#addition experts

[the-catboy-minyan]

hey good faith question- do you mind elaborating on judaism’s belief of g-d not being the ‘one true g-d’ and just the ‘g-d of the hebrews?

sure, but keep in mind that I wasn't raised in a religious house, so I'm not an expert and this could be inaccurate, you could wait to see if other people would elaborate in reblogs or replies.

a lot of religions have the belief that they worship the true g-d(s) and everyone else is wrong and are worshipping (a) false g-d(s). I believe Christianity works like that.

in the Tanach, there is no claim that other religions' g-ds don't exist, in fact, there are instances were miracles from other g-ds happen, but the jewish g-d is described as unique and stronger than others.

for example, in the story of The Exodus (is that how יציאת מצרים is called in english), when Moses comes to the Pharaoh for the first time to ask to release the Hebrews, he showcases Hashem's (the Jewish g-d) strength by turning his staff into a snake, the Pharaoh's magicians(?) then proceed to also turn their staffs into snakes, but Moses's snake eats theirs. the story doesn't show their g-ds as non-existent, they gave the magicians the same powers as Hashem, but the power of Hashem was stronger and thus Moses's snake won over the other snakes.

foreign worship is banned in Judaism, not because the foreign g-ds are false, but because they're not Hashem, I don't know how to explain it but that's how it works.

[terrumdurak]

it's moshang time!

mongolian mobei jun is a huge thing to me and i'm pretty happy with how he turned out (i've also tried to draw gender reverse version for au)

[baitwonder]

while the moots are discussing brudick-jesus & judas & maybe mary, here's my contribution:

i have a religious studies degree (loud booing) and part of my thesis was offering forth the theory that in order for someone (usually a lowly mortal) to be a mystic, they must also be a masochist.

what do i mean by that? a mystic is someone who connects directly with the divine, often physically. think medieval saints who received visions of christ, some of whom married him. think of st. bernard's blindness being cured by the virgin mary squirting her breastmilk in his eyes. my paper was specifically about paganism and various polytheistic religions' practices of possession, of willingly inviting your god to inhabit your body to walk around, speak, fuck, other such things. in every description of these mystic experiences, the mystic must endure a degree of pain and danger. connecting with the divine as a mortal hurts, badly, and everyone involved knows that. gods will possess your body and dance on thorns and leave you with wounds after they're done, and that's part of devotion.

so, when a god chooses a mystic, they choose a masochist. someone who not only willingly, but happily and ecstatically accepts the pain of connection. their masochism can be and often is sexual, but can also be purely sensual.

ALL THIS TO SAY, to tie it loosely back to battyman, i'm wondering if there are connections between my theory here and the pain inherent in being a robin. being batman for sure, that also requires masochism, but being a robin—being batman's devotee—requires enduring and welcoming the pains of combat, as well as ego death. sacrificing any external identity to fit under batman's cape. submitting to the occasional humiliations of training under him; his teaching style isn't usually lenient and kind. accepting the many, many times you will be tied up and teased by enemies, even if their insults mean nothing to you. being willing to die for batman, even if he would never ask for it directly, although i could argue that he does subconsciously expect it.

in conclusion. dick is a masochist and a devotee of bruce/batman thank you for listening 🙇🏻‍♂️

[crazysodomite]

Me after eating my friends special honey pancakes and syrup and feeling a bit fuzzy

You will be feeling very fuzzy and fluffy when I'm done with you. And have 6 limbs at the very least

[daemon-in-my-head]

Okay, lemme ramble about my lovely little gremlin for a short while (this is basically a chronological list). Fair warning though canon is a challenge and I intend to win with my '40 years post epilogue, gort never died trash fire of a durgetash bit'.

Suppose I should start simple. His name is Fionnlagh, his nickname Fine, his old alias (yk the one from Gort) is 'Elli/Ellifain'. Atp he goes by Fine. All of these names have meanings cuz I'm insane.

Hes ~200 years old.

Was originally created as a failsafe by Bhaal, in case the original Bhaalspawn fuck up. When yoinking a soul, Bhaal however, did not anticipate this one could fuck up as well.

Speaking of, you remember the throwaway line from Scel in Act 1 regarding a certain bet that is never eluded to? Yeah so I decided Corellon and Bhaal made a bet pertaining a particular stolen elven soul (they are finite after all). The winner is yet to be decided.

Regarding how the gremlin fucked up; got locked away in the Shadow Fell aka Shars domain for a hot century there. Pros; no Bhaal or Scel. Cons; it's the shadowfell.

