suffering and to behave like an animal species (and thus have specific interests). The complete assimilation of humanity into the community of all sentient and suffering beings would thus mean that humanity goes outside this community. Human beings would index all their behaviour with respect to all living and suffering beings, as if there were no species difference at the foundation of ethics [fondement du droit]. Human beings would be beings that deny their specific identity and exclude animal species from humanity. Conversely, to exclude humanity from animality, to think that humanity must be conceived in opposition to animality, is to makes its species a compact species, since the condition of success of this position is its failure: to make humanity an animal species like others, which does not particularly care about other species and which produces no society between species, except in a marginal or parasitic form. The speciesist who considers the human species as absolutely outside other animal species fails because she makes a human animal an animal like others, destined to realise its nature and defend its species by excluding other species from the ethical sphere [de son droit]. The anti-speciesist who ethically assimilates the human species into other animal species fails because she isolates humanity by assigning to humanity the task of moralising its relations with species that do not moralise their own. Both positions dissolve the idea of species, and in particular the human species. The ‘speciesist’ who situates humanity absolutely outside animality, makes humanity more than a species: an idea. But the ‘anti-speciesist’ who wants to assimilate humanity absolutely into all living and suffering beings dissolves the very significance of the concept of species. Yet humanity is a species that understands itself as between an animal that embodies the species and an idea that the species embodies. Species are currently defined not as objects, but as events. This shows that the human species, like every other animal species, is a temporal event, which occurs between animal and idea. The idealist turns humanity away from the animal which is humanity and makes humanity similar to an idea. The naturalist turns humanity away from the idea which humanity is and makes humanity similar to an animal. Both make this particular species of animal an equally compact animal or idea. Notes 15. The term ‘speciesism’ first appeared in Ryder’s leaflets, privately distributed among the Oxford Group of anti-speciesists. See his seminal ‘Experiments on Animals’, in Stanley Godlovitch, Roslind Godlovitch, and John Harris (eds), Animals, Men and Morals. 16. Jean-Baptiste Jeangène Vilmer, Éthique animale, pp. 21–5. 17. Robert de Montesquiou, Roseaux pensants, p. 16. 18. Matthew Hale, Contemplations, Moral and Divine, p. 117. 19. Thomas Tryon, Health’s Grand Preservative; or the Women’s Best Doctor, p. 13. 20. Humphrey Primatt, A Dissertation on the Duty of Mercy and Sin of Cruelty to Brute Animals, p. 12. 21. Ruth Harrison, Animal Machines. 22. Brigid Brophy, ‘The Rights of Animals’. 23. Singer, Animal Liberation. 24. Tom Regan, ‘Animal Rights, Human Wrongs’. 25. Whether ‘welfarist’ (primarily aiming at animal well-being) or ‘deontologist’ (primarily demanding animal rights). 26. On the contemporary debates about speciesism and anti-speciesism, we refer our reader to our work, Nous, animaux et humains.

Form and Object: A Treatise on Things Tristan Garcia Translated by Mark Allan Ohm and Jon Cogburn

2010 (translated 2014)

[tyfye49-blog]

HOW 2 SAVE THE WORLD: a Spyro Concept Game

So, as a result of my recent obsession with the Spyro the Dragon and The Legend of Spyro games, I have developed a mighty need for a new and better take on the Spyro franchise, since we haven't had any good Spyro games since the Legend series (and no, Skylanders doesn't count). So, for the past couple weeks, I've been developing a fair few ideas for a new Spyro game. The general idea of the game is that it acts like a cross between the Spyro the Dragon games, utilizing their search-and-receiving/platforming gameplay, as well as their good-natured humor, and The Legend of Spyro games, utilizing their combat and upgrade styles, as well as their story building, lore, and character development techniques.

Once it all comes together, you've got a game that seems funny and lighthearted on the surface, but once you start delving deeper into the game itself, you notice a much, MUCH deeper story. Of course, this comes with characters that the players can connect with on a personal level, each with their own fleshed-out backstories.

Now, with all this being said, it's time to get to the main point of this post: the central story mechanics of "How 2 Save the World" by Spyro (and friends). (yes, that's the title of the game. It's amazing, I know.)

