#except for like. doing bindings on the pantheons but

[welshattack]

LET'S FUCKING GOOOOOO

[ryttu3k]

Oh damn that episode is shooting right to the top of my favourites for the season! Thoughts on Doctor Who - 73 Yards!

That was creepy as shit and I loved it :D Folk horror and time shenanigans (which also ties in marvellously well with this post from last week about her being a paradox baby - the whole episode is one!) and genuinely chilling, especially at the start where Ruby is just becoming more and more isolated from everyone else, and it's outright heartbreaking when that includes from her Mum. Like, ow.

A question: Where exactly did the Doctor go? There's like, this second story going on behind the scenes that never actually gets acknowledged - a fairy ring that binds 'Mad Jack' that the Doctor breaks, causing him to vanish. Except 'Mad Jack' is just some Trumpian despot, nothing actually paranormal about him. We know why the Semperdistans (the old lady) appears - she's Ruby, stuck in an endless warning not to step in the fairy ring, trying to avert the offshoot timeline - but where did the Doctor disappear to in the first place? Into Faerie, maybe? There's a whole other narrative going on!

The Mad Jack bit is curious, because he ends up not being that relevant in the end. Ruby and her Semperdistans are weaponised to stop him, but that isn't what stops that branch of the timeline - that only happens when Ruby dies and takes her Semperdistans' place, closing the circle (back to fairy rings again!). Did he have some other relevance, maybe to do with the ring itself? He's some sort of Fae creature himself or… something. There's a great comment on Reddit here:

'I think Mad Jack was an omnipotent entity, possibly of the Pantheon, and the Doctor accidentally let him into our plane. And Mad Jack did the smartest thing possible and erased him.

But Ruby managed to clock him and scare him into retreat using whatever aspect of herself which terrified Maestro a few episodes back.'

Another fantastic analysis here - the Semperdistans being a physical representative of Ruby's fear of abandonment. Ruby as being kind of… eldritch seems to be a running theme, too - she has that fear of abandonment because there is something Peculiar about her. Maybe that's just how the Semperdistans worked, because the story requires Ruby be abandoned and left on her own in order to place her at the right time to act, so that's the ability she has? Same with how she can only be perceived as someone with normal vision as seen from 73 yards away - that's what the story requires.

(Why the distance? She's running away from herself!)

This season so far has been an entirely new genre, we seem to genuinely be in the realm of fantasy and supernatural fiction now. I goddamn adore it. Definitely thinking something along the lines of Ruby's identity being something to do with the concept of paradox or even a part of the Pantheon herself. Being a foundling left on the steps of a church - the woman who left her there might not even be her mother, it could be Ruby herself in a closed time loop. Maybe she's a changeling?

Reminded sharply of Turn Left. Both RTD-penned Doctor-lite episodes that focus on the companion to brilliant effect, involve time shenanigans, dystopian British politics (thankfully averted, here!), and scary as hell in parts.

Where were the titles??

UNIT thought: focusing increasingly on paranormal stuff. Because of the Doctor invoking folklore? We're still tying back to stories being real. Also, Kate mentioned 'this timeline' specifically being structured around Ruby's event. Is she aware that she's in an offshoot?

Susan Twist spotting: the hiker who's the first to be driven mad by the Semperdistans. Interestingly, Ruby seemed to recognise her. Also interestingly, this happened in the erased timeline so she now no longer remembers that she recognised her… Also, Mrs Flood appearing, just to say, "Nothing to do with me!" - hmm, what does have to do with her?

Only major naff moment: showing that Ruby is now In Her Forties by having her wear huge glasses. Hilariously awkward. Oh Ruby that is not a flattering style.

Season ranking

As of s40e04:

73 Yards

The Devil's Chord

The Church on Ruby Road

Space Babies

Boom

[foxstens]

pantheon 1 charm binding done :’)

[worldviewcast]

The Origin of Worldview

So this is going to be a semi-personal, but also a semi-explanation post about alot of the background info regarding Worldview.  Yes it’ll be a long somewhat boring wall of text for many of you, but to ME it’s words I feel need to be said and it would mean the absolute world to me if people would take the time to hear me out.  Even if its only gonna be the five of you that continue on after this. Anyway...

Worldview technically started forming in my mind when I was probably about fifteen. (For reference, at the time of writing this, I’m about half a year to thirty-one) I was really into doing comics, I had done probably a hundred pages of a really dumb fantasy comic I came up with when I was TWELVE, a Sonic fancomic, and every morning on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, I would upload my micron inked and colored pencil story about some DnD characters into the school scanner to post on Drunkduck which is probably all still there today. Adventure’s Guild is missed in my heart, for sure.  But in between looking for my first job, the constant writing and doodling I was doing, and my schoolwork I was tossing another idea around in my head. A really DUMB idea, cuz ya know I was FIFTEEN. And I wanted to call it ‘My Big Brother the Ninja’. At the time I was influence by all the dumb anime I was watching and my best friend at the time who always wore black and stood about two feet over me. I don’t know if he’ll ever read this, but trust me if he knew I was talking about this he would recognize this story right away.  Well. My first job came around, along with my post secondary college work, and then a tech school I paid for, and.....life really started to get in the way of development. I was more focused on drawing Adventures Guild and other doodles for a long time, and soon enough taking care of my daughter took precedence over everything, and then I started sewing, and doing conventions....and the idea of ‘My Big Brother the Ninja’ was just stuck in the back of my head. Sitting. Waiting. Forming slowly as it waited for its existence - its time in the sun.  And at some point I decided I wanted Android/Robotic like characters too...some of my FAVORITE series are Kikaider : The Animation and Chobits (the books, not the infants show they try to pass a a fully written anime) - things like that. So I KNEW long before Worldview had a proper name I would be writing robot characters with a twist. But I couldn’t figure out what that twist was, what would make it work. The whole idea was still....building. It needed a push.  Right around the time My Hero Academia came around everyone with a creative mind seemed to be suddenly struck with a similar idea - what if unique powers WEREN’T so unique in a world?  This is fairly common now, but at the start of MHA I remember finding it weird that suddenly every half the new shows out had a whole population of super powered badasses in a world where living daily life with it was more the norm than the exception.  And I remember finding it REALLY weird this all came out the same time I evolving a similar idea for my own thing.... I wish I could prove I was evolving this ideas before I saw em but I can’t. I have a much deeper theory about the evolution of cultural art and how influences drive creative minds to similar conclusions but that’s a LONG mental dive for another day.  ANYHOW.