He's a shadow sorcerer but not by creation. Rather he just acquired that while being exposed to the shadow curse for so long. Titans don't hold up well against curses of higher deities.

He knows the Flymms. He had encounters with one way back before Gortash was even a possibility. He's also not aware Gortash is one of those Flymms.

Upon eventually making his way out of a place that is death and decay in physical form he immediately dipped to Calimshan. Tis where the fucks first met, without knowing obv.

Cue a few decades of cult indoctrination, projecting his dead adopted sister onto Orin and the usual durgetash shenanigans. Except this Durge has a very twisted relationship with Bhaal and worship.

The reason for said relationship is that he remembers. He actually had a nice childhood and adopted family. Until he came of age, which, for elves, happens rather late. He's fully aware of how messed up it is what Bhaal did to him, but he is also his creator.

Shit with Gort is about as messy as you'd assume. He's the first person in over a century who sees him as an individual, a monstrous individual but something greater than just Bhaals creation nonetheless. People stuck in solitude and forced to kill everything they ever adored will quickly ignore all red flags to devote themselves anyway.

Gorts view on him is... Something. It's not soft or lovely, it's something between gaining a rare specimen to study and having someone who understands whatever little remains of your humanity constantly waging a war.

Oh right I should mention the miserable gremlin has a martyr complex. Losing countless people may result in you willingly destroying yourself over harming just another person you don't outright despise. He's exceptionally protective to the point it's nearly possessive.

Massive nerd too. Has ever since loved studying the arcane, medicines and poisons. You gotta know what can heal in order to kill and vice versa. Also comes in handy if you can read draconic script thanks to your Netherese creator.

Have your situationship pick up on your unique skills and absolutely exploit them for the Absolute Plot but go along willingly cuz of aformentioned issues.

Cue some bg3 shenanigans, Bhaalspawn loosing their memories, defying Bhaal but still having this slight flaw of a complex and deciding to spare the obviously horrible person but the person who knows you nonetheless.

Find out that person found you after being brutally tortured and experimented on by a mad necromancer and leaving you for dead.

On top of that find out the only reason you clung to the remains of your awful life and begged a god to spare you just a little longer was for the person that left you for dead.

Decide to leave the city after saving it and wander aimlessly for a few years, thinking a monstrosity such as yourself should've never existed in the first place and that a dull weapon without anyone to wield it is better left to rot.

Get discovered by the Drow you saved and who truly understood you when you couldn't even make sense of yourself and decide to join her cause, if only to repay her.

Develop some sort of closeness with said Drow as you continue to fight in the civil war she instigated for a decade or two. New career branch unlocked; warmonger.

Forget that you're a monstrosity created by a god with weird kinks and accidentally continue a legacy of bloodshed and guilt by means of having a happy little accident with the Drow you've come to like.

Continue to have a mental breakdown over what you've just done and condemned them to while the marks left by wielding a curse, becoming closer to a mortal by defying your godly creator and decades of fighting start to show in your failing body.

Lose the drow. Cut away the thing she adored and lose one eye. Swallow your agony because you still have a singular, precious thing left to protect.

Return to the city and roots you barely remember hell-bent on exploiting them to keep your treasure safe and happy and finding ways to keep the curse gnawing away at you at bay for just long enough to see it through.

Meet the man who accomplished a great deal of his ambitions and grew somewhat restless over the years again. The only man who remembers how you were. The one who loathes you for abandoning him and what you had.

Oh also his adopted family was part of an elven house. A fallen house. A house of traitors who fucked around with Mythals. He does not remember. He goes back to using that name.

And from this point onwards, a lot of shit happens, and all of it is his fault. And he knows. Oh God does he know.

[significant-narratives]

is william nylander a leo rising or anything like that? I feel like he’s leo-adjacent

alas we do not have a birth time for willy (at least, not that i know of) so i can’t say for certain. i am however willing to walk with you on this path as a bit of a thought experiment! also this got really long, sorry i have chronic Can’t Shut The Fuck Up disease

now, a few disclaimers before we get started:

1) i generally don’t love trying to guess rising signs — this isn’t a judgement on anyone who does, i just find it particularly difficult to do lol. so take everything i say here with a grain of salt

2) i subscribe to the belief that a rising does influence/color the rest of an individual’s chart, so keep that in mind as we delve into this.

3) i am by no means an expert when it comes to astrology and don’t claim to be, and i do pull from various sources when needed to supplement my own knowledge. i am here to have a good time and that’s all! if you have any questions about the sources i use feel free to ask.

okay with that out of the way. willy as a leo rising is interesting! if we look at what such a placement would entail we can see a lot of ‘willy-like’ traits: there’s the courage, confidence and protectiveness associated with any leo placement. high charisma, extroversion, directness. as an ascendant the ‘fixed energy’ of leo tends to manifest in a need to achieve success and stability, and then maintain it. body awareness is another one — understanding how you look and move through space (usually linked to a strong sense of personal style).