How 2 Save the World: Explaining the Elements and Elemental Magic

Basic Elements: Tangible elements which manifest in the physical world around us; Fire, Ice, Air, Earth, Lightning, and Water. - The element a dragon is born with dictates it's scale color: Red and orange for Fire, pale blue and white for Ice, light green and gray for Air, brown and dark green for Earth, dark or light shades of yellow and blue for Lightning, and dark or light shades of blue for Water. - Each Basic element overpowers another; Fire overpowers Ice, Ice overpowers Air, Air overpowers Earth, Earth overpowers Lightning, Lightning overpowers Water, and Water overpowers Fire. - Each element acts as a counterbalance to another; Fire and Earth counterbalance, Ice and Lightning counterbalance, and Air and Water counterbalance. - Each element triangulates with two other elements: Fire, Air and Lightning triangulate, and Ice, Earth and Water triangulate. - When two Basic dragons of the same element mate, their children will ALWAYS be the same element as the parents. - When a Basic dragon mates with a Basic dragon with an overpowering element, their children have a 75% chance to be the element of the overpowering parent, and a 25% chance to be the element of the underpowered parent. - When a Basic dragon mates with a Basic dragon of a counterbalancing element, their children have a 50% chance of being either of the parents' elements. - When a Basic dragon mates with a Basic dragon with an element that triangulates, their children have a 25% chance to be one of the parents' elements, a 25% chance to be the other parent's element, and a 50% chance to be the third element in the triangulation.

Core Elements: Intangible elements that exist everywhere but have no "true" physical form; Light, Darkness, Life, and Death. Each has it's opposite, and each one maintains balance with the other. - Dragons who are born naturally* with a Core element always have purple scales (though they vary in shade depending on which Core element the dragon controls). *(as of today, there are three dragons with unnatural cases Core elemental magic; thus, their scales are not purple) - If a purple dragon mates with a Basic dragon, their children have a 50% chance of being the element of the Basic dragon parent and a 50% chance of being any other Basic element. - If a purple dragon mates with another purple dragon, their children have an equal chance of being any one of the Basic elements. - It is unknown what the circumstances must be for a purple dragon to be born; it is speculated that they come into being when a mother dragon is impregnated while the Barrier is in high fluctuation in the general area. In other words, high amounts of Aether in the area around the unborn dragon will give it access to a Core element.

The Aether: The Original Element; a singular, perfect elemental magic from which the Core and Basic elements originate. - It resided within the Convexity Dimension as a single element under the control of a single sentient being; the Aether Dragon. During it's existence, the constant strain of opposing Concavity energy ripped apart the Dragon and broke down the single element into ten incomplete elements. In a last-ditch attempt to prevent the Aether element from being completely destroyed, the Dragon created an eternal, hyper-dimensional Barrier between Convexity and Concavity, turning them into their own separate dimensions. - It was not enough to truly save the Dragon or it's singular element, however, and now they exist in the form of the Core elements and the Basic elements.

Convexity: The existence of elemental magic; the fusion and/or creation of elements. - The act of channeling the power of Convexity into a single elemental type will cause the element to condense and "solidify", making it much more potent. - Channeling Convexity into multiple elements at once (via a purple dragon) will fuse the elements together into a more "pure" element; a "pseudo-Aether", if you will. - All dragons are capable of channeling Convexity, be it in a highly disciplined, controlled state as the result of copious training, or in the form of a massive, uncontrolled burst, used in a dire situation when all other options seem lost. - This uncontrolled "burst" of Convexity has been dubbed "Fury" by dragons of recent age. It is so named because it causes the user to enter a state of furious rage while expelling a highly potent, condensed form of their elemental magic from their body. This "Fury" only seems to manifest in times of dire need, and it often leaves it's user physically and magically drained afterwards.

Concavity: The absence of elemental magic; the fission and/or destruction of elements. - Only two types of entities have been confirmed to be able to channel Concavity outside of the Concavity Dimension itself: Anti-Crystals (also known as "Siphons" or "Siphon Crystals"), and the purple dragon Malefor (as a result of his over-exposure to the Concavity Dimension). - Anti-Crystals are apparently the only naturally-occurring physical objects that exist in the Concavity dimension. They are essentially points of condensed Concavity energy that only serve to suck Aether out of the Dimensional Barrier. They form in spaces where larger amounts of the Barrier's power has flowed to, as if to naturally balance out the ratio of Concavity to Convexity. Once formed, Anti-Crystals remain suspended in Concavity indefinitely, absorbing and destroying a steady amount of elemental magic, even after the Barrier's power has flowed into a different spot. If enough Aether flows of a single spot after an Anti-Crystal has formed there, the crystal will warp through the barrier and manifest itself in the corresponding space in Convexity. - Once they have entered Convexity, Anti-Crystals will appear "blacker-than-black", completely void of Light, Darkness, Life energy, and Death. They will lack any form of elemental energy at all times, turning into vacuums for elemental energy and any form of elemental magic, instilling the effects of Concavity on anything around them and draining the immediate vicinity of energy. - Despite their black-hole-like effects on surrounding magic, Anti-Crystals can only absorb a steady amount of energy at any given time. While they will remain intact if the area around them has been completely drained, it is possible to overload them with a massive amount of magic at once, causing them to collapse on themselves and vanish completely.