So my original idea in ‘My Big Brother the Ninja’ was the Ninja would be the weird super power in the normal world.  NOW I wanted the NINJA to be the ‘normal’ one...and the younger sister would be the WEIRD one because she DIDN’T have some sort of power or ability.  I fell in love with this new dynamic and now things were REALLY starting to come together in my mind, what kind of powers were people gonna have, just HOW mundane was it gonna be, how many fantasy elements did I want to have?  Because I already KNEW another element I really wanted to include was modern day Paladins - and YES I WILL be covering modern-day style Paladins in Worldview proper, but this meant the universe needed a Deity system, a hierarchy or pantheon.  And the world just started to grow....but something was still MISSING, the binding, the elements of what all I wanted to do -  Aaaaaaaaaand then came UNDERTALE.  And yes this ENTIRE long post is just me mini ranting about how WV came to be so people can TRULY understand just HOW much is inside MY universe so we can stop tagging it as part of the UT Multiverse please and thank you - it’s not that I don’t UNDERSTAND the confusion, but here is your ultimate ‘for the record’ post regarding mine and @little-noko ‘s personal frustrations. Undertale was obviously a HUGE part of pop culture, personal experiences, my life, MANY of my readers lives, I GET why the emotional connection is there and why its the first thing that comes to mind - but the ONLY part I truly was fascinated by with Undertale was the way the Souls were.  PHYSICAL Souls - an actual magical entity that represented a person - THIS idea.  This was my missing piece.  To say artists get inspiration from other artists is beyond an understatement - even Sans and Papyrus are references to Helvetica, right? If not references, inspired by, or ‘great minds think alike’, whatever your argument there....its not uncommon.  And Souls being PHYSICAL was the element I wanted to play with - the idea I wanted to expand on, and so much more I want to go into detail about but don’t want to go into spoilers yet so I’m not going to - and the absolute CRUX of my frustrations when dealing with ‘WV is just UT with different characters’.  Worldview has.....humans. Only humans, divided into four race. Mechanoid. Masic. Skeleton. Metazoan. (The last one exclusively because I wanted an excuse to draw cute cat girls, so sue me)  A pantheon of Gods. It’s own world map. Special BIOLOGY that I have developed to work specifically with the races I have built. Ability trees (diagram to come, don’t worry, we’re just still working out the kinks).  It’s own countries, nationalities, and even it’s own tangible form of afterlife which I blame watching WAY too much Supernatural on but HEY Reapers are freaking COOL man.  It’s absolutely gut wrenching painful to have people argue with me over a world that I have nurtured and slowly tended to for a good fifteen years...now that it finally, FINALLY gets a chance to exist and be worked on....I feel like the one binding element I finally found and played with and tried to expand on is the ONLY element that people care about. As if absolutely EVERY other element that I want to show just - doesn’t EXIST. We started with Finch because its a good transition from the old projects to the new and it’s the earliest event in the timeline - nothing more than that. But I’m almost starting to feel like that was a mistake because it’s TOO familiar.  There’s no going back now, and thats fine. But it does make me anxious to move on to the next ‘chapter’ we’ll be delving into.  MAN.  I hope that helps clarify a few things.  I love answering questions (those that I can) about  WV...so my ask box is always open.  For those that made it, thanks for listening. :) 

[dromaeo-sauridae]

Just some uhm! Pantheon binding tips!

This is just how I did it and got through four of them uh!

So I'd use the shell and nail binding first, and this is when charms are really useful! Also don't mix the charm bindings or soul binding together unless you're very confident.

The charms id recommend are ! Very dependent on how you play but my go to build is Quick Slash, Quick Focus, Dreamweilder, and Unbreakable Strength!

For any pantheon dream wielder is a must have! I figure you know what it does and akbsjsb I'm kinda rambling but! Especially for False Knight! Afterbyou knock him down you can dream nail him quickly and once he gets up it only takes three abyss shrieks and two nail hits before falling again, which! You can get the threw shrieks in immediately after downing him if you stay near the center. This is a very big time save!

For both the shell qnd nail binding ( I did both of these at once) my set up was changed except for Quick Slash and Dream wielder! Every thing else was spell based and ! Trust me Quick Slash is a must have ! You do a lot more damage ! If you uhm! Are nervous about getting killed on either the shell or focus bind id recommend unbreakable heart! Two extra doesn't seem like a lot but it makes a huge difference.

Uhm this for kinda long so! If you want anymore. If you want any more tips from me I'd be happy to provide some! I've been speedrunning the pantheon and have gotten reallt good! Plus i already did all the uhm. Pantheon bindings!

Also seriously Quick Slash is the best especially for Radiance.

YOOOO THIS IS SO MUCH THANK YOU. thats awesome i will keep all of this in mind and also like. if you have more i will never be annoyed if you leave an entire essay in my inbox please give me all your tips 🤲

[panel-dreamer]

Well, how about that Moon Knight!

As a huge fan of the comics (especially the 2014 Ellis run which introduced Mr. Knight and the 2016 Lemire/Smallwood run which dealt with more of the mystical/psychological stuff) I enjoyed this tentative “first season” of Moon Knight more than I expected to. I know at one point there was talk of it being a one-and-done sort of thing but I would like a continuation of the story, especially after the reveal at the end of today’s finale. That being said, I have things to complain about:

 - What was Harrow’s plan exactly? and why did he have to release Ammit to achieve it? he seemed to be able to harvest souls on his own even before he smashed the shabti to release her, and then all she really did once she was released was punch Khonshu a few times

 - Similarly... how does binding Ammit to Harrow neutralize her? I understand it makes her vulnerable because she’s mortal but like... couldn’t Harrow just continue to harvest souls like he originally did?

 - why’d you do Jake Lockley like that. why relegate the answer to one of the show’s more intriguing mysteries for people unfamiliar with the character to a post-credits scene. that’s kinda dumb

 - I get that it’s Disney-fied and thus will always have less impact but Khonshu was not evil enough here. Like he was a manipulative bitch, sure, but that’s baseline Khonshu levels of dickishness instead of the full-on “I am going to make Marc Spector’s life a living hell bc I think it’s funny and what’s he gonna do about it” we see in the Lemire run

 - Circling back to Harrow there were bits in here where they went into his backstory with Khonshu that I think would’ve made for a genuinely compelling adversary for Marc and Steven... buuut since this is an MCU joint no truly sympathetic villains are allowed, except for the raisin man himself and maybe Killmonger

 - Layla becoming Tawaret’s avatar was pretty cool, and so was her costume! but her costume didn’t really make sense to me. I’m no Egyptologist but I think those wings would better suit Horus or Isis or another god or goddess... not Tawaret. just seemed like a generic Egyptian-themed outfit. why not make it fit the goddess she’s hosting?

