#because even bad art is still art because I participated in the act of creation

[corvus-woodfordi]

The blue thing is back

[waffliesinyoface]

i cannot stress enough how important it is to participate in The Act of Making Shit

im taking a ceramics class right now, and have made several creations of varying quality. the VERY FIRST projects i made were "pinch pots", which is exactly what it sounds like, ie: taking a ball of clay and shaping it into a bowl/cup with your hands

i'll be honest, the stuff i made is extremely lumpy and ugly and just Bad.

this looks like an ash tray made by an 8 year old in art class. I was attempting to make a bowl for cereal.

its hideous, and i love it.

I kinda embraced the lumpy misshapen look for this after fucking up several times and needing to start over, so i used red and black and scratched little fire designs on the outside to try and emulate the idea of it being literally sculpted out of a still cooling hunk of igneous rock. (If you're familiar with Runescape, it was based on the TzHaar)

Fun fact about using multiple layers of slip and underglaze! When you cover everything in a clear glaze afterwards, some of those under layers kinda bubble up during the kiln firing process, and instead of something smooth, you get a rough, pitted texture. Ordinarily, this would be considered a flaw which you might want to fix - someone else had something similar happen and decided to refire it to try and smooth it out a bit. But like. I was going for rough lumpy stone, so the weird texture on the outside just enhanced it.

Is this bowl "good art"? Nope! But you know what? I still like it. I can pick it up and marvel at it. It exists because I said so. The process of firing clay into ceramic changes it on a molecular level. Water cannot exist in it. Even if it was broken and ground into dust, it will exist as ceramic for ten thousand years.

This little bowl that I use to eat chips out of was once mud, and isn't that just amazing?

[sheher-gayboy]

Huge grain of salt on this, have not seen it, feel free to disregard me entirely, in fact would love to be wrong, that being said:

I am very cautious and suspicious of the American myth building project that so much of American cinema is an active agent in. There is a fiction that America makes movies about how cool and awesome they are, this is untrue, America rarely makes movies about uncomplicated heroes. No, America loves it's movies about complicated men who did bad things and the world around that led them to be bad people. They do this while still celebrating their history and the acts that happened however, in fact reveling in the sadness their actions caused themselves. There's that stand-up bit about Americans fucking up your country and then making a movie 10 years later about how sad it made them and that really sums it up.

Crucially I think about the idea that you can't make an anti-war movie. That by choosing to display something, you are giving it credibility, you are giving it space, a chance to explain itself, to revel in the "moral complexity" of the act. And war is exciting! Explosions are exciting! There is a reason Nolan of all people made an Oppenheimer movie, he's basically classy Michael Bay! I highly doubt Oppenheimer is uncritical of the nuclear race or even of the man himself but I do think we choose what stories we focus on.

One more thing; the idea that people (especially in North America) don't love a real sonofabitch and love rooting for him is silly. Just because art depicts acts doesn't mean it supports those acts, yes that is true but we are well aware that people love to eat that shit up! I do! Let's stop pretending we don't find Tony Soprano, Walter White, Jordan Belfort etc. To be endlessly fascinating because they are living out a power fantasy that our capitalist culture primes us to want to have and that the creators themselves don't understand that. Again, not saying that depiction = support, but I am saying that we should consider why exactly we are so interested in the stories of people who did horrific things as opposed to a story about those that survived the horror. It's a very fine line to tread here obviously, liking stories about bad people does not make you a bad person, everyone loves stories about bad people. I'm saying we have a culture that is built around explaining bad people's actions and our art depicts that.

And yes! Oppenheimer is a war criminal! In charge of what is likely the worst war crime of all time, perhaps the most evil of acts ever by participating in the creation of a nuclear bomb! Just because he was sensitive and could quote things that made him sound intellectual doesn't make him any less of a sumabitch character than your average Clint Eastwood character. This is my own thing, I think the guy sucked and was a fucking twerp. Shoulda got bullied more.

Anyways I'm not seeing it cause Nolan consistently bores me and a movie that is primarily his character moments sounds incredibly tedious. I don't really care about the movie, just some thoughts.

The number of people on this website who just seem to assume that "Oppenheimer" is an uncritical celebration of J. Robert Oppenheimer, the Manhattan Project, and the atomic bomb.

[captainkirbypunch]

My love has left tumblr once again.

As many of you may know, the account under the name MDZADR, has left tumblr. They felt unsafe in their fandom, and as such have deleted their tumblr and AO3 account due to the bad memories linked to them.

As a part of their departure, they have asked me to post something in their name, as follows.

If you want more details about how I came to this realization, continue to read. If not, here is your summary:

TL;DR: For the safety and health of this fandom, I wanted to spread the word that Mooping-10 is filled with people who absolutely cannot be trusted, creating a very hazardous environment for the zadr community, and MelodyoftheVoid is connected to all of those people, living a double life amongst those of us that don’t “ship zadr correctly.” She has plenty of friends her inner circle knows nothing about, and nobody on either side knows who she really is. 

Full story below.

I’m sorry I didn’t say goodbye. Nobody did anything to me today, but this just wasn’t worth it.

My AO3 and tumblr are both gone. I didn’t say goodbye because I didn’t want to look like an attention seeker.

Here’s the thing. I wasn’t going to name drop, but you guys need to know the truth. I’m instructing my boyfriend (hi y’all) to turn asks off for his own safety after this because this is going to be a nightmare, but... allow me to tell you the full story. I’ll try to break up the text so it’s less difficult to read, but this is important. I’m sorry to air discourse so publicly, but please... I need you to listen to me.

I’ll start from the beginning, without being vague anymore about who “she” is. I request that you please read the whole thing and not skip parts of it. The whole story matters.

I finally returned to the fandom about two months or so ago. As I’ve mentioned, I don’t do well in my thoughts while left alone too long, so I posted saying I would stop messaging people I knew because I didn’t want to bother them. There were only two people I was talking to at the time, but one of them is famous so I didn’t want to message her directly saying that. Doing so would have put her in a position of feeling obligated to say “you’re not bothering me” rather than just simply being able to sigh with relief from no longer being contacted. 

But the first person to contact me was the famous person, and she asked if I was okay, and told me she liked talking to me.

God, I actually cried.

But, that’s just her. Melodyofthevoid is the type of person to talk to people in the fandom, totally unaware of her demigod status. She comments on stories, interacts on posts, messages first... a pillar of kindness, so it seemed.

But let the story continue.

Over time, we were talking more often. 

Mostly sending memes (cause everyone I knew, myself included, aren’t exactly great at holding conversations. No shade. Memes are a love language). I was still in the hero worship stage of our relationship, so my view of her was that that was perfect.

Now, let me bridge a connection with a new story idea I got around December 28th or so, and my thinking she was perfect.

I had recently finished watching Madoka and questioned “If I had magical powers, what would they be?” It then turned into its own story idea, basing creators’ powers around the strengths and weaknesses in creations. I actually realized “oh fuck. My stuff is incoherent. My friends’ works aren’t too different...”

Thus spawned the name “Incoherent” for the project.

What does that have to do with this? Well, here’s the thing that really fucked everything up quickly. 

This was not on purpose, because originally the project (which I had told nobody of yet at the time) was all about improving your works, making platonic friends, dressing our personas in cute outfits, and writing fun magic.

While listening to music and thinking of the story one day, my brain accidentally shipped my persona with hers, and I couldn’t unsee it. And I’m lousy at keeping my own secrets (other’s are different) so she found out on probably day one or two about my weird crush because of an ask meme of all things. 

She didn’t try to put me off any, which was another problem for future things to come, and so I decided that since Incoherent was finally making me feel alive again and feeling the euphoric feelings of love wouldn’t hurt anything (I figured they’d mellow out on their own eventually because that’s how infatuation works) since they helped fuel my inspiration, and then we would just continue from friends to better friends one day and this part of our lives would be over.

Besides, the forbidden is attractive somehow, and makes stories more entertaining. She’s aro/ace, so I had no chance anyway. Someone safe to crush on, in her own way.

This isn’t a story of a love betrayal however. There was no such thing. But it’s important to the story because Incoherent is where my mistakes were made, and hers brought to light.

By this time, I had a handful of people I was talking to, and I created a discord server for the project. Only my boyfriend (hi!) and I were in it at the time. I was not-so-subtly asking my friends what they’d look like if they were a magical person, what their names would be... I thought I would have had to lure Melody in to make her want to join us, but I managed to get her in very easily. Everyone was happy and excited! It was a no obligation, no time limit thing for us to enjoy, a little sandbox to play around in. 

Sure there were plans to make it bigger and I was working on art to the best of my ability, but it was gonna be a fun thing mostly. No pressure on anyone.

And how things started becoming a problem was that the rest of us posted publicly about the project and interacted with each other’s posts relating to the story, but she had started to interact publicly less and less with our things, and everyone noticed it.

It wasn’t because we were greedy and wanted the popular girl to reblog our things. It’s because we had a feeling she was ashamed of being seen publicly with us. The reason we were worried before then and started making that connection was because I mentioned I was going to ask another user if they were interested in joining Incoherent. Melody was the only one that seemed uncomfortable, and I messaged her asking about it. We agreed I wouldn’t invite that person but I knew things were off about it.

That person is like me. How long until Melody didn’t want to talk to me anymore? A few days ago, the other shoe finally dropped. A member of our little group and I were talking and (let’s call them Friend for simplicity. They asked to not be name dropped here) Friend was worried they had made Melody upset by tagging her in a meme picture they drew of her persona, and the two had agreed that Friend remove the tag. This spawned an anxiety-filled conversation where Friend and I expressed our concerns about Melody not interacting with the project, or us.

So since I wanted reassurance that that wasn’t the case, I messaged Melody with my concerns. I told her I had the feeling she was ashamed of being seen in public with us because of her friends, and she didn’t refute me. She simply told me to go get some rest. I messaged back with “I’m right.”

I deleted Discord off my phone for hours and nearly deleted my Tumblr, AO3, and the server after my boyfriend helped pass messages between us. Melody confessed that was the case because her friends expressed discomfort with my works, and she was playing both sides.

Her words, not mine.

Melody told me she would be withdrawing from the Incoherent project because it wasn’t fair to us if her heart wasn’t in it.

She didn’t stand up on my behalf when they said things about me. Her friends are the type who talk behind creators’ backs for shipping zadr “incorrectly.” Worse than antis because they actually participate in the “pro-shipping” side of the fandom. I broke that day and messaged her at 3 am.

We finally spoke at 3pm. We both missed each other. I tried to understand more. I wanted it to be more like a conversation rather than an interrogation. It was only one-sided however, and she never opened up further. And I made some mistakes and poor choices of words, and we ended up parting ways permanently right there. 

I nearly deleted everything, but much like a coma patient attached to many machines on a hospital bed, my blog was kept alive a little longer by people sending kind words in droves. I was briefly fuelled by spite, wishing to watch the world burn by making everyone on the "correct" side of the fandom upset by posting the worst, most vile content this fandom has ever seen.

I was also welcomed with open arms by a very kind server with fellow degenerates, all of them screaming and crying and partying when they managed to get me in their server. It was so heartwarming...

But as I spoke to others about my situation, I realized something. A disturbing pattern.

People telling me horror stories about how Mooping-10 was cult-like. How the people running it were antis. I was even told once that they have a secondary server where they go to have their talks and do their work, likely the place where the real bashing is held.

The server itself has rules against such behavior, but I suppose it's different when they do it.

One person (and this is the most unnerving part for me, personally) told me Melody actually set off alarm bells in their head without having even done anything yet, and the most disturbing part of the story was that one of the moderators was afraid and upset because they got Covid, and received basically no moral support at all. Only getting told "spoiler that. Sorry you got Covid".

I was horrified. That server has 100 people in it. How many of them are the same? They act like popular kids in school who picked up an unpopular main character and then bash others, and the main character joined in because they don't want to be left behind by their new "friends".

To put it short, back to my point:

TL;DR: I simply only wanted to spread the word that: Mooping-10 is filled with people who absolutely cannot be trusted, creating a very hazardous environment for the zadr community, and Melodyofthevoid is connected to all of those people, living a double life amongst those of us that don't "ship zadr correctly". She has plenty of friends her inner circle knows nothing about, and nobody on either side knows who she really is.

[hp-nextgen-fest]

2020 HP Next Gen Fest Reveals!

The time has finally come for the 2020 @hp-nextgen-fest reveals! Thank you so very much to everyone who has made this fest such an amazing success! We were incredibly impressed with the overwhelming enthusiasm you all have for our favorite Next Gen characters. Everyone who submitted stories and art, and those who read, reviewed and recced: You guys are amazing!! It's been really great seeing everybody's fantastic creations, and we hope you all enjoyed the fest as much as we did! Without further ado, here's a list of all the amazing participants who worked so hard to create fabulous things for this year's fest!

