#abandoning one religion and seeking/feeling connected to another

[thekatfuzz]

Loki being referred to as the god of outcasts makes so much sense to me. Maybe thats why I felt so connected to him for all these years other than finding him attractive and wanting to fix him because he was so damaged.

But from an actual religious/spiritual standpoint. I dont know how much I believe in gods but Loki as a higher power (character or deity) has done more for me than my birth-given-religion god has done for me.

I have felt like an outcast a lot in my life and still do. And the fact that I can recognize that and also notice and seek out other people that may label themselves as that or be seen in that way.

Maybe in a way that Hermes is the patron god of travelers and people who are not claimed in Percy Jackson, Loki does this in a similar way for people that feel like outcasts and are able to recognize others like them.

[elliesdin0saur]

Ellie hcs; you get hurt on patrol

first of all to be fair ellie would never want you to go out on patrol without her as your duo, she wouldn't want anything happening to you and her not being there. matter of fact ellie would do anything to stop you from getting hurt, she would throw herself in front of a clicker if she had to.

though on a few occasions there where times when maria needed an extra pair of hands with some other job, leaving you with another duo, though ellie would only leave you to either jesse or joel.

no way she was trusting you with some newer jackson recruits who had just barely figured out the routes on patrol and would flee at the smallest sight of clickers.

so you where on patrol with jesse, scanning this abandoned supermarket. you had encountered a small group of infected in the area that seemed quiet. as you navigated through the abandoned buildings, joking a bit with jesse, a sudden ambush by a group of hostile survivors caught you both off guard.

outnumbered and overwhelmed, a stray bullet grazed your head, leaving a bloody wound that made you lose consciousness. jesse somehow took out the raiders and managed to get you on his horse.

quickly riding you back to Jackson seen your condition, as you get there, maria would probably be the first to figure out. followed by ellie who knew the patrol schedule, figuring nobody could've gotten back so fast, knowing something is wrong. god forbid something had happened to you and she didn't know.

she would first definitely bark at Jesse, seeing the condition your in, "[your name]- Jesse what the fuck happened!? You were supposed to watch each other's backs out there!"

it was a bit rude but ellie honestly couldn't give a fuck, she was only focusing on you, she would without a doubt take you over from jesse. She would immediately take charge, barking orders to others nearby to clear a path to the infirmary.

"hey baby, c'mon, wake up," ellie would murmur softly, her voice a gentle reassurance as she cradles you. she would definitely be extremely scared and worried seeing all the blood on you, knowing if she where there she maybe could've prevented it. feeling somewhat guilty.

as the medical team works to assess and treat your injuries, ellie wouldn't lose her sight on you, her jaw clenched in silent determination. the occasional muttered curse under her breath slipping out.

after you got treated, they hooked you up to a monitor, giving you heavy pain medications that made you sleep.

once the initial chaos subsided, ellie would pull up a chair beside your bed, maintaining a vigilant watch. her fingers would absentmindedly trace over yours, a quiet gesture of reassurance, as she waits for any signs of your recovery.

ellie would sit beside the chair for hours, not leaving your side once. checking the monitor for you heartbeats, counting if it lined up alright.

joel would come by to see how you where doing and to check on ellie, "you should eat some dinner kiddo, heard they've got some good burrito's in mess ha-", but the poor man wouldn't even be able to finish the sentence before ellie interrupted, "no thanks, 'm fine". joel even offered to watch you while she'd get dinner but nope, she wasn't leaving your side whatsoever.

"you gotta wake up, okay baby? can't have you slacking off on me now," she'd say with a faint smile, attempting to inject a bit of her trademark humor into the heavy atmosphere.

her fingers would gently intertwine with yours, seeking some connection in the stillness. "you're tougher than anyone I know. we've been through worse, right?" she'd continue, a mix of tenderness and determination in her voice.

i feel like in this situation ellie would definitely start to question religion, feeling like if she believed in something it would somehow be easier. as if one prayer could somehow magically make you better again in a split second. though she knew she wouldn't believe in anything (yeah fuck face david ruined that for her), the thought of dina saying small prayers sometimes to stay calm and have hope seemed nice enough.

as you'd start to wake up, feeling the haze of unconsciousness lifting, ellie's eyes would widen with a hint of relief and surprise. she'd be right there, by your side, closely watching for any signs of movement.

the moment she notices signs of consciousness, a mixture of relief and tenderness would wash over her face. she'd lean in slightly, her voice a soft murmur.

"hey babe," she would say, a small, genuine smile playing on her lips. "took you long enough. thought I'd have to start telling bad jokes to wake you up."

even in the discomfort you'd managed to crack a small smile, ellie pressing a kiss to your head, slowly helping you into a more comfortable position sitting upright. she had already made sure to have 2 soft pillows for when you'd wake up, it being nicer for your back.

she'd reach for a nearby cup of water, offering it to you with a gentle touch. "Here, take it slow. You've been out for a bit," ellie would advise, concern evident in her eyes as she watches for any signs of discomfort.

your head was still hurting you a bit, despite the medicine. ellie wouldn't talk too much, just gently tracing patterns up you arm with her fingers.

as you become more alert, ellie would subtly check for any signs of pain or disorientation, her movements careful and deliberate. "how you feeling?" she'd ask, her tone a mix of curiosity and genuine worry. after telling her you're somewhat alright, seen you quite literally had a hole in your head, she'd calm down a bit.

during your mandatory 2 days in the infirmary ellie would do anything, literally anything to keep you entertained and cared for.

she'd share some stories, whether they're tales from your adventures or some embarrassing moments of her own. "so, once i mistook a clicker for a vending machine shadow...", making you both cackle from laughter.

you missed having ellie next to you, like physically being close to you instead of her sitting in that chair. you'd plead for her to lay next to you, scooting to make place. she didn't want to at first, afraid she'd might move and hurt you "babe, I don't want to hurt you".

though after some more pleading and you pulling the "i'm sick, i can get whatever i want and i want my girlfriend" card, she gave in.

ellie wouldn't really leave your side, still, only if she was doing something for you, like picking these flowers she knew you loved, just outside the gate, "just sprucing up the place. hospitals need some flair."

ellie would keep you updated about what's happening outside the infirmary, sharing updates about the community, plans, and anything else to make you feel more connected to the world beyond the walls of the room, she knew you hated staying in a room all day.

finally after 2 days you get discharged, meaning ellie can take you home. she'd completely bundle you up in warm clothing, she didn't want you catching a cold, even though the walk to your cabin was just 4 minutes.

back at your shared cabin, ellie would fuss over you, preparing a makeshift bed with extra blankets to keep you warm and comfortable. "you're on mandatory rest duty, alright? no arguments," she'd declare, a mix of determination and tenderness in her voice.

she would totally position herself near the front door, keeping a watchful eye on anyone approaching. "i'm not letting anyone disturb your sleep," she'd joke, a subtle way of expressing her determination to protect you and let you rest.

ellie would take on a makeshift nurse role, carefully tending to your wounds, changing the bandages for you. "alright, brace yourself for my top-notch first aid skills," she'd say with a grin, trying to lighten the mood as she tended to the injuries.

ellie, with surprisingly skilled hands (see what I did there) would offer to braid your hair, seeing how you hated it being all greasy but not being able to wash yet because of your injury.

your favorite fuzzy pajamas that you love to wear? washed and neatly folded on your bed, ready for you to wear. your favorite movie and snack? already waiting on the kitchen counter.

you'd watch the movie, though ellie could only look at you, cradling you in her arms as she holds you gently. incredibly happy her girlfriend is home again. hugs? kisses? anything you wanted, ellie's right there.

"love you babe", she'd gently whisper, a smile tugging at her lips, "love you more els".

honestly, you didn't mind being injured or sick, knowing ellie williams was there to pamper you x

===

[infinites-chaser]

attachment theory | tears of themis | mo yi

deals with a few more serious themes but nothing too far off from the cases in game! also. suggestive ending pls avert ur eyes

vague, alluded to spoilers for mo yi's story and ch.2 of the main story :>

"not sleeping yet?"

for all its gentleness, mo yi's voice takes you by surprise-- you straighten abruptly from where you'd been hunched over a case file and there's a crunch in your neck-- you instantly regret it until the sudden pain's replaced with a gentle touch, and you're pulled back into his embrace, one hand resting warm around your waist, the other massaging circles around the tension in your neck.

"it's this case," you say, gesturing to the abandoned sheaf of papers. "it's bothering me."

his answering laugh's a tender vibration against your back.

"when do your cases not?"

"no," you reply, "this one's not hard, it just--"

"is bothering you," he finishes. you nod.

his hand slips from the back of your neck to rub gentle across your shoulder, then he leans forward to pick up the file, bringing the pages up to a level comfortable enough for the two of you to read together.

a silence passes. then,

"how nostalgic," he remarks. "a pick up artist and a jealous paramour."

you nod. it'd been a straightforward case: the client had gone through a bad breakup with their long-time partner, only to be preyed upon in her vulnerable state by a pick-up artist. when the ex-partner found out, he'd schemed against her, only for him and his plans to be foiled when she'd found out. it would've been simple for him to be charged, but his family had stepped in, had tried to argue it was all her, her and her abusive family, that she was just the same as them, that she'd been blackmailing and extorting him and they'd been relieved when she was finally gone.

you'd won the trial easily: it had hardly been a trial at all, more of a formality than anything else, but when you'd looked over at your client after the verdict, she hadn't looked happy. she hadn't looked proud.

she'd only looked miserable, sitting on the hard wooden bench, all alone.

you'd gone to her when the courtroom cleared, and she'd broken down, asked if this was all she would ever have in a relationship, if this was her fault, if all she ever did was seek out relationships with people who'd hurt her, just like her mother and father.

"is this all there is?" she'd asked. "to hope and hope for better and only be hurt more every time? I might as well not try at all anymore."

"that's not true at all," you'd replied. "i-- maybe I'm privileged to be able to say this, but I think we always have to keep trying, no matter how hard it gets. because what we want, the love we deserve-- it's worth it. it's something we'll never know if we give up now."

she'd fallen silent, after. you'd pulled her into a hug, and her fingers had dug deep into your shoulder blades, and for a long, shuddering moment, she hadn't let go.

"I wonder," you say now. "how much of us is from our parents? what do we inherit? what do we still have the power to change?"

though mo yi doesn't turn his head, you can feel his attention shift from the case files back to you.

"that woman," you continue, "she had a hard childhood. she had to raise herself. but her ex-boyfriend had caring parents. they'd do anything for him."

"you know," you say, "his mother even approached me before the trial."

"and what did she want?" he asks, voice soft.

you scoff.

"she told me she'd give me any sum of money if it meant her son's record would stay clean."

"oftentimes, parents will do anything for their children."

"she and her husband-- they love him a lot," you say. "they're good people. but--"

"but then why did he grow up like that? why did your client?"

you nod. he sits back, places the file aside, lets his fingers drum thoughtful across your back.

"humans are not so simple," he says at last. then, when you open your mouth,

"but you already know that."

you close your mouth as he laughs softly, then continues.

"psychologists used to think criminality was a gene. it's almost like some religions, if you think about it. you inherit the sins of your past life. if they did not live cleanly, then neither shall you. if your parents became criminals, then, inevitably, so would you."

"we know they're wrong now," he continues, "but isn't there some truth to that? who our parents are come to define who we are. or who we aren't. I believe in your client's and her ex's case, the latter is true."

"what do you mean?"

"your relationship with their parent when you're young shapes you. it's what each of us first learns attachment from. love, caring, connection-- it all stems from there. perhaps we look at your client's ex and his parents, and we see the love they have for him. the care. but for him, all he feels is that it's stifling. that he needs someone of his own to control."

his voice grows lower.

"perhaps, for your client, one might look at her, and how she raised herself, and find her independence admirable. but as you saw, rather than be happy with herself, rather than be proud, of surviving, of living well, despite all odds, all she finds in herself is her own loneliness."

he laughs softly. it isn't a happy sound.

"we humans," he says. "we often are trapped by circumstance, for reasons we can't control. but we often trap ourselves, too."

"we aren't like just that, though," you say. "humans can't always be defined just one way. we grow. we change. sometimes all we need is a direction, but it's never fixed-- there's always a choice. a chance for change. for becoming more."

a long silence passes.

"perhaps you're right," he says at last, voice almost wistful.

"but," he continues, "isn't that enough psychology for tonight? there's only so much information our brains can maintain without proper rest."

"rest?" you ask with a laugh, "what's that?"

"rest," he repeats, firmer. "it's nearly two in the morning. even if you feel awake right now, your body will regret it later."

you'd press him further about the sudden subject change, but something about the way his arms have gone tense around yours holds your tongue.

instead, you acknowledge his point with a nod and a sigh, and let him lead you back to lie down on the bed beside him.

you've had your eyes closed for all of a minute before he's pulled you into his arms, his head tucked warm under yours.

"to rest," he muses, "or to... relax."

"after all that talk about unhealthy attachment, what does this say about you, hm, Dr. Mo?" you chide gently. he chuckles, but doesn't let go, his breath warm at the base of your neck. you shiver. he pulls you closer.

"who can say," he murmurs as reply. "it's interesting, really. normally, I'd never think of myself as someone who gets attached. but around you--"

"around me what?" you echo.

"around you, I can't seem to help myself."

his voice is low. on another man, you'd call it almost needy, but with him, paradox, walking contradiction he is, it's a confessional. a prayer. a promise. a prediction.

"can't help yourself?" you repeat again, hoping the words don't betray the heat creeping over your cheeks. and there's a million questions you want to ask, about his parents, his past, the way he always pulls back from a conversation before you can catch a true glimpse of the inner him,

but he breathes in, breathes out. slow, langourous, savoring the moment, savoring you, and the questions quiet,

"I never can," he muses. "it's strange."

his head dips lower, the silver of his hair brushing low across your cheek.

"why you," he murmurs against the hollow of your throat. you don't dare breathe, dare move, dare think. then his lips find the curve of tender skin where neck meets collarbone and you inhale, sharp and fast, and you don't think at all.

you drown in him, his mouth on your skin, his teeth a gentle rough, his tongue teasing tender, quicksilver, lightning, lava, everything molten, leaving you breathless burning,

he surfaces between your legs, your fingers laced through his hair, turned silvered with sweat, golden gaze on yours, his hands tracing the course of your veins, your pulse racing hard and heavy under his touch.

"you," he breathes against your inner thigh, fingers ghosting gentle, ghosting higher, "you, you, a thousand times over. always you."

he presses his mouth to your skin, lets his lips skim upward, a hundred kisses in one, slow and teasing.

more than anything else, you think, we are what we choose to be. maybe there are parts of him you'll never quite know the way you want to, maybe there are certain things he can't give up, and the same goes for you. but despite his past, despite his secrets, you've always ever known one truth of mo yi, the truth of him when it comes to you.

(he chooses you, despite, despite, despite. and so do you. you choose, in the hopes of growth. of change. of something that'll last, something meaningful.)

"it's always you for me, too," you whisper, then let his lips claim yours.

[scarletarosa]

The Passage into the Afterlife

Throughout history, the thought of what happens to someone after death has long fascinated and terrified the human race. One may be surprised to discover that every story holds some truth to it. The following documentation has been long researched by myself through both astral traveling and through communicating with Minos, one of the three Judges of the Underworld. This is not intended to force beliefs, but to prepare those who are open on this subject for what lies ahead.