 - Similarly, I laughed out loud when the girl asked “are you an Egyptian superhero?” I think Layla becoming a superhero is great, and a logical character progression! but having a character acknowledge it in dialogue feels very much like Disney patting itself on the back. just have Layla be a superhero! we know she’s cool no need to have a character practically look at the camera and say “she is the first Egyptian superhero. look how progressive we are!” to distract people as they throw more money at anti-queer legislation. god I hate Disney I want it to burn

 - Speaking of representation the representation of Marc’s Jewish heritage was about as sidelined as I expected it to be. While I don’t necessarily think it needed to be front-and-center since this wasn’t an origin story I think they could’ve handled it better. That being said, the idea of someone grappling with their faith and identity when confronted with the fact that an ancient pantheon of gods exists in their world is way more of an interesting and challenging concept than Disney would ever attempt in a show made to be appealing to as many people as possible.

 - oh yeah and for an action series the action was kinda bad. I don’t think there was a single standout fight from this whole season. I found it far more interesting when Steven or Marc blacked out and then came to with carnage around them. oops

Overall I think the show is a solid 7/10. Perfectly enjoyable. Episode 5 was the best in the season bc let’s face it the main plot is not nearly as interesting as seeing Marc and Steven interacting and grappling with their shared trauma

[theotheroccassionalfanficwriter]

Six Pomegranate Seeds

Summary: Six seeds for six months, the entire fruit for eternity. Idia surrenders himself to you.

Tags: Yandere Reader, Idia is a frog cooked in the tepid waters of love, implied arranged marriage

Rated: E for explicit description of riding Idia’s wonderful dick.

A/N: wrote this drabble because I am running away from Law School

--

“The common story goes like this,” You began as your fingers slowly unzipped his hoodie “The God of the Underworld found the Goddess of Spring and fell in love with her at first sight--”

Idia flinched as your fingers went underneath his shirt and teasingly made its way up to his chest, his shirt riding up as he bit back a moan.

“Then he kidnapped her and the world fell into Chaos, but did you know that the oldest story about it goes the other way around?” You smiled at him, it was the same smile you gave him everyday and yet at this moment Idia could not help but feel his fear and excitement mix together.

“Ne, Idia-chan...” You called out softly, lips grazing his adam’s apple as you rubbed against his erection, “Did you know the truth was that the Goddess of Spring saw the God of the Underworld in his home, she walked into his den and willingly stayed.”

“Why?” Idia didn’t know what exactly he was asking about but your mouth was already on his and he could only surrender to your masterful tongue and let himself drown on the taste of you and the familiar and distinct flavor of the Pomegranate grown on the Isle of Lamentation.

When you knew that Idia had swallowed all the seeds in your mouth you kissed him deeply one last time before stopping, saliva trailing from your lips and connecting to his. You could not help but rubbed his erection harder as you observed his erotic look.

“I don’t know, I’ve never asked my aunt” You answered, “But that’s not really what you want to know right? Why you. That’s what you really want to know.”

And Idia could only shut his eyes as he felt the cold air greet his hard dick and the feel of your hands firmly gripping it.

“Nnggggg”

You teased his tip and continued talking, never taking your eyes off him even once, “I don’t know why I chose you except that from the moment I saw you back in the ceremony I knew you were the one.”

“Ne, Idia-chan, do you hate me now? After all aren’t I forcing you a little bit? Ah, but then again your Shroud family and mine have been entangled for generations now...”

“Pl-ease...”Idia panted as he bucked into your hand as you slowly raised yourself up and inserted his dick into your hole, “!!!!Tight!”

“Haaah~!Idia-chan tell me do you hate it? do you hate me even if I’m giving you so much pleasure right now?” You began to slowly move up and down his dick, finding the rhythm that Idia liked.

Idia could only moan and grip your hips tightly, guiding you to his preference before he flipped you over and began thrusting into you hard and fast, his hands unbuttoning your shirt as you moaned and clenched. His name fell from your lips like a prayer, begging him for more and more until you came first. It didn’t stop him from thrusting and instead you could feel him harden even more and soon you felt warmth spread inside your hole.

You lay limp on his bed, savoring the feeling of his dick inside you while his cum slowly dripped out of your hole.

“I don’t hate you...after all... Fuku ryōchō-san weren’t you the one that told me...I can turn this curse into a blessing?”

It was the first time you ever heard Idia speak clearly and calmly, you could not help but be surprised at this change.

“Idia-chan?”

He pulled out of your only to roughly thrust into you again, his whole countenance has changed. It was as if you were seeing the Idia Shroud that was the Heir, not your cute and shy dorm leader who was easily flustered by your flirtations.

You moaned in surprise as he hit your spot.

“Fuku ryōchō-san, please don’t regret binding yourself to this cursed Shroud Family.”

You could only answer with your moans as Idia fucked you over and over again, filling you with his cum that overflowed and as the night wore on you found yourself completely naked and covered with his cum while your skin was littered with his love bites.

You watched him from his bed, your heart warmed at his gesture of covering you up in his blanket even if he did take liberties (which you didn’t mind and led to another round) as he cleaned you up. Idia turned and found himself blushing and stammering at your fond look.

One that he now knew was born of sincere affection and adoration for him.

“Was I-I...good?”

“Un....Idia-chan,” Your hand reached out for him and he obliged, letting his face be caressed by your soft and gentle hands “You can’t run away anymore.”

Idia thought about his family’s curse. How his Father had gotten the attention of a demi-goddess. How they were cursed to never escape from being loved by the Pantheon. And then, he thought of you, who was a God of their own right.

Remembered how you had always been with him every step of the way, how you had helped with Ortho. The way you always ensured things would go his way.

“Six seeds for six months, the entire fruit for eternity.”

[thisiswhatwereupagainst]

We come from the land of the ice and snow From the midnight sun where the hot springs flow This is Snowbird aka Narya aka Anne MacKenzie, a founding member of Marvel’s Alpha Flight and one of my faves. Here’s a post all about her!