ART

@miakagrewup drew AcciDental Magic [Rose, Hugo, & Grandparents | General] Hermione and Ron are called away for a case and left without their usual child-minder when Molly falls ill. Hermione’s parents step up to keep Hugo and Rose, in spite of Hermione’s warning that the two little ones have some big issues with accidental magic. The story is told comic book style, with illustrations and voice bubbles.

@eleonorapoe drew Woke up married! [James Sirius/Teddy | General] They get well and truly bladdered at Albus's stag do and wake up in bed together with matching wedding bands...

@mad1492 drew Sunday Practice [James Sirius/Teddy | General] Teddy thought that morning practice on Sunday was going to be something he would soon regret, but things may turn more interesting than expected.

@julcheninred drew Introduction [Albus, Severus, & Albus Severus | General] Albus Severus Potter gets to know the men he's named for by asking them about the experiences, memories, and motives that shaped their lives.

@garmrr drew Eyecandy [James Sirius/Teddy | General] After months of extensive Auror training, Teddy comes with the Potters to the beach. James. Cannot. Stop. Staring. At. Teddy. Shirtless.

FIC

@cassiaratheslytherpuff wrote We Keep Loving Anyway [Albus Severus/Scorpius | Explicit | 7.1k] After Albus finds out Scorpius is part vampire he can’t stop thinking about being bitten. He can’t stop thinking about Scorpius in general, but that’s been the case since he was fifteen. At least, when it comes to Scorpius he’s used to not getting what he wants. He’s happy with what he has, or at least, comfortable. That is until he accidentally asks for it, then it all starts to change.

@polly-darton wrote The perks of Veritaserum [James Sirius/Teddy | Explicit | 5.1k] James drank a long-lasting version of Veritaserum and is miserable and Teddy is having the time of his life. That is, until they’re both having the time of their lives.

@gracerene09 wrote Thunderstruck [Charlie/Teddy | Explicit | 2.6k] There’s not a lot for dragon tamers to do when stuck inside during a storm, but looking at this particular new recruit―well, Charlie can’t help but think of a few ways they could pass the time.

Quentin_threepwood wrote Hair Today, Hair Tomorrow [Albus Severus/Scorpius | Mature | 1.7k] Away on a book tour Albus Severus Malfoy grows a very creepy mustache, much to the horror of his still at home husband Scorpius Malfoy.

vitruvian8008 wrote Mission in Nairn [Draco/Lily Luna | Explicit | 7k] Lily Luna Potter is paired with Draco Malfoy for her first Auror Mission. On their last night, she decides to act on the lingering tension that had been building up between them.

@nerdherderette wrote No Other Alpha But You [Albus Severus/James Sirius | Explicit | 7.1k] Scorpius Malfoy has applied to be Albus' heat partner. There's no way James is letting that happen.

@aneiria-writes wrote The Scorpion King [Albus Severus/Scorpius | Explicit | 3.8k] Scorpius Malfoy, AKA the Scorpion King, has ruled Britain ever since his father turned his sights to conquering Europe. With his right-hand man and most trusted advisor, Albus Potter, Scorpius has a life of elegance and power. But he's had enough of the beautiful women that usually grace his bed. Scorpius has decided he wants something else in bed. Something more. Scorpius Malfoy wants Albus Potter.

@motherofmercury wrote Islands of the Upper Air [Lily Luna/Luna | General | 1.5k] Lily Luna has never liked her namesake, or her strange and sometimes absurd way of looking at the world. But a weekend full of ancient rituals and mountain forests is an eye opener, in more ways than one.

@shipperysails-bookofspells wrote Expecto Patronum!! [James Sirius/Teddy | Mature | 45.7k] James Potter had always known exactly what he wanted; to open a pub of his own, maybe travel the world, and live a simple life with the only man he’d ever loved. For years he waited, quietly determined to help Teddy see what could be between them. But just when everything he’d ever dreamed of was finally within his reach, it was ripped away in an instant. With Teddy missing, and presumed dead, James is left to pick up the pieces. John has no idea what he wants. He doesn’t even know who he is. But when he hears a strikingly familiar voice – on an otherwise ordinary day – he sets out to discover everything he can about the man that occupies his dreams. And Harry, well, Harry just wants to put his failures behind him. Until a series of unexpected events forces him to reexamine a case that he’d given up on solving. With the help of an unexpected ally, he just might find the answers he’s been looking for.

@lovealpenglow wrote lily's potter [Lily Luna/Lysander & Lily Luna/Draco | Mature | 8.3k] "But what if I keep it? What’s the contingency plan there?” She took a seat next to Lily. She spoke slowly, as if she was thinking about it for the first time, too. “Well, I mean, you keep your baby. You raise it. You love it. It goes on to do wonderful things because it’s a Potter.” Lily snorted. “It’s a Potter?” “Why not? I mean it’s just as much you as whoever is the father. Why shouldn’t it be a Potter first?”

@micheleblack wrote Snaked a Claim [Albus Severus/Scorpius | Teen | 1.6k] Everyone knew Albus was gay from age five when he would dramatically swoon every time Goncalo Flores the Quidditch player was mentioned. Twenty years later and Harry still tells the tale - much to Al’s embarrassment.

@ladderofyears wrote And I Fell Heavy (Into Your Arms) [James Sirius/Teddy | Explicit | 9.1k] When James Sirius Potter travels to America for three weeks, the turquoise-haired Healer Teddy Lupin misses his boyfriend very much indeed. Luckily, Teddy has (sexy) floo calls, charmed obsidian pendants and hastily made chastity promises to keep him busy. Based on the following prompt: Absence makes the heart grow fonder... Right? Smutty phone!sex? Longing letters? All up to you!

@veelawings wrote Dirty Duelling [Albus Severus/Draco | Explicit | 6.1k] Please, Please, Please Let Me Get What I Want (Or — fucked up Dirty Dancing with wand fights)

@eleonorapoe wrote Albus’ Private Lesson of Sex Education [Albus Severus/James Sirius/Teddy | Explicit | 4.5k] Albus has some doubts about sex. Luckily he has an older brother, who can initiate him. How does this lesson go? James will be the teacher, Albus his good and obedient student and Teddy will be more than happy to serve them as a learning tool. In which a delicious Teddy sandwich is served.

@faeheyjesper wrote Four Reasons [James Sirius/Teddy | General | 8.1k] There were a couple of things James should've considered more seriously before coming back to work at Hogwarts as the new Flying Instructor. His dad being the Defense Against the Dark Arts professor there, for one. The fact that he hadn't really flown since a career-ending injury had put an abrupt end to his Quidditch fame two years ago, for another. His ridiculous, teenage crush on Teddy Lupin, his friend and Hogwarts' newest Charms professor, perhaps most of all.

@26timesbrighter wrote An Interlude [Lavender/Victoire | Explicit | 4.9k] Victoire is supposed to be chasing a serial killer, not shagging her uncle’s dead ex-girlfriend.

@drarryruinedme7 wrote Mint & Apples [Harry/Teddy | Explicit | 4.3k] Teddy Lupin's not-quite-wolf has chosen Harry Potter as his mate, that's all. He hasn't got a crush on his best friend's father, really. He also definitely isn't obsessed with Harry Potter's scent.

crazyparakiss wrote This is Love [Albus Severus/Scorpius | Explicit | 24.8k] Most of Albus’s bad life decisions can be summed up in a word: James. When he got a shitty tattoo in the Fifth Year—done by some bloke in a dirty flat—well, that was James’s idea. When he got picked up by Aurors for doing hallucinogens—James was the one who’d convinced him to do them at a party. That time they stole the flying motorbike Dad gave to Teddy—James was the one who insisted it was a rite of passage to drive it over London at dawn. Neither Dad nor Teddy was impressed with that explanation. Now, here Albus is living another bad choice that was born of James’s influence.

@gaeilgerua wrote The Balance Between Studying and Relaxing [Rose/Teddy | Explicit | 3.7k] Rose has been studying non-stop for her upcoming barrister exam. With Hermione attending Hugo’s Quidditch trials for moral support and Ron away on business, there’s only one person available to keep an eye on her. And Teddy is only too happy to take the role.

@r00wscribbles wrote The last ones to know [Albus Severus/Scorpius | General | 5.2k] Albus and Scorpius have a very close relationship. Everyone can see it. Perhaps they are the last ones to know jus how close they are.

@ohdrarry wrote You've Got A Second Chance (You Could Go Home) [James Sirius/Teddy | Teen | 16k] “What about James?” James, dear Merlin, not James, not again. His boy, his son, the brightest star in the constellation of Harry’s patchwork family, not him. “I think he’s relapsed.” – They tried this when James was nineteen and Teddy was twenty five. It crashed and burned. Teddy ran away to Finland and James... well Teddy's about to find out what happened to James, now that he's back two years later.

@maraudersaffair wrote Falling for You [James Sirius/Scorpius | General | 1.2k] Scorpius didn't care about Quidditch until he saw James Sirius on a broom.

@diligent-thunder wrote Heart-Shaped Ottoman [Draco/Teddy | Explicit | 6.3k] Draco has had interns before, but none so bothersome as Teddy Lupin.

@whenshereads wrote Living With Our Eyes Half Open [James Sirius & Scorpius | Teen | 5.5k] James didn’t mean to get his brother-in-law kidnapped alongside him that morning, but that is definitely what happened.

@shiftylinguini and @gracerene09 wrote Faim [Albus Severus/Scorpius | Explicit | 9.6k]  "So, this is the city of love!" Scorpius declared, adjusting the straps on his backpack. Albus wrinkled his nose. "City of pigeons, more like," he corrected, stepping around another fat, grey bird Or: Scorbus go to France.

@articcat621 wrote Unexpected [Lily Luna/Pansy | Explicit | 1.2k] Draco and Harry's engagement party brings about an unexpected, but not unwelcome, event.

@fidgetyweirdo wrote Remember to Forget [Albus Severus/James Sirius | Mature| 17.5k] The moment they kissed, James and Albus knew that they'd never be able to live without this -- too in love to walk away. Years later, and well into adulthood, the possible repercussions of their relationship feel very real and very scary. Without the strength to break it off, they're left with a single solution: a company that specializes in erasing and altering memories. Now the only thing left to do, is to say goodbye.

[besybil]

A LESSON ON SERVITORS

chaoscommentary

Introduction

In the Chaos Magick ladder which I briefly described in a previous article we have Servitors as the next evolution of our high magick.

Just to remind you we go from:

Sigils -> Servitors -> Egregores -> God forms.

Servitors are much more difficult to put into application than sigils. They require more time and energy as well.

The good news (for some) is that Servitors can still be created in private.

Egregores and Godforms are almost impossible to create without some sort of extra participation or fellowship with other people (however I have some clever methods to use which will be described when I get to those subjects.) Regardless, before I jump into how to create a servitor, I need to clearly define WHAT a servitor IS.

What is a Servitor?

As servitor is a thought form of your own creation. One of the most popular occurrences (back in the day) was the creation of imaginary friends by children.

The power and purpose of your servitor will be entirely dependent on you and your desire to develop it. For young children, to have a non judgmental companion to walk beside them as they learn to socially cope with other people is a common mission for some servitors. Another way to think of Servitors is as “Familiars.”

Now this comes with a bit of a warning, without proper attention your servitor may gain independence and a life of its own (Thus evolving into an Egregore.) I am all about responsibility and making your magick do exactly what it was intended to do, so I will give you some tips on how to keep a leash on your familiar.

Why would I want a Servitor?

Like I said in a previous article, sigils are typically where the buck stops for most Chaotes. They are powerful, work as intended and are very accurate. You could technically stop right there and have everything you will ever need for working with magick. However, magick is more of a walk for some and an exploration of endless possibilities for others. Servitor creation is the next step into some deep waters and a step out into the wild frontier of Magick. This is where the pedal hits the metal; this is where the wild adventure begins. For many adult occultists, this is also a return to childhood which can be a very scary place for some.

That being said; familiars and their purpose are left to your imagination. A companion (friend), a bodyguard, and yes even lovers are all applications for Servitor work. However let me come with a warning, the more you feed a servitor the stronger and more independent it can become. As such I advise highly against creating servitors for sexual gratification. You may end up giving birth to a hag or a succubus (a result of uncontrolled mutation), which in the end will make your life miserable. It would be better to create a wing(wo)man to help bolster your confidence to gain a physical mate. My point ultimately is, just like sigils, there is no limit on what a servitor can do, look like or become. The only limit is your imagination. If a sigils is a magickal computer program, Servitors are magickal robots, just shy of becoming Magickal AI.