The Ka and Ba

Before getting into what occurs after death, one must understand the difference between the Ka (spirit) and Ba (higher self/soul). This is a concept that can be read about further in Ancient Egyptian belief. Basically, the Ba is the higher self who is immortal and dwells in the realms of spirit. When the Ba chooses to incarnate onto a planet, they choose an “unborn spirit” to embody. These two entities then come together in the womb, and then the Ba closes their eyes, awaiting the time when their human will mature and seek higher knowledge (if they ever do). 

If the Ba is fortunate, their human will begin seeking true knowledge of the spirit realms and of higher selves, causing the Ba to awaken and begin guiding the human they dwell within. So we as we are right now, are all Ka; our Ba (higher selves) dwell within us. Most humans have a higher self who is also human, but some have higher selves who might be angelic, demonic, draconic, elven, fae, etc. 

The Moment of Death

When we die, we separate from this body and emerge on the spirit plane of Earth. This is temporary, for Earth is the transitioning place before we move on. During this period, there are several things that can happen: if we chose to be cremated, we immediately disconnect from our bodies, but if buried, we remain stuck next to our body for a period of time, depending on how long it takes for the connection to be lost. In a case where one commits suicide, the afterlife is not pleasant, and the Judges seek to punish the human for abandoning their purpose and will delete them from existence. For the humans who died a horrific death, they typically refuse to move on, causing them to become wraiths (hauntings). This action causes the Ka to be permanently separated from their Ba, eventually causing the Ka to go insane and then become a poltergeist. 

Voyage to the Underworld

In most cases, the Ka emerges from their body and spends around three days (at least) wandering places on Earth that are familiar to them, as they will be restricted from going anywhere else. Most of the time, people do not realize that they have died. After these days, a psychopomp will arrive to collect the Ka and bring them to the Underworld. The Underworlds in every religion (not including Hell) are all the same place, but include many different kingdoms across the vast land. Once arriving in the Underworld, the Ka will wait to be seen at the Gaunt Palace, where they will confess their corrupt actions to the three Judges in front of a large council, then the council will discuss what fate they should have. The Judge, Minos, will have the final say. Once this is done, the three Judges will direct the Ka to be sent to a specific kingdom of the Underworld depending on what the persons’ beliefs were while alive. So while some may be approached by Hades, others might instead face Anubis and Osiris, or Hel, or Ereshkigal, etc. People who were Monotheists, however, will just arrive in a place similar to the gloom of the traditional Greek Underworld (Hades). 

Once the Ka meets with their specific Underworld god, the deity will then give that spirit trials to undergo within their designated level of the Underworld (there are three main levels, but seven in total). The first layer is for people who were good-natured and healed from most of their traumas. The second is for more unmoral people or just those with negative attachments who underwent only some healing while alive, and the third is for people who have very strong attachments due to suffering and didn’t get the chance to heal. The first layer will seek to teach lessons in lesser tormenting ways in order to get the spirits there to understand the things they did wrong and to not do them again, as well as to sever their remaining attachments. The third layer, however, is full of tortures that will force the people strongly attached to their suffering to realize the illusion of their ways and that they can go free if they fight for it. There trials are meant for Rebirth, not always punishment. 

The longer it takes for the Ka to fully understand their wrong-doings and their sufferings, the longer they will have to remain in the Underworld. If the spirit is exceptionally evil, however, the Judges will call upon the goddess Ammit. Ammit will then open her enormous jaws and devour the corrupt spirit, sending them to the realm of Hell, where one of the three High Kings (Lucifer, Satan, Leviathan) will decide what is done with them. Once in Hell, the spirit is usually tormented for eternity. So basically, the Underworld is meant to bring about a Rebirth; Hell is meant to punish.

The Shadow Self

While alive, we all experience traumas and negative circumstances. All of the emotions that arose from these things began to develop into an entity called “The Shadow”, which represents the darker half of us. Each person’s Shadow is different, depending on their negative experiences and how they reacted to them. I will get into the different types of Shadows in an additional post, but for now, it is good to analyze your own behaviours that are toxic, since these arise from the Shadow Self. Giving into negative behaviours empowers the Shadow.

When we die, the death of our brain causes the Shadow Self to become more than just a psychological counterpart, and they are now more free. They take on a terrifying form and seek to tear us apart. We all end up facing our Shadows while in the Underworld, and if we are not prepared, they will attack us repeatedly and cause our stay there to be greatly prolonged. In order to prevent this, we need to do shadow work in this life so we can understand our negative traits through in-depth analyzations . Look at your greatest burdens, how you view yourself and others, your self-destructive habits, your negative feelings- all of these come from the Shadow. We must understand this part of ourselves in order to understand how to mend them and eventually, overpower our Shadow Self. We will have to do this in the Underworld, otherwise, one will need to be able to hold it off long enough until the Judgment is over, which is when the Shadow will be destroyed. 

Elysium

After a Ka successfully makes it through the trials of the Underworld, they are brought to Elysium, which is a realm of Paradise where we rest and wait for our Ba to come retrieve us. Most spirits will remain together in Elysium for a year, but if the spirit achieved Awakening (realization of their higher self’s identity) while still alive, they will be able to leave sooner. When the higher self arrives, they will approach the Ka and absorb them into themself, and then will return home. Thus, the Ba and Ka are united and the lifetime is completed. 

If the higher self is a human, the Ba will have to reincarnate after a decade of being back in the spirit world, starting the process again with another unborn spirit (Ka) until they achieve Illumination. A human higher self will no longer need to reincarnate once Illumination is achieved by one of their embodiments. Other higher selves, such as those that are Higher beings than humans (demonic, angelic, draconic, etc.), will not have to reincarnate all the time; instead choosing to do so in order to help the world progress through their human.

Conclusion

Overall, it is extremely important to realize that our task in life is to achieve Awakening, which is done through seeking the identity of our higher self (Ba), bonding with our higher self through meditation and communication, and to seek true knowledge on the spirit world. We also must make certain to overcome our Shadows by keeping our actions and thoughts in check; thus allowing us to become the best we can be. If we manage to overcome our attachments, negative thinking, and toxic behaviours, we will have less trials to suffer through. All of these things will allow for a smooth transition through Death and to become one with our Ba.

The Underworld (in-depth description)

[astrolovecosmos]

Uranus in the Houses: Individualism

Uranus in the 1st: I’m sure you’d imagine quite the quirky and interesting person with this placement. While this certainly can be true, there is something about questioning identity. Uranus indicates a “higher mind”, innovation, moments of discovery. Identity is not fluid, not easily lost, and not obscure BUT they may fall into re-discovering themselves over and over again. Individuality is tightly connected to expression and intellect somehow. Seeking change in how they represent themselves may be something they crave or do naturally. There is something special about exploring all facets of the self. 

Uranus in the 2nd: Individuality in how they view self-worth or approach security may manifest. Being inventive and original in practical, sensual, physical ways is another way to look at this placement. “Unique ways to make money” is the trademark of this position but there is much more to this house than money and possessions. Uranus in this House may show their uniqueness in how they spend money or what they buy but they also show their individuality through the physical realm and this can mean many things. This is one to own a “conversation starter” whether it is in their fashion choices or home decor. Having an unconventional approach to what a society deems as “practical” may happen. There is something special about physically living, valuing, and really existing on a different level. 

Uranus in the 3rd: “Eccentric communicator” is the label many put on this placement. So yes, individuality is certainly seen in how they crack jokes, spur up debates, and bring up odd, political, or even taboo subjects. Here we see that “higher mind” showing social intuition and observation. They approach the realm of socialization, learning, and expressing differently. They are very eager to learn about others and about the world around them. The way they learn could show individuality and uniqueness. In their earlier years they may have stood out a lot among peers, especially in a classroom setting. There is something special about living in the realm of ideas and sharing for them. 

Uranus in the 4th: Unconventional family life or domestic life can pop up with this placement. In terms of individuality this comes from freedom to be themselves apart from a family or tight community. Deep-seeded Influence upon them, comfort, attachments, and roots - these things shape them into a sculpture different than others with their same upbringing. This doesn’t just mean the black sheep in the family, this can mean the odd one out in a school, church, or organization. Being “different” doesn’t always mean being an outcast or something negative. With the 4th being a house about safety and comfort, they may find their individuality or express it best when being disruptive towards that comfort/security. There is something special about constantly stepping out of their comfort zone. 

Uranus in the 5th: That individuality shines through the bright 5th House in expression and creativity. Unique fashion sense ✓, has combined quirkiness with flair ✓, unforgettable party goer ✓, original artist  ✓. Don’t forget being an “individualist” when it comes to romance. Uranus at times can make someone with this position highly independent and doesn’t want to be in any relationship that threatens their individuality or freedom. Uranus isn’t necessarily known for self-focus but it can be known for separation and a focus on what makes you, you. With that focus comes a theme of rushing into relationships with like-minded people but then still trying hard to protect their differences and freedom to express. There can be a tug-of-war in love. Really individuality sometimes shows the most or is solidified through how they are different from their lovers yet still find common ground. It shows through their art. It shows through their speeches. It shows through their big ideas. It shows through their celebrations. There is something special about never losing yourself while still connecting with another. 

Uranus in the 6th: Don’t sleep on this placement! Sure we could talk about unconventional healing and maybe being a healer is one way they stand out. Uncommon illnesses and accidents are tied to this but let’s talk about other areas of the 6th. Other environments that their uniqueness can show and breathe in. Here is someone who stands out in their everyday routine, in their work space, and in their habits. They can be innovative and original, breaking away from the normal humdrum of everyday life. Uranus in the 6th can be a strength for teamwork and altruism. They know how to change a negative or toxic environment or routine into something liberating. They may serve others by helping them break free, start anew, or giving them the knowledge they need to better their situation. Despite Uranus sometimes being looked at as a planet about disruption, chaos, “being apart” - in this house Uranus intelligently approaches inefficiency, which many times could be due to a lack of cooperation or understanding. There’s something special about how they can bring people together but also push them apart, whichever equals an improvement. 

Uranus in the 7th: Independence can be both a gift and a struggle in love for this individual. Sacrificing freedom and individuality will never, ever happen. On the surface many have pinned this placement as one showing commitment issues. But let’s look at this as individuality in how we connect with others on a whole. Throw out gender roles, societal expectations for marriage or even friendship, rework master and apprentice. Individuality comes in how they treat others. Their expectations and “roles” in their relationships. An enemy? A rival? They likely don’t think of them how you may typically think of an “enemy”. Respect, equality, and give and take are all approached in a way that allows them to not be bound by how you perceive them and even how you care for them. There is something special about their harmony, their connections, their vibrations with others. 

Uranus in the 8th: Individuality is a precious thing shared with others. There is a desire for absolute acceptance and understanding in their closest relationships or within intimacy. Sharing the mind may make them feel more vulnerable than sharing anything else. A great desire to understand the taboo, the occult, the mysterious, metaphysics, life and death exist here. Their individuality can be kept in a darker place only to be shared with a few. On some level this could make someone seem a conformist, basic, etc. But don’t confuse this with the secrets and hidden attributes of the 12th House. Sometimes this can be more literal in that what makes them special is a darkness in their past. How they deal with pain or negativity can stand out. Also the taboo or occult may be an area they feel most comfortable in expressing their true self. Sometimes  throw out the average cabbage picture - this may also be the occultist in your community, not afraid to show their spell books or rave about their love for true crime documentaries and podcasts (which honestly isn’t that unusual but I’m trying to give you a visual the best I can). The 8th House with its dark and heavy reputation, I don’t want anyone thinking the darkness in their life is the only thing that makes them “special”. Rather that trauma could have been uncommon. The way they understand the darkness and unpredictability of the world is more of the emphasis I want to make. 

Uranus in the 9th: They stand out in their beliefs, morals, or possibly education. Truth and lies play a role in what makes them “unique”. There could be a tendency of bolstering up their individuality, possibly at a young age or when feeling insecure. When secure, when fulfilled, when they have an open mind and are actively learning they show their uniqueness, especially the uniqueness in what they believe in truthfully, openly, proudly. Uranus drives this individual to make a statement in their beliefs or non-beliefs even. This can be presented in so many positive or negative ways. Finding meaning in one’s life is also part of this house. They may stand out the most in the lengths they go to find meaning. From the tamer backpacking across Europe to find themselves, to exploring different religions, to more erratic actions and choices of completely abandoning a long-standing career for something very different or even giving up everything they own to help others may happen. There is something special in how they see a different way to think, believe, and in a way be. 

Uranus in the 10th: We can’t ignore that they are going to seem “different” or “special” somehow in the public sphere. Before we talk about fame, know there is a lot about connecting with and belonging to society with this placement. The way they think about or approach society could be unique. The way they fit into society can be unconventional as well. They pay attention to the collective, can tap into it. That intellectual side of the planet can drive them to analyze and understand the collective, law, society, social issues. I would say that standing out in your career or having your individualism show here is a prominent manifestation, especially in parts of the world where career are everything to a society. There’s something special about standing out in the crowd, in the boardroom, in the industry.

Uranus in the 11th: This placement is known to hang around rebels and outliers. This is part of their individuality, befriending those on the fringe of society or the norm. The way they fit into groups and organizations is unique. They may stand out as a leader in a club or friend group. They may be the glue among friends too. The way they view fellowship and approach it is likely unconventional. When it comes to the collective, much like the 10th house position they too can tap into it. The 10th sees trends in what society values and within laws and reputation while the 11th taps into social trends, new ideas, sees where society is headed on a larger scale or with the big picture. They can have goals that are on a different wavelength than most. They dream big and originally. This house can be about extending the self to others. With Uranus we can see someone who does this in an humanitarian way, highly social way, or maybe  intellectually focused way. There is something special about giving and taking from the group. 

Uranus in the 12th: Known for hidden individuality that wants to bubble to the surface. “Associated with past revolution and upheaval” according to Judy Hall. Individuality is shown best when they have confidence and pride in their uniqueness. It is also shown best when they rebel against the norm. Here can be a powerful position for the “rebel”, “anarchist”, or “innovator”. Their individuality can also shine through by helping others in a large way, through humanitarian deeds. Eccentricities will be both their weakness and strength. At times the emotional heaviness of the house can make them feel unstable and insecure about their differences, other times they can tap into their inner genius, trendsetter, and visionary. There is something special about just being different. 

[veryvincible]

Hey! 👋🏼 I was looking at Tonys panel with Carol and his AA panels. It got me thinking how can a person like Tony .. who is an atheist, a believer of science and a confident engineer rely on AA which has a religious foundation (the 12 steps) and place so power on God. I know secular AA have different takes on it and encourage a personal definition of God as any higher power the person may choose. But doesn’t that defeat Tonys belief? Because I don’t think he believes in a higher power regardless if it’s a deity or not.

This is a wonderful question. There’s a lot of nuance to the answer, in my opinion, because I think there are some things called into question here that Tony (very realistically) treats with a lot of complexity.

Firstly, Tony’s atheism is kind of... I don’t want to say it’s up in the air, because at this point, I think it’s kind of made its place in canon and fanon both. But, most likely as a result of the times in which he was created, he has been shown in canon (at least in the early stages of his life) to follow some sort of organized religion. This is from Iron Man Vol. 1 #164, and it’s... not strong evidence for him being a spiritual man, as most people who call themselves “not that religious” tend to be religious by way of traditions, but. You know. It is what it is.

Of course, we could dismiss this as yet another thing that early canon imposed on a character who wouldn’t be like that at this point in time, but I think it brings up interesting beats in the way Tony’s character has progressed over the years.