[ALL INFO AFTER THIS POINT IS UNFINISHED AND UNDEVELOPED. PROCEED WITH CAUTION (and a MASSIVE pinch of salt)]

The Heroes of "How 2 Save the World":

In this game, you are given the option of playing as one of four different characters at a given time: Spyro (obviously), Cynder, Ember, and Kindel (Don't recognize that name? Good, because he's original). The player [usually] has the ability to swap between any of the four characters at any given time, but in some cases, you will be locked into the character you're currently playing as for story-specific purposes. This will not only make these instances harder or easier, but it can, and most often will, change the storyline, depending on who you were playing as, or which elements you chose to use. While these changes won't necessarily give you different endings of the game, they can effect interactions with different characters or different situations down the line. For instance, if the character you play as has a bad reputation with a certain group of NPCs, it would be unwise to approach said NPCs while playing as that character, because it could permanently affect your party's relations with them. The character you choose to play as will also affect how you handle combat sections of the game, since all the characters have differing combat styles: Kindel leans heavily towards the attacking side while being bad at taking hits himself; Ember is more defensive than the rest of her team, but she lacks incredible speed; Cynder doesn't have impressive damage output, but she makes up for it with astounding agility; and Spyro is the most balanced of the bunch, with a regulated attack, speed, and defense.

Sometimes, the character you choose for a story event doesn't matter, but the type of element you use to get the job done does. Each character can control one of three elements that they have on hand at a time, and one of the three elements will always be a Core element specific to the character you're playing as: Spyro controls Light, Cynder controls Darkness, Ember controls Life, and Kindel controls Death. Each character has access to these elements from the start of the game (albeit, weaker forms of said elements), but as the game progresses and as you strengthen each character individually, you can eventually allow each of them to access two of the six Basic elements, as well. (To be clear, it it possible to teach a single Basic element to more than one character (as a matter of fact, you would probably wind up doing that anyway, since each character has two Basic element slots, which gives room for eight out of six).)

Spyro: Not too much to say about him; he's the youngest descendant of Fortitudo/Malefor. He's the first purple dragon in centuries, and and he was born with the Core element of Light. He had been the target of Malefor's possession, but after being spirited away from the Ancestors' Temple by Ignitus and Marina, he was spared from The Chariot's clutches and the massacre of the Egg Raid. (Of course, it wasn't one thing, then it had to be another...) Uses for Light Magic: - Breath Attack: "Photon Burst". Spyro fires a mid-ranged burst of condensed light out of his mouth. The beam can hit through multiple targets and it deals more damage at a greater distance. However, it will temporarily stun enemies at point-blank range, which can give you time to put some distance between you and your opponents. - Scale-Glow: - - - Light Fury: "

Cynder: The only young dragon to survive the Egg Raid other than Spyro, her egg was Malefor's second choice. After his forces destroyed the other eggs in her clutch, they stole hers away and took it to the Concave Well, a mountain range that was the home of the largest Anti-Crystal collection on the planet. As a result, the entire area around the Well was were the Dimensional Barrier was weakest. On Cynder's hatching day, Malefor forcibly projected part of his consciousness through the Barrier and into Cynder, warping her physical body and eliminating the element she was born with (presumably Air). Once the possession was complete, Malefor was able to gestate that piece of his soul enough to instate the element of Darkness within Cynder, the Core element that he was once able to control. At the end of the process, Cynder's physical form was shrouded by her new element, turning her scales onyx black. She began to age rapidly as well, in order to compensate for the sudden increase in power. In this new form, Cynder, now known as The Neo Chariot, took command of Malefor's army and proceeded to wreck havoc upon the Dragon Realms, leaving fear, chaos, and destruction in her wake. Thirteen years later, however, her destructive actions were halted by a trio of young dragons (who were technically as old as she was), and through a massive outburst of Convexity, the spark of Concavity which served as Malefor's soul was cleaved from her body, freeing Cynder from The Chariot's influence. Her body returned back to it's true age and her mind was cleansed. However, despite being separated from Malefor, Cynder still managed to retain some residual power left behind after the event. Thus, she still has access to the Core element of Darkness. But how she goes about using it is completely up to her now... Uses for Dark Magic: - Breath Attack: "Blacklight Fire". - Banshee Cry - Shadow Glide - - Dark Fury: "Eclipse".