Servitors are astral constructs.  Servitors can cause physical change.

Practical use for servitors include:

An assistant in solo magickal work.

A protector for your house.

An assistant for keeping your workspace clean.

To name just a few.

Okay I get it! How do I MAKE one?

First rule: Temper your enthusiasm with caution. Respect the ritual you are about to perform.

Second Rule: We do not create accidents; make sure you truly want to create a servitor. These are not toys, they are very real beings created from your energies, they are in short, your children. Be a responsible parent.

Third Rule: Always, always, always, set up rules and restrictions to keep your servitors exactly that. Without rules, a servitor has the potential to become an Egregore and no longer under your control.

Optional but highly recommended: When I create servitors I get into the habit of breaking down ones I no longer use and incorporate them into the newer, upgraded models. I had a bad experience with leaving “junk servitors” unattended only to have them haunting my dreams and bumping into me in the middle of the night. If you are down with a servitor, release the energy and let it be free. This act prevents the buildup of malice and negative energies from neglected thought forms. Keep your workspace clean, in the astral and in the physical.

Now that we have that established let me begin.

As always with Chaos Magick, there is no right or wrong way to do this. What I offer you is what has worked for me. Tweak it for your purposes. (For me) It always helps to have a template to start with, but YOUR magickal walk is exactly that, yours not mine; you are the final Judge on what you are willing and able to commit to such a practice.

Step 1: State the purpose of your Servitor

Create a sigil or series of sigils which will define the purpose of your servitor. “Protect my home,” “Keep my house clean,” so on and so forth. Make as many sigils as you need. This is the easy part, feel free to find my article on sigil making in this blog.

Step 2: Create a body for your Servitor

You have two options here.

Option A:

You can bind them to a fetish like is a doll, figurine or even a drawing of your own design. I am a naturally arts and crafts kind of person so this is my preferred method.

Option B:

However if for whatever reason I don’t not have the time or money to create a physical representation of my servitor, I use meditation and create the servitor in my mind and in astral space.

Regardless, the process requires the same amount of energy, effort and IMAGINATION. You must visualize the servitor. How tall is it? Does it have limbs? Can it speak? It can take hours to create a body for your  servitor, but you need to define as many of its functions and characteristics as possible. Its body needs to be a vivid as possible. Some of my servitors have looked like Lovecraftian horrors, while one of my longtime companions is a very cute four foot tall blonde elf girl who speaks in wind chimes.

Step 3: Bind your sigils in the body of the servitor, and put in its safety protocols.

Binding your sigils can be as simple as drawing them inside your picture, carving them into your doll, or imagining the sigils being put in place of where its “heart” or “battery” may be. The point is to make sure your sigils are part of your servitor. Once this occurs, and you are convinced the two have become one, a safety should be put into place. As I said before, without a leash or restrain, your servitor has cart-blanche to run amok and out of your control. You have again, to options here: A command word or a counter sigil. The command word can be: “Stop!” “Sit!” “Go away!” It is best to keep it simple; although I know a few people who used poetry for particularly devious machines to make sure not everyone can shut them down. That is the key to command words however, anyone can use them. A servitor must be compelled once a person speaks a word or command phrase to abide by its programming.

Safety Method A: Command Words

Creating a command word is as simple as touching your servitor (if you used a fetish, this is easier) and speaking plainly to them “When I say <x> you will do <y>” (X and Y are your phrase and its action.) Repeat this as many times as you need to remember or until you feel you servitor is ready to comply. You can put as many command words on your servitor as you want, just be careful not to use the same word to do multiple things, or that they words are counterproductive to its mission. You could confuse the crap out of it.

Safety Method B: Counter Sigils

The second method, counter sigils, are kind of a fire and forget method. It lets a servitor know where it  is or isn’t allowed to be. This requires you to name your servitor and upon naming it, creating a sigil of its name. You must decide if this sigil is a ward or a summoning upon its creation. You do not need to commit much thought to this nor does it change the method of how the sigil is created, the intent is good enough. “This sigil means you are welcome to work in this place,” or “This sigil prevents you from going into this place,” Is good enough of a declaration for this method to work. I have seen people bind servitors in boxes with this method and let them out when needed, while others have put the symbols on doors and the like to let servitors know where they should go.

Step 4: BRING YOUR CREATION TO LIFE!!!!!

The ritual can be as elaborate or mundane as you want. However I will tell you, the more elaborate the more powerful your servitor will be in the long run. I have used a simple hand flick gesture (like turning on a light) to activate some, they only lasted a few days before the broke down. My longtime companion servitor had entire weeks of music and food dedicated to her and if she didn’t have any safety protocols in place, probably would have become an Egregore by now. Still, perform a ritual that lets the servitor know it is born. Throw it a birthday party, show it around the house, get silly, get childish. There is no right or wrong way to invite this new entity into your home, just know, the more gnosis you feed it, the better.

Step 4:

Regular maintenance of your servitor is a must. Your servitor must be in your mind from time to time. If you forget about it, it loses energy and dies. While, just thinking about it is okay, offerings or rewards are much more potent. For my lesser servitors I give them a drop of life force when they have done well. For my companion, I have treated her to donuts and milk. The key is to understand the relationship between you and your servitor. Unless you set them free, they cannot live without you. If you forget them, they will die. Woe to the chaote who creates a servitor with no restrictions and then neglects them, you may create a vengeful spirit to infest your house. So reward you servitor when they have done their duties and let them know you still care about them.

Dismantling your Servitors:

I include this part because all good occultists know the value of banishment. Some servitors outlive their usefulness and thus need to be released back into the cosmos. This is not a cruel thing to do, as a matter of fact; actively releasing your unused servitors is very humane. It is cruel to leave a bound servitor unattended to die an agonizing death of forgetfulness and neglect.

Dismantling is simple. Take the abject or thought of you servitor and tell it “You are free” or “I set you free” Imagine all of the bindings and words leaving and falling apart into harmless light. If you have a fetish, set it ablaze or destroy it in some gentle way. Make sure that the object can no longer physically house the servitor. IT is a very good practice to tell it, that it has performed well and it is time for it to move on. If the servitor doesn’t seem to want to leave then you may have to perform this a few time. My companion didn’t want to leave me when I tried to banish her the first three times, she was so fiercely loyal that I gave her a second birthday and still keep her to this day.

That is servitor making in a nutshell.

I am sure many of you have questions or will want me to elaborate. So feel free to ask questions if you need help. This is a basic outline, I am vague for a reason to encourage you to go out there and find what works for you. Just be safe and Chaos Magick responsibly.

~M.A. Hargrove © 2014

[matildainmotion]

All That We Carry - and the launch of the MWM Peer Mentoring Programme.

Image by Zoe Gardner @limberdoodle​

“How are you?”

“Oh, you know, surviving,” I say. 

Or

“Taking it a day at a time.”

Or

“Just about upright!”

Or sometimes I say nothing but describe a hilly landscape with my hand - “Up and down,” I might add.

Over the last ten years, since my son was born, I have accrued a ready-made stock of replies when someone - at the school gate, the shops, on a zoom call- asks the generic “how are you?” I can’t bring myself to smile gaily and say, “Great, thank you!” so my responses are designed to indicate just enough of the truth not to make the questioner worried or burdened, but do not tip me into the territory of barefaced lying. Because, the fact is, it’s hard.

‘It’ means everything - my son, my daughter, their school, my mother, time for my husband, the house, my work, my health, my sleep, the world.

‘It’ is a tiny word. In this context ‘it’ makes me think of an ant - the way they clamber across the dirt track by our house, carrying a stick, twice their size and weight. We do this. Parents and carers do it. Women do it. Non-binary people too. We carry A LOT, and often we do it in relative silence, either because we are too exhausted to shout about it, or even to notice or fully acknowledged it to ourselves, or because we do not know who to tell or how to tell them.

This is not new. Not news. We have been doing this - carrying a lot - for a long, long time. In fact, there is even a well-researched theory that the first thing that a mother ever made was probably a net or sling* - a thing to put things in, to enable her to carry more than she could manage to hold with just her hands, just her arms. We have been carrying stuff around in nets, slings, sacks, pots, on our heads, on our backs, in our bellies, in our hearts, we have had loads on our minds for millennia. The act that is less well documented, because it happens less, is that of us setting things down. Of course, some brave pioneers have done it, through acts of radical art, or resistance: Hildegard of Bingen, Rosa Parks, Mary Wollstonecraft. But all too often when we hear of someone ceasing to carry it all, it is a story of crisis - of dropping the lot, out of exhaustion, ill health, burn out. Because mostly, as a carer, there are so few opportunities to set things down, we just carry on carrying.

Six months into motherhood, when I was feeling the hardness of it already, I enrolled on a support course for parents and I still remember the phrase that the course facilitator used: most parents, she said, walk around with “a huge empathy deficit.” Empathy, I believe, involves someone else bearing witness to all you are carrying, acknowledging its full weight. It is a miraculous thing, but this acknowledgment in itself lightens the load, or perhaps, more accurately, the load gets no lighter but we feel stronger, better able to bear it. Earlier this year - still feeling the struggle - I enrolled on another course, a Hand in Hand Parenting one. The founder of Hand in Hand, Patty Wifler, did so out of a recognition of the severe lack of support that parents receive in our culture to do the enormous task of raising children. A cornerstone of her approach, her answer to the ‘empathy deficit’ is the idea of Listening Partnerships - a peer support arrangement that enables parents to offload regularly, safely, with another adult.

For a long time now, I have wanted to run something like this within Mothers Who Make- a way to provide one another with support, encouragement and accountability, as we do the almighty work of caring and creating. It is the same impulse that informs our peer support groups, but there is something vitally different that can take place in a one to one exchange - a more precise sharing of the weight of what you are carrying, a chance, for however brief a time, to set it down and take a good look at it. This month then, I am delighted to announce the launch of the MWM Peer Mentoring Programme. I ran a trial in July and it was everything I hoped it could be, so I am very excited to offer it again now. Please read about the programme below - what it is, how it works, how to enroll. Before you do, however, I want to use this moment as I might a peer-mentoring session, to set down what I am carrying, not because I need empathy (though, like everyone else, I do!) but because I hope it will give you permission to do the same. One thing I love about writing is that, despite the distances of time and space it traverses, it is strangely intimate, like a one on one exchange - just me, telling this to just you.

So, in answer to the question, “How are you?” here is the fuller response, which I do not give most of the time:

I am tired, always, and tired of being tired. The nights feel like dark imprints of the days, a negative image, not restful but grainy, smudge. Last night I slept on the children’s bedroom floor because it was easier to relax without the pressure of being in a bed, with the hardness of the floor against me. Today my breasts are tender even though I am only partway through my cycle - I googled it - another symptom of the perimenopause. Next door, as I write, my son is playing Lego Star Wars on the TV and my daughter is watching Lego Friends on Granny’s iPad - their daily dose of screen time so that I can have my daily dose of this, but it never sits easy. I dread the week ahead, of dressing them in bed, still half-asleep, readying them for school, where it is uncertain how their day will go, how long they will stay before I get a call asking me to pick them up, how they will be when they come home - it is a shock, although it shouldn’t be, to realise that both my children are neurodiverse. This is a trendy term nowadays, one to celebrate, and I do, but it is also a weight, to carry all the not-fitting-in-ness that goes with it. The last two nights my son has thrown up with anxiety, from the fear of anything bad happening to any one of us. I managed to get the potty-as-sick-bowl there in time, on to his top bunk, calmed him at last, till he fell asleep just before midnight. I went downstairs to turn off the lights - I always stop at this moment, to look through the back window into the tiny dark of the garden, to Granny’s room, or shed, at the end of it, and wonder how long my mother will live and if it will be long enough to see my novel published - apparently it takes two years even once you’ve got a publisher. I told her this yesterday and she frowned, said she would have a word with God, thought she ought to be able to manage it. I am wondering, though, how I will manage it - manage to do the rewrites the book needs, to do the work MWM requires, and the work I have taken on for Improbable, the finding of a new home for the company, but also for us, a new school, a place for us to be. And meanwhile, the house is overspilling – every room - with toys, books, dvds, with plastic trinkets from the inside of Kinder eggs, dried up felt tip pens and stale biscuits, stored in tins too late, which I should throw away but I can’t face the waste and so I continue to pretend that one day they may get eaten.

That’s me. And all the short answers are still true - I am surviving, I am still upright, taking it a day at a time, through all the ups and downs, and I am, actually, in a position of great privilege, on many levels.

And you? How are you? That’s my question for the month. And I’m interested in the long answer. Here are some ways you can respond:

You can post below this.