(more of a side note, but in terms of physical characteristics, leo risings are often described as tall and broad shouldered, with expressive eyes and strong bone structure. i don’t place as much weight on this aspect of a rising sign, but it’s interesting!)

so, from all this, you could make a strong case for willy being a leo rising! however there’s one crucial thing that isn’t clicking for me: an individual’s rising sign tends to be linked with a public mask / a lens through which they see reality. and i don’t think the way willy presents himself to the public, or what glimpses we’ve seen of his worldview, is quite aligned with leo rising energy specifically.

his white knuckle grip on his ‘i am Chill and Calm and Going With The Flow’ attitude is a little out of line with how leo energy tends to manifest (imo). like one thing about a leo — what you see tends to be what you get and they’re not ashamed to show you that. they’re not (in my experience) all too concerned with persona-building or shielding themselves from being seen. they’re picky about who they give their time and energy to, sure, but like. that’s not quite the same thing. you feel me?

so if he did have a leo rising… i feel like in theory we wouldn’t see a lot of willy’s tendency to keep things very close to his chest and generally not Feel Things In Public. like, think about it. how much do we actually know about william nylander. and how much of what we know came from him. half of the off season content we get that features him comes from alex’s gf’s insta! he’s out here posting pictures of lizards and aesthetic topless photos. it took him eight years and finally securing his place in toronto for the foreseeable future for him to be willing to get even a Little vulnerable with the press and admit just how important toronto is to him, how strongly he’s put down roots here. again you could argue this protective quality is a point in favour of a leo rising placement… but he is also a taurus sun… also is this a good time to say i don’t feel like i’m picking up on that ‘leo rising energy’ trickling down into the rest of his chart? i feel like with a leo rising you’d see a very different manifestation of his gemini venus or libra moon, for example, but that’s just speculation on my part.

it’s also possible the general ‘leo adjacent’ energy you’ve mentioned picking up from him is that gemini venus / aries mars combo of his (i will hold my tongue and not say the word that i’m thinking in my head rn).

tl;dr my verdict on willy having a leo rising: it’s possible but not my favourite choice for him personally! to me i’ve always felt like he gave off water rising energy… (op are you saying this because you are a taurus sun scorpio rising you ask. to which i will say: no comment <3)

[antiphrastic]

I made something important

[idolbound]

Anders kinnies on twitter in the year 2024 not understanding that while yes, Meredith had previously written to Val Royeaux to ask about invoking the Right of Annulment, the request was rejected.

In the throes of her paranoia being made worse with the addition of the red lyrium idol fashioned into a sword, she was getting desperate and looking to search the Gallows for blood mages as a reason to invoke the Right.

However, Meredith did not invoke the Right until after Anders blew up the Chantry.

During the argument with Orsino, it was clear that he was not going to allow Meredith to search the tower. And, much like the start of Act 3 in Hightown, he wanted to call upon Grand Cleric Elthina to settle their disagreement because he KNEW that Elthina was the only person who could control Meredith (and kept her on a proverbially short leash). To this, Meredith immediately raises her voice and says "You will NOT bring her Grace into this!" which CLEARLY implies she knows Elthina would put a stop to her actions then and there, which is the opposite of what Meredith wants to do.

So, with Anders' interjection in this scene and blowing the Chantry up:

Meredith (who was running Kirkwall as a Templar police state under martial law) had to respond to the crime in and of itself;

Elthina was dead, and therefore, the person who could have stopped her from invoking the Right of Annulment was no longer able to do so; and,

She was already at the peak of her paranoia, and this made her not seek justice on Anders himself (who had immunity from templar prosecution as a Grey Warden), but upon the innocent mages of the Circle.

So, she initiated the Right of Annulment as a response to the destruction and lives lost, and the Circle mages paid for Anders' actions (and depending on Hawke's choice, his own life could pay for it too).

It is not difficult to understand that Anders' actions - however morally justified he may have been - acted as the catalyst to the genocide of the Kirkwall Circle.

People will say "it would've happened anyway" but to be frank, if Anders did not blow up the Chantry and had Elthina been involved, she would've shut Meredith down again as someone who didn't want to get involved in taking sides but wanted to maintain the peace AND the desires of the Grand Cathedral in Val Royeaux. Alternatively, Hawke - Champion of Kirkwall - has enough influence at this point to influence Meredith and Orsino both as a popular (political) figure among Kirkwall's citizens and nobility. (it's why Meredith was reluctant to crown them Champion to begin with - it gave them power that she wanted for herself!).