Ember: Ember, for all extensive purposes, is not a real dragon. While she walks and talks and thinks and feels and generally behaves like a real dragon, she was not born like any other dragon on the planet. She was created at the hands of science and magic. Professor Jameson Moleratton, her creator, had an avid interest in dragons, and it had been his dream to raise a dragon of his own. But, because of the Egg Raids a year prior, it was impossible for him to adopt a dragon by natural means, so he resorted to the next best thing; he deconstructed DNA samples from multiple dragons, and then reconstructed them as he saw fit. He planned to grow a perfect dragon, one of his own creation, and raise it as his own. He was almost successful, but when it came time to splice the new DNA together, Moleratton accidentally overcharged the undeveloped cells with energy gathered from Life crystals. This occurrence did not physically hinder the newborn dragon, however (the most it did was give her pink scales and a generally cheerful personality). But it did bestow the Core element of Life to her, which would later be considered a both a blessing, and a curse... Uses for Life Magic: - Breath Attack: "Overgrow". Ember breaths a steady pulse of mid-range Life energy into the area in front of her, causing plant life to grow on the surfaces in range. All enemies caught in the pulse won't take any damage directly, but they will gradually be entangled by vines and weeds, lowering their speed and attack power. Sustaining the pulse on enemies long enough will cover them permanently, completely disabling them. Disabled enemies are treated like killed enemies, but they take much longer to de-spawn. This can be combined with Second Chance to rack up more minions. Overgrow can also be used to grow climbable vines on walls and ceilings. - - Vitality Aura: Ember releases a mid-range wave of Life energy from her body, which will steadily restore the health of all teammates in range. Teammates will also start receiving boosts to all their stats the longer the aura is sustained. Keep in mind this ability will not restore Ember's own health or boost her own stats, and she will be slowed down while she uses it. It also drains her mana faster the longer it's sustained. - - Life Fury: "Second Chance". Fully heals your teammates and resurrects recently-fallen enemies (not including bosses and mini-bosses). All resurrected enemies will fight by your side for 10-20 seconds. Use this during gauntlet battles and horde battles to give yourself an edge. Combine with Vitality Aura to make a super-powered army of minions.

Kindel: The most abnormal of the unnatural cases yet, Kindel is speculated to have once been an Earth dragon. [to be revisited] Uses for Death Magic: - Breath Attack: "Spirit Vacuum". A short-ranged, single-target attack, Kindel forcibly sucks the life energy out of the enemy directly in front of him. The target is stunned for the duration of the attack while their health steadily decreases and is used to slowly restore Kindel's health in return. - Splash Poison: - Out-of-Body: - Mortality Pike: - Death Fury: "Soul Cleaver". Kindel slashes in a wide, mid-ranged blade arc in front of him,

[TO BE REVISED AT A LATER DATE]

[orgone0123]

Unleash Your Manifestation Power with Orgonite

They say that nothing is more powerful than the mind…

Maybe they did not know about ORGONITE back then…?

https://orgoneradionicsorgonite.blogspot.com/

Orgone Energy was the name given by Wilhelm Reich to life energy permeating everything. In some mystic traditions, orgone is also called “Ch’i”, “Prana”, “Ether”, ‘Élan vital” or “fifth element”.

Wilhelm Reich was the first serious and dedicated scientist to investigate the existence and properties of this life energy, leaving aside mysticism to focus on a primary scientific approach to the idea.

Before the rise of a mecanical world-view several hundred years ago (Newton), all traditions and religions talked about this concept of a sea of energy from which all material forms stem and materialize.

This same theme can be found in hinduism (prana), buddhism and taoism (chi, Ki), all oriental traditions. But the concept can also be found in occident with the greeks (ether).

These past years, we can see a trend towards healing modalities based on life energy, such as reiki, but also a convergence in the world of leading-edge quantum physics. All of a sudden, modern science seems to point toward the “old” world view that everything is connected, and that a form of sentient, all-permeating energy exists, even though the scientific establishment still categorically denies the existence and invalidates the concept of life energy.

According to Reich observations, orgone is present in three forms, these being (according to his terminology) POR for Positive Orgone Radiation, DOR for Deadly Orgone Radiation and OR which is simply neutral orgone.