Snowbird is the daughter of a moral man, Richard Easton, and the Inua goddess Nelvanna. The Inua are the gods of the Canadian north in Marvel canon. While their name is clearly from the term “Inuit” they are not a pantheon (originally a trinity but then expanded) from any real-world culture, but they are drawn in such a way to suggest they are meant to reflect Indigenuous Canadian peoples, and when they are expanded from a trinity to a true pantheon, real-world Inuit deities like Kadlu and Sedna are added to their number. This raises some problematic issues all around, but it is what it is, so moving on--- Nelvanna is the only female member of the original trinity as they appear, and thus was tasked with conceiving a half-human child with Richard Easton when he stumbled into their realm after finding an ancient artifact at a Canadian archeological dig near the Arctic Circle, since Richard was a man. The reason they needed a half-human child was to combat The Great Beasts, immensely powerful entities. They had been trapped thousands of years ago in a prison realm by the Inua, but in modern times the magicks holding them began to weaken. Knowing the Great Beasts would break free soon, the Inua wished to produce a champion, a demi-goddess child born of both man and god, belonging to both worlds, who could fight them on this plane. Nelvanna successfully conceived a child with Richard, but he was driven mad by the experience of consort with the divine, and he lived out the rest of his life as a hermit until he attempted a ritual to summon one of the Great Beasts. This succeeded, but his life force was consumed in the process, and his remains settled on the bottom of the salt lake where the Great Beast called Tundra once stood. Richard’s spirit would live on as an evil entity, which Snowbird eventually faced and put to peaceful rest at last. But back to Snowbird---obviously, the baby that Nelvanna conceived was Narya, who became Snowbird. As Nelvanna was about to give birth, she summoned Native Canadian shaman Dr. Michael Twoyoungmen to a place of power to assist her. The being she gave birth to was unstable, a transmorph, lacking real form, and Michael knew that he had to mystically bind it to Earth or else it would have never been able to possess a human form. He did so, and the baby at last assumed a human form, that of a little blonde girl with alien features who was already a year old. Having been bound to the land of Canada itself at her birth gave Snowbird her greatest weakness----she could not leave the boundaries of Canada without weakening and, if she did not return soon enough, death. Michael raised Narya alone in a cabin in Banff National Park, where she began to learn the customs of Earth and how to use her fantastic powers---specifically, she could shapeshift into a snow-white version of any animal native to the Canadian Arctic lands. She notably preferred to eat what she hunted in her animal form, not joining Michael or his guests, the Hudsons, at dinner. But she had stranger qualities still---at only three or four chronological years, she already looked like a young woman, albeit a strange elfen one. After Michael explained to the Hudsons that Narya was not only a metamorph but a demigoddess, James Hudson invited them both to join Alpha Flight. They agreed, and were given the codenames Shaman and Snowbird. While her primary goal was always to battle the Great Beasts as she had been born for, Snowbird also dutifully served the interests of Department H and the Canadian government, and to this end took on a human identity, that of Corporal Anne MacKenzie. She used her shapeshifting power to adopt a more fully human appearance, and worked at an RCMP post somewhere in the North West Territories of Canada. However, she had the ability to sense whenever one of her enemies, the Great Beasts, awakened, and would leave whatever she was doing immediately to do battle with these monsters. This ended up costing her her job, though she likely cared little. Snowbird had a cold, distant, aloof persona, almost alien, and at one of her teammates expressed that she gave him “the heebie jeebies” to which her foster father Michael said he was not alone in, suggesting that others were regularly unnerved by her. Indeed, Narya was very much as inhuman mentally as she was physically. Alpha Flight (1983) #3 describes her as such: "Her innermost memories dwell beyond human comprehension, and she remembers the oldest snows." She seems to innately know all her own powers, even those she never used before---such as the ability to compel others to aid her against the Great Beasts should she wish--and to know that her destiny is to fight The Great Beasts, which she will automatically do despite any fear she might have. While it is possible Michael taught her the latter, it is just as likely that she simply was born knowing it. Other powers she displayed were: - Flight - Resistance to extreme cold - She's able to sense magical energies, disturbances to the land she's tied to, and the proximity of her teammates - If her teammates invoke the Great Spirit, she senses that and will come to their aid. - Post-cognitive vision, being able to see what happened in the past in a place. For instance, she looked at a plane crash and was able to basically play it back before her eyes as she looks at the wreckage in order for her to figure out what caused it. It seems there's a limit though, as in another issue she can't do it because whatever happened was 12 hours or more ago, which she can tell by tracks, showing she has tracking skills, likely from her wildnerness upbringing by Shaman and animal-like abilities - As mentioned, she can magically/psychically compel others to help her fight the Great Beasts against their wills While Snowbird originally hoped that once she vanquished all the Great Beasts, her time on Earth would be done and she could ascend to the paradise where the other Inua dwelled, her path changed when Doug Thompson, a colleague from when she had been Anne McKenzie, professed his love for her. Though she originally denied him, she eventually revealed her real self, Snowbird, to hi. She tried to tell him that she could not return his affections, but Doug simply grabbed and kissed her – the first kiss Narya ever received. Taken by surprise and filled with human emotions she had suppressed to this point, Snowbird could no longer deny that she was attracted to Doug too, however, she wanted him to fully know what he would get involved in and showed him her so True Fires, her godly form, a strange and terrifying sight to behold. Yet Doug loved her still, and so once all the Great Beasts were slain, she returned to him and wed him, asking him to teach her to be human. But in doing so, she bound herself to a mortal man, and thus the Inua, whom she had longed to join, cast her out for this sin. Eventually she became pregnant, and just as she had grown up rapidly, so too did her pregnancy rapidly advance. The birth was dramatic, with Snowbird rapidly shifting out of control, displaying her True Fires in her agony. The Inua appeared and offered Snowbird one last chance to join them in Paradise; ridding herself of the stench of mortality. They warned her that after the child was born they would have nothing to do with her. Afraid and suffering unbearable pain, Narya almost agreed – except that she was afraid of losing the people she loved and who loved her back. Snowbird told her mother that she couldn’t leave what she had found on Earth and with that, the Gods left. Narya still needed to reach sacred ground before she could give birth, just as she too had been born in a sacred place. Due to her own resentment of her father, Talisman aka Elizabeth Twoyoungmen, Michael’s daughter, tricked her. Dr. Strange had brought her to a place of power, yes, but it was a place of power because there was an ancient sorcerer buried beneath the frozen wasteland. Strange did not know this, but Talisman did---and said nothing. Soon the birth was set in motion, and almost instantly, Pestilence, spirit of  the ancient sorcerer, possessed and corrupted the child. Talisman knew this would happen; her plan was to watch her father try and fail to save the day, and then step in to do so herself. Yet she found herself unable to best Pestilence either, and he beat Alpha Flight, including his own “mother”, and fled, taking his new body, that of Narya’s unnamed son, with him. As horrible as this was, Nary considered this might be a blessing in disguise. She thought that perhaps if she abandoned her child and husband, then the Inua might reconsider rejecting her, and welcome her back into their fold. Understandably, her husband was upset by this, and angrily stormed off, vowing to find their son himself. He said he now realized that not being human, he could not expect Snowbird to know what motherly love meant. And yet, it turned out, she did---though it saved neither her nor her son. While the rest of Alpha Flight were busy with another mission, Shaman and Snowbird located Pestilence in the mining town of Burial Butte. Once they got there, the pair learned that Douglas, Snowbird’s husband, had gotten there before, and had been infected with a fatal disease by Pestilence. Pestilence had realized that the baby’s pure spirit was slowly overcoming his influence. Only by it being killed could Pestilence could roam free and possess someone else again. To this end, he controlled Snowbird, and forced her to kill him, releasing his spirit, while the body of the child, her child, perished at the claws of its own mother. Snowbird died too, shot down by Heather Hudson in a too-late attempt to stop her from killing her “son” and releasing the sorcerer. Pestilence escaped, but mother, father, and child were all dead. Alpha Flight laid the family to rest in beautiful glass coffins, and, at their funeral, the Inua appeared, offering the dead Snowbird one last chance to join them in their Paradise. Snowbird’s soul, however, demanded that her husband and child must be allowed to come with her as well, or she would not come at all. Though no mortal had ever been allowed in the Inua Paradise before, her divine family made an exception for the first time, and allowed her mortal one, and all their souls went to dwell there in happiness together for eternity. As with many Marvel characters, death was not the end for Snowbird. Pestilence possessed her soulless body briefly, before being forced out by Shaman, at which point the soul of Walter Langkowski aka Sasquatch, another deceased member of Alpha Flight, took it over. No longer housing a divine spirit, Snowbird’s body became that of a human-looking woman---but still a woman, with Walter’s soul inside. So for about two years, Walter went by Wanda. Yeah, he was walking about in the dead body of his teammate, don’t think about it too hard. Perhaps also due to her divine nature now being absent from her body, “Wanda” Langowski did not get any of Snowbird’s powers with her body, but instead retained his--er, her?--own, that of shifting into a Sasquatch, albeit a white one now. Wanda became Walter again eventually, and years later, Snowbird was discovered alive in an A.I.M. laboratory. Alpha Flight and Wolverine freed her and took her along to Department H, where excessive tests revealed her to be indeed really Snowbird. What A.I. M was doing with her and how she came back to life has yet to be revealed. The canon explanation is that she has regenerative powers that went to work while she was buried, but this doesn’t track at all because, again, her body didn’t stay buried, Walter was running around in it. Apparently the writers just...forgot this, and for extra irony had WALTER of all people be the person who came up with this explanation. Seriously. I just go with the idea the Inua brought her back for God Reasons and she doesn’t know why yet and then A.I.M. got ahold of her before she could rejoin her team. She also lacks being bound to the Canadian lands anymore, and I miss that limit, I thought it was cool. I like a lot of things about Snowbird. Firstly, I think the fact she can turn into animals, that’s really cool, and the limits of them always being Canadian helps temper it, and I think them always being white is a neat touch. I like that she’s WEIRD and INHUMAN and unnerves people, I like that her design is meant to be CREEPY INSTEAD OF PRETTY and I like that she actually FALTERED in being a good mother in a really HORRIBLE way that women (at least heroic/good women) don’t usually get written as even considering without becoming villains for it, I like that when she does show humanity it’s not just compassion or maternal love, it’s also BEING A DICK LIKE HUMANS CAN BE . She’s a pretty cool character and I’d like to RP as her one day. I also have some thoughts about why I think she, as a character who is literally meant as the embodiment of Canada itself, should be rewritten/re-designed as a Native Canadian woman, but those are for another post---this is just about who she is as it is. Which is a neat character with a pretty design! Fun fact: In the Ultimates universe, it’s Danielle Moonstar who is a member of Alpha Flight bearing the codename Snowbird. Instead of the powers of 616 Dani or Snowbird, she wields the ability to create and control blizzards, which she uses to overpower that universe’s Storm.