Considering him as someone who may have been raised as traditionally religious makes sense in the context of defining events, as well, given that we watch him pray the Lord’s prayer in #14 of Iron Man Vol. 4, one of his Civil War tie-ins.

Given the proximity to the alcohol (and the point he’s at in the timeline, here), one could also easily assume that even if he had no religious background, the very presence of the Lord’s prayer in AA meetings could have formed a connection in his head between this “worship” and sobriety-- at the very least, enough of one that the prayer strengthens the effectiveness of his willpower. It seems the little push he needs to pour a drink down the drain is borderline Pavlovian.

There’s actually a lot of religious imagery in Tony comics in general. He’s a man with a suit facing conundrums of cosmic proportions. It’s difficult for him to keep rationale exclusively within the range of earthly probabilities.

Point is, his atheism doesn’t come from his disbelief in a higher power. It’s quite the contrary, actually. His atheism comes from a belief that there’s no single entity that could claim the title of God, that any being willing to try has, just by being, already forfeited the title.

Which is a fair assessment to make, given that he’s fought many people claiming to be Gods, and they’ve all bled. He’s also watched people worship Gods that turned out to not... really be Gods, whether they were otherworldly beings, his buddy Thor, or, uh, himself. The idea of him, at least. In space.

Because of course that happened.

But Tony actually does have a higher power to give himself up to in these meetings. In Civil War II #1, he very explicitly states it:

“I respect the future. I believe in the future. I worship at its feet.”

“The Future” to him is something he can affect, certainly, but he’s aware of just how massive it is, just how massive all of time is compared to the few decades he’ll spend on earth. This is his higher power, his cosmic deity of choice.

It can’t bleed. It can’t falter. It’s inevitable.

And this mindset is... pretty in line with everything else he’s done. He’s referred to himself as a “necessary monster.” He’s implied many times over that he thinks he’s rotten and potentially dangerous, but he’s also intelligent and capable and he wants to do the right thing, even if he doesn’t always know what that is. 

If you’ve ever been in a religious environment, you’ll probably recognize his mindset going into any problem: there’s always a solution, always information he’s missing, always a “right choice” he’s looking for with a domino effect that’ll be as favorable as possible for future generations. He trusts in the future the way people trust in God, with an awareness that he’ll never have all the pieces to make sense of everything, but he can have enough information to act. And he must act, or else his worth, his right to be alive, even, is at stake.

So, needless to say, he’s not praying to a mainstream God. But religious imagery isn’t and has never been off-putting to him, and though he certainly could seek out unreligious (is that a word?) alternatives to AA, I find it hard to believe that he would, given just how influential his higher power of choice is as it guides him through life. He puts everything at stake for it, going so far as to make choices that will destroy not only himself, but also his relationships with his loved ones if it means he’s doing what he perceives to be the right thing.

Secondly, even if he were a man who had no belief in any form of higher power, not even a stand-in for it, AA still might not be something he’d discard in favor of an alternative.

Religion serves as a guide. Most often, it has “do”s and “do not”s, certain beliefs it supports, and a kind of... basic explanation of what human life is and how it should be treated. One of the more common threads among most religions that I’m aware of (I am not an expert in religious studies; please don’t @ me) is the idea that human life is generally sacred, and as such, people should treat each other with respect. Yes, some texts can contradict this, but the general rule is “be nice to each other!” when you really look at the basics of what people are trying to teach. At its core, religion is linked to what we as humans already tend to for the sake of survival: compassion.

As such, though we might not always identify with religion as a concept, it’s not difficult to identify with some religious morals and teachings. Some people take to certain teachings better than others-- it’s super case-by-case-- but if you’re stuck in a religious environment listening to some preaching or anything, there’s probably going to be something you can relate to, and some way you can morph and adopt the message. This isn’t, like, all-encompassing, by the way. Of course there are some things that atheists and religious folk will never be able to relate to within each other, but.

You get what I mean.

I’m an atheist myself. I spent a chunk of my schooling at a religious institution. At best, there were messages that affected me deeply (as they were hard-hitting even when I stripped them of the God-worshipping aspects). At worst, I had to grit my teeth through some assignments, though I felt mostly indifferent (if slightly resentful at times, more out of frustration with the closed-mindedness of the administration than with the concept of religion itself). My experience isn’t universal, of course-- some people in my shoes were more frustrated and angry than I was, and I can see why. But my point is, being an atheist in and of itself (even one as strict as Tony) doesn’t render religious imagery useless.

For example, if you happen to pass by a pastor preaching about struggles with guilt, you might not identify with the sentiment of “Give your worries to God and know He’ll take care of you.” However, you could identify with the sentiment of, “Those little things, those side effects of decisions you’ve made? They’re here. Those decisions have been made. You’re allowed to swallow past the reality of what it is that’s passed and move on. You’re allowed to let go of it, so long as you’re better today than you were yesterday.”

It’s especially easy to do this if you’re listening to or being exposed to content from a religion you’re already familiar with; in Tony’s case, if we assume he was a Christian at one point or was raised with Christian ideals (not unbelievable in the slightest, given his circumstances and upbringing), then he wouldn’t have to do a lot of heavy lifting in order to get to “core messages” of certain Christian teachings that he could still identify with. Couple that with the higher power mentioned before, and... it’s not hard to see what might be appealing to him about AA, and it’s not hard to see why it was so effective at sticking in his mind all the way through his darkest periods in life.

Now comes the less healthy part.

There’s also an aspect of self-flagellation to it that I feel Tony might identify with on a deeper level. We’ve seen him hate himself openly, and we know how he regards himself. Even if he managed to find himself in a courthouse-like environment where the religious undertones were more about judgment than recovery, I don’t know that that would necessarily... push him away? He’s already told himself there’s something rotting and evil at his core many times over. He’s already committed himself to a lifestyle of atonement and progress, punishing himself when he fails to accomplish things no human reasonably could and barely praising himself when he doesn’t fail. Do I think these kinds of meetings would be totally sustainable for him, given that he clearly needs to feel pride or relief on some level for conquering his demons? No, not really, but. I don’t think he’d abandon them straight away.

Besides, every healing environment he’s been shown in has been more on the welcoming, open side, even if we only get to see a bare bones interpretation of AA (with deeper exploration happening more with Tony’s response to it, or his and Carol’s responses to each other) in canon. He’s in a good place with it, and it’s very nice to see.

Tl;dr: Again, great question. At the end of the day, I think the combination of self-loathing, his desire for progress, and his conceptualization of “the future” as his higher power makes AA a good fit for him despite his lack of a belief in "God” as an entity.

[wisdomrays]

QUESTIONS & ANSWERS: What is Jihad? Part: 7

Sometimes he got up to pray without wakening his wife, since he did not want to disturb her sleep. 'A'isha narrates:

One night I woke up to find the Messenger was not there. Thinking that he might be visiting another of his wives, I became very jealous. I started to get up, when my hand touched his feet in the darkness. He was prostrating and saying in his prayer: "O God, I seek refuge in Your pleasure from Your wrath, I seek refuge in Your forgiveness from Your punishment. O God, I seek refuge with You from You, I seek refuge in Your grace from Your torment, in Your mercy from Your majesty, and in Your Compassion from Your irresistible power. I am not able to praise You as You praise Yourself."

Being well aware of the obligation to follow his every action, his Companions did their best to be worthy of his company in the Hereafter. Some became physically distressed at the thought of being parted from him in the next life. For example, Thawban lost his appetite after he was unable to participate in a military expedition. On the Prophet's return, everyone went out to meet him. Thawban was so pale that the Messenger asked about his health. Thawban replied:

O Messenger, I am obsessed with fear of being parted from you in the Hereafter. You are the Messenger, so you will enter Paradise, but I don't know whether I shall deserve it. And even if God admits me, your abode certainly will be very much above mine. In this case, I shall not be able to be in your company forever. I don't know how I will be able to bear this, seeing that I cannot endure 3 days' separation from you in this world.

Thawban's worries were relieved when the Messenger told him: "You will always be in the company of the one whom you love." To love someone means to follow his or her example in this life, and the Companions were more attentive to this than any other people.

'Umar was very eager to establish a family relationship with the Messenger, for he had heard the latter say that all genealogical connections would be useless in the Hereafter, except for those with his own household. Although the Prophet held 'Umar's hand many times and said: "We will be this (like the two hands together) in the Hereafter too," 'Umar still desired the family connection. He attempted to achieve this by marrying Fatima, but she would only marry 'Ali. He married his daughter Hafsa to the Prophet and, in the later years of his caliphate, married 'Ali's daughter Umm Kulthum. If he had wished, he could have married a neighboring emperor's daughter. But his desire was to be allied to the Prophet's household.

Once Hafsa said to 'Umar: My dear father, from time to time foreign envoys come and you receive embassies. You should change your garment for a new one. 'Umar was shocked by this suggestion and replied: "How can I endure to part company with my two friends, the Prophet and Abu Bakr? I must follow their example so strictly that I can be with them in the Hereafter."

The Messenger and his Companions succeeded in the greater jihad, and their devotion to God was very strong. They spent so much of their time praying that those who saw them thought they did nothing else. But this was not the case, for they led thoroughly balanced lives.

They were very sincere in their deeds, since they did everything for the sake of God and constantly disciplined themselves. Once when 'Umar was giving a sermon, he suddenly said without any apparent reason: "O 'Umar, you were a shepherd pasturing your father's sheep." When asked after the prayer why he had said this, he answered: "It came to my mind that I was the caliph, so I became afraid of feeling proud." One day he was seen carrying a sack upon his back. When asked why he was doing this, he replied: "I felt some pride within me, so I desired to get rid of it." A later caliph, 'Umar Ibn 'Abd al-'Aziz, once wrote a letter to a friend and then tore it up. When asked why, he explained: "I prided myself on its eloquence, so I have torn it up."

Only jihad performed by such perfect souls produces effective results. Those who have not abandoned pride, self-regard, and insincerity most probably will damage the cause of Islam greatly. I would like to emphasize that such people will never obtain the desired result.

Some Qur'anic verses or chapters describe both types of jihad. One of them is: When the help of God comes, and victory, and you see men entering God's religion in throngs, then glorify the praise of your Lord, and seek His forgiveness; for He is Relenting, Merciful (110:1–3). When the believers performed the lesser jihad, whether by fighting, preaching, or enjoining the right and forbidding the wrong, God's help and victory came, and people began to enter Islam in throngs. At that moment, the All-Mighty decreed that His praises should be glorified and His forgiveness should be sought. As all success and victory are from God, it is He who must be praised and worshipped.

If we can combine our triumph over the enemy with our triumph over our carnal selves, we will have performed jihad completely. 'A'isha narrates that after the revelation of these verses, the Messenger often recited this prayer: "I glorify You with praise, O God. I seek Your forgiveness, and I turn in repentance to You."

The Prophet expresses these two aspects of jihad together in one of his sayings: "The eyes of two persons will never witness Hellfire: the eyes of the soldier who guards the frontier and on the battlefield, and the eyes of those who shed tears for fear of God." [13] The first person is engaged in the lesser jihad; the latter is engaged in the greater jihad. Those who succeed in their jihad will escape the torment of Hell.

We must consider jihad in its entirety. Those who say one thing and then do another cause nothing but trouble in the ranks of Muslims. Since they cannot discipline themselves and overcome self-regard, ostentation, and the desire to dominate, they bring only disharmony to the cause of Islam. On the other hand, those who live in almost total seclusion and try to attain some high spiritual station without working to promote the truth merely reduce Islam to a "spiritual" system, like certain aspects of yoga. Such people argue that a Muslim's foremost duty is to acquire spiritual maturity so as to be saved from Hell. What they fail to realize is that those who regard themselves as safe from Hell are deceived, for God decrees that we should continue to serve Him as long as we live: And serve your Lord till the inevitable (death) comes unto you (15:99).

Muslims should never regard themselves as safe from the torments of Hell or give up hope of God's grace and forgiveness. They should tremble with fear of God, as 'Umar did. However, this fear should not prevent them from hoping to enter Paradise: But for those who fear the standing before their Lord there are two Gardens (55:46).

In short, jihad consists of self-control and preaching the truth. It requires overcoming one's carnal desires and encouraging others to do the same. Neglecting the former produces social anarchy, while neglecting the latter results in laziness. Today we must achieve a true understanding of Islam in general, and of jihad in particular. This can be realized only through strictly following the Prophet's Sunna.

[parasite-core]

Man. So we started Wrath of the Righteous last night. And it was…quite the session. It was…let’s say tonally fitting. In that we’ve had our first ever permanent PC death.

So my half-elf warpriest of Iomedae Draven was mentor of sorts to the party’s paladin Auriel, a shabti seeking his purpose and finding it as a crusader of Iomedae. They were both part of the Raven Corps, the lowest ranking members of the crusaders, basically the reserves, kept for glorified guard duty at best, and looked down on by everyone as the weakest links.

The day of the Armice festival, Draven and Auriel stumbled upon a notorious serial killer called the Butcher of Bellstreet in the storage house of the nearby temple, where they also found a symbol of the demon lord Deskari carved into the floor. The Butcher told them it was there when he got there, and they should be more concerned with the metal box in the room. Then he made a run for it. Draven told Auriel to check the box while he ran after the Butcher. Draven and the Butcher had a rooftop chase, while Auriel uncovered a mummified locust demon in a box with more Deskari symbology on it.

At the same time, an inquisitor of Shelyn, Melody, who had just arrived to town following a songbird across the continent saw Draven giving chase to the Butcher. She ran into Auriel in time for him to try to ask for assistance catching the Butcher, who they all believed was responsible for the Deskari conspiracy they’d just uncovered.

In the roof, Draven had fallen behind due to his heavy armor slowing him from climbing compared to his swifter foe, forcing him to find an alternate path. However the Butcher was slowed when he came to a bridge he needed to lower. At that time Melody got into range to cast forbid action, forbidding the Butcher from moving. Draven was able to catch up to him, and noticed that strangely he’d stuffed his clothes full of oranges to appear more bulky. He didn’t have time to process this however because a moment later he was yeeted off the root, landed near the festivities. Members of the color guard came to check on him, and he informed them that he’d been pursuing the Butcher, and of the Deskari symbol in the storage room.

On the roof Auriel tried to smite evil the Butcher after he insulted Iomedae, but the smite didn’t take, instead redirecting to the nearest valid target—the box the Butcher was holding. Melody tried to talk to the Butcher, who was frustrated and snapped at her that he was the Butcher of Bellstreet and he’d kill her whole family yada yada if she didn’t get out of his way. She realized he was just saying what he expected her to hear and maybe wasn’t really the threat he was trying to seem like. She tried to cut off his escape route so they could talk…but slipped up on her attempt and fell to the ground beside Draven.

The Butcher made a run for it, but the Eagle Watch Brigade cornered them, with Draven tailing behind them. The Butcher doubled back and tried jumping off the bridge and making a break for it, but then someone else used hold person on him. Another high ranking member of the crusades, Lady Salzara, showed up with her own sect of crusaders. She had Draven, Melody, and Auriel come with her along with forcing the Butcher to come along.

She went to give a speech, about how on this auspicious day a ‘lost lamb’ had been returned to them. When suddenly there was a horrible cracking noise. The building that housed the Ward Stone, the artifact that protected the city from the demon incursion, shattered. The barrier was destroyed. Demons began swarming in, slaughtering people. The head Paladin Commander Hol Rune was killed instantly without even being able to put up a fight.