You can participate in the MWM Peer Mentoring Programme - read all about it and apply here: https://motherswhomake.org/peer-mentoring

You can attend a peer support meeting - read all about that and book your space here: https://motherswhomake.org/international

*The Carrier Bag Theory of Evolution by Elizabeth Fisher in Women’s Creation (McGraw-Hill 1973)

Image by Zoe Gardner @Limberdoodle

[averyscarlet-blog]

Project Clypse

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

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

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

Premise/Background

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Main Characters

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

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

. . .

Sound

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

. . .

Ayane Koronashi

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

. . .

Reihana Toelle Ur Kamaria

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

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

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

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

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

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

. . .

Perseus Vlahos

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

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

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

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

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

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

. . .

Noise (***** Rallus)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

. . .

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

. . .

Ulric Soknawo

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

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

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

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

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

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

Any attempts at interfering will only hasten their death.

. . .

Xavier Wozwald Hawthorne

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

. . .

Succu(bus) Kilmer

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

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

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

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

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

Side Characters

Tank Mortem

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

Beatrix Staccato

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

‘Nyx’ Pierrot

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

Mitchell Pierrot

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

Constantine L. Refrain

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

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

Stefan Mal Sorcier

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

Kyline Necro

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

Yu-Yan Chi Ryou

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

Anita Eine Kleine

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

Victor Stein

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

Wolfram

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

Diantha Anemone

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

Echo & Yell

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

Important Figures

Belial

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

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

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

Soleil

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

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

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

The Oracle

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

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

The Seekers

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

Races

Liberi

Age Range: Birth or 5 to 10 years

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

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

Quietus Nors

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ex-Animus (or Anima for singular)

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

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

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

Factions

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

[fy-2pm]

2PM Nichkhun, Not Afraid of 14 Days Quarantine Coming into Hong Kong for Hollywood Movie!

Faith & Love

Beliefs are humanity’s value and living style. It’s also a measure of one’s meaning in life. It doesn’t necessarily need to be related of religion. It can be communicate through one’s emotions and brain waves, which stimulates our desires. The childhood imaginations and the dreams of the youth, both are the living anticipations in one’s beliefs. Unfortunately, people are living in the reality. While we are diligently chasing our dreams, we come across many obstacles, which leads our frustrations.

With the rise of Korea’s “Star Creation Culture”, besides the many newborn solo singers and idol groups each year, it has also “forcefully” changed the dream job for the millennium. Behind the glamorous of the Korean idol groups, there is a heave price to pay. The whole process of “audition and training” is like a canoe in the middle of the rough sea. It is being hit by continuous wave one after another with an unforeseen destination.

This time “MR” has invited early generation of Korean idol group member, known as the “Beast Idol”, 2PM’s Nichkhun to talk to us about his “Crazy Star Creation Dream” being the only foreign member in his group, his “Stardom” journey gives people sense of motivation.

The Curiosity of Exploring the Big World

Despite the world that contains many different kinds of culture or education principle, there is a universal compulsory lesson one must take called, “My Ambition”. For Nichkhun who was in the first wave that exports the Korean music culture into the world, most would think that his ambition since his childhood is to become a singer. However, the thought of entering the entertainment industry has never came across Nichkhun’s mind since childhood. He said, “When I was a child, I was just a ‘Regular boy’. Same as everyone else, I received a standard education. Everyday, I went everywhere and played with my friends. I was having fun and enjoying my youth. At the same time, trying to discover my ambition.”

In contrast, the recent trend for Korean idols is to give up their education and youth at an early age. Around the age of 10, they start their trainee lessons and after 8-10 years, they may be given the chance to debut. It’s no surprise that Nichkhun feels very fortunate and grateful. He said with a smile, “When I was a child, I was very shy. It was even up to the point where I didn’t know how to communicate with others. I thought of becoming a scientist because staying in the laboratory day and night just mixing chemicals seems fascinating.” However, as he grew up, he realized he is not the typical studying type. Because of that, he started to approach the creative art industry.

Nichkhun is different to most of the Korean artists. After he received his fame, he did not change his path and went into the business industry. Instead, he wants to focus in the showbiz by taking on more challenges. In the recent years, he was in varies different reality shows, dramas and movies, no matter how big or small.

This time, Nichkhun especially came to Hong Kong to film “Hong Kong Love Story.” The movie is a story about seeking love and friendship. Nichkhun has generously shared with us value in relationships. He said, “I think both love and friendship consist of ‘love’. The only difference is, the first one consist of the ‘romantic element’. This time I am participating in ‘Hong Kong Love Story’ with a theme that sticks relatively close to the ground. It’s bringing up the choice between the lover and friends. It makes people realize what’s more important in their hearts. Although, love is about give and take, behind all the unconditional giving, there is still the hope for some sort of return. Even if it is just a little bit.”

Nichkhun agrees that even though both singing and acting belongs to the entertainment industry, the way to perform and the to way to receive feedback are very different. He said, “In 2PM, I am just playing the role of Nichkhun and being myself. I can express myself freely with my personalities. I can receive feedback immediately from a live audience. In acting, I need to jump out from the soul of Nichkhun, I need to speak as the character from the story and to analyze the character’s personalities. For example, if I am the bad guy in the script, should I act as a person with some humor, or should I express the character with some masculine charisma?”

Nichkhun is still exploring as an actor, “I think I am still a newbie actor. I am still exploring how to ‘role play’. Although, there are times when I feel uncomfortable and lack of confidence, I believe everyone should jump out from their comfort zone to gain more in life! The main obvious different between acting and singing is that the feedback comes at a later time. You cannot fix the mistake immediately because you only notice the viewers’ reaction after the drama is released. Only then, you realized where you can make your improvements” with what he said, you will notice he is a humble person who is eager to learn.

Me, My Beliefs

As a public figure, you have to take in all the compliments and criticism. If they are good, you must continue with it but if they are negative comments, it will serve as a self-reminder. Nichkhun said with confidence, “I never go into the internet and search comments about myself. We need to remind ourselves, ‘I am me. I am living for myself!’ It does make sense with what he said. There is no need for everyone to be like Nichkhun’s character in “Brother of the Year”, Moji who keep thinking about how others feel. Although, he also agreed that criticism could help with areas where he is lacking. However, we need to distinguish between the good and the bad. There is no need to take care of the ‘garbage’ others have thrown onto us.

Without noticing, Nichkhun has already debut for more than 10 years. Do not look at his handsome appearance and judge him as someone who is “Naturally born for the industry.” Only he knows all the hardships he has gone through and he only looks at ‘today.’ He said, “I don’t have days in the past that I missed. I also don’t have days that I want for the future. The most memorable and happiest day will definitely be everyday’s today!” Nichkhun emphasized that there is no need to feel troubled with the past. He said, “What if I did this, the outcome may be better? You cannot avoid thinking like this but don’t overthink it. You have to believe that every decision I’ve made becomes who I am today. If you have made another decision in the past, the me today may have another unexpected outcome.”

Nichkhun explained the important of ‘Today,’ “We should think about what I can finish off today or what goal I can achieve. If you only think deeply into the future, it will only become imagination and empty wishes. Instead of struggling with time that is intangible, why not use this immediate moment and take into action?”

Life is an exploration that goes up and down. On the stormy and rainy days, it creates inconveniences. On the days when the flowers blossom and the birds are singing, it makes us feel at east. “Self confidence” is like the unshaken lighthouse in the middle of the stormy sea. Although the light can be dim but the darker it gets, the brighter it will be. Over time, in the sea with crowds of people, may us be more like Nichkhun with a faithful pounding heart going towards the lighthouse with motivations.

Credits and translation @JLML718

[whoson1st]

Are you in the official King Falls server at all? Just trying to get an idea of what's going on and who knows what's going on

Hoooooo BOISE.

So, long story short, yes. Yes I’m in the discord, yes I know what’s going on, and it’s all really, really stupid. I think that there were mistakes made on a lot of fronts, but I also think that the end result is, in a lot of ways, a long time coming.

I haven’t been responding to things I’ve seen on social media for the most part, and wasn’t REALLY keen to respond to this, but there’s also a lot of misinformation happening due to hurt feelings. There’s plenty of abridged accounts of what’s going on, and I’m pretty sure you know that. I’m taking this question on good faith that it’s genuinely asking and not setting me up to get torn down but...honestly, either way, I don’t care. I’m not on tumblr much these days anyway so it doesn’t really matter, and internet drama is just….it’s always dumb. But there’s a lot of “evidence” being put forth that is out of context or in bad faith, and the people who are being the loudest are a whole lot of the problem, so I’ll put in my account and opinions.

Anyway, I’m putting everything under a cut because it’s...a lot.

So first off, full disclosure, I used to be a mod on the discord. I left the team at the beginning of the year of my own volition because I’m an adult with a job and a life and things to take care of that aren’t that and needed a break. I’m still friends with all the current mods, and talk to them regularly, as well as being on good terms with the cast and creators. Just in case you’re dead set on hating any of them, you should know that. I try to keep a pretty good perspective, and I’m a little more removed than I was a few months ago, but I won’t say I’m totally free of bias either. If that’s what you’re into, just go ahead and skip this.

This all started with a piece of fan art, which honestly should be a clue as to how petty this all is. The fanart included The Dirt in a BDSM outfit as part of a larger work, and it was posted in the fanart section of the discord. It was bordering on NSFW, and the artist maybe should have asked the mods and/or put it behind a spoiler tag--which is probably as far as the mods would have gone had they been consulted, because it was 1) part of a larger thing and 2) canon compliant (it’s Jacob Williams, what do you want?). Neither of those things happened, people complained, the art was taken down. Then Kyle Brown, one of the writers, retweeted the copy that had been uploaded to twitter on his personal account--his account, not KFAM official--and someone complained that it made them uncomfortable and was not safe for work. Another cast member, Trent Shumway, replied that twitter isn’t a safe for work site, which it’s not. Which then led to both Kyle and Trent being socially crucified for not taking more care in what their followers see on their personal accounts on an open social media platform that is not dedicated to any single person or work.

It was already stupid. Really, really stupid. Especially since this is not a SFW podcast. It never has been. Everyone remember the third episode with Archie’s pomchies? And I know that certain aspects of that make people uncomfortable but if you are choosing to listen to the show regardless of that, it’s on you. An artist isn’t going to repaint something because you’re not a fan of green. And the SFW rule on the server has always been “within the guidelines of the show”.

So then, someone made this post that has since been deleted but I’m including mostly because if other people want to go ahead and pull receipts, I’m also going to.

Before I go ANY further with this, I want to say this: this person has been a problem for a LONG TIME. Months, at least, since before I left the mod team, and is honestly part of the reason being a mod became so difficult for me. They have displayed a pattern of abuse of the mods, the creators, and other members of the community on both twitter and tumblr, and have made people on the discord server uncomfortable enough that they either don’t participate or have left completely. This one person. And they have a bully squad behind them. And it sucks. But in the end, it was always decided that we couldn’t police what people did on their individual accounts or single someone out who hadn’t technically broken guidelines in the server, despite numerous complaints, because the mods and creators want to make everyone feel that they’re included. This decision was made...numerous times. After multiple incidents. For months.

I had my own issues with this decision, but that’s neither here nor there, and doesn’t really matter anymore. Because that post was the straw that broke the camel’s back.

Kyle, misunderstanding the term, took it as a threat. Not hard to do, given the already heightened emotions, the tags, and this person’s history. So the person was immediately banned. The fact is, even without misunderstanding, that’s a really shitty post. That’s hating one a writer and a cast member and still wanting to pretend they have nothing to do with the THING THEY CREATE because this person doesn’t like what they said on twitter.

Following that, one of their friends--who had also been a longstanding problem--attempted to start a knockdown dragout in the general chat with one of the mods over this, and was upset when the mod in question first said they’d be happy to talk on DM but not on the server, and then ignored them when they repeatedly tried to carry on the argument.

Then they lit a candle in the channel the banned person had pitched a fit in order to form, as if the person was dead and not just a jerk. And then they made this post:

They also got banned, because OBVIOUSLY. Again, misunderstanding or not, that’s a horrible way to deal with it. You can’t possibly expect to call someone an illiterate fuckwad and still want to be included in spaces they created, much less EXPECT to be. 

And then several other people who were attempting the same nonsense publicly. And then invites were taken away when the mods got word that there was a possible plan in the works to spam the server. And there’s a weird campaign to EXPOSE THE CREATORS FOR THE ASSHOLES THEY ARE.

And that’s...about where things are at now. A lot of people are upset and hurt across the board. And it sucks.