Some settings where a high concentration of POR can be found are: in the forest, near a waterfall, after a rain, in nature. Beautiful cumulus clouds are also a manifestation of POR as they generally point toward good weather, moving and evolving atmospheric currents.

Reich’s Orgone accumulators distant relatives of the RAD 5 Radionics

Wihelm Reich observed that orgone was attracted by successive layers of organic and metalic materials.He did several tests with boxes and funnels that would accumulate orgone for medical purposes to treat cancer patients and several other ailments.

Later, he performed atmospheric research and found he could manipulate atmospheric currents and clouds with a device that would project and direct life energy.

Even though Reich had amazing results, his devices had a major downside: they would accumulate any type of energy (positive or negative) without discrimination, whichever was around in the environment.

In a DOR saturated environment, Reich-type devices can be extremelly dangerous and must be manipulated with great care.

In the 80’s, another independant researcher, Karl Welz, discovered that a mix of metal particles suspended in hardened resin was superior to the alternate layers of organic and metalic material that Reich was using.

He called this new composite material Orgonite. And from there we went from an orgone accumulator to an orgone generator.

Don Croft intuitively understood the potential of this innovation, ad combined it with his knowledge of Reich’s cloud-busters to create is own version of a cloud-buster, and several other devices thereafter. He also found that this configuration could transmute DOR into POR.

Adding quartz crystals as an amplifier allowed to project the energy in a much wider range. The real break through with these new devices is that they become active in the presence of powerful negative energy fields, transmuting the deadly energy into positive, life-giving energy.

These new devices would actually benefit from being exposed to negativity.

The cloud-buster “movement” then became a vivid and fast-growing community of indepedant researchers, as positive effects could easily be felt and experimented first-hand.

While only a hand-ful of people can perceive or see subtle energies, anyone can see desertic regions being turned back into thriving areas, plants growing faster and better, etc.

This “movement” is based on empirical evidence, and sometimes animated discussion between members. We have no final ultimate proof that what we think to be true is the truth, however an increasing number of people notice positive changes right now.

Given the absence of present scientific research surrounding the field of orgone energy and the denial of its existence by modern academics, it is very challenging to explain the actual physical workings of orgone generators and how these simple devices can transmute negative energy into positive energy, without hard scientific data. At best, we are left with empirical evidence, individual user reports, anecdotes and theories. 

The actual mechanical principle of how orgone generators work has been the subject of lengthy discussions in many internet forums over the years . There is no consensus. We currently adhere to the following theory:

Reich explains that metal both attracts and repulses negative DOR energy. Since orgone generators contain metal particles of various sizes and shapes, the energy goes through successives layers of metal and long carbon-based molecular chains (resin), repeatedly. By doing so, the energy is “excited” and its vibratory level rises, purifying it. Crystals are added to direct the purified energy and obtain an optimal filtration effect, while the stones and mineral “color” the output (give it a specific vibratory rate or “resonance”). We believe that it is possible to explain the theory behind orgone generators without violating the laws of thermo dynamics.

Again, without a way to measure and quantify orgone energy and in light of science’s denial of orgone energy, it is quite challenging to come up with a detailed explanation based on facts.

Fortunately, we and other independant researchers have developped several different protocols over the years to observe actual VISIBLE effects of orgone generators and orgone energy.

From https://orgoneradionicsorgonite.blogspot.com/2018/09/unleash-your-manifestation-power-with.html

from https://radionicsbox1.wordpress.com/2018/09/18/unleash-your-manifestation-power-with-orgonite/

From https://radionics201801.blogspot.com/2018/09/unleash-your-manifestation-power-with.html

from https://radionics201801.wordpress.com/2018/09/18/unleash-your-manifestation-power-with-orgonite/ from https://orgone0.blogspot.com/2018/09/unleash-your-manifestation-power-with.html

[orgonegenerator0]

They say that nothing is more powerful than the mind…

Maybe they did not know about ORGONITE back then…?

https://orgoneradionicsorgonite.blogspot.com/

Orgone Energy was the name given by Wilhelm Reich to life energy permeating everything. In some mystic traditions, orgone is also called “Ch’i”, “Prana”, “Ether”, ‘Élan vital” or “fifth element”.

Wilhelm Reich was the first serious and dedicated scientist to investigate the existence and properties of this life energy, leaving aside mysticism to focus on a primary scientific approach to the idea.

Before the rise of a mecanical world-view several hundred years ago (Newton), all traditions and religions talked about this concept of a sea of energy from which all material forms stem and materialize.