[bigskydreaming]

Setting up a side blog  at @bigskywritings to have a place to put all my original work, commissioned work, and commissioning guidelines for both fanfic and original work, as well as other services offered like developmental edits, etc.

That’s why I’m going through so many old files, lol. Probably gonna be a lot of posting going on over on that one today. Got a lot to go through, and not to be dramatic on main, but there’ve been enough points over the past several years where I didn’t think I’d ever get a chance to actually do anything with any of this, that tbh, I’d rather just have it out there in some form that can actually be enjoyed by people rather than just sitting in my files. I’ve always been heavy on the world-building, with that usually being considered one of my strengths, that I’ve got a ton of settings that could work for any number of short stories that wouldn’t take anything away from the longer novels or projects I have going for them. 

*Shrugs* Or maybe they’ll just sit there like they do in my files, lol, its honestly not a big deal either way, its just I’d rather err on the side of potential interest these days.

Here’s a snippet set in one of my primary shared universes, something I call the Citadel ‘verse. Basic premise is its a fantasy universe where the universe itself is sentient, but more of a raw, primal sentience than having a fully formed consciousness. But it derives and evolves its own consciousness from the presence of sentient beings, after the first ones evolved on their own without design, and so it knows it wants to be more than it is, but the only way to do that is through sentient beings. So long ago, it shaped the focal point of its power and consciousness into something that would be seen as embodying power to anyone who saw it, and thus the Citadel was made. The Citadel is the universe, the universe is the Citadel. Its all the power of creation, of godhood, contained in one place....but just lacking the will and the imagination to make use of it on its own. For that it needs people, and those people are whomever end up within the walls of the Citadel, claiming the various Rooms and the forces each embody for their own, and in doing so, becoming gods.

But entropy is the natural state of all universes and the one thing the Citadel can’t abide is stagnation, so whenever a god or gods becomes bored or content with whatever they’ve done with that power, whenever they stop creating, changing, manipulating, and just sit back and rest on the fruits of what they’ve already done, the Citadel takes back its power and begins a new cycle of someone new coming across it or seeking it out, and becoming the next god or gods. Some cycles there’s only one occupant of the Citadel, sometimes two or three, sometimes entire pantheons of gods each with their own Room or Rooms, it varies. The last cycle of importance only had one god, and upon his death, the entire First World erupted into war and chaos as people vied to find the Citadel and claim its power. 

Many Rooms were claimed by people whose first acts of godhood were to attempt to seize as many more for themselves as they could, and the whole world was being torn apart and in danger of being destroyed.....so when one of their number, Seshan, finally seized control of the Throne Room, the ultimate seat of power within the Citadel, she sealed each of the other new gods in the Rooms they’d already claimed, and split the Citadel and cast its various pieces to the edges of the universe, where reality was still shapeless and unformed. The exiled gods used this to form new worlds of their own making, via the power of their individual Rooms. And thus their war has continued throughout the eons, as they continue to try and seize control of more and more Rooms and consolidate enough of the Citadel’s power that they can finally force open the doors Seshan locked behind them and challenge her for the Throne Room itself.

(Just FYI, before anyone asks if I’ve read Brandon Sanderson, the answer is yes, I’ve read some of his earlier stuff. This universe was in no way influenced by his work, as I started building this setting back in high school, lol. What I think IS likely is that we were probably both inspired by the same works. I was a big fan of the multi-world nature of The Deathgate Cycle, and I really liked the shared multi-verse setting Michael Moorcock uses for his various protagonists like Elric and Corum, and those and more are pretty clear inspirations, lol. Like....I don’t have an issue with being accused of ripping off someone else, I just want to be accused of ripping off the right people, the people I’m actually ripping off of, loooool).