Here’s the thing. Mistakes were made. Kyle misunderstood Death of the Author, and has a tendency toward knee-jerk, unedited reactions. The mods should have been more on top of the problem and not let it fester. There were ways that this could have been mitigated and done better. There always are.

But this was always going to happen in some fashion.

Podcasts and podcast communities are not new anymore, folks. But it still seems like people have a hard time grasping their actual level of involvement in the creation because of how active some creators are. You’re free to say whatever you want, but you are not free from consequence. And you’re not exempt from being wrong. This isn’t just a matter of the creators of KFAM--or any work, to be honest--not being able to take criticism, this is a matter of people thinking that their criticism is 100% correct 100% of the time, and the entitled attitude that comes with that. KFAM isn’t perfect, I have my own criticisms of it, because I have criticisms about basically everything under the sun, so it’s not just blind following. But it is trust in the creators and the people around them to find the best way to tell their story, to the see their problems and strive for better. And we’ve literally seen that happen in KFAM, in changes made to Walt, in Emily’s storyline, in Lily’s...everything. In the addition of “guys, gals, and non-binary pals”. They’re trying. They’re not perfect, but they’re not deaf. They’re also not obligated or beholden to everything their audience says regarding their story.

The whole argument that they can’t take criticism is undercut when it’s being made by people who think that everything they say should be taken as gospel, and treat every instance where someone disagrees with them as a personal attack. The scope of hypocrisy here is just...breathtaking.

Also, when not withstanding some nonsense attacks, they’re all genuinely kind and friendly. I already admitted some bias here, but seriously, they go out of their way to check on people and respond to people and lift people up. It’s total horse dookie to act like they don’t care about their fans.

And as for the discord--god, just get a life. The mods there work SO HARD to make everyone feel included, to encourage participation, the create a positive environment for people to talk about the things they love and make friends. They have meetings and spreadsheets and calendars and work together as a team and with Kyle to keep the place working smoothly even though there’s FIVE of them running a HUGE server. The person who was initially banned was forever complaining about the discord and how the mods ran it, even while some suggestions they had were implemented. But that discord has like 1500 people in it, gang, it’s not about what one person wants all the time. And that person has their own server anyway so just go be unhappy there and leave everyone else alone. It’s what you were doing anyway.

TL;DR: There was a lot of manufactured outrage over something incredibly dumb, and some misunderstandings, and resulted in actions that had been looming for a long time and just finally popped off. Kyle and the mods aren’t perfect, but they aren’t the villains. The people who were banned have a history of negativity and bullying that led to the decision to remove them.

If anyone takes anything from this, please let it be that it’s a GODDAMN PODCAST. If it makes you angry, if you don’t like it, go watch a movie. Eat a snack. Knit a sweater. Take a nap. Listen to a new music album. Literally anything. There’s so many things to do in this life that aren’t LOOKING for things to be upset about.

Remember the golden rule, and don’t be a dick.

[yuraimi-lee-bunny]

Let's get to the point first and then I'll give the important details:

Because of rude and intolerant comments of directly and indirectly way from LiS fandom here in Tumblr (only intolerant and abusive fans of Pricefield and Chloe) I fell into depression for a year and a half

I met the game on February 6, 2015. I immediately loved the game. I could only watch Gameplays. At the same time I was about to finish my Visual Arts career. I was specializing in Illustration and creation, development and character analysis (theory and practice)

At the beginning (between Ep.1 and Ep.3) Pricefield was causing me some pleasure but I also liked Warren, although I defended Warren from the unjustified hate that dome gave him, but I never saw the Grahamfield as an option. But days before Ep.4 some personal things happened to me, and I began to see the Grahamfield with an option, I started to like it more. Ep.4 arrives and besides being my favorite episode, I was happy and surprised that the Grahamfield was a possible option.

Finish the game and although I don't like at all the choice "Sacrifice Arcadia Bay" I had no problem, in the end: everyone their choices. I started showing my Grahamfield works. Sometimes comments came directly and indirectly offending my work. No problem, I could deal with it. But in 2016 began the problem: The attacks on Grahamfield, Warren and those who liked it increased even worse: they attacked those who chose to Sacrifice Chloe. The offenses were of a lot of variety but here are some of the ones I remember:

"You have no heart" "You're a monster", "You're a horrible person" "Surely you're homophobic" "You're a lesphobic" "You didn't understand the game" "You didn't understand Max" "That disgusts your tastes" "If you like such a ship, then fuck you"

In early 2016 I was dealing with many personal, family, professional problems, go to see things about LiS and other things that I liked helped me to reassure me. But that intolerant posts in LiS tags were so massive and consecutive that ended up making me believe them and thus, fall into depression.

I was weak? Maybe. But I hope you understand that everywhere I was going through difficult times, that when I went to see things about LiS it was my way of being able to entertain myself and I hope you also understand, that these people were not entitled to attack people. In 2015 I could deal with it but that 2016 I couldn't because of my own affairs and because the attacks, seriously, were massive. I was no longer happy with my decisions, nor tastes, with anything. I tried everything: to listen to my favorite music, to watch series that motivated me and remembered me my goals and my own being. Met my friendships, my boyfriend. Nothing worked. Everything was getting worse: although I no longer paid attention and stopped going to tags for a while, the damage was already done to me, the doubts grew more and more in me:

"Why do I like grahamfield?" "Why couldn't you like the Pricefield?" "Why do you like Warren?" "Why can't Chloe be your favorite?"

And worse:

"Why do you always like the weirdest thing?" "Why can't you be like the others?" "Why don't you normal?" "Why do I think as I think?" "Why am I this way?" What was I born for? "Why do I exist?" "Why?" "Why?" "Why?"

My self-esteem went down a lot, I no longer wanted to draw and I didn't want to get out of bed. Everything looked gray and had attacks of crying. Although my problems had turned out. The depression was already in me. I had to go to the psychologist. I was diagnosed with Social Depression. It wasn't serious, but it had to be treated. I kept going to sessions. My psychologist is a love, I could tell her absolutely everything even if it sounded very absurd but she understood and helped me. My mom, my boyfriend, some friends help me too. Some things I discovered also help: Lukas Graham, Keane, Oxenfree, and more.

Throughout 2016 sometimes I suffered attacks of anxiety, doubts, of crying. It was difficult to deal for me, my mom and my boyfriend. But we don't give up. I didn't give up. I almost broke up with my boyfriend for believing it was a nuisance and weak, but I never did. Unfortunately sometimes looking Pricefield made me nervous and feeling of guilt for not liking Pricefield invaded me very hard. I swear that I tried by many means to like it and become my ship. I never could and currently I can't. I only see them as best friends.

So I drew Grahamfield. In fact, in this long road of recovery, Max and Warren accompanied me a lot, they were the characthers and a ship that helped me a lot in accepting myself as I am and with my tastes and choices. Little by little I was recovering. 2016 wasn't a very pleasant year for me, but still there some good memories of that year. 2017 was a better year. At the beginning of that year I could feel improvements, but sometimes the doubts continued and sometimes I woke up with stomachaches. Monstar Calls, Persona 5, Jughead's Comic, new friendships, and improved more. LiS's fandom was quieter and I drew more Grahanfield. But April was where I found that serie that made me try harder to get up.

Orange is the New Black and Bojack Horseman were those series that I watched in 2016 and helped me a lot to accept my depression, to accept myself, to defend myself and to love myself as I am. But that April 12 2017 I started watching 13 Reasons Why and everything was clearer to me. I know, 13RW is a very controversial series, but it helped me realize many, many things: how lucky I'm to have people around me who love and love me. That I want and I must be strong to protect those I want, to defend myself and demonstrate what I'm capable of achieving. Not giving up. It's worth moving forward. I want to live.

And so, with more strength and enthusiasm I began to overcome my low self-esteem, I began to draw more, to work for a while as a waitress and resume my studies to get my degree. There was only one problem: now I saw Pricefield and I got angry. It reminded me of all the pain I went through in 2016 for those rude people who liked Pricefield and kept attacking you just for liking another ship. But my anger is left just in that: Angry. I swear never, but NEVER come to attack or offend someone because they like Pricefield. I never did and never will.

2017 was a good year, although BTS isn't a game that I like very much, I enjoyed it somehow. My psychologist tells me that I'm much better. For me it meant that I had already overcome my depression. The earthquake of September 19 in 2017 was an event that greatly impacted me. I helped as much as I could, and there I realized that in 2018 I wanted to improve myself more as person. And I did it.

2018 was my best year: I participated in a film with rotoscopie technique called "Olimpia" and it's one of my greatest achievements and I'm proud to have participated in making animation. I did many activities that helped me grow as a person. I kept drawing Grahanfield and now I defended Warren and Grahamfield as I had never done, but this time with evidence. My love for the characters had come back and I had studied the subject more. American Vandal, Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, Shape of Water also arrived in 2018 and they helped me a lot.

2019 arrives: Carmen Sandiego and The Umbrella Academy get to inspire me professionally. I started a diploma in February of Graphic Novel to get my Bachelor's degree. I did it. I finished in August and this November they gave it to me. I'm already licensed. I've been calmly reading the LiS comic. Seeing things about Pricefield no longer fill me with anxiety. I absolutely feel good and happy with my tastes within the fandom of LiS.

In these days I have thought about my whole process. OITNB ended this year, next year ends Bojack Horseman and 13 Reasons Why. Those 3 series with their recent seasons have made me see that I must close a cycle. And that's why I count all this.

I tell my story as proof of how much the toxic side of the LiS fandom damaged me. That although everything remains calm sometimes, there are still people like that I managed to get ahead, and I hope that someone inside the fandom hasn't suffered something similar or worse. And still, to those people who damaged me only one thing I can say:

Thank you.

Thank you for your fatal acts, because even they have damaged me and brought me into depression, it caused me to get the best out of myself and show myself that I can be stronger.

I love Grahamfield, Max and Warren separately. These characters and ship aren't only that, they're my recovery symbol and reminder of loving me as I am. They mean to me a lot. They grew and healed with me. I appreciate these two separately and together. I never hated Chloe. She isn't my favorite but I appreciate her a lot, I recognize her flaws, and I still appreciate her. Chloe and me have things in common. But in truth: you don't know how much I identify with Max and Warren, that's how it was since I met the game.

I'm glad to notice my years of progress. But I also want to apologize if at some point I became rude for defending Warren and/or Grahamfield. Now I hope you understand where my courage and my insistence to defend it came from.

I also want to make it clear that I don't blame Pricefield or anyone who likes this ship or Chloe. But I want to prove that attacking someone just because doesn't like your ship isn't fine. You don't know what is happening to that person. Judging someone just for a taste is neither good nor kind. You don't know how much a characther/ship can mean for that person. Notice to what degree can damage their fanaticism that reaches the degree of intolerance. I also want to clarify that it isn't bad that someone doesn't like Warren and Grahamfield. What is wrong is that some don't understand that everyone likes. That understand that not everyone will like the same thing and they will not see it in the same way.

Everyone is a world. Everyone has their own worldview. Not because someone is different from you and doesn't like the same as you, it gives you the right to judge it as trahs and treat it as trahs.

Treat people as you would like to be treated.

I'm glad that in these 4 years that I like LiS I have found people who are still kind to me and others, and who respect each other's tastes and decisions. Both on Twitter, IG and here I have found friendly and fun people and I really appreciate them. They were a great help of my recovery. Really, thank you very much guys. Believe me that sharing the same taste for LiS but each one having different taste, still treating each other well and in a friendly way, helped me a lot and I'm very grateful. I will continue to like everything about LiS and LiS2. I will continue to draw about it and I will love to find friendships that also like LiS. Count on me when you need anything. LiS is still something important in my life, it helped me a lot to grow in several aspects. But I also won't let anyone keep offending/attacking someone else in the fandom if that person isn't hurting anyone. Respect and Tolerance among all please.

If you have read all this, you don't know how much I appreciate it. I hope this helps someone to reflect on our way of living, communicating, understanding and tolerating each other. I'm already very well, more than good.

I love myself.

Please love yourself.

You can do it!

[highkingfen]

You are so “positive fake”. You say you understand why people are mad yet never address the lgbtqia problem. No wonder since you aren’t in the community anyway. Stop pretending things are perfect your the reason the fandom is bad right now, it’s ok for us to be mad and hate the author. Fuck your fake happiness. Hope you stay in your depression until you realize what you do is wrong

Alright, It took me a moment to answer this because the last sentence you said just broke my heart. Whatever our opinions are, wishing someone to stay in illness is just pure cruelty. We may agree to disagree, but this is going way too far and I think most of my friends here and irl would tell you the same. Please ask yourself why you needed to end your message that way.