Then the silver dragon Trendelev swooped down. He told us that the four of us had a grave destiny ahead of us, and that despite any misgivings we might have about one another we needed to work together to stop the evil that had befallen this city. He cast a spell, and the four of us, and three others, were cast down into the bowls of the earth, and into darkness, as our final sight was the great dragon, protector of Kenabres, facing the Storm King Khorramzadeh.

We woke later in a dark space with scattered memories that slowly returned. The Butcher removed ‘his’ hood after Draven made a quip about the oranges and revealed he was actually a middle aged woman with one demonic red eye, by the name of Luna. She was accused of being a serial killer in her teenage years for reasons we don’t yet know, and leaned into it, making an infamous name for herself in her Butcher guise. In reality, according to her she’d never killed anyone.

Melody lit a light cantrip, and we found the four of us weren’t alone. We were joined by a merchant noble, a crusader with a crushed and broken leg, and an elven wizard whose eyes had been completed blinded.

Draven healed the crusader, Anevia Tirabade, to the best of his ability, and realized she is the wife of the head of the Eagle Watch, Irabeth Tirabade. Someone he and many members of the Raven Corps look up to as she was originally a member of the Raven Corps who foiled a plot to destroy the Ward Stone many years prior and earned a name and rank for herself in the process.

Afterwards they checked on the elven man, Aravashnial, and had to break the news to him that they were not simply in magical darkness, but that he’d been blinded. Aravashnial was proud and didn’t want to be sidelined by this and was a bit headstrong initially. Draven tried to reason with him, trying to connect with the fact he’d lost one eye himself and had to relearn how to fight without the use of his left eye. He told him while he did believe in time he’d be able to relearn how to do what he could before, it *would* take time, and they were in a dangerous situation where rushing in (literally blindly) would be a poor choice. He and Melody also said he’d still be very helpful for his knowledge of the arcane, as absolutely no one else in this group knew a damn thing about arcane anything. Aravashnial couldn’t be said to be happy about his situation still obviously, but he was a bit less hard headed about trying to force his way into the lead into a dangerous position in his current state.

Last, there was the merchant, Horgus Gwerm. He was…unpleasant. He ended up in an argument with Luna and they went off on their own. They opened the box that Auriel had detected as evil, and removed a book from inside. Horgus tried to burn it, but it wouldn’t take, to which Aravashnial made a snide remark. We took notice that this trio seemed to not get along particularly well.

We moved forward, fighting through a number of nasty vermin, until we found an abandoned temple to Torag. Auriel and Anevia both wanted to stop here, Auriel to pay respects and to cleanse the forgotten temple, and Anevia to rest and mourn the state of the fallen temple.

Horgus didn’t want to stick around. He felt like Anevia and Aravashnial were slowing us down. He told Luna they were leaving—apparently he’d hired Luna as his bodyguard. He told us that he could pay us to come as well. The rest of us said in no uncertain terms that we wouldn’t be abandoning the injured for any amount of gold. Luna then managed to talk to him and convince him that it would be in his own best interest to keep strength in numbers, because even if the injured would slow us down, having four able bodied warriors as opposed to one was better for him. (In reality she was more worried that the injured people would get killed sticking with just the three of us without her, and tbh so were we, she’s definitely the strongest out of the four of us. Draven would admit it without pause at this point.)

We managed to reopen the temple and get inside, only to be accounted by the undead inhabitant: the remains of the priest who died in blaspheme in his final moments.

Our three holy members smote him, used judgements and blessings to empower our weapons…and all three of us missed all of our attacks. And Luna, the atheist who has a chip on her shoulder about religion, destroyed the undead priest in two attacks with no help from any holy magic at all. She was feeling very smug about it.

We decided to take a rest there. Auriel spent eight hours cleansing and reconsecrating the temple. Draven and Melody spent some time talking to Aravashnial and Anevia. Melody got…inquisitive…and got some backstory from Aravashnial about how his relationship had been ruined due to Anevia’s wife’s attempts to get the riftwardens to work with the crusaders. Then she found out about how Anevia and Aravashnial accidentally almost ruined Horgus’ reputation with accusations of being a worshipper of Baphomet, which ended up being proven to be baseless, but which led to someone ransacking Horgus’ place of work and besmirching his name. Draven, Melody, and Luna gently suggested/twisted Anevia’s arm that she and the other two should have a conversation like adults and apologize to each other because it sounds like they’ve all screwed each other over a bit and if they’re going to work together to get out of here they need to start with a clean slate. She wasn’t happy about it and said it sounded more painful than her broken leg but she reluctantly agreed, and in the morning the three of them did talk and seemed to be on more amicable terms going forward.

The next day the party met a group of people living beneath the city whose appearance was warped by demonic influence, known only as mongrel-men. We helped to rescue one of their number, Krel, from a cave in after convincing them we weren’t there to hurt them. They asked us to come with them to meet their chief, and we agreed.

On the way, we went through a cave, where we found what at first appeared to be two dead Iomedae crusaders. However the weapons they held weren’t longswords, and upon examining their bodies they had an unholy symbol of Baphomet on them. False crusaders, masquerading as one of our order. Draven and Auriel were incensed, and upon learning these people were the reason the village of mutants had thought we were enemies, we had all the more reason to want to meet with their chief. Draven and Auriel had decided we were going cultist hunting.

We met with the chief, who was happy to let us pass through his village if we intended to deal with the Baphomet cultists and the traitors of his people who had joined them. He asked only one thing in returned, which was that once we reached the surface, if we could put in a good word for his people. He believed it was time for them to rejoin the fight against the demons, as they were the descendants of the original crusaders, and the fight against the demons was in their blood. Auriel, Draven, and Anevia agreed to put in a good word for them, and Anevia brought up that her wife, the head of the Eagle Watch, is a half-orc, so times and old biases are changing, and hopefully people will be able to see past appearances.

After stocking up on some supplies, the party made for the fortress of the Baphomet cultists. The alarm got raised immediately, and it was a fight the entire way through. There was a nasty ranger who kept popping up and taking pot shots at Draven (because favored enemy) and he’d knock out most of my health in a single shot despite me having a ton of health for level 1. And then I got poisoned by a monitor lizard. And then I jumped down a hole and got shot again right after healing. And Auriel almost got eaten by an amoeba.

Anyways we slowly pushed our way forward, until we found the cultist of Baphomet, her tiefling servant, and that damn ranger. The cultist told us to throw down our weapons and surrender to be sacrificed at a more dignified location. Each of us said ‘fuck you’ in our own way.

Auriel’s way was to smite evil on her, rush in, and get a critical hit on his attack. He almost killed her in a single attack of holy fury.

Then she retaliated. As did her tiefling servant. Auriel went down. Luna and Melody went after the cultist. Draven went after the tiefling. Then the ranger stepped back out. An arrow in Draven’s back, and he went down too, right next to Auriel, right as Auriel failed his final con save and breathed his last breath.

Melody killed the tiefling. Reinforcements arrived, but at the same time Aravashnial and Anevia arrived—too stubborn to allow themselves to be left behind after all. Luna crit and killed the cultist as she tried to escape with a box she pulled out from the corner she’d been trapped in. The box flew open. A shining holy sword flew out, and stabbed into Auriel’s body. In the place between life and death, the spirit of the sword spoke to Auriel’s spirit, barely held together, and gave him a choice. Did he feel he had completed what he had been out on this path to do? Did he find the answers he’d been seeking? If so, the spirit would guide him to the Boneyard, and final rest. If not, he would return, bound more closely than before to Iomedae’s will.

Auriel decided that he had his answer. In his final act he’d done something in Iomedae’s name, and that was enough for him. He was ready to move on. And so he was guided away, and as shabtis do, when he died his soul shattered. A piece remained with the sword, and allowed Radiance to awaken for Draven—a warpriest, not a paladin, but someone trusted by a paladin so strongly in his final moments that it allowed it nonetheless.

Unconscious, Draven began to hear the sword calling to him, and its magic began to slowly heal his wounds.

At the same time Melody and Luna were brawling with the ranger, who was continuing to be a pain in the ass. I hate this guy. So much. He was played really smart. Good on the GM. But also fuck this guy so much lol.

Aravashnial healed Draven with a potion, and back to consciousness he heard Radiance speaking in earnest. He also saw that the holy blade was planted in his friend and mentee’s chest. For the first time the smile Draven always wears fell. He drew Radiance, stepped over to the ranger who had been shooting him full of holes this entire dungeon, and skewed him without a quip or a flourish.

Draven lost it a bit after that. Melody and Luna both blames themselves and he told them no. Then Melody said not to blame himself but he laughed manically and said it *was* his fault because everyone around him always dies, not because he’s a crusader but because he’s him. Then he carried Auriel’s body back to the underground city. Even Horgus mourned when he saw what had happened.

That night Draven tried to go off on his own but Melody wouldn’t let him. Draven told her it was better if people weren’t around him, to which she disagreed. He told her again that everyone around him dies, to which she disagreed. He told her that he’d run into demons two times before the most recent attack. The first time he lost his family. The second time he lost his friends and his eye. And now this time he lost his city, and his friend, and…possibly even Leto, he realizes. He’d been trying not to think about it, but his best friend, his childhood friend, had been in the city when the demons attacked, he might be dead too. He went a little manic again at the idea that even the golden boy, his brother, the one person who always escaped Draven’s bad luck, might be dead. Melody snapped at him a bit, telling him he wasn’t the only one who had lost people, and that if he was going to make it a one upping thing, then what hurt worse, losing it all at once, or seeing everyone you love slowly wither away and being helpless to do anything? Draven couldn’t and wouldn’t answer that, and Melody didn’t want an answer because there was none. They ended up going their separate ways for the night.

The next day Draven told Melody to forget about everything he’d said. She told him he couldn’t, because that would cheapen everything he’d felt. Draven reluctantly compromised and asked that she just not tell anyone about what they’d talked about, to which she agreed, and he in turn said for fairness sake he wouldn’t share what she’d told him in the heat of the moment either.

The party travelled through the underground until the arrived in a sewer tunnel. They found three orphans, who recognized Luna and were happy to see her. With them was a tiefling woman (Auriel’s player’s backup character), who told the party things had gone to hell outside. And that’s that.

[merryfortune]

Maiden, Mother, Crone

Written for the Heart & Soul Zine by @aygozineproduction

Fandom: Yu-Gi-Oh! Vrains

Word Count: 2.7k

Tags: References to Ancient Greek Religion & Lore, Mother Complex, Mother-Son Relationship, Suicidal Themes, Angst, Canon Retelling

Synopsis: An examination of Spectre's life and his relationship with his mother and her avatar, Sunavalon Dryatrentiay, through the mythological lens of Adonis and his struggles, supplemented with the concept of the triple goddess.

                     i. Maiden

  He was born to a tree, like Adonis, or so Spectre fancied. The actuality was not quite so whimsical. He had been abandoned, simple and cruel and true as that. He had been placed there, in the roots of her trunk, to become forgotten and to become the earth. Yet, in this place he was left to die, he felt held there. Comforted. The tree shuddered as that person abandoned him and she, the tree, took him in to love him as only a mother could.

  The moon, he remembered, was beautiful. Glimpsed through the foliage of his Mother Tree. It was wide and shining, a holy disc of distant silver. Serene and splendid in the night sky, surrounded by its family, the stars. It was a perfect night, cool but not cold. If only she, his Mother Tree, could hold him and if only he could be held by her, but he slept in peace with her as his guardian until he was discovered by more of his humankind, the woman from the orphanage.

  The woman was twenty-something, yet to come to her prime, yet to become a mother herself, and yet she had heard some sort of maternal calling that had brought her to her current occupation. But her arms felt wrong to be held in. He wanted to be returned to her, his mother, the tree, but instead his cries were misinterpreted.

  It felt wrong to him to be held in human arms. It felt wrong to him to be cared for by a human. From when he was an infant, he could feel a call back to nature, that he could be more properly nurtured in the shade of foliage and the grass. He tried to describe it, but he was laughed at – and worse – for being just that little bit strange.

  He didn’t feel strange. Just lonely and yearning.

  He kept listening to that call. That urge. And eventually, it brought him back to her. Even though his legs were short, and his hands were small, he was able to return to his Mother’s side, where she waited in that meadow, for him, welcoming him back. He was able to rest better there, nestled in the grass at her roots.

  It was when he was missing that he felt the most at home.

  The uniqueness of his psyche further differentiated from his peers when he was returned to what was supposed to have been the Underworld. To him, it had been the field of Elysium. When he played his cards right, on that stage, wearing those VR goggles, all around him he would see the tall and sparkling flowers of that hallowed place in digital wonder.

  He felt tested within that crucible for better, not for worse. He wanted to do his best for them, even if he didn’t know who they were but he was right. If he saw them, he would know them and when he saw Ryoken, he knew right away. That he was connected to that Incident and that he could bring back the fun times that Spectre desired.

  He simply could not settle for that life. Ordinary and attempting to be undisturbed. He wasn’t allowed to talk about his experiences, and when he did, he was scolded harshly. Told that he was wrong about even his own feelings. Raging against this stifling conformity that was making it worse, he knew that he had to seek out the only one in his life whom he knew would understand.

  It was then that he discovered something ghastly. His Mother Tree had been chopped down. Cleaved straight and horizontally, just above his diminutive height as a six-year-old. His hands clutched onto what remained of her as he sobbed. The final twig inside of him had snapped. He wanted to disappear, for good this time, and having Ryoken reappear before him at that place had been the perfect opportunity.

  Just as Adonis had pledged an adoring loyalty to Aphrodite, Spectre pledged adoring loyalty to Ryoken, similarly of seafoam and had eyes like the ocean basked in starlight. To reward this devotion, Revolver gifted Spectre a deck and Spectre’s heart could have stopped as he turned over the first card on top and he saw her once more. Sunavalon Dryatrentiay. His beloved Mother. Or at least an avatar she could use within this unreal realm akin to how he wore mourning dove white that he was clad in here.

  Her card glistened in the low light of the Knights of Hanoi’s virtual headquarters and Spectre’s eyes watered. She was beautiful, his heart surged, and he smiled with the most fantastic gratitude. He loved her so much.

                       ii.Mother

  Reunited with her, Spectre felt at peace once more. Living side by side with Ryoken, he had a place that he could belong to. He finally had that pocketful of grass and leaves and twigs to cherish and one that couldn’t be taken away from him unlike at the orphanage where he was scolded for such behaviour.

  Speaking of the orphanage, it was quieter here in the mansion compared to the dormitory for unfortunates that he had hailed from, but he liked it. He could keep things on his bedside table without the fear they would be spirited away by morning come for all sorts of reasons, most stemming from a sense of punishing him.

  At his bedside, he could keep things like his deck of Sunavalon and Sunvine cards without fear. Having them near consoled him as a mother was comfort personified and whenever Spectre held her card in his hands, he felt it. And he needed comfort. And he needed it right now, desperately. Perhaps more than anyone would ever know.

  The room around him was murky and indigo. He woke suddenly. Ripping himself from the sheets, he tried to evade the flickering flames of his nightmare. Fire. He hated fire. His eyes were wide but useless in the dark as his head pounded with the wretches of his nightmare. In his wobbling ache, he looked forward, from his upright position in his bed, and the first thing he saw in a gleaming shaft of silver – either moonlight or streetlight, it was difficult to ascertain – the calendar on his desk across the room was blinding. The neat squares of it were cryptically crossed off. He took a pitiful breath as he tried to calm himself in the face of such an omen.

  Every day the final assault against the Ignis inched closer and Spectre had no regrets. It had to be done and for his master’s cause, Spectre would lay down his life without hesitation.