This same theme can be found in hinduism (prana), buddhism and taoism (chi, Ki), all oriental traditions. But the concept can also be found in occident with the greeks (ether).

These past years, we can see a trend towards healing modalities based on life energy, such as reiki, but also a convergence in the world of leading-edge quantum physics. All of a sudden, modern science seems to point toward the “old” world view that everything is connected, and that a form of sentient, all-permeating energy exists, even though the scientific establishment still categorically denies the existence and invalidates the concept of life energy.

According to Reich observations, orgone is present in three forms, these being (according to his terminology) POR for Positive Orgone Radiation, DOR for Deadly Orgone Radiation and OR which is simply neutral orgone.

Some settings where a high concentration of POR can be found are: in the forest, near a waterfall, after a rain, in nature. Beautiful cumulus clouds are also a manifestation of POR as they generally point toward good weather, moving and evolving atmospheric currents.

Reich’s Orgone accumulators distant relatives of the RAD 5 Radionics

Wihelm Reich observed that orgone was attracted by successive layers of organic and metalic materials.He did several tests with boxes and funnels that would accumulate orgone for medical purposes to treat cancer patients and several other ailments.

Later, he performed atmospheric research and found he could manipulate atmospheric currents and clouds with a device that would project and direct life energy.

Even though Reich had amazing results, his devices had a major downside: they would accumulate any type of energy (positive or negative) without discrimination, whichever was around in the environment.

In a DOR saturated environment, Reich-type devices can be extremelly dangerous and must be manipulated with great care.

In the 80’s, another independant researcher, Karl Welz, discovered that a mix of metal particles suspended in hardened resin was superior to the alternate layers of organic and metalic material that Reich was using.

He called this new composite material Orgonite. And from there we went from an orgone accumulator to an orgone generator.

Don Croft intuitively understood the potential of this innovation, ad combined it with his knowledge of Reich’s cloud-busters to create is own version of a cloud-buster, and several other devices thereafter. He also found that this configuration could transmute DOR into POR.

Adding quartz crystals as an amplifier allowed to project the energy in a much wider range. The real break through with these new devices is that they become active in the presence of powerful negative energy fields, transmuting the deadly energy into positive, life-giving energy.

These new devices would actually benefit from being exposed to negativity.

The cloud-buster “movement” then became a vivid and fast-growing community of indepedant researchers, as positive effects could easily be felt and experimented first-hand.

While only a hand-ful of people can perceive or see subtle energies, anyone can see desertic regions being turned back into thriving areas, plants growing faster and better, etc.

This “movement” is based on empirical evidence, and sometimes animated discussion between members. We have no final ultimate proof that what we think to be true is the truth, however an increasing number of people notice positive changes right now.

Given the absence of present scientific research surrounding the field of orgone energy and the denial of its existence by modern academics, it is very challenging to explain the actual physical workings of orgone generators and how these simple devices can transmute negative energy into positive energy, without hard scientific data. At best, we are left with empirical evidence, individual user reports, anecdotes and theories. 

The actual mechanical principle of how orgone generators work has been the subject of lengthy discussions in many internet forums over the years . There is no consensus. We currently adhere to the following theory:

Reich explains that metal both attracts and repulses negative DOR energy. Since orgone generators contain metal particles of various sizes and shapes, the energy goes through successives layers of metal and long carbon-based molecular chains (resin), repeatedly. By doing so, the energy is “excited” and its vibratory level rises, purifying it. Crystals are added to direct the purified energy and obtain an optimal filtration effect, while the stones and mineral “color” the output (give it a specific vibratory rate or “resonance”). We believe that it is possible to explain the theory behind orgone generators without violating the laws of thermo dynamics.

Again, without a way to measure and quantify orgone energy and in light of science’s denial of orgone energy, it is quite challenging to come up with a detailed explanation based on facts.

Fortunately, we and other independant researchers have developped several different protocols over the years to observe actual VISIBLE effects of orgone generators and orgone energy.

From https://orgoneradionicsorgonite.blogspot.com/2018/09/unleash-your-manifestation-power-with.html

from https://radionicsbox1.wordpress.com/2018/09/18/unleash-your-manifestation-power-with-orgonite/ from https://orgonite0.blogspot.com/2018/09/unleash-your-manifestation-power-with.html from https://orgonite012.tumblr.com/post/178205552399 from https://orgonegenerator0.blogspot.com/2018/09/unleash-your-manifestation-power-with.html