Second, this is not fake positive. If you read my blog, you’ll see I post sad things to, I just actively decided not to engage in the fandom debate because I have a different opinion, and also because I don’t think adding my voice will bring something to the conversation. I do talk actively about the season 4 finale, just in private. 

In fact, today I will record a special episode of my podcast Fillorians United with Vanessa Zoltan from Harry Potter and the sacred text and one of our point of discussion will be how to conciliate your love of something while having a problematic author (for her, it is JK latest tweets). I wanted to bring that into the fandom later and hope this will make people heal a bit more. That’s my way of taking care of the fandom. Vanessa is really insightful and her word in private helped me feel better about how I handle The Magicians content, when I will publish the mini-episode, please listen to it. 

Third, I am not vocal about it but I AM in the LGBTQIA+ community. I am a biromantic asexual who is married to a bisexual transgender man. I do not see my sexual identity as my identity as some member of the community may have (i.e my husband is strong in Montreal Queer community and needed to find others like him, I do not carry that wish but respect his and, by being with him, meet a lot of people in the community as well.) I DO understand what you are going through. I DO read a lot about it. But does this mean your voice is more valid than mine?I don’t think so. I think the internet and this fandom is big enough for people to be mad and express it and have people that don’t feel as strongly as you and still want to enjoy doing gifset and writing fics without making it political. Both are ok. I hate seeing people getting angry at actors or lashing at the on twitter like they had a saying in what happened. 

People forgot that most of them learn the true finale 2 days before us and that their job is to act. If they defend the show they are in, most of it is because this is their secure job and they fight for it to stay alive. You don’t like this? Then stop watching instead of being mad at people that are simply the tools of what writers wrote. 

I also want to make a note for anyone that, as someone who studied Public Relation during a crisis, I would have recommended to Sera and John not to talk anymore because whatever they do or say will never be good enough for part of the fandom. Better for them not being attacked for everything they tweet and focusing on their job. They are in a hurricane and, right now, I don’t blame them to need to be in their safe house. When the storm will be calmer, I would tell them to go back on twitter. But right now, whatever they say will not be enough and will just put oil on fire. This is why I do not resent their silence. Even if I wish they’d talk, I understand why they don’t.

Also anon, all of The Magicians isnt hurt and hating the show now. I want to show you how amazing this fandom is

Because of the fandom, my 2nd edition of The Magicians DND book on Kickstarter is 130% funded and If I get 1500$ will be able to afford to take off work for a whole month and work on it, but even if I get 3 weeks it is because fans were willing to give me a bit of their money to say “hey, what you do is cool and I want to encourage you.” In my wildest dream, I’d never believed this could happen. 

I see people doing cosplays and getting ready for ComicCon, encouraging each other, screaming when they see pictures. And I am here for it. I went in so many fandom that was taking apart everything a cosplayer didn’t do instead of adoring the hard work people put into it

There is AT LEAST 5 lets-keep-busy-during-the-hiatus project happening! From The Welter Challenge to a Big Bang to a Queliot or an Alice week! It is WONDERFUL to see that despite it all, some of us stay and don’t want the hiatus to means nothing happens here

people are SO fucking creative! I can’t keep up to ao3 anymore which is AMAZING! When I arrived in the fandom there were 15 fics at most. I see people doing pins and shirt and prints and fan art and gifset and analyzing the clothing and their meaning and I’m just....!!!! I think something becomes meaningful and bigger than itself the moment it makes people create. 

The fact that, while I write this, I have several tweets telling me that I am loved, defended and 98% of people here do not tolerate bullies. We do not gatekeep your ship, or your notp, or if you only participate by reblogging and not doing new stuff. A fan is a fan. But what we gatekeep is hate, is attacking people because you want them to feel as bad as you, is wishing someone depression

See. I was positive. Yet I didn’t talk about the season finale. Because there is 3 season and a half that I FUCKING adore, people that are worth praising and I decided to focus on that. 

Lastly, my choice to be positive is harder than it looks. Sometimes I want to scream too. Or reblog rants. But I try to spin this into my creations and another way to make people smile, feel a bit better and heal. I said it and I will repeat it again, I started to adore Fen when I realized she made the choice of kindness.  And you see her struggle in season 3 because part of her want to cross her arm and let the bad things happen. But Julia reminds her, and me, that hurting doesn’t mean other people are hurt too,

This is why I will finish this with a word of wisdom; If the show hurt you so much that you want to hurt back, maybe its time for you to step away from the fandom for a moment, and ask yourself if it is worth making someone cry while being anonymously mean. 

[winterironspringfling]

2019 Spring Fling: Gift List

As always, a huge, heartfelt THANK YOU to everyone who was a part of the exchange this year; the helpers, the participants, the people now leaving comments and kudos, and everyone who helped spread the word by liking and sharing our posts. This exchange wouldn’t have been possible without you.

You’re the best, you rock, we love you!

And now, without further ado: the complete 2019 WinterIron Spring Fling Gift List!

Enjoy! 💕

Sparks Fly by tisfan for Lets_call_me_Lily Tony travels to Shelbyville, Indianna to fix Bucky’s arm… and while he’s there, maybe they’ll go see the fireworks show together.

🌸🌸🌸

The Winter Sentinel by james for tarot_card Bucky tests as a Sentinel when he's thirteen, and he knows it means his life won't be easy.

Which is a bit of an understatement, really.

🌸🌸🌸

When We Met In Paris by TheVagabondBoy for scarynoodles Neither Tony nor Bucky expected to run into each other in a bar in Paris.

🌸🌸🌸

Mechanical Creations by celtic7irish for yourselenite Tony Stark is a tattoo artist who gains inspiration from all things technical.  When Tall, Dark, and Handsome walks in wanting a cover-up tattoo, Tony is only too happy to oblige. Oh, and did he mention? He really, really likes that metal arm.

🌸🌸🌸

My soul screams for you by IronEyes for Potrix In Siberia Tony learns how his parents really died. In Siberia Tony gets betrayed by one of his best friends. In Siberia Tony finds the killer of his parents and… his soulmate. Tony has no idea how to handle this, but he can’t stay away from Bucky.

🌸🌸🌸

The Beautiful Light of Madness in Your Eyes by tisfan for shadowgrl94 In the Soul Stone, time is relative, people are at peace. It is a paradise, but also a trap. Can Tony break the trap and bring everyone home?

Especially when he risks losing the only thing that matters...

🌸🌸🌸

To keep you safe inside my arms by ShadowsintheClouds for celtic7irish Tony and Bucky had been secretly dating for a while. They loved having their little secret. It was something special between them. But, a night out by the lake with the other Avengers threatens to take their secret away from them.

🌸🌸🌸

Kiss Me Deadly by yourselenite for MassiveSpaceWren Just a skip and a jump back in time before World War I where Anthony Stark and James Barnes are secretly together in the early 1900s.

🌸🌸🌸

Hold You Close (To Keep You Warm) by ChaoticDemon for sara_wolfe Five times Tony and Bucky cuddled for warmth and one time they didn't bother with the pretense.

🌸🌸🌸

Where No Other Love Goes by Stark-N-Barnes for TheSopherfly “I want to,” he confessed.

Bucky flinched.

“What?”

Tony stared at him with a look in his eyes that spoke more volume than words, as the realisation wrapped itself around Bucky.

“I don't want to hurt you…”  he whispered.

“Bucky…”

~or~

That time Bucky was undoubtedly in love with Tony, but didn't think he could have him.

🌸🌸🌸

And the light, it shines from you by Lets_call_me_Lily for its_inherited Tony and Bucky snuggling in bed; it's been a long day.

🌸🌸🌸

Connection and Intent by SierraNovembr for sleepoverwork When Tony’s father is murdered, he takes a desperate risk to uncover the truth and save the man he loves. It changes his life forever.

🌸🌸🌸

Puppy Love by Reioka for ShadowsintheClouds Bucky is learning to become a person again. When some guy starts crying all over Natasha's dog, he decides he's doing better than he originally thought.

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Howlin' For You by justanotherpipedream for james When the sun goes down, Sheriff Bucky sets up his rifle, ready to shoot any gnoll, ghoul or beast that tries to raid his small town in the cover of the night. Night after night, Bucky keeps watch, running himself ragged all the while. Worried for his friend, Steve offers a solution to his problem.

“So your solution is that I get myself a mail order bride? An’ then what?”

“Or groom. We knew you like both options. You need a partner Bucky.”

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Promises by Iron_Eirlyssa for Lunatical When a mission goes wrong, it leaves Bucky and Tony trapped together, waiting for help. That might turn out to be a good thing in the end, though.

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We Fuck With the Lights On by badgerling for tisfan Bucky wakes up naked in a room. Tony Stark wakes up naked in the same room. Turns out, they're both actually okay with that.

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Redemption by Lunatical for calmena After remembering they were responsible for the deaths of Howard and Maria Stark, Bucky and the Soldier start watching over Tony in a desperate attempt to redeem themselves. When the Avengers get ready to raid the Hydra base that's housing Loki's scepter, they're there to intervene.

Of course, they didn't expect to end up at Stark Tower, living alongside a bunch of superheroes, and they certainly didn't think they'd end up falling in love with Tony Stark. Especially since the man still doesn't know what they've done.

Will Tony ever be able to forgive them?

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The Stranger in the Woods by TheSopherfly for JenJo “Mage shouldn’t be walkin’ in these woods alone at night,” James said.

Mage. So James knew, then. About Tony’s powers. Tony breathed deeply, the warm ghost of steam rising from his mug and tickling his nostrils. “Why’s that?” he asked, curiosity getting the better of him. He’d felt something in the forest, of course, but forests were always full of creatures and strange energies. Too many trees in one place scrambled his senses almost as well as a confusion charm.

“There are things in here that like mages a little too much,” James said, and Tony hung on the words in fascination. “Plenty of things that don’t like mages, too.”

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Fine Art by endof_theline for SierraNovembr Tony is a pre-tenure professor at the national defense research institute. His life is a ball of stress until he meets Bucky the barista at the local and remembers that there’s more to life than the next publication, but he might just be able to help with it.

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Roses for a Wallflower by tarot_card for burbear Bucky keeps finding flowers: in his favorite books, on his spot on the couch, in his breakfast cereal box, you name it. When he looks up what the names are, he also finds their meanings, ranging from forgiveness to friendship to even romantic feelings.

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(Don't) Believe My Words by FreyaS for IronEyes Tony Stark grew up knowing he was a disappointment and a failure in the eyes of not only his father but his eventual soulmate. After all, the words "I wish I'd never met you" can only be a rejection, right?

Bucky knew that he'd love the soulmate that would give him his beautiful soulwords but sometimes he feared they would never measure up to his celebrity crush, Tony Stark.

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a tale of the lil' mer who could by sleepoverwork for badgerling Little mermaid meets Anthony Edward Stark and it turns out about as well as how you think it would.

(The scene of the shipwreck with Ariel meeting and saving Prince Eric, bless Part of your World, still one of my favorite songs even after all of these years)

Tony just needed space, which is exactly why he idiotically swam to the surface after dark, away from the safety and constriction that came from his pod, his home.

If given the chance, Tony knows he could find and save his parents. He just didn't know how to prove to everyone and the spirits of the sea he could, and would, do just that.

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You Are My Sunshine by EchoSiriusRumme for gryvon Tony is captured and deaged while on a business trip, but the team - his family - jumps right into action to take care of their tiny, shy resident genius while they figure out how to fix this.  Or at least, they try to, concern growing each time he freezes at the sight of Steve.

But that was something personal, whispered to Bucky between frustrated tears one night, so Bucky wouldn’t be telling that secret unless push came to shove.

Too bad for Tony....it does.

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Perestroika by blue_pointer for InsaneJuliann According to Doctor Strange's vision, Tony Stark is the only man who can save the universe from the Decimation. But who will save Tony Stark? Bucky must use the Time stone to travel to the past and make sure Tony makes it safely to 2023.

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Drowning by sara_wolfe for EchoSiriusRumme It was only supposed to be a prank. It wasn't supposed to go this wrong...

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Travelling the world only to end up home by JenJo for hopespym Bucky has been travelling with his son to try and find a blacksmith who can fix his arm.

He ends up back where everything started for him, in a place where he had once dared to dream of a future, before he had his heart broken.

~

Tony has spent his time building a name for himself as the blacksmith who can fix anything and everything. He never expected to see the man who broke his heart walk through his door.

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What happens in Zurich by siyuttov for TheVagabondBoy Tony Stark is sent to evaluate the Winter Soldier, who claims to have defected from Hydra and is hoping SHIELD can help take down his former employers.