  After all, he was like Adonis. Born to a tree, grew up in the Underworld, devoted to Aphrodite, and would die before he could choose another love for himself after his previous two of where he had been tested and where he had been proved. Thus, destroying the Ignis, even his own, was fateful payment as bittersweet as it was. Yet telling himself such stories did falter. Angels were not real and even he had his moments of weakness.

  Just because he had such certainty of his devotion did not mean he was impervious to other fears. He was not exempt from doubt and other things which would eat at the edge of his consciousness when he was frayed or scared. He was many things and of those things, he was especially a coward. A coward and a mama’s boy.

  With a long-suffering breath, Spectre tore his gaze away from the calendar. His eyes hurt and he put his hand on his face. His fingers scrunched in against his skin and he forced himself to calm down from the nightmare and the harrowing realisation that it was all nature to want to live, to survive, even against such fatalness like what was asked of him as a member of the Knights of Hanoi’s upper echelon. That fatalness was transformed in his mind – into fire, into separation and abandonment, tangible fears he has had since he was a child – as he knew the end for him would not be a bang but a whimper. He could feel his breath on his hand.

  Slowly, he turned, and his heart skipped a beat as he faced his bedside table. By his lamp, that he would not turn on, he saw the physical stack of the cards that he used in the Link VRAINS. Forever and always near. He smiled softly, fondly. It was polite convention that the art of cards was kept face down, Spectre didn’t disagree, but he always kept his extra deck on top and in a precise order, a hierarchy not unlike a matriarchal family, so that the first card that he flipped over would be her.

  He removed her gently from his deck and he felt soothed by his Mother’s face, as obscured in the dark as it was. Contentment pooled in his chest as he projected his perfect recollection of Sunavalon Dryatrentiay’s face onto the card which was black and inky in his hand. He breathed shallowly, calmly, until he thought that he could rest again as he imagined Sunavalon Dryatrentiay’s hand caressing him, cooing a lullaby at him. He smiled but there was a twitch in his lower lip. He repressed a sob.

  Spectre withdrew into his bed once more, pulling up the doona and he held Sunavalon Dryatrentiay close. The slim edge of her card just ghosting along the side of his face. He pulled up his legs. Where he usually slept like a log, he would try to sleep like a baby. Thumb in his mouth included, he closed his eyes against the welling of tears that he felt, ignoring the red and orange phosphenes on his eyelids, like embers of his nightmare. Fire. He hated it. He was afraid of it.

                       iii. Crone

  Unfortunately, fear was useless for a Knight and Spectre vied to be nothing if not useful. Going into battle, there was nothing that Spectre wouldn’t do for Revolver. Their goals – Revolver’s goals – were noble. Gallant.

  Staring down Playmaker, there was no cowardly feat that Spectre would never consider nor execute if it meant getting Revolver’s way. Using pawns like Zaizen to encumber Playmaker, using Playmaker’s lame sense of justice against him. Yes, to him, being called a dirty cheater were truly high words of wonderful praise if it meant that the end was not only justified but achieved.

  But seeing her fall, Spectre’s mind returned to that vermillion evening when he had found his Mother’s tree trunk. His heart wrenched and he tuned out how Playmaker spoke. A most gallant duologue between Ignis and Origin highlighting Playmaker’s sense of justice and how his victory appeared to be within reach with Spectre’s sacred Mother Tree in the graveyard.

   Hearing such valiant drivel ignited the fervour inside of Spectre. His muscles twitching beneath the stiffness of his white jacket as he kept his fist close by his side. His stomach knotted with disgust. Lilac petals fluttered loosely on the wind, entwining with scattered blue data. Bit by bit, she degraded and Spectre could only watch as she vanished. That vanishing left wreaked grief on both his eyes and his heart.

  He turned around, swift on his heel, spittle on his lips, and he roared, “How dare you? My sacred Mother Tree!”

  A good mother was slow to anger but when you hurt her child, her fury and rage would be sublime. A force of nature. And Spectre could not have been wounded more, in between such retched trickery from the so-called hero of this story which had caused his Mother Tree to be felled once more.

  “I activate the Continuous Spell Card,” Spectre’s hand thrust forward, “Sunavalon Cursed Reborn!” His voice was stern, if hasty, as he explained the effect of the card. He was rabidly eager to use it against Playmaker.

  Upon the command of his Spell Card upturned, the emptied field of their Master Duel, barren and ravaged, glowed as the continuous Spell Card was activated. Roots and vines, beet purple, erupted from beneath the cement of the bridge. From this digital nether of the Graveyard, Spectre’s darling Sunavalon Dryatrentiay emerged. Reborn. A crone. Face full of fangs, eyes ablaze with violent hues of violet, and sharp teeth bared. All of her surged forward, shaken free of her verdant foliage, as she tried to protect her precious son.

  It was all or nothing. Sunavalon Dryatrentiay’s effects were negated but for every link she had – four, four like death – she gained one thousand Attack Points. He would risk life and limb for one last gamble, even if it meant transmuting her gentle beauty in hideous ferity. He would not allow Playmaker to upheave their justice. The Ignis would be terminated, for the greater good. Spectre would go through the Underworld, through Elysium and the Mourning Fields, through Styx and the Asphodel Meadows: anything for the means of Revolver’s ends.

 Yet it was, distinctly, all for nought as he threw himself into this final assault against Playmaker and with the striking sword of Playmaker’s own Knight, the Excode Talker of the Wind Attribute, Spectre’s efforts were his best, as twisted as they were, but still not enough. His Mother Tree was slain once more, through the trunk, and he took not just the damage of the Duel but of other pains, too.

  Playmaker won. He lost. It was as simple as that. Playmaker’s convictions were stronger than his devotion. It was as complicated as that.

  The cables of the Bridge began to break for a third time. Not with a snap but with an inferno. The tarmac of the road began to crack, and Playmaker launched himself forward with purpose where Spectre could only saunter languidly. He wondered, madly, what afterlife there was for someone like him with only downwards to go. Then, he wondered, sanely, hopefully, that Revolver would put a stop to this madness, defeating Playmaker who could only go forward.

  Walking into the inferno, he laughed. He wasn’t sure what it was about the prospect of certain doom, but it was hilarious. Arms outspread, begging for one last embrace from his dear mother, he walked into the flames where he saw her visage. Sunavalon Dryatrentiay was waiting for him and with every step he took, he remembered something sweet. Something kind. His upbringing may not have been ideal, but he found it idyllic, nonetheless. The moments of his childhood where he had the opportunity to bond with his mother; clambering atop her limbs, sleeping amid her roots, every memory took him further and further back unto his rebirth. He did not remember being abandoned but he remembered being adopted.

 Walking into that blaze, Spectre had just one hope in his heart as it would be her face which would be the last thing that he would ever have the good fortune of seeing. He hoped that he had been a good son to her. His Myrrha. The mother of Adonis. She who had been rejected by society and transformed into a tree for her incestuous transgressions. Spectre could empathise. He knew how heartbreaking it could be to be rejected and punished.

  He just hoped that it hadn’t been an illusion, that the very real love that he felt unto her, who accepted him when his own blood and kin did not, had not been an infantile dream or projection. With tears streaking through his grin and his laughter, he just wanted to know if he had been a good son to her, his Mother Tree, his Sunavalon Dryatrentiay and loved in equal measure as he had loved her.

  Thus, it wasn’t enough to simply have been born like Adonis, to a tree which desired nothing more than to protect him, and it had not been enough to live like Adonis either, in rich devotion of Ryoken, his starry-eyed Aphrodite who was both wicked and noble, but he must die like Adonis, too, with his heart pierced, for it was better to die loved, laughing with bushels of yellow and orange anemone flowers growing out of his mouth and his heart, better to die as ash and data than to be abandoned or worse, unneeded by whom he loved.

[sou-ver-2-0]

Maybe I'm thinking too much about the Persona games today, but are there any characters that you would pair any tarot arcana with?

What a fun question! I think that tarot cards have like, the coolest aesthetic ever. Unfortunately, I don’t know much about tarot arcana, so I went on a deep dive into Wikipedia to try to understand it. I’ll apologize in advance that A. E. Waith’s definitions for these cards feel very heteronormative. I’m working with the traditional definitions, but I try to make them work for a modern story.

Here are the character-card combinations I came up with:

0 – The Fool: Folly, mania, extravagance, intoxication, delirium, frenzy, bewrayment. [If the card is] Reversed: Negligence, absence, distribution, carelessness, apathy, nullity, vanity.

Joe Tazuna

Joe Tazuna is our gaudy, “extravagant” fool! The fool represents the “everyman,” and is often the “protagonist of the story” in Major Arcana. Joe, who is good-natured and clumsy, has the type of personality you’d expect to see in a story’s protagonist. Ironically, he is one of the first to die. His “absence” is deeply felt by our real protagonist, Sara, who must go on the “Fool’s Journey” “through the great mysteries of life and the main human archetypes” without him.

1 – The Magician: Skill, diplomacy, address, subtlety, pain, loss, disaster, snares of enemies; self-confidence, will; [it signifies] the Querent, if male. Reversed: Physician, mental disease, disgrace, disquiet.

Reko Yabusame

Reko is our “skilled,” “confident,” strong-willed musician magician! (And she often uses masculine pronouns, so why not give her a masculine card?) Reko has also suffered through “pain, loss, and disaster,” which has shaped her current mature, kind personality. And in the past, she was a “disgraced” rebellious rock star who burned through bands.

2 – The High Priestess: Secrets, mystery, the future as yet unrevealed; the woman who interests the Querent, if male; the Querent herself, if female; silence, tenacity; mystery, wisdom, science. Reversed: Passion, moral or physical ardor, conceit, surface knowledge.

Tia Safalin and Maple

This card made me think of both villainous ladies. Tia Safalin has knowledge of science, while Maple seems to also have mysterious wisdom about human nature and the future.

3 – The Empress: Fruitfulness, action, initiative, length of days; the unknown, clandestine; also difficulty, doubt, ignorance. Reversed: Light, truth, the unraveling of involved matters, public rejoicings; according to another reading, vacillation.

Sara Chidouin

The Empress can only be our Sara! The girl who takes “initiative” and becomes the group’s leader! She seeks to bring “light” and “truth” to discussions, and she “unravels mysteries.” And yet, she also suffers from “doubt” in herself, and “ignorance” of her surroundings.

4 – The Emperor: Stability, power, protection, realization; a great person; aid, reason, conviction also authority and will. Reversed: Benevolence, compassion, credit; also confusion to enemies, obstruction, immaturity.

Mr. Chidouin

We don’t know much about Mr. Chidouin, and I do not trust him one bit. However, he seemed to be a suitable companion to his “Empress” daughter. Kai Satou certainly thought he was “a great” and “benevolent” person, though he has an “immature” way of speaking.

5 – The Hierophant: Marriage, alliance, captivity, servitude; by another account, mercy, and goodness; inspiration; the man to whom the Querent has recourse. Reversed: Society, good understanding, concord, over kindness, weakness.

Kai Satou

The words “servitude” and “captivity” suit our homemaker Kai, who always lived in service to others—either Asu-Naro or the Chidouins. Kai is a “good” man, but he is also shown to be one of the “weakest” participants since he dies early on.

6 – The Lovers: Attraction, love, beauty, trials overcome. Reversed: Failure, foolish designs. Another account speaks of marriage frustrated and contrarieties of all kinds.

Nao Egokoro

I know that Nao’s story doesn’t have much romance in it, but I liked the duality of “trials overcome” combined with “failure” and “foolish designs” for our poor, brave Nao. She is a girl who grew a lot, and her heart was overflowing with love for her new friends, but in the end she was doomed to failure with the Sacrifice Card.

7 – The Chariot: Succour, providence; also war, triumph, presumption, vengeance, trouble. Reversed: Riot, quarrel, dispute, litigation, defeat.

Alice Yabusame

So many aggressive words in that description made me think of our “Murderer,” Alice! Alice was “triumphant” in his last fight with Original Sou, but he can be “defeated” by Rio Ranger.

8 or 11 – Justice: Equity, rightness, probity, executive; triumph of the deserving side in law. Reversed: Law in all its departments, legal complications, bigotry, bias, excessive severity.

Keiji

Of course I had to give “Justice” to everyone’s favorite self-proclaimed policeman, Keiji! Keiji lays down the law in our group, and don’t we all hope he’ll favor the “deserving side” instead of showing “excessive severity.”

9 – The Hermit: Prudence, circumspection; also and especially treason, dissimulation, roguery, corruption. Reversed: Concealment, disguise, policy fear, unreasoned caution.

Rio Ranger

“The Hermit” feels like a strange card to give to our childish doll villain, but I liked the descriptive words associated with “corruption” and “policy fear.” Rio Ranger commits “treason” by directly killing a participant, and he also “conceals and disguises” himself with masks and other people’s clothes.

10 – Wheel of Fortune: Destiny, fortune, success, elevation, luck, felicity. Reversed: Increase, abundance, superfluity.

Sue Miley

Sue Miley is the villain who introduces us to our destiny with the Practice Vote and the First Main Game. She sadistically wishes everyone “luck.”

8 or 11 – Strength: Power, energy, action, courage, magnanimity; also complete success and honours. Reversed: Despotism, abuse of power, weakness, discord, sometimes even disgrace.

Q-Taro

Q-Taro suits “strength” perfectly! His character arc is all about learning what true strength is. He begins the game from a place of cowardice and selfishness, but he becomes courageous and honorable.

12 – The Hanged Man: Wisdom, circumspection, discernment, trials, sacrifice, intuition, divination, prophecy. Reversed: Selfishness, the crowd, body politic.

Shin Tsukimi

How could my favorite doomed antagonist have any other card but “The Hanged Man”? Shin is cursed from the beginning of the game with a “prophecy” that he will die. He relies on “intuition” more often than logic and he can be very “selfish,” but he is also “wise” enough to want to protect the most vulnerable among them, leading to his “sacrifice.”

13 – Death: End, mortality, destruction, corruption; also, for a man, the loss of a benefactor; for a woman, many contrarieties; for a maid, failure of marriage projects. Reversed: Inertia, sleep, lethargy, petrifaction, somnambulism; hope destroyed.

Ranmaru Kageyama

I liked the card “death” for our main dummy Ranmaru, who has died and transformed. The words associated with “sleep” and “lethargy” also reminded me of his final moments, where he commented that death felt like going to sleep.

14 – Temperance: Economy, moderation, frugality, management, accommodation. Reversed: Things connected with churches, religions, sects, the priesthood, sometimes even the priest who will marry Querent; also disunion, unfortunate combinations, competing interests.

Kazumi Mishima

“Temperance” sounded like a good card for a wise character who lives in “moderation.” Mishima was cursed with an “unfortunate combination” of votes in the Practice Vote.

15 – The Devil: Ravage, violence, vehemence, extraordinary efforts, force, fatality; that which is predestined but is not for this reason evil. Reversed: Evil fatality, weakness, pettiness, blindness.

Original Sou Hiyori

“The Devil” is the most perfect card for my favorite villain! He is “violent” and goes to “extraordinary efforts” to manipulate the participants, but he has also suffered a “fatality.” I thought the phrase “predestined but is not for this reason evil” was especially intriguing for Original Sou, since I often wonder how much free will he could exercise within Asu-Naro.

16 – The Tower: Misery, distress, indigence, adversity, calamity, disgrace, deception, ruin. It is a card in particular of unforeseen catastrophe. Reversed: Negligence, absence, distribution, carelessness, apathy, nullity, vanity.