This particular world, the setting for the snippet below, is one of the worlds created by Pelk the Harper, the god of music (among other things). One of his claimed Rooms is what amounts to a concert hall, and its hidden away on this world, the one he formed from it before moving on to make new worlds. A wide range of cultures and religions formed in his absence, but a common concept many of them circle back to is the idea that all of creation has two parts, existing as both a Shape and a Sound. Some have different names for this, some call it the Shape and the Voice or the Shape and the Song, or Form and Function or Substance and Speech, its defined differently in various parts of the world, but all ultimately contain the idea that there’s a physical component to existence, and a non-physical.

A small percentage of people on this world, usually called something like unbinders, have the ability to find the thread that binds the physical and non-physical aspects of a thing together, and temporarily unweave it, leaving two separated parts. The Shape, which exists unbound as an image without substance, a seeming illusion that has no mass, sound, scent, etc....and the Song, which exists unbound as the essence of a thing, but without form to concentrate it and define it. Once created, its the nature of a created thing to exist as a complete whole, and so being Unbound is an imperfect state of existence. Meaning as soon as an unbinder stops concentrating on keeping the two halves apart, they’ll snap back together and rejoin the way they’re supposed to.

Except centuries ago, people invented devices called mirrorflasks and echo-catchers.....to catch and contain these separated halves of an unbound thing, and keep them separated. Mirrorflasks are glass vials of any size, whose interiors are coated with an alchemical mixture that acts as a mirror that keeps a Shape eternally reflected and never fading, as long as the flask is corked. Echo-catchers are metallic vials whose interiors are coated with a similar mixture, that keeps a Sound or Song eternally echoing and never fading, as long as the stopper is in place. An unbinder is necessary to separate the two halves so they can be caught and contained, but after that, anyone can uncork the containers, the effect is the same no matter the person: the Shape and Sound will immediately rejoin, no matter how physically distant the mirrorflask and echo-catcher are from each other. 

That’s irrelevant, the important part is that both flask and catcher need to be opened, and so they’re fairly useless except in pairs. If you uncork a mirrorflask but not its accompanying echo-catcher, the Shape or image of the thing will be released, just as if you uncork the catcher but not the flask, its Sound will escape as a formless thing that briefly can be heard or smelled or even felt, before its lack of a Shape leads it to spread out in all directions without boundaries, diluting it to the point of non-existence then.

So a fire that’s unbound and contained, will just be the illusion of flames if just its flask is opened, while if just the echo-catcher is uncorked, there’d be the sound of flames, the sensation of heat, but it’d be there and gone in a matter of moments. Anything can be unbound and contained, physical objects like weapons or forces like fires or even storms (the trick of unbinding is seeing something as a whole thing unto itself. An unbinder who sees a storm as disparate elements will never be able to unbind the whole storm, just pieces of it like a lightning bolt. But one who sees the storm as one singular thing can unbind that whole storm and store it in a flask and catcher.) Even animals can be unbound. The only thing that can’t is human beings, but with one exception....unbinders can’t unbind anyone else, but they can unbind themselves. Separate themselves into a bodiless voice and essence as well as a substanceless image...a kind of astral projection that’s exceedingly rare as its viewed as extremely reckless and dangerous....because while in that state, even an unbinder can be trapped in a mirrorflask and echo-catcher, the same as anything else.

Anyway, that’s the scoop on the below snippet. Gonna try and be better about tagging things on the sideblog because yay organization, lol, so the tag for things Citadel related will be ‘tales of the Citadel’ and specific to this setting will be ‘The Chaos Vault.’

(That’s the title to the bigger project linked to this setting. There are legends on this world of a vault that was hidden away or lost centuries ago, but in it was stored all the greatest natural disasters and cataclysmic forces that had ever been unbound. Unbinding things like that is basically a lost art, as older civilizations could do things with unbinding that ‘modern’ inhabitants of this world can’t even dream of....as the more scientifically advanced they became, the harder it was for them to see major cumulative things like storms and other disasters as just being one single thing that could be unbound, rather than a lot of smaller, individual elements. So there’s lots of legends about something called the Chaos Vault existing somewhere. Which eventually culminates in a high fantasy heist caper FTW).

Snippet from The Chaos Vault, in which Miya kills people cuz that’s kinda her thing:

Choosing a spot a few steps from the door that separated the kitchen from the hall - close enough to get a clear view of the servers coming and going from it, far enough away for her to time things just right - Miya braced herself against the far wall, leaning as if she needed its support to keep her upright. Less than a minute later, a server emerged from the kitchen bearing a full tray of dishes, and she straightened and pivoted just as he came within reach.

Her seemingly wine-drunk stumble was nothing short of artful, if she did say so herself, and their collision tipped the man’s tray just enough that the outermost dishes cascaded to the red-tiled floor. The sounds of shattering dishware echoed loudly thanks to the vaulted ceiling overhead. The shattering of a small mirrorflask was a trivial thing in comparison, when she let it fall from her clenched fist. A minor tinkling easily lost in the chaos she’d caused, just as the sound of broken dishes was drowned out by the much louder revels taking place down the hall.

And much like the shards of the broken flask were effectively camouflaged by the mess on the floor.

“Oh, Shape and Song, I’m so clumsy!” She bubbled exaggerated apologies at the man and clung to his shoulder, keeping his attention firmly on her and away from the red and black banded firesnake that slithered rapidly away from the noise. It reached the escape offered by the ballroom at the end of the hall, and vanished into the forest of dancing legs and swirling skirts.

“Its quite alright,” he assured while attempting to be graceful about dislodging her. It most assuredly was not, if the grimace he couldn’t quite hide was anything to go by. Then again, Miya mused, anyone likely to give him grief about the matter would be concerned with far greater things in a few moments.

But only if she made sure her little friend got his Voice back before he was spotted by the revelers. With no physical mass to trip over and coloring fairly well disguised against the tile, she had some time, but not much. 

Miya heaved herself off her unknowing accomplice, and with a few more incomprehensible mutterings, she staggered toward the other end of the hall. Making use of the wall once again, both for “support” and her charade, she came to a rest near a window left open so the heated air from the kitchen wouldn’t circulate. 

She dipped her head and unclasped her right earring. Its intricate array of tiny chiming windpipes, while annoying, hid the equally tiny echo-catcher among them. With a single smooth motion deftly hidden by her hunched stance, she uncorked it and tossed both vial and earring out the window and into the canal below, glad to be rid of both.