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Not Ideal but Workable by calmena for marsmaywander Tony and Bucky go on a date. It goes about as wrong as it can, to the surprise of exactly nobody.

They make it work, anyway.

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tell me who i am (because i don't know) by scarynoodles for ChaoticDemon “Is that all you called me here for?”

Tony stands up abruptly, walking around the desk and glancing out one of the windows. “No, actually. See, Pepper’s been nagging me to get an actual bodyguard since that happened. Usually, I would just argue that I don’t need one, since – technically, I’m my own bodyguard, but now she won’t let up since I was in the suit and still couldn’t fight back against a civilian.” Tony ignores the heat crawling up the back of his neck at that. It had been pretty embarrassing that he’d been jumped like that. “I figured, I might as well hire someone on my own terms before she did it for me. And you’re a good guy, clearly, otherwise you wouldn’t have done what you did. So, want to become my bodyguard?”

-

It's 2012, and the Avengers have defeated Loki and his army. Tony has a new bodyguard, and all seems well.

Except – his bodyguard acts really strangely at times, and he doesn't seem to be caught up with the world around him. He has a dark, mysterious past which he refuses to divulge beyond little tidbits. Once, he claimed to have killed people. Not to mention he reminds Tony of someone he used to know – someone he used to love – decades ago.

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How to Survive a Haunted House by marsmaywander for Briz “Lord save me from crazy white boys,” were probably going to be Rhodey’s last words. He didn’t care what his friend said; this place was haunted, and they were both gonna end up dead because Tony was too taken in by the ample closet space.

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it starts and ends with memory by Rowantreeisme for Arboreal Tony Carbonell is a completely normal professor at MIT. He tutors kids, both in his class and not, and builds things in his free time. He feeds stray cats and drinks too much coffee and wears dorky shirts to class. He's also an Avenger and the son of the late Howard Stark. He's pretty sure, though, that no one except his two closest friends and his AI's know this. And then the Winter Soldier breaks into his home.

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Will you? [Comic] by MassiveSpaceWren for FreyaS Tony hadn't planned his proposal like this...

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Give or Take by beir for BrightEyesIllusionist After everything, the prince could only hope his ill-fated plan would work.

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Near Miss by Arboreal for justanotherpipedream  A car accident, the police had said.  He could have lost them to something as stupid as a car accident.  

He could have lost them, and his last memories of them would be of arguing with his father and ignoring his mother.

Bucky's trigger words begin to fail.  This changes things.

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Tony Stark's Home for Wayward Assassins by gryvon for Stark-N-Barnes Tony Stark's too busy running Stark Resilient and making technological breakthroughs in clean energy and medical technology to pay too much attention to all the superheroes that have been popping up since that crazy horned guy trashed New York City. Then one shows up at his house in the middle of the night demanding Tony fix his broken metal arm and Tony can't in good conscious kick him out after.

Or, how a Tony Stark that never became Iron Man ended up with a Russian assassin living in his mansion.

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Moonshine by InsaneJuliann for blue_pointer Tony's a werewolf and a single dad, which means he doesn't have much time for the dating scene. But a small push from friends leads to him meeting Bucky. Totally human, great, and very interested Bucky. And for the first time in a while, Tony's interested in more than just a life that orbits around only his daughter.

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Fake It 'Til You Make It by hopespym for Reioka So sure. Since he’d gotten back from his station overseas, life hadn’t really been treating him too good.

Before he’d gone he’d had no trouble at all finding someone for the night and even managed a couple of relationships that had all (seemingly) been going pretty well until he’d been left behind as the others continued on with their lives, and after he’d gotten back he hadn’t even really bothered anything.

And all Tinder got him was mugged one time.

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Iron Man: Legend of the Seven Seas by BrightEyesIllusionist for Rowantreeisme Tony Stark is a black hearted pirate who ran away from home years ago. His latest target? The legendary Book of Peace which maintains the treaty between the kingdoms. But the God of Chaos has other plans for the book, and yet more for the black hearted pirate.

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fight 'til we see the sunlight by burbear for siyuttov There are days where Tony regrets not going back on his word, where he wishes he had told Steve “No, actually, keep that murderer out of my house and as far from me as possible.” Pepper and Rhodey even said he should. Not in as many words, certainly not because of Barnes, but because they know Tony.  

Tony knows, though, that the safest place for Barnes—and everyone else, since the first day people found out about the Winter Soldier more and more civilians were getting grand ideas about bringing him in—is the Tower. His only stipulation is that Steve keeps Barnes away from him.

His timer is steadily ticking toward zero, to the day he meets his soulmate, but to be honest? Tony has a lot more on his mind than someone fate picked out for him.

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When It Rains It Pours by DreamcatchersDaughter for beir Bucky's sure Tony is half werewolf, Tony is sure Bucky is all fae.... What happens when they are both wrong?

Or 3 times these idiots got it wrong and 1 time they got it so right.

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Hope and Heroes by Zola9612 for endof_theline Young Tony was born without a soul mark. How does that affect his life?

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Your Hand In Mine by celtic7irish for Harpyienkind Omega Tony Stark is the son of Lord Stark.  Ever since he presented as an Omega, he has been promised to Lord Barnes, a ruthless warrior of Hydra that he has never even met.  Three months pregnant by his lover and heat-partner, Bucky, Tony is terrified for both himself and the unborn child.  But Tony Stark has never backed down before, and  he’s not about to start now.

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share and celebrate by Potrix for Zola9612 It’s been almost twenty-four hours, but still none of it seems or feels entirely real.

Well, to be fair, learning about the existence of parallel universes, finding out there’s at least one other Earth that has been destroyed by a threat his Earth isn’t even fully aware of yet, and getting two other-universe versions of people he’s currently not exactly on speaking terms with dropped into his lap has been kind of a lot.

It might take Tony another day—or year, more likely—to wrap his head around all of that.

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Wanted: Boyfriend by Briz for DreamcatchersDaughter Well, it was not every day that a job offer knocked on his door looking like something straight out of a porno.

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Cuddles by Briz for Iron_Eirlyssa Thing is, Tony likes touch. In fact, scratch that - he loves touch. He finds out that so does Bucky.

[the-citrus-scale]

From the Desk of GalaxyCollector

CEO and Founder of The Citrus Scale, LLC

I’ve been called a lot of things over the years. Most of them not very nice. And all those not very nice things were from people that got told something they didn’t like or weren’t ready to hear. The participation ribbon effect is in force for a generation that doesn’t get told no very often. A deadly combo, if you ask me. There are no rules, no guidelines, no standards. No one has any real power and it’s scary. I get it. I am a single mom. I know the importance of boundaries. I’m used to being the good and bad cop. I’m used to being the only one in charge and I’m certainly used to someone lashing out at me when I speak the truth. Hey, I have teenagers. It happens. 

And it’s not fun to hear, true or not, but one question always seems to remain: how do I keep going? Better yet even, why do I keep going? What’s the point, right? If you hit a speed bump, there’s obviously a problem. If it keeps getting said, it’s probably you. But I’ve learned something after a decade in an industry that still doesn’t value or pay women anywhere near the same as men. It’s not me. It’s them. Always. Is that the exact opposite of what we’re taught? Yep. Doesn’t make it less true. And I have a decade of anecdotal proof that what I’m saying is correct. I have receipts, as the kids say. Still sucks. 

Does it make me slow down a sec when it comes from a genuine place and from someone I respect, though? Absolutely. Do I stop? Hell no. And why not? Well, that’s simple. Fandom deserves more than what it’s getting and I come from a uniquely qualified position to give it, so here I am. 

It takes a very introspective approach to be a good leader. If you can’t be critical of yourself, any project, business, or venture you have is doomed to fail, especially if you’re in charge. That’s the nature of the beast. Unfortunately, fandom has long thought of itself as something that puts ideas and creations out into the world without caring what it gets back. Not thinking that it opens itself up to criticism, when the opposite is actually true. Yes, we all do this for free. Even me. Actually, especially me. But even I am open to scrutiny. Even I have to listen when someone presents a valid point. Do I have to entertain hate? Absolutely not, and neither do you. But if you put something out in the world (i.e. a piece of art, a work of fiction, or even an attitude), expect that someone will have something to say about it. 

Fandom and life aren’t solitary ventures. It’s perfectly normal to seek out those that think, act, and talk like we do, but you’ll be completely stagnant if you’re not willing to have a respectful conversation with the other side. Now, before it gets jumbled, I am not saying be nice to homophobic, racist, or Nazi assholes, okay? But a different ship doesn’t make yours, or your feelings, less valid. Everyone is allowed to occupy this space so long as they are respectful of others. That’s really the only rule here. Be nice. Be nice and you’ll be astonished what happens. Try to see it from someone else’s point of view without thinking of how to change them and you’ll see something remarkable. I mean, it’s what I’ve had to do and it was a hard-won lesson. Don’t copy my mistakes. Learn from them. Be nice and not because you think you have to or because you think it’ll get you somewhere. Just be nice. It’s worth it.

[thenameofaslan]

Hey, The Name of Aslan followers! 

Currently we stand at 7 members, and to keep things unique, instead of using existing character names, we will be going by Narnia-inspired names we created ourselves! Our names are Veriele, Ailora, Gianah, Astriella, Haaven, Lailenah, and Elledia. Allow us to introduce ourselves! Below we will be sharing some facts about ourselves & our interest in Narnia. 

Hello! I’m Veriele!

Favourite book:

My favourite book tends to change a lot. Of course The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe is a classic, and in and of itself it’s possibly the most magical story of the 7. However, I also love The Magician’s Nephew for the beautiful creation of Narnia it shows us. Then The Horse and His Boy really stands out from the other books, and I love the characters and their growth so much. But I think when it comes down to it, The Last Battle holds the most special place in my heart. The ending chapters are so full of life and beauty. The parade of returning characters in Aslan’s Country is stunning and hits my nostalgic heart hard. And those final lines just fill my heart with joy! It’s a hard choice, as the entire series is absolutely lovely, but I do think The Last Battle stands out to me most of all.

Favourite Aslan quote:

I love a lot of Aslan’s lines, but I think my top 3 are “Courage, dear heart,” “Do not dare not to dare,” and “Now you are a lioness.”

Favourite Bible verse:

In the entire Bible it’s hard to choose just one, but Revelation 21:5a fills me with a special kind of joy. “He who was seated on the throne said, ‘I am making everything new!’”

Songs that remind me of Narnia:

A lot of songs remind me of Narnia, but to name a few: Hear You Me by Jimmy Eat World, North by Sleeping At Last, and Long Live by Taylor Swift.

What kind of content or art I make/enjoy:

I make edits, analytical posts, and I write the occasional fic!

Hi everyone, I’m Ailora!

Favorite book:

For the Christian themes, my favorite will always be The Last Battle. The ending few chapters make me cry. I also love the atmosphere of Voyage of the Dawn Treader, especially the ending.

Favorite Aslan scene:

It’s so hard to choose just one. I guess I’d have to say the scene where Aslan appears and walks beside Cor on the mountain pass in HAHB. I love Aslan’s gentleness with Cor, but also the sense of wonder when he starts to reveal himself and how he’s been acting in Cor’s story. I love that during the entire scene, Aslan is walking beside Cor to protect him from falling off the mountain, and also that he is guiding Cor to exactly the place he needs to be. I love Cor’s response to seeing Aslan, and I love that Aslan leaves him a footprint-full of cold water at the end. It’s just a beautiful picture of God’s provision and love and kindness and knowledge of us.

Favorite Bible verse:

Again, hard to choose. But for now I’ll say Ephesians 3:17-19: “That you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.”

Hi, I’m Gianah.

How I got interested in Narnia:

I got interested in Narnia when my friend forced me to watch The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. I immediately bought the collection of all seven books, joined tumblr and then got even more obsessed with it. Once I found out other people actually really liked the series, I started to be more invested. The rest is history.

Favourite Bible Verse:

“For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.” ‭‭Jeremiah‬ 29:11

Kinds of art or content I enjoy/make:

I love both writing and painting/ drawing. I love making analysis texts so much, and also narrative texts.

Hey everyone! I'm Astriella :)

How I got into Narnia:

I've loved Narnia since I was about twelve, when I was first allowed to read the books (I think I burned through all 7 in about a month!). Even then I loved finding “hidden meanings” in stuff and Narnia is a treasure trove of allegory and allusion!

My favourite non-human character:

My favorite has to be Jewel the Unicorn.  Both because unicorns are amazing and majestic and all, but because of his loyalty for Tirian, his sacrificial love, and his gentle gentility.