Gashu Satou

Gashu brings a terrible “unforeseen catastrophe” in the Second Main Game, when he would rather kill himself then give our characters a chance to escape! He is undoubtedly the best character for “The Tower.”

17 – The Star: Loss, theft, privation, abandonment; another reading says--hope bright prospects, Reversed: Arrogance, haughtiness, impotence.

Kanna Kizuchi

Kanna has suffered “loss” and she may be “abandoned” by the people she loves. However, her survival also brings “hope” and “bright prospects” in spite of the Death Game’s cruelty.

18 – The Moon: Hidden enemies, danger, calumny, darkness, terror, deception, occult forces, error. Reversed: Instability, inconstancy, silence, lesser degrees of deception and error.

The Dummies

The words related to “hidden enemies” in the “darkness” reminded me of our dummies, who are tasked with killing the human participants.

19 – The Sun: This card is generally considered positive. It is said to reflect happiness and contentment, vitality, self-confidence and success. Sometimes referred to as the best card in Tarot, it represents good things and positive outcomes to current struggles.

Gin Ibushi

Gin Ibushi is a light in our lives who brings Sara emotional comfort! In spite of having no tokens to defend himself in trades, nobody sent him the Sacrifice Card, which is a wonderful thing.

20 – Judgment: Judgement, Rebirth, Inner-calling, Absolution, Karma, Causality, Second chance

The Man from the Memorandum

The Man from the Memorandum, the winner of the Previous Death Game, seems to be the Mastermind of a new Death Game and is calling for a “second chance” for the High School Girl to survive. He pronounces judgment on every victim.

(It’s entirely possible that the Man from the Memorandum is Mr. Chidouin himself, which would make my distinguishing between them silly in hindsight! For now, I’ll assume they’re different people.)

21 – The World: Assured success, recompense, voyage, route, emigration, flight, change of place. Reversed: Inertia, fixity, stagnation, permanence.

The 17-Year-Old School Girl

Is 15.5% enough to “assure the success” of the High School Girl? Is that enough to “change her place” from dying in the First Death Game? Or will she be “permanently” dead? The entire “world” of the Death Game seems to hinge on this critical role!

[vake-hunter]

What is Salt?

Salt is probably one of the most uh complex parts of Fallen London lore so buckle up. I’m going to keep this as simple as possible because there is A LOT. 

!!Spoilers for Sunless Sea and Seeking Endings!!

Who IS Salt as of Right Now In The Neath 

Salt is one of the three Gods of The Unterzee. It is usually noted as being responsible for the strange flow of time in the Neath and memories in general. It is also called the Traveller Returning or just the Traveller. Its messenger is a white bat. Its blessings are usually that of sudden revelations or help to get home (but not always YOUR home…) Its curses however are extreme, erasing of memories, taking loved ones, undoing achievements, even erasing your whole existence. Better not to upset it. 

It's said Salt resides to the East, farther than anyone dares to travel. 

But who WAS Salt?

“the White: Recall who sent you here. That fierce old thing in the dark: "Find her," he said to you, "and you will find the treasures. Go down. You need only take a little. [...]" The light of his nimbus guttered, as if he were laughing. You knew nothing of the Neath, then. Perhaps you would never have come, if you did. [...] You remember the starlight.”

Salt is a Judgement, specifically one who worked as a spy for another Judgement, the White. 

Salt’s name was not always Salt. Its true name is long forgotten but may be found in the depths of Frostfound (Frostfound is a whole different essay). It has a strange name of seven letters, which is dangerous in the Correspondence. It’s name roughly translates to The Name-Which-Burns and it is also one of the sigils found near the Avid Horizon in art. (Its name is hard for humans to comprehend and depending on what options you choose, you can either pick to believe Salt was a human or was a Judgement. Everything about Judgements is almost impossible for humans to understand, thus you can pick a more ‘simple’ translation. Both endings still result in you going East.)

Salt was sent to the Neath by the White (more on that in speculation). It was a painful journey and sometime during its time in the Neath, Salt decided it no longer wished to serve the White. Salt travelled around the Zee to forget itself. It left parts of itself in Frostfound, Kingeater’s Castle, Irem, and finally it went East. It built these places and abandoned its Name, its Need, its Memories and, finally, itself. 

TRAVELLER RETURNING

“The Name is yours. Perhaps it always was - perhaps you're only coming home. [...] Other memories of other voyages press in on you [...]” 

Salt is every Traveller and the Traveller is always Returning. Salt beckons others to follow its path. To take up its name. To join it East. In Frostfound, you find Salt’s name and it is your name. You gain Salt’s memories and Name, you become Salt and you go East. There are others there, all others who followed the path. 

But why?

“The Gate is open, the Judgments have seen, but you have other plans. There is no Sequence for this. Rise and depart. [...] You failed, you succeeded. This was only the first element. It is a terrible pity about the Runt. If you could have saved him, you would. But all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well. Contact the others. Let them know what the White intended. Continue.”

That tells me absolutely nothing.

AK is no longer a part of FBG and so this may not be canon anymore but he wrote on Reddit about Salt and the White. 

"The Liberation of Night stained the Deep Wilderness long, long before it touched the Earth, and the White feared - reasonably that its metastasising rapture would darken the hearts of too many stars for it ever to be contained. [This is lore I'd have explored more in Sunless Skies as it was originally conceived, but Failbetter have gone, I believe, in a completely different direction, and this is no longer continuity.] He resorted to the Neath, that notorious half-secret laboratory of stellar secrets. The Bazaar is developing its own Counsel to soothe and cheer the Sun; the White hoped to find or foment a final argument of despair which would quell the rebellious hearts of any Liberated star it touched. It would also quell the hearts of any loyalist Judgements, but the White would rather see an empty universe than a disordered one. Of course the White couldn't know that the Counsel of Peace might threaten Histories beyond its own, but the White is the White, and it's unlikely that this would have dissuaded it."

So about the Bazaar. Messages written on it can affect those who read them. We see this in humans who feel love and such when near the Bazaar or talking about the Bazaar and Cups in Nemesis was trying to inscribe stories of revenge onto the Bazaar to make it and the sun suffer. It is implied this is from the Bazaar experimenting on itself and various surgeries it had done in the First City, although all Couriers have this power to a lesser degree (seen in Skies at Faith’s Fall).

SPECULATION

Even if you ignore what AK said the White wanted to find something in the Neath and sent Salt to find it. The White would rather kill Judgements rather than let them turn to Night. It scribe messages of Hate and Grief onto the Bazaar to turn others away from the Liberation. In both of the other two endings of Seeking, you would become fuel for the White’s plan. Both of these endings have Nicator react happily when you pick your question, saying that the White will come to fulfill his frozen Law, while asking Who is Salt has Nicator react in fear and confusion, saying you are going against the White’s plan. 

“I don’t understand. Who do you think will come, when you call? Tell – please tell me – you will bring light to the Neath. The White’s plan–”

Salt was sent to spy for the White and find a weapon, but turned away from the White’s plan. It’s implied then, that it is trying to build an army to kill the White. In Seeking, you knock, open the Neath to the White and then fly East to your army. You lured him to the Neath to kill him.

So this brings us to Candles. I am unsure of the actual connection the two have, although they very clearly have one. It is very possible the White had a hand in Candles’ death in order to further his plan. So let’s jump STRAIGHT into speculation. We know Veils had its claws in the Great Game and was on the Surface enough that it was one of its strongest personality parts so it could be that the White somehow told Veils to betray Candles, offering Veils something in return.

One of my special interests is religion so let’s dump some of that in here. There are plenty of comparisons of Candles and Veils to Jesus and Judas. Even the game does it. Judgements are gods. In the book of Judas, Jesus knew Judas would betray him and God himself told Judas to do so, because it was part of the plan to have Jesus die for the sins of humanity. So Jesus is Candles, God is the White and the Holy Spirit is Salt. It fits, as Salt is in every Traveller. Fucking weird but a good way to try and comprehend them. 

I personally really like the idea of Salt and Candles being Binary Stars!! Candles lowered itself first and Salt was sent by the White to find it.

[historic-old-guard-lover]

The emperor has to be god-king Andy. Also like since nicky and Joe obv have to have the lovers why not have andy and quyhn kissing as the empress.

Another related ask (potentially by the same person):

Also since the fool is a journey's beginning I'd almost want to pick Nile for it. As well there are four characters who commonly have swords (or an axe but close enough) and cards have four corners. So one sword each corner, nicky, joe, andy, and quyhn.

So. Someone has good ideas. Here’s the post that prompted these asks. This made me pull out my tarot deck and go through the cards. Below the cut is a break down of the entire tarot deck. There will be an explanation of the (standard) interpretation of the cards, good then less good, and then my associated headcannon (or more than one if I couldn’t decide). The source is my experience with tarot. I’m trying to minimize repeats, but historic and modern Old Guard members are counted separately. Enjoy.

The Major Arcana (aka the cards most people have heard about)

0. The Fool - the seeker. Naivety. Courage. Living in the moment. Journey’s beginning. All paths available. Folly. Apathy.

Nile. Anon convinced me. Though Booker has got the folly, apathy, and madness down, Nile is ultimately the beginning. She’s naïve but headstrong, and quite frankly a perfect match.

I. The Magician - the trickster. Power, skill, talent. Mastery, self-control, willpower. Subtlety. Divine connection and inspiration. Self-reliant.

Modern Nicky. Definitely Nicky. Just. He’s a formerly very religious man who just says these things. Also sniper.

II. The High Priestess - the moon goddess. Intuition, wisdom, foresight, divination, prophecy. Enlightenment, understanding, intelligence, education. Pride, emotional instability, unforgiving.

Historic Quynh. Her name means “night-blooming flower”, which is very moon goddess vibes to me. Also, I’d say over 500 years in a box turns understanding and enlightenment into emotional instability and unforgiveness.

III. The Empress - the queen. Feminine power, matriarch, mother. Fertility, pleasure, beauty. Success, evolution, movement. Marriage, wealth. Overattachment, domestic upheaval, delay.

Quynh. The counterpart to Andy’s emperor card.

Nile. Let’s be honest, she’s going to take over from Andy some day.

IV. The Emperor - the king. Masculine power, patriarch, father. Authority, leadership, proficiency. Wealth, stability, effectiveness. Perseverance, logic, endurance, experience. Lack of ability, weak character, immature, rebellious.

Modern Andy. She is the leader who’s short-comings effect her entire team. And who doesn’t love a little gender bending? (and her film look is already soft butch)

V. The Hierophant - the religious leader. Tradition, convention, ritual symbolism. Ceremony, religion, morality, philosophy. Mercy, goodness, forgiveness, humility, vulnerability, Impotence, Religious tyranny.

Historic Nicky. I mean, former priest (enough said).

Historic Andy. “I was once worshipped as a god” (enough said).

VI. The Lovers - the lovers. Love, attraction. Compatibility, harmony, choice.  Triumph over trials, vacillation. Entanglement, enmeshment. Infidelity, moral lapse, vice, separation, quarrels, inadequacy, failing tests.

Andromaquynh. *peeks out from behind barricade* I know that most people would just put Kaysanova as this card, but look at all the negatives it is associated with. Sounds a lot more like our immortal wives can really cover the gamut. They have the range....I am a sucker for Kaysanova, though. Even though the beginning of their relationship is rocky, I’d like to think it’s been fairly constant over the years. But let’s reverse the uhaul lesbians and fickle gay men tropes! Sorry, Book of Nile fans. That ship just isn’t established enough for this, I’d say. Maybe one day?

VII. The Chariot - the journey. Ordeal, obstacles, competition. High stakes, ambition, discipline. Conquest, victory, greatness. Right action prevails, overwhelming odds, sudden defeat.

Merrick and/or Dr. Kozak. I mean, this is literally their characters in a nutshell. Merrick is the journey/ordeal for the old guard. He is driven by his ambition, thinks he’s won over impossible odds, and then has a sudden defeat.

VIII. Justice - the balance. Equilibrium, equality, symmetry, harmony. Integrity, honor, fairness, neutrality, moderation. Vindication, self-righteousness, bigotry, prejudice, favoritism.

Nile. This is the woman with a sword card. She brings a balance to the team, she clearly moderates conflict, and I’d love to see BLM art of her in this style. Just sayin.

IX. The Hermit - the seeker-sage. Wisdom, inspiration, contemplation, discretion, understanding. Safety, protection, spiritual quest. Seeking truth and justice. Self-denial, timidity, fear.

Historic Joe. The idealized warrior poet? Definitely just a form of the hermit. Helps explain why a Magrebhi trader/artist fought at the Siege of Jerusalem: spiritual quest. I also like the idea of Joe having a secret reserved side.

X. The Wheel of Fortune - cycles of life. Destiney, evolution and progress, advancement. Manifestation, unexpected events. Success, sudden luck. Ups and downs.

Modern Quynh. There is nothing that better encapsulates her storyline than the wheel of fortune. One day you’re roaming the world with your immortal wife. The next, you’re drowning for over 500 years. The next you’re in Booker’s shitty Paris apartment.

XI. Strength - fortitude. Resilience, courage, resolve, confidence. Integrity, moral victory, endurance. Energy, action, vitality. Power, force, violence. Abuse of power, disgrace, impotence.

Lykon. Do I love this character beyong measure and reason? Maybe so. We have so little to go on about him, however, that the only things we do know bely his strengths. Also, he becomes ultimately the weakest when he dies and encapsulates both “extremes” of the card.

XII. The Hanged Man - the tested. Delay, sacrifice, abandonment, rejection. Betrayal. Reversals, restrained or bound, limbo, trials. Falseness.

Booker. If the fact that his first death was by hanging didn’t convince you? Read that description again. His character arc is literally working through being the hanged man.

XIII. Death - the loss or parting. Alteration, transformation, transition. Boredom, depression, stagnation, failure or disaster. Bereavement, recovery, immobility.

Lykon. He literally represents the fear of death to the remaining immortals. It is HE that they invoke when they discuss it. Also, I’m still mourning my favorite underdeveloped character.

XIV. Temperance - the moderation. Self-control, economy, patience, coordination. Consolidation, harmony, friendship, recuperation. Unfulfilled desires, discord, stubbornness, hostility, clashing of interests. Time, seasons, and climate.

A Safehouse. I don’t think any of the people really capture the tempered essence of this card, the constancy throughout all seasons of life. An actual physical building that rises and falls with (regular) humanity, though, seems to do the trick.

XV. The Devil - the arcane. Magic, strange occurrences, prophecy, fate. Catastrophe, downfall, negative attitude, Temptations, sins, obsessions. Enslavement, bondage, misplaced loyalty, violence, fatality.

Honestly? I’m so torn. I feel like a major commentary of the movie is that our demons are the way people react more so than the people themselves. Maybe the armored van?

XVI. The Tower - the House of God. Disruption, expulsion from an earthly paradise, divine wrath. Punishment (of pride), loss, destructive rivalry, plans ruined. Need to start again, bankruptcy.

The Iron Coffin. While this doesn’t capture the religious undertones quite right, the coffin is the Tower for Andromaquynh, It is (divine? or very human?) wrath brought on by pride since the two probably thought that they would be fine. It is loss and painful new beginnings.

XVII. The Star - the bright promise. Hope, faith, light of the spirit. Recovery, symbols of immortality. Gifts, good prospects, new dawn, frustrated expectations.

Nile. The new immortal, enough said.

Historic Andy/Lykon. In a way, the first immortal would also be a great choice of representation.