A Song once released needs no direction to find its other half, and rejoining its Shape and binding itself back together took but an instant. It would only take a few seconds more for it to be drawn to the scented-oil she’d dabbed her target’s sleeve with when brushing up against him earlier. With that thought, Miya pushed herself off the wall and started down the hall again, this time at a much quicker pace.

3…2…1…

A single scream cut through all other noise and carried horrified silence in its wake.

There we go.

And then it was the silence that was shattered. People spilled out of the kitchen and into the hallway like so many confused and frantic ants. But ones with their eyes all drawn towards the ballroom, leaving nothing but backsides watching her. Her steps straightened and took back their usual confidence, her stride made short work of the rest of the hallway, and she vanished through a side-door at the end of it before anyone thought to look around.

She skipped as sprightly down the steps to the garden as her garments would allow - which is to say, not very - and reached behind her head to release her hair from that ridiculous style. Mussing it just enough to let it flow freely down her back, she sank deeper into the night’s shadows and allowed a smile of satisfaction to curve her lips.

Surely there was nothing wrong with taking a little pride in one’s work.

[jq37]

The Report Card – Fantasy High Sophomore Year Ep 19

The Ties That Bind

The penultimate Fantasy High: Sophomore Year episode is upon us and not a moment too soon. Seems a little counter-intuitive to seek comfort from these objectively wild current events we’re experiencing from a fictional Nightmare Forest but we know what we’re about so let’s jump back in and start with the death of a beloved main character.

Yay.

Rewinding back to two episodes ago, last we saw Kristen, she got stabbed through by a skeletal unicorn and died. We pick back up there and, as she’s dying, she feels a sense of pain, betrayal, and anger--very similar emotions to what Brennan told her the goddess was feeling with her Nat 20 Religion Check. Kristen gets a vision of the goddess being destroyed in cracks of lightning by her own followers--the same vision Fig saw in the dream scrying pool when she scry-ed on Kristen last week--and then she wakes up on the chapel floor.

She’s not...dead exactly. But she’s not super alive either. She’s bleeding, but more oozing blood than the normal mechanical way of bleeding out because her heart isn’t beating. There’s a hole in her chest and, within it, her heart is crushed. Her skin is pale because the blood isn’t pumping through it properly anymore. Her breathing isn’t regular. And a piece of her finger tip (the piece taken by her friends for a possible Revivify) is missing.

She sees evidence of her friends having been in the room--footprints and the smashed wall--and to place this in the timeline, she can’t remember Fabian right now. When she checks her crystal, she sees it’s been 90 minutes since they walked into the forest. She does Cure Wounds on herself to stop the blood from dripping. Then she heads out towards the forest, passing the Oracular Pool Fig used in the last episode as she goes. She stops as she sees it and something in her heart glows with golden light. When she looks into the pool, she sees the sun reflected in the pool (and also Fig’s boot prints leading up to it). That’s weird because it is super not a Sol/Helio aligned Chapel/Area they’re in. She also sees the moon reflected and she feels like she’s being called in. It doesn’t necessarily feel safe but it feels like she might get some answers and also she already died today so how much worse can it get? She dives in and come up and when she does, she’s suddenly in the outer planes. Specifically, she’s in Elysium which is like the Neutral Good heaven. She hears a voice that she mistakes for her dad’s because of the major dad energy she’s getting from it: You can come home.

As she walks, she finds herself--as Kristen weirdly often does for some reason--in the presence of gods. Specifically, Sol (god of the Sun) and Galakaya (goddess of the Moon and his sister as we find out). Helio is also there, like the screw-up son of a CEO, hanging out in his office. Both of them are good gods but not neutral good so Kristen gets the sense that they brought her here to have a neutral place to talk to her. 

Kristen is hilariously nonplussed by being personally Uber-d to heaven by arguably the biggest gods in the pantheon and when she is asked to take a walk with Helio so she can get some important information, she’s like, “Nooooo, can literally anyone else do it?” Galakaya agrees to do it instead. 

They take a lap and she asks about Tracker. Galakaya says that Tracker isn’t dead but she’s in major danger. Then, she changes the subject. Has Kristen ever wondered where her spells have been coming from when she’s been between gods? Because, as Galakaya says, doubt is nothing. She reveals that even though Kristen rejected him, Helio has been providing Kristen spells this entire time. He sent the philosophers and the grad students to be her spirit guardians. Kristen rejected him but not the light. Galakaya likens it to a child running away from home to the front yard. Kristen isn’t too far gone. She can still come back to the fold. And, if she doesn’t want to be Helio’s champion, she can be hers instead and become a Moon Cleric, which would still be keeping it in the family. But that’s the problem Kristen has with it. Helio to Galakaya? It seems like more of the same--especially the way she’s been acting, like she would fit right in at a brunch table with Arianwyn and Anguin. Except, when Tracker comes up, Kristen notices she gets a little snarly, almost like a tic she’s trying to keep under control. 

Kristen asks for her pitch, and it’s basically the same deal she was getting with Helio but with different window dressing. The Moon, sisterhood, and unquestioning obedience. Galakaya can’t see into Sylvere to check on Tracker like Kristen asks but if she had a Champion, say Kristen, she could send her all kitted up with new powers. She says she wants the Nightmare King dead more than anyone seeing as the Nightmare King killed her baby sister (the Mystery Goddess). She calls her baby sister sweet and sometimes confused, seeing as she thought destroying her name would make her more powerful. But Kristen knows that’s not what happened. It was her followers who destroyed her name as she desperately warned them not to. Some chicanery is going on.

She says she will take the job as Galakaya’s champion and when she makes like she’s going to pray to her to seal the deal, she instead reaches out to the mystery goddess again. The golden light in her chest disappears and is replaced with cool shadow. She feels shock from the goddess, that Kristen would still choose to reach out to her after she died at her hand. The goddess says, emotionally, “I’m sorry, I’m just so scar--” But, before she can finish the word, Galakaya grabs Kristen by the shoulder and snaps her out of it, face snarling and wolfed out. After a second, she composes herself and seems almost embarrassed that Kristen saw that, which makes Kristen realize what’s going on with her. Tracker is a cleric of Galakaya, but knowing Tracker, she wouldn’t worship someone so reeking of high elven prim and proper-ness. And she also knows what the number one rule of godhood is: As above, so below. Galakaya has basically been claimed as a high elven goddess. Which means that the vast majority of her followers aren’t like Tracker. They’re snooty high elves. Which means so is she and her wolf part is still there, but it’s buried and distasteful to her now. 