My favorite Aslan moment: 

It has to be from VotDT, from the Dark Island where nightmares come true.  Lucy, up in the crow’s-nest, looks down on the havoc and chaos on deck as the sailors panic in terror, and whispers to Aslan, begging for help. And help comes in the form of an albatross, which circles the crow’s-nest before leading the ship to safety; but in that moment Lucy hears Aslan’s voice whisper to her, “Courage, dear heart.” That scene means a lot to me because anxiety always provides plenty of possible nightmares, but I know my God will lead me to safety and He gives me courage.

Hello! I’m Haaven!

How I got interested in Narnia:

 I literally cannot remember a time when I wasn’t. I grew up on the series. My true obsession with it, however, would have begun in about 4th grade when I found the entire series in the school library and read them all for the first time.

When/how I became a Christian?

 I could talk for a very long time on this, but I’ll try to keep in short(ish). I grew up in a Christian home so I always kind of knew  that I needed Jesus, but I didn’t know how to go about it. I was also the most shy person you would ever meet, so I wasn’t about to ask anyone how, either. But then when I was ten, I went to church camp for one week during the summer for the first time. (I wasn’t sure I really wanted to go, but my mom convinced me with, “Well, your sister will be there, so you’ll be fine!” haha.) And, I guess you could say, the rest is history (since this is the short version, haha). :P

Favorite Narnia-esque songs:

 I have so many, but I will limit myself to three: All the King’s Horses by Karmina (totally an Edmund/ movie!PC!Peter/ Eustace song!), Up All Night by David Archuleta (okay, yes, I know this is a love song, but if you think about it as Lucy and Aslan especially in LWW… It’s adorable, okay?!?), and Beautifully Broken by Plumb (sort of a post-Last Battle Susan song).

Hi! My name is Lailenah.

Favorite non-human Narnia character:

This is a tough question, because the majority of my faves aren’t human! Hwin and Bree, Mr. Tumnus, Reepicheep, the centaurs, and then of course Aslan in his completely own category...But I’m going to have to go with Puddleglum because I LOVE him. Many heroes tend to be optimistic, hopeful, and outgoing people, but Puddleglum’s the opposite. And yet he’s still a very caring, courageous, and loyal individual; he stays true to his faith and encourages the others to do the same, especially in the scene where the Green Witch tries to enchant them so they deny that the world above and Aslan exist. And when everything is at its most hopeless point, he’s the one to offer hope in the form of, “We’re just four babies making up a game, if you’re right. But four babies playing a game can make a play world that licks your world hollow. That’s why I’m on Aslan’s side, even if there’s no Aslan to lead it.” He’s not a ray of sunshine, but he can be a gleam in the darkest places, when it’s most needed. And sometimes I feel like as a Christian, some people expect that you must always be “joyful” (aka wear a cheerful smile, be optimistic, and act outgoing) to be a good witness and influential for Christ. But Puddleglum reminds me that I can be real, I can be honest, and I can be an encouragement to others even when I am at a low point (in fact, being with others during their low points because I understand how it feels might be when I am most needed!). My faith and my effectiveness to others as a Christian is not less because I am not an extrovert. It is not less because I struggle mentally and feel exhausted because of anxious or depressed thoughts. No. I was created the way I am for a reason. I have the challenges I have for a reason. We all do, and that’s okay. No matter our differences, we’re not less than anyone else in God’s loving eyes, and He has a unique time and place for each of us to serve as His light as Puddleglum did.

Favorite Narnia book:

It’s always been the Last Battle. I love how intense it gets in this book, how the evil is overwhelming, the stakes are high, and the battle between right and wrong is at its climax. It feels like the good guys are losing as their already sparse armies dwindle, and the main characters are being forced into the stable. Sometimes that sense of being overwhelmed mirrors how I feel when I look at all the scary, sad, and bad things happening in the world today, but I’m encouraged by the characters who still are soldiers for Aslan’s cause, who keep going and trusting in what’s right in spite of that and in spite of the fact that can’t see what’s coming next. And then, of course, Aslan’s country. I love seeing all the familiar faces from throughout the series and the joy and rest they find in eternity with Aslan and their loved one. It shows that it truly is worth it all.

What kind of content or art I make/enjoy:

I have always loved to write!  So fanfiction and meta are definitely my favorite ways to participate. Bet you couldn’t tell that I tend to drone on. ;)  (I also make mood boards on occasion.)

Hi, Elledia here!

Favourite book: 

A Horse and His Boy or Silver Chair

What age we got interested in Narnia: 

I SAY 7, but I grew up watching the BBC miniseries, so I don’t know for sure.

Favourite Aslan quote:

 “And I was the Lion you do not remember who pushed the boat in which you lay, a child near death, so that it came to shore where a man sat, wakeful at midnight, to receive you.”

When/how I became a Christian:

 Raised in the church/missionary brat. I decided when I was around eight that I wanted to be baptized and though there’ve been some bumps along the way, I’m growing in Christ as best as I can.

Narnia-esque songs: 

“If You Want Me To” by Ginny Owens reminds me a lot of Narnia, for some reason.

Kinds of art or content I enjoy/make:

 I write, so fanfic and metas are my thing, but I enjoy all kinds of art.

Anyways, it’s great to meet you all! We hope to interact with you all more in the future, and as we begin creating original posts for this blog. Our ask box is open, should you have any questions! Thanks for following us! <3

[ghostmartyr]

Right, this is pretty steeped in fandom stuff, so for the anons in the back who think that’s an invitation to continually send me hate over having feelings, you’ve misunderstood our relationship (again), and also do not. I just need a release valve.

What’s stupid is that I need people. I will abandon schedules for five more minutes of conversation. The only reason I write at all is so that maybe someone will talk to me. I sink into depression in two minutes flat with some friends if conversation starters go unheard. I can have a good day of socializing, and the second the people go away, it’s like it never happened. I need more.

Except I’m also deeply emotionally unstable and vulnerable. In fandom in particular, I currently have a long list of stuff that sets me off. I do what I can to not go near, then ah, surprise, this blog you thought was okay hit a sore point, you’re alone forever no one thinks like you even the people who like the stuff you do don’t agree with you, you’re just alone and nothing is ever going to change with that.

It’s such a fucking mess. I’m desperate for people, and most of the ones I find are ones I simply can’t be around. This last month especially (bite me, it’s an issue) has been hell. I can’t go into fandom tags. I can barely go to friends’ blogs. The only time I feel halfway stable is when I’m alone with my own thoughts, and I enjoy my hobbies my way.

And that’s great. ...For people who can have that be enough. For me it’s just not. My feelings don’t feel real unless I share them with other people, and I feel like I’ve lost every venue I can do that in, because I’m just too much of a psychological wreck.

It sucks? I want to have fun. I like cartoons and comics. I like stories. What other people think about them shouldn’t bother me, but other people are the thing that makes me tick. I joke about disagreeing with everyone, but it’s not... wrong. And for the things I enjoy the most, those disagreements are enough to ruin the whole interaction.

So I don’t try to go anywhere new, because I have piles of evidence going over why I’m not healthy enough to risk it. Every time I slip and break that rule, it’s one more piece. Meanwhile, every time I try someone familiar and cross my fingers, I strike out badly enough that I make despondent posts instead of slitting my wrists, and yeeeah, that’s the actual train of thought that I went through before typing this.

People are just bad for me. I’m at my most stable when I’m outside, alone, in the middle of the night, playing Pokemon Go. That’s the only time I feel like I can breathe.

But ah. I’m fucking lonely?

That’s not an invitation, because like I said, people are minefields for me right now. And of the small handful I’m okay with, I’m the kind of lonely where the only thing that makes a dent is 24/7 constant communication.

For many, many reasons, that’s not feasible.

It’s good, I guess, to recognize your problems, but I don’t really have any solutions. My experiments with trying to make more friends (and if you’re reading this it is probably not about you, I don’t vague about people I have conversations with; the embarrassment alone would keep that from happening) end with me wanting to blow a hole in my head.

It’s like... okay, I’m lonely. But I keep finding communities that make me feel even more alone. It’s one thing to feel lonely when you’re isolated, but stepping outside and realizing that all of the places you thought would be a good fit are on completely the wrong wavelength?

That’s where suicide starts feeling like the only option. Being alone as a choice is easier than being alone because you don’t fit.

By at least one definition, I’m an extrovert. People give me energy. Being alone at all makes me miserable.

Look, I was dreading the third season coming out for more reasons than I will ever have the nerve to admit publicly. I’ve spent months wanting to die just from that (again, not a healthy person here).

But I thought I’d get to be part of that energy for it. As bad as I knew my head would make it, I was also aware, on some level, that there would be some really cool stuff for me to love.

Except for a lot of reasons that people can infer (and twenty more that I would rather die than provide hints to (that turn of phrase is terrible when you’re suicidal and me; all I can think whenever I type it is, “well yes, I’d rather die than most things”)), I can’t go anywhere near fandom right now.

This huge explosion of enthusiasm, and if I try to touch it, I’m going to get burned. Just because of what my head is doing to me. I’m sensitive to all the wrong things. I’m like a kid with a candy allergy on Halloween.

Sometimes I feel like the answer to all my problems is, “just Get Well.”

If I were healthy, depression would have fewer pits to hide in. If I were healthy, I would have the energy to resist the OCD. If I were healthy, I would have a life outside the internet and the things that happen here wouldn’t feel so overwhelming. If I were healthy, things would work the way they’re supposed to.

I’m not. I’m not even in a stable state of unhealthy. That’s what doctors are for. And meds. I just need to be patient, hang in there, and wait to be healthy, and then it’ll be okay, and I can enjoy a comic book without thinking about slitting my throat. Right? That sounds good. That sounds like a thing I want.

It’s also not working. Things are deteriorating, and there’s nothing anyone can do. There’s nothing terminal wrong, just a million things that won’t work, and that no one has figured out how to fix.

I can’t make friends and can’t watch a cartoon without it triggering suicidal urges. Not thoughts. Active urges.

This post isn’t intended as a downspiral of angst, it’s me being at a loss. I exercise. I spend time in sunlight. I do everything I can to not curl up under my bed all day. I take the recommended pills. I put the therapy techniques I’ve been taught into practice.

And none of it is working well enough.

I’m not going to kill myself, but in defense of myself for wanting to, it is not an insane decision, just one that makes people besides me uncomfortable. If I had something terminal, or if I were someone’s pet, euthanasia would be encouraged.

But I’m human, and unless my suicidal urges have a ticking clock counting off how long I can resist them, I’m not terminal. This is a life I have to survive.

Here’s a thing, which I don’t think anyone really likes talking about. When you’re at the point where the only thing you can hold on to is fictional, everyone rolls their eyes or says with alarm that that’s not normal. Those are the nice reactions. If you invest yourself in fiction, you’re a child, and having real emotions about fake stuff is for mockery.

...I’m gonna pause for a second. Yeah, I’m dangerously emotionally and psychologically unhealthy, but. stories are supposed to make you connect to them. That’s what they’re intended for. Overreactions exist and all, but if you’re not having an emotional response to a story, the author’s failed. The whole art of crafting a story is getting a person to care. Making fun of people for participating makes zero sense.

Like... because I’m guessing anyone who’s going to send me hate already has at this point... “ha ha, this person’s upset because the thing they enjoyed isn’t enjoyable anymore!”

How dare people want to have fun. With the thing they’re spending their free time on.

Stories are selfish. Authors and audiences are all after things they, personally, want, and the fact that people are still acting like they’re somehow above all of that is laughable. Fiction is an instrument of greed. A reader reads something because of what they want. A writer writes something because of what they want. If you’re lucky, those wants line up, but for crying out loud, creation and consumption of fiction is ludicrously selfish.

It’s inventing or looking for a world tailored to your personal desires. What part of that screams objective altruism. That is the exact opposite of the point. Everyone involved is greedy and self-indulgent. The fact that some people remember themselves well enough to have manners about it doesn’t change what it is.

...Yes, I know I’m making it obvious why I have such a problem making friends shut up.

Anyway, back to my sad melodrama.

My thing is that my life is so endlessly unbearable that even something made up can’t go right. When you’re sad enough you’re counting on a fantasy made by someone else to improve your reality, you’re already kind of screwed.

When even something that small can’t go right?

How in the hell are you supposed to think anything else will?

There’s this line in IGPX where the antagonist team is going out of their way to get into the protagonist’s head. It’s something to the effect of, “you can’t even let him win a video game?” Dude’s playing a fun little game during his off time, antagonist sweeps in and ruins it.

One candle in a dark room casts a lot of light. Even like. a birthday candle. Small, pathetic, but compared to the darkness? Night and day.

Snuff that out, and there’s really nothing. Just a whole lot of black.

My candle’s mostly occupied giving me wax burns at the moment.

In conclusion my mental health is broken I want a new one.