XVIII, The Moon - the hidden forces. Twilight, illusion, deception, trickery. Dishonesty, danger, uncertainty, terror. Developments, particularly somewhat concealed. Errors, powerful feelings.

Copley. I know, I know. “He’s the moon when I’m lost in darkness” and all that jazz. But look at this card’s interpretation and notice it’s pretty negative. Copley’s entire role is to pull the strings behind the scenes. He makes headway on problems in secrets, he lies and deceives everyone in the film at some point.

XIX. The Sun - the work’s rewards. Daylight, co-creation, union “of male and female”. Peace, joy, pleasure, love, contentment. Accomplishment, achievement, success. 

Joe. Not only is he the sun, he also fits this card perfectly. He is creation and happiness. Enough said.

XX Judgement - the rebirth. Judgement, sentence. Rejuvenation, renewal, resurrection, call to the new from the old, rehabilitation. Creation, promotion.

Historic Booker. I feel like his backstory with his family helped highlight the theme of rebirth for the Old Guard. They must be willing to give up what they have left behind to move forward. Also, there’s the more literal play as well since Booker was a conscripted criminal.

XXI The World - the long journey. Perfection, completion, conclusion. Power through intelligence and wisdom. The universe and the material world.

A group photo, of course! Beyond that? Who knows.

Historic Andy? She’s seen so much of it. Like just her eyes portray the history of the world.

The Minor Arcana (aka the rest of the cards)

Since most people are only familiar with the major arcana,  I’ll just briefly explain it. The minor arcana are actually the majority of a tarot deck. There are four suits associated with the four elements. Each suit has ten number cards and four court/face cards (traditionally modelled either based on one person or different interpretations of similar costuming). Each number or face has its own meaning, each suit has its own meaning, and their combination mostly explains what the card should be interpreted as. Quite frankly, the minor arcana are vastly underrated in popular understandings of tarot.

Suit of Wands - fire. Spontaneity, action, passion, adrenaline, life force, stroke of genius.

Guns? It’d be a bit of a niche take, but I associate guns with fires.

Staffs? More traditional in shape.

Suit of Coins - earth. Solid growth, material interests, possessions, profit, business, labor, slow and considerate.

Historic currency. Enough said.

Suit of Cups - water. Heartfelt involvements, imagination, spirituality, love, friendship, family.

Fountains around the world. Enough said.

Suit of Swords - air. Worry, trouble, boundaries, objectivity, the power of truth.

Obviously, their weapons of choice. I would go into more detail about who best represents each number, but I don’t want to bore you.

Court of Kings - mature men. Leaders, authority, status-quo, taking responsibility.

Again, most tarot is very gendered. But members in tuxes?

Court of Queens - mature women. Reflective and active, concerned with security/foundations, supportive, focused.

Members in dresses/gowns/anything that glitters?

Court of Knights/Cavaliers - young men. Dynamic, adventurous, intensive, revolutionary.

Tactical gear. Or historical armor. But it’s easier to do tactical gear right than accidentally draw a 15th century helmet on a 14th century suit of armor.

Court of Knaves/Pages - younger women, teenagers, and children. Students, apprentices, trainees, messengers, new opportunities.

Casual clothes.

[rosesastrology]

Hello, I have 3 sagittarius placements (sun/moon/pluto) and one scorpio (venus) in my 4th house, can you tell me something about this?

You have a 4th house stellium and a Sagittarius stellium, which implies that you have 3 or more planets in one sign or house.

The strong Sagittarian energy is something I'll talk about first. Sagittarius is often associated with travel, psychology, luck, positivity and freedom. The natal chart of libertarian America has a Sagittarius ascendant: Land of the free, home of the brave. The positivity of Sagittarius is often fragmentary, it's a part of the position but it doesn't mean every Sagittarius is a positive person. In fact, Sagittarians are often positive and empowering towards others, even if they aren't to themselves. They can have steadfast convictions and an unbreakable belief system, especially those who turn to religion (because Jupiter rules religion along with Sagittarius). Sagittarians are often associated to the higher self, the higher mind. These people are always looking for a better self, wanting to improve. They can be bored quickly, whether it's mentally or physically (by activities). The archetype of Sagittarius is the archer. The archer we always refer to was actually a centaur (half horse, half man). Half strength, half wits. Which reiterates their character. Centaurs followed the God Dionysus; God of wine, fertility, fruit, vegetation, insanity, ritual madness, religious ecstasy, festivity and theatre. His religion revolved largely around the consumption of wine. Rather than the drunkenness of it, it revolved on the ease of suffering and the bringing of joy. Performance art and drama were a big part of his religion too. With this info, we can see how he became the symbol of Sagittarius. Sagittarius is ruled by Jupiter, also known as Zeus. Zeus was the son of Cronus, aka Saturn in Roman mythology. Zeus, as we all know, was the God of justice. Sagittarius rules the law. When looking at mythology, we can see where the stereotypical Sagittarian traits came from. Fortune and luck are often bestowed upon Sagittarian positions, but this luck is often only uncovered after the native takes control and change for the better. The reason for this is largely because Jupiter governs over growth, in all areas of life. Change goes hand in hand with this, but the tactics of Sagittarius need to applied as well.

As someone with a Sagittarius Moon, I can definitely confirm that my emotions make me impulsive at times. I've only recently begun to make changes in that aspect. Sagittarius in the Moon is a beautiful placement because of its boundless spectrum of feeling. This can be very overwhelming though. Luckily, the native usually gains some control over this later in life. They're highly ambitious, but tend to get restless (especially when they're falsely accused of something). Zeus was the God of thunder after all, I associate anxiety with this. They have a talent for connecting with their higher self and are always seeking to improve. Furthermore, Sagittarius in Pluto is often seen in detectives. Translators, preachers, prophets, teachers, travelers, actors- all these professions can be linked back to Sagittarius.

Now, Venus in Scorpio. This position is often seen as positive because of the connections to sex and intensity in Scorpio. Thus, having it Venus, the planet of love, is seen as enticing and interesting by many. In fact, Scorpio in Venus people tend to fall hard, not necessarily fast; but hard. There's a tendency for them to get overly obsessed with their crushes and lovers, even to a fault. While the crush phase should be fun and lighthearted butterflies, Scorpio in Venus people tend to see it more as an intense "I want to stare until you forget your own name" phase. Obsession and jealousy are often associated with this position, of course these traits don't apply to everyone- but they are definitely sides of the native's psyche even if they aren't being accessed. They seek a soul-deep romance, which is not to say they can't have flings (depending on mars). A lot of people tend to forget Scorpio is detriment in Venus for a reason; jealousy, secrecy, obsession. All these traits can come out. Positively, though, they're extremely loyal to those they love (if they love-love them). They're quite awkward in the beginning, but they truly worship their lovers. In love, they're usually more the introverted and quietly passionate type. If the relationship is healthy, you have an enticing, loyal, sexual and romantic lover on your hands here. Abandonment is a real knock down here, doesn't matter if it's in a platonic or a romantic relationship. It's not just in romantic love that they love hard, in friendships they do the same. With creative pursuits, they're bound to have some kind of a darker world (art, spiritualism, crime, etc). Once this placement commits, they commit fully. They also love control, which can be manifested positively through leadership. With Venus in the 4th, you need to have some kind of emotional connection to have a relationship with the person. Furthermore, you're likely to be particular about things you like (both sexually and non-sexually).

With all these planets in your 4th house, I'm gonna guess on a couple things here. With all this Sagittarian energy, it could've manifested in multiple ways. You could have a very religious family. Another way it could have manifested is through having parents that were born in different places, have different beliefs/religions, etc. Your Jupiter placements could say a lot about how you dealt with this. For ex. A Jupiter in the 12th with your placements would indicate you breaking the religious bond. There's also the more general indication, maybe your parents moved around a lot. Your emotional happiness, family, ancestry, karma, private self- they are all characterized in the 4th house. In other words, in other to find emotional satisfaction you have to do a lot of higher soul searching through your Sagittarian placements and Scorpio Venus. With all this 4th house energy going on, your home life must've been quite something.

[the-house-of-the-nine]

LFC / RP ---- The Serpent Inquisitor

The Basics ––– –

Name: Lazarius Kash’ebahl

Alias: Nestor Blacksun

Nickname(s): Laz / Lazzy-boy / Serpent / Inquisitor

Age: Irrelevant and Undetermined (Ask why.)

Birthday: January 11th

Race: Quel’dorei

Gender: Male

Marital Status: Single  [Divorced Once]

Relationship Status: Single

Physical Appearance ––– –

First Appearances:  Lazarius is an out of place being that belongs among the nobility of Quel’thalas or Stormwind, but due to his desire to reach new people and those who are seeking salvation after the world had been completely wrought with War, he sticks out like a sore thumb in Orgrimmar.  The Inquisitor wears the finest of robes, violets and amethysts, ebony and dark onyx.  And adorns his vestments with Saronite armor plates and chains.   

Hair: Long Shoulder Length Chestnut Brown Hair.

Hair in Disguise:  Usually a Light Gold.

Eyes: Pure Black with flecks of sparkling whites and blues.

Eyes in Disguise: Cerulean.

Height: 72 inches.

Build: Slender, Lean, Gaunt, Lithe, yet still Toned.

Scent: He wears a combined scent of Sandalwood and Clove that masks the lingering magical aroma of death and void that seems to connect to him.

Distinguishing Marks: None that are visible without disrobing.  His upper body is wrought with lashings both front and back from his upbringing and training.  He has words in Shath’yar that have been branded with hot iron onto his flesh.  He has runic symbols that have been carved into his skin ritualistically. 

Tattoos: He has used a snake like scaled helix pattern tattoo across his arms and upper body to try and cover most of the damage done to him through his upbringing. 

Piercings:  Three Silver hoops all gauged 8mm in both ears, with a set of sterling Shal’dorei ear sheathes over the tips.

Common Accessories:   His hands and arms are wrapped in a blackish almost ethereal like gauze.  On his right hand index finger you will notice a razor sheath that covers the finger like a gauntlet.  It has a clawed point on its end.     

Personal Information––– –

Alliance Profession:  Owner and Operator of “Curiosities & Collections” which is a front antique and rare goods store in Stormwind.

Horde Profession:  Standing true to the nature of his families heritage and fortune; House Kash’ebahl is one of the most efficient and renowned logistical experts in the procurement and shipping of rare cloth, antiques and spice.

Financial Status:  Vastly Wealthy

Hobbies:  Research  || Experimentation || Reading/Painting || Piano || Observing the Populace

Languages:   Thalassian || Orcish || Dwarvish || Common || Bits and pieces of others due to his Order allowing all races.

Residence: The Bastille - Deep beneath Northrend.

Birthplace: Quel'Thalas

Religion: Cosmic

Vices:  Women / Power / Knowledge

Fears:   Losing his empire and the people who’ve helped him, essentially his family. || Abandonment || Drowning ||

Vulnerabilities: 

Relationships ––– -

Spouse/Significant other(s): Of the none sexual and deeper connections, the main women in his life currently are @whatadarkbitch​ [ Verzatea Duskflame, his oldest and dearest friend, ally and confidant.  Also the mother of his child.] and his Prime @frompage112​ [Raven, who is his student and successor hopefully.  She is normally always with him.]

Children: Brinys Duskflame

Parents:  Varianna Kash’ebahl (Mother - Status - Deceased)  Pytharius Kash’ebahl (Father - Status- Deceased)  

Siblings: Pyravari Kash’ebahl ( Twin Sister - Undead ) , Siida-Ray Kash’ebahl ( Youngest Sister - Alive ) , Kretus Dark ( Half Brother - Alive) , Vallah Kash’ebahl ( Younger Brother - Unknown )

Other Relatives: Raelyndia Duskhollow ( Former Misterest of The Nine, and Keeper,  Presumed Deceased for good)

Friends/Acquaintances: Pyravari Kashebahl @pyravari-kashebahl​, Koltun Ancientveil @thebladeitself​, Verzatea Duskflame @whatadarkbitch​, Siida Kashebahl @siidaraykashebahl​, Raven @frompage112​, Jursol @bloodhuntressjursol​ , Pame MylBrin @miss-irascible​

Pets:

Sex & Romance ––– -

Sexual Orientation: Poly / Pan

Preferred Emotional Role: Dominant

Preferred Sexual Role: Dominant

Libido: Existent?

Turn ons:    Intelligence || Danger || Power Struggle || Confidence

Turn offs: Arrogance || Cowardice || Impolite and Crass || Ignorance || 

Love Language:  Lazarius does not actively hunt for anything in particular.  He often finds himself being drawn to women who display power on their own accord yet enjoy a partner who can sexually take control.  He does prefer women simply because of his conditioning, there is a bit of a complex there.

Relationship Tendencies:  Unlike most who find multiple partners to be strictly a sexual nature; Lazarius finds that having multiple relationships is healthy for a creature of his making.  Some are non-sexual at all.  A strong bond that is romantic yet restricts sexual advance.  Gaining nurturing, love and affection.  While others become increasingly more passionate and lustful, leading to a romance that borders on the physical.  Lazarius is a being that will find and latch onto those he is attracted to and devote himself to that person when they are together.  And that role they fill for one another is specific to them.  He will cherish it.  

Traits ––– -

* Bold your character’s answer.

Extroverted / In Between / Introverted

Disorganized / In Between / Organized

Close Minded / In Between / Open Minded

Calm / In Between / Anxious

Disagreeable / In Between / Agreeable

Cautious / In Between / Reckless

Patient / In Between /  Impatient

Outspoken / In Between / Reserved

Leader / In Between / Follower

Empathetic / In Between / Apathetic

Optimistic / In Between / Pessimistic

Traditional / In Between / Modern

Hard-working / In Between / Lazy

Cultured / In Between / Uncultured

Loyal / In Between / Disloyal

Faithful / In Between / Unfaithful

Additional information ––– –

Personality:  He is reserved and often times will sit off to the side watching and observing.  He will hunt out and seek those who are rejecting the normal way of society and attempt to contact them to begin a dialog.  When he is approached or interacted with; Lazarius is dangerously intelligent, well spoken and charming.

Smoking Habit: None

Drugs: None

Alcohol: Not often, getting to know him you will know why he cannot drink.  And if he is, you should also know why.

RP Hooks ––– –

Can be found in:  Orgrimmar, Stormwind, and Quelthalas. 

Seeking Refuge:  Apostates, Rogue Wizards, Those wanted by the Law?  Or simply someone who is no longer allowed to practice a certain type of magic.  Lazarius is seeking those people actively to try and bolster his numbers within his flock once more. 

The Antique Store: If you are Alliance, and on the hunt for something mysterious; perhaps even dangerous, Lazarius may have it.  “Curiosities & Collections” is located somewhere in the Dwarven District and only seems to show its red door with a serpent shaped knocker to those who seek to find the rare, and unusual. 

Dark Magic:  While this is not the best hook for him, Lazarius will sometimes be drawn to or draw in those who are giving off or noticing his dark energies.  This is often times the people who wish to try and assume he is evil, while in retrospect he wants nothing more than to be left in piece.  Having changed his Cultist ways long ago and broke free of their control.

OOC  ––– –  

Lazarius is available for Tumblr and in-game RP.  Just make sure you shoot me a heads up first as I don't actively RP in either much like I used to.  Discord is my most frequent and easy way to contact and respond.  I always have my mobile app on, and I tend to respond much quicker in RP there.