I realize a lot of DA fans are not looking at these moments in-depth, but acting as if Anders is entirely justified in giving Meredith the fuel she needed to kill all the innocent mages is a bit ignorant and tbqh, misunderstanding this situation for what it is.

[mishkakagehishka]

I just . Repeating "characters are tools" you end up erasing so much about arashi's character and motivations and interactions with other characters if you avoid using her pronouns aka avoid showing she's transgender. It's on the same level of frustration with the translators i had when i saw they had Mika speaking standard English, there's a LOT that gets lost if you don't show those little things.

[rowanthestrange]

I appreciate ‘I’ve never found any use in psychologists’ sounds like the refrain of the mad, but consider we might have been a little less mad if the psychologists had in fact tried to be of use.

[weewoo911]

I hesitate to share this bc I’m aware that fandom misogyny is a problem and I’m very much of the opinion that as a girlfriend there is Nothing Wrong With Ana (some of the flirting’s a lil cringey but that’s fine)- in fact it seems like that’s the entire point, that she’s really good on paper.

However

I would have liked it so much more if she wasn’t the teacher from the Skateboard Incident bc that was not her best work, teacher-wise. I’m not talking about the initial fall (though clearly the kids should have been more closely watched if nobody noticed several children and a skateboard- but whatever, plot reasons), I’m talking about her reaction to it, because girl what.

When a disabled kid attempts to do something and gets hurt, the conversation should be “what need are they trying to meet and how can we meet it in a safe and accessible way for them” not “maybe he’ll learn his limits and write a book instead”!! Girl I know you’re an English teacher but WHAT.

Despite the Nothing-Wrong-With-Ana of their relationship, I could never get behind Eddie/Ana after that. If they’d wanted me to be Team Ana it would have been so easy to give the skateboard incident to another teacher and have Ana be involved in a way that was - eh, better.

[maeamian]

Hey friends, countrymen, lovers, etc. this post is just for the Americans out there, but if any of you all need help figuring out what steps you need to take to vote or where to find a voter guide for your region (Ballotopedia is a solid starting point if you want to see what's on your ballot) I'd be happy to help out, just shoot me a message, I can promise I'll find an answer for you in the first case and I'll do my best in the later.

[blasphemousclaw]

welsh person here! theyre right about the defeat dialogue, specifically 'a serpent never dies', having a bit of an accent, but if im honest it sounds more scottish or irish than it does welsh? which you cant really blame him for because i'd guess the whole 'snake monster' voice took priority over sounding welsh . its interesting to think about the in universe implications for that though, aside from his vocal chords being messed up, he might have had his accent change because of his company, or where he was stationed, i'd imagine he wouldn't have found many people with the liurnian accent outside of liurnia. it would have been nice to know if he was more north or south welsh though haha

thank you so much for weighing in!!

Listening to Rykard’s voice actor (Simon Gregor) speak, to me he sounds like he’s English (here’s an interview with him). To my ears, it doesn’t especially seem like the potential accent in Rykard’s voice lines comes from Gregor’s own background, so if Rykard is meant to have an accent, Gregor could have been directed to do a specific one… or perhaps it was just a side effect of his crazy snake voice. From the way Gregor talks about voicing Rykard in the interview, it seems like he was given a degree of freedom in his performance.

I love your point about Rykard’s accent potentially shifting and I think you’re totally right that he would’ve probably been isolated as a Liurnian amongst his colleagues on Mt. Gelmir; I can’t see many Liurnians rushing to join the Erdtree Capital’s inquisition so he definitely could have been in the linguistic minority! It’s also worth noting that Tanith and Rya both have English accents.

And regarding your last question, for what it’s worth, most of the Carians’ VAs seem to be from south Wales, so I’d guess that Rykard would’ve likely been south Welsh haha!

[howdoesone]

How does one convince an Olm that it’s okay to come out and see the light?

Introduction to the Olm: The Mysterious Cave Dweller The Olm, also known as the “human fish,” is an enigmatic amphibian that resides in the dark, underwater caves of the Dinaric Alps in Europe. With its pale, almost translucent skin and ability to thrive in complete darkness, the Olm is a fascinating creature of the deep. Its eyes are underdeveloped, a testament to its life in perpetual…

[nerdnag]

jfc i am so tired of always having to assume that there's an undisclosed, required app involved whenever i buy something these days