I’m always open to new plots and contacts, whether it’s long-term story arcs or a  simple one-off interaction, so feel free to shoot me a message if you’d  like to set something up!  It should be noted that The Nine and Lazarius have a very lengthy and detailed past expanding all the way back to TBC.  Everything we have written and discuss in our discord channel and Tumblr is all actual events that have happened that carry over for our multiple people and characters.  We would gladly welcome newcomers who wish to RP in a casual long term story arch that branches out and webs all of our characters together.

Tagging: @frompage112​

@bloodhuntressjursol​

@siidaraykashebahl​

@whatadarkbitch​

@pyravari-kashebahl​

@thebladeitself​

[theopentable]

The Wisdom of the Desert (Part 1)

THE WISDOM OF FLIGHT

‘It was said of Abba Theodore of Pherme that the three things he believed to be basic for everything were poverty, asceticism and flight.’[1]

In the fourth century many Christians fled from Rome to the deserts of Egypt. These Christians would come to be known as the Desert Fathers and Mothers.

Why did they flee? Had Rome become too dangerous? One way of answering that is to say that quite the opposite is true - Christians had rarely, if ever, had it so good. Christianity had always been a minority movement on the fringe of respectable society. Being a Christian was a dangerous and tumultuous affair. Persecution was par for the course. Martyrdom in Rome was commonplace in a world where emperors stood as gods.

Christianity, however, changed forever following the Emperor Constantine’s conversion and the Edict of Milan in 313 as Christianity ultimately became the official religion of the Empire.

‘When Constantine declared tolerance for the Christian religion in 313 after his conversion at the battle of Milvian Bridge and subsequently supported the outcome of the Council of Nicaea in 325, the number of practicing Christians rose in the following decades from 3 to 30 million. It became quite advantageous to be a Christian, as Constantine was constantly pouring money into building churches and supporting the bishops financially, a fact that changed the whole character of the early Church.’ [2]

Christians were now faced by the temptation of becoming too comfortable and settled in a world in which they had become the most fashionable, respectable and employable of citizens virtually overnight. Important Early Church Father St John Chrysostom wrote,

“Plagues teeming with untold mischief have come upon the churches. The primary offices have become marketable. Excessive wealth, enormous power, and luxury are destroying the integrity of the Church.”

As Christianity began to be shaped more and more by empire Christians turned their back on society and went out into the desert. This was the real danger of Rome. Society, Thomas Merton wrote, “was regarded by the Desert Fathers as a shipwreck from which each individual man had to swim for his life.” [3]

The Desert Fathers and Mothers drew upon the traditions of those going out into the desert – Moses, Elijah, John the Baptist, Jesus. They embraced a way of going deeper and intensifying spiritual practice. They took St Paul’s exhortation especially seriously:

“Do not model yourself on the behaviour of the world around you, but let you behaviour change, modelled by your new mind.” (Romans 12:2)

The Desert Monks fled from a number of things that were at odds with their sense of the sacredness of life:

From the social systems of their day

From conformity to religious mediocrity

From the misuse of power, privilege, status and dignity

From speech [4]

From thoughts (‘logismoi’ – a technical Greek term in monastic literature for the chains of obsessional fantasy that can take over our inner life [5])

From women and bishops (you might end up getting ordained!)

From possessions, property and conventional family life.

We would be gravely mistaken, however, if we presumed that these desert monks and nuns were running away from responsibility or from relationships. All of this flight is for a greater purpose. Rowan Williams writes how rather than any form of avoidance these desert parents were instead ‘entering into a more serious level of responsibility for themselves and others and that relationships are essential to the understanding of their vocation.’[6]

The wisdom of flight that the Desert Parents embodied was for the sake of a deeper, rigorous form of engagement.

‘Numbers of those baptised rose dramatically; standards dropped dramatically. The Church began to compromise between “the things of God and the things of Caesar” (cf. Luke 20:25). The voice of the desert’s heart replaced the voice of the martyr’s blood. And the Desert Father’s and Mother’s became witnesses of another way, another age, another kingdom.’ [7]

While there was much that they chose to let go of, to flee from, they became given instead to prayer, work, to sharing the faith and what they saw as a new form of martyrdom – not the red martyrdom embodied by followers of Jesus prior to Christianity becoming the religion of the Empire, but rather the white martyrdom of complete dependence upon God as they faced up to the demons within. The new battleground for these Christians was the human heart.

‘What they fled with greatest fear was not the external world, but the world they carried inside themselves: an ego-centredness, needing constant approval, driven by compulsive behaviour, frantic in its efforts to attend to a self-image that always required mending.’ [8]

Christine Valters Paintner expresses the way that the desert is a place of deep encounter rather than being a place of superficial escape. The desert strips us down to the sacred essentials:

‘The word for “desert” in Greek is eremos and means “abandonment.” It is the term from which we derive the word “hermit.” The desert was a place to come face-to-face with loneliness and death. Nothing grows in the desert. Your very existence is, therefore, threatened. In the desert, you are forced to face up to yourself and to the temptations in life that distract you from a wide-hearted focus on the presence of the sacred in the world.’ [9]

Here, in the desert, normal securities are relinquished. You are confronted by your own morality, aloneness, limitations and vulnerability. And yet this is precisely the context for transformation, a way of being broken open, ‘a doorway to an encounter with a God who was much more expansive than anything believers imagined.’ [10]

In the uncompromising stillness of the desert they sought to undo internal knots and to allow Divine Light into the shadows of the human heart through poverty and detachment, chastity, conversion of life, obedience, stability, silence, solitude, attention, humility and compassion.

Struggle and toil is a touchstone of life in the desert:

One of the Fathers asked Abba John the Dwarf: “What is a Monk?”

He replied: A monk is toil. The monk toils in everything. That is what a monk is.” [11]

The concern of the desert elders, Paintner identifies, was what poet John Keats called the ancient task of “soul-making”: the challenge of waking up to the true nature of life and remembering who we really are, the divine inheritance of human beings. 

This was the quest of the desert elders. This was the wisdom of their flight. The journey into the desert was ultimately a journey into the heart; to learn the ways in which human lives lose connection with themselves, with Divine Love and how they might return to love and truth. 

This is the great struggle and quest all human beings know: the struggle to live a meaningful, loving, and authentic life. This is what we all want. We won’t all go to the desert and yet the wilderness will still come to us in the various human forms of loss, change, searching, uncertainty, deprivation, struggle, loneliness, and vulnerability. Brene Brown reminds us that the wilderness can often feel unholy because we can't control it, or what people think about our choice to venture into the heart of it. And yet she also says that it turns out to be the place of true belonging, ‘the bravest and most sacred place you will ever stand.’ [12]

Perhaps then we can be guided the grace and experience of these unusual desert hermits, by the spark of their lived-wisdom that might lead us into greater courage, insight, compassion, into encounters with God, and perhaps even our own ‘transformation into the fire of Love.’ [13]

But here is a final, and critical point by Thomas Merton. Merton explains the these desert elders didn’t go out into the desert in order to be extraordinary. Rather, they fashioned lives among the rocks and sands into the be themselves, their ordinary selves, forgetting the things that divided them from themselves:

‘There can be no other valid reason for seeking solitude or for leaving the world. And thus to leave the world, is, in fact, to help save it in saving oneself..The Coptic hermits who left the world as though escaping from a wreck, did not merely intend to save themselves. They knew they were helpless to do any good for others as long as they floundered about in the wreckage. But once they got a foothold on solid ground, things were different. Then they had not only the power but even the obligation to pull the whole world to safety after them.’ [14]

The wisdom of the desert is that we might become our ordinary selves in order to pull the whole world to safety.

[1] Theodore of Pherme 5.

[2] Kim Nataraja, “The Desert Tradition” in Journey to the Heart: Christian Contemplation Through the Centuries (Nataraja, editor, 2011), p.92

[3] Thomas Merton, The Wisdom of the Desert

[4] ‘One day, as Abba Macarius was dismissing the gathering, he said to the brothers at Scetis, ‘Flee, brethren!’ One of the old men asked him, ‘Where could we feel to that is further away than this desert?’ Macarius put his finger to his lips and said, ‘Flee that.’ And off he went to his cell, shut the door and sat down.’ (Macarius 16)

[5] Rowan Williams, Silence and Honey Cakes: The Wisdom of the Desert (2003), p.63

[6] Williams, p.62

[7] John Chryssavgis, In the Heart of the Desert: The Spirituality of the Desert Father’s and Mother’s (Treasures of the World’s Religions) (2008), p.16

[8] Belden Lane, The Solace of Fierce Landscapes

[9] Christine Valters Paintner, Desert Fathers and Mothers: Early Christian Wisdom Sayings Annotated and Explained (2012), p.vi

[10] Ibid., p.ix

[11] John the Dwarf 37

[12] Brene Brown, Braving the Wilderness (2017), kindle loc.430

[13] Nataraja., p.106

[14] Merton, The Wisdom of the Desert

[embalmerandphotographer]

Do you have any hcs on Fiona Gilman and her interactions with the other survivors?

Ghost here! Oh I absolutely do. Fiona is the survivor I play most often after Aesop and I love her! Not just her skill, I also find her backstory very intriguing and have spent a lot of time talking to Greed about it, as is our way.

Okay so... First a warning or two:

1. This contains some spoilers for her deduction lines and birthday letter, so skip this one if you don't want to see that.

2. I'll freely admit that I love to push everything in a horror direction and this does of course also apply to the mega-evolved kiter herself.

Getting that out of the way...

I think it's clear that Fiona knew about and implied to have been drawn to Lakeside Village, where there was a cult religion worshiping a lake deity that was probably Hasur. We know the villagers sacrificed "livestock" to the their god by throwing them into the lake in exchange for their prayers being answered. We know Fiona was drawn to seek out occult mysteries, and that she has a philosophy of following where her gods lead her, taking the actions she believes they call on her to take. We also know the village is now abandoned, and letters later sent to villagers (see the Dancer's recent birthday letter) weren't answered. We also know that Fiona gained some pretty impressive magical powers at some point, ones she didn't have growing up.

So, Fiona went to the village, either believing herself drawn there or because of what she'd heard about the lake cult, or both. I think she, a very attractive and definitely driven if not also somewhat cunning young woman, was able to join the cult and become close to or even join its secretive inner circle, the one in charge of the actual summoning and sacrifices. 

And Ms. Fiona Gilman had a very big wish she wanted granted, a deep prayer she had no doubt been holding close most of her life.

I think Fiona wanted to be special. Powerful. Part of the magical world. And she wanted to be follow the call of her gods, to be able to pass through the solid reality of this world into the spiritual one she always wanted but never had access to as a child. 

And I think she that she got her wish. And that she sacrificed the entire population of Lakeside Village to the lake and to Hasur to get it. Consider that the villagers were asking for small things, and paying in blood sacrifice and the slaughter of livestock for even that. And who and what Fiona became is very much not the anxious, unhappy, and apparently seeming unexceptional person she was implied to have been before breaking away from her mother.

If you consider the survivor's abilities separate from how they're balanced by the game mechanics, Fiona is one of the most powerful of the survivors, if not the most powerful. Along with Patricia and Eli, she had actual magical abilities before coming to the manor*. And because of my take on her, I think that like Aesop, she'd killed enough people that she could have been (and might still one day be) a hunter instead of a survivor... but that’s a post for another day.

So! That's my HC for her backstory. You also asked about her interactions with the others.

First off, while I obviously think she's a sort of amoral-evil person on a grand scale, I think Fiona is probably perfectly nice and even quite charismatic on an individual basis. Kind of weird still, because she's the priestess of a cult, but charming and easy to get along with in spite of this. And while I do think Fiona is capable of being manipulative to get what she wants, I also think she doesn't think of her actions as evil or intentionally do harm. Even her drowning a whole village of people in a lake could have been framed, for her, as following her god's commands. Maybe she thought that after so many sacrifices, Hastur wouldn't be bound to the lake anymore, and she might even have been right about that.

(Btw this, in my mind, is one of the most dangerous types of person when they're amoral. Someone so very likable is also so much harder to criticize, to question, or even to think ill of.)

So, I think the survivors get along with her fine for the most part. I don't think any of them know about what she did (with maybe one exception), and that they take her at face value as another member of their strange, unwilling team.

Now... She's casually friendly with pretty much all the survivors, with a few exceptions, but that she might not have any very close connections at the manor. I think she has a mean-girls style friendship with Vera, and that’s her closest friend. Also she and Patricia have long, technical conversations about magic from time to time, but Patricia is deeply uninterested in getting cursed more/again and steers clear of whatever it is the Priestess is up to spiritually. Any of the survivors who are attracted to pretty ladies and susceptible to getting crushes probably do have mild to moderate crushes on her (Kevin, Vera, Freddy, Martha, Emily, William, Emma, and certainly others although I haven't thought through it too much). Also, for some reason I headcanon that Luca specifically Just Thinks She's Neat, because she has a fascinating ability that challenges his view of a scientific reality, and because they're both feral and he can vibe with that.

Aesop is completely, almost hilariously immune to her charisma and views her neutrally- a competent coworker with a hang up on one of the hunters that's really not his place to comment on. 

On the other hand, I think Emily and Martha don't think much of her intelligence due to her spirituality/gods, and Emma just quietly doesn't get closely involved with Fiona outside of matches because she while she may be unhinged she has good instincts. Poor Andrew is absolutely terrified of her like the good Catholic boy he is. And she does unnerve a few of the other survivors but not in a way that they can quite put their finger on, so they dismiss it. 

And then there's Eli. I've understood Eli's backstory to imply that he's from the Roman Empire, so way further back in the timeline than most of the others, who were take from eras closer to the World Wars. And Eli is linked to Fiona, but we don't know how. They have similar eye themes (Fiona's keys/portals have eyes on them and Eli's blindfold/owl are related to sight), but they can't have know each other when they were alive, and we don't hear anything about the lake cult being involved in Eli’s life or his future seeing. Fiona is implied to have served and still be following Hastur, but the same can't be said for Eli as far as I know.

I don't think Eli dislikes Fiona. They might even be friends in a way, or sort of colleagues. Certainly there aren't many other people they can talk to about magic, and they do share some kind of connection from outside the manor. But I think Eli has very mixed feeling about her, partly because he knows that mystical powers come with costs.

And I have a specific, wildly extrapolated headcanon about them. I don't think Eli was part of a cult dedicated to Hastur that existed long before Fiona was ever born. I think his own powers were given to him, in part, to stop things like what Fiona did in Lakeside Village from ever happening. To contain gods of chaos and protect the balance of the world. He might even have had visions of what happened, either with the Lakeside cult or with the manor games or both, and if so he just wasn't able to stop it, being too far away in time until he was pulled into the timeless pocket dimension the manor apparently exists in. (How interesting then for him to become trapped with living proof that what he saw and would have tired to prevent had already come to pass?)

Anyway! Those are my headcanons for Fiona, or what I have time to write down tonight. 

Closing thoughts:

-I did also find another little bit of interesting trivia: part of Eli's Chinese name originally translated to Gilman. We also know reincarnation is a theme for him. Who knows what the manor game is about, after all?

-I also think it's EXTREMELY funny that Fiona claims to have not come to the manor after being called by a letter, but instead to have followed "a spirit" or one of her gods to the manor. Because if it's at all true, Ms. Gilman *broke into the manor*, either at the behest of her god (Hastur) or because she was following him. She broke in. Can she get out out? Does she just not want to? I have questions!!! Ms. Gilman what is your deal!!)

*(Servais, honey, I appreciate you, but we don't know if you had real magic or just excellent illusionism skills before the manor; I also think it's safe to say that Mike's juggling wasn't magical until the manor got ahold of him either, and so on with Vera, Aesop, etc.)