Which, coincidentally, is how Kristen feels about this entire godly family. She “respectfully declines” both of their offers. And by “respectfully declines” I mean she socks Helio in the face and makes a run for it. Sol, full of rage, says, “I told you that kid was trash! Now get her!” The philosophers on Sol’s payroll look at each other and instead mob him (why is the literal sun god so easy to 1v1?) and help Kristen escape. As she does, Helio calls out after Kristen something she kind of already sensed upon arriving in Elysium. Most people are a soul in a body. But Kristen, at the moment, is a soul *as* a body. If she dies again, with no god to intercede for her, she’s dead-dead. No afterlife. But that’s not enough to make her stay. She keeps running and makes it to the pool. For the first time, she feels herself fully cut off from her spells. 

Back in the cave in Sylvere, Kristen chats with the Philosophers. They tell her they were working for Sol so they couldn’t tell her what the deal was but they were always rooting for her. One of the philosophers quotes her own words back to her: Doubt can’t be a belief but it can be a practice. And as she says this, she turns Kristen’s Shepherd's Crook cool and metallic and turns it into a question mark. She can’t hold doubt in her heart but she can hold it in her hand (stats for the Staff of Doubt below; also what a sick line from Brennan).

She knows that to get to the center of the forest where she needs to be, she has to follow her fear, so she goes in the direction she doesn’t expect to find Tracker. 

Shifting gears, we find Gorgug and Fabian at the mouth of the cave (and no longer high on duskmoss) in their floating rock island surrounded by the others. They see that there are other openings and decide to check them to see if they can find any of their friends. They spend a good two hours, tied together and climbing this rock face which is some extremely solid male bonding. When they reach the cave they were aiming for, they find Baxter, riddled with arrows they know to be Sandra-Lynn’s. He’s dying but not dead. I am outraged at Brennan until I learn a fact that I don’t think has come up until now: Artificers get spell slots. Which means that Gorgug has Cure Wounds. He only cures him for 3 points but that’s enough to stabilize him at least so we can all stop sharpening the pitchforks. However, Baxter is clearly dejected and confused. He has no idea why Sandra-Lynn would suddenly turn on him. So maybe the pitchforks are still called for.

They want to leave Baxter in the cave so he can rest up but, on a 1 Animal Handling, Baxter absolutely demands to follow them. It’s faster than climbing at least. They do so.

And we switch again, this time to the Abernants. 

Adaine is still trapped in a prison orb and barred from doing most of her spells. She can, however, do the Message cantrip and Aelwyn is still in the room along with Anguin. She Messages Aelwyn and asks, What’s going on? Why is she working with their parents still? Aelwyn replies that she doesn’t like her parents but she does love them. Doesn’t Adaine? “They don’t love me,” Adaine shoots back. Aelwyn parrots back ideology that she’s clearly learned from her parents: Love has to be earned. What value does something that hasn’t been earned have? Adaine, fresh off of therapy and with full knowledge of Aelwyn’s broken psyche, fully calls her out. She is so closed off to love, to everything that abjuration is her school of magic. Aelwyn tries to wave her off but Adaine, very seriously, says, “I don’t love our parents but despite the fact that you have not earned it, I do love you.” Aelwyn fully dissociates (and I’m not far behind). 

Adaine notices that Anguin is readying some kind of Sending spell and that he’s wearing a sword that he usually doesn’t have. He tells Aelwyn to ransack her sister’s brain for the info they need from her while he prepares her punishment. Aelwyn, clearly in a slight panic, tries to (not at all) casually persuade Anguin to just leave Adaine in the orb, unharmed, when they are done with her. She tries to do it in a, “This isn’t worth our time,” kind of way but betrays herself when she blurts out, “She’s a baby!” Anguin raises a hand at her and she flinches, apologetically casting Detect Thoughts on Adaine who has already (via Message) said she’d support her no matter what she did. 

Enter, Adaine’s Mindscape: A series of interconnected rooms--and her Aelwyn’s rooms--repeated over and over. Adaine has her surface thoughts be all of her memories of Aelwyn *almost* being nice to her and then pulling back at the last second for fear of her parents. Aelwyn doesn’t press deeper than these thoughts and says that if Adaine’s goal was to humiliate her then she’s done so. But that’s not what Adaine wants. She wants to rebuild their relationship. They’re gonna be sisters for the rest of their quasi-immortal lives. These memories suck but they can make new ones.

And then, through a window, Aelwyn sees another memory. The memory of herself in the hot-tub post Calethriel Tower rescue mission. She doesn’t remember this because of the events in the memory itself. Adaine went into her mind and, at her written instructions, reboot her memory and personality. They’re able to Inception themselves into Adaine’s memory of Aelwyn’s mind and they walk through it. Aelwyn is confronted with the knowledge that this is how she is and that Adaine knows this. Siobhan, from her sniper perch, gets the kill order from Brennan to take the shot directly into my chest.

“Would you be my big sister? I would really, really love to have you as a big sister.”

So now it’s both Kristen and me who have crushed hearts this episode. 

Aelwyn fully loses concentration on the spell and snaps out of it. When Anguin asks for the information, she, on full glassy-eyed autopilot, says she didn’t find it. Anguin decides to go for the nuclear option, readying a bolt of magic to throw at Adaine. “Prepare to be better, dear, sweet daughter.”

The magic races at her, ready to do something Stepford-ian to her mind I’m sure, but, suddenly, Aelwyn steps forward, still out of it but following her true, deeply buried but natural protective instincts. Protective magic covers Adaine and the spell is Counterspelled. 

Adaine quickly dispels her orb but then it’s Anguin’s turn and he goes for Aelwyn. Adaine attempts to return the favor she has just been given and Counterspells but Anguin Counterspells her Counterspell and Lightning Bolts Aelwyn. The second before she’s hit, Aelwyn looks at Adaine and says, “I’m sorry”. She goes down. 

Adaine’s turn.

And, if you recall, Adaine just received two boons: A bonus to her Strength score and a little spell called Adaine’s Furious Fists. 

And, my dude, if Adaine has ever been furious in her life, it’s now. 

5th Level. And it’s a strength saving throw but, just to be certain of her success, Adaine gives her undoubtedly weak father her 4 Portent roll. That’s 10d10 damage.

77 points of damage.

She charges forward at Anguin.

“Guess what bitch? I’m strong now.”     

And she full Dragon Ball Z energy punches her dad, dealing more than double his max HP. You know what that means? Ding Dong the bitch is FULLY DEAD. 

Deed done, she rushes to Aelwyn’s side and gives her her 11 portent roll for her first death save (super clutch use of a mediocre portent). Then, on an 18 Medicine check, stabilizes her without the need for any more checks. Aelwyn is immediately weepy about how she doesn’t deserve the kindness she’s being shown. Adaine, again, gently says that love isn’t about deserving or not deserving, though she definitely doesn’t deserve the crappy situation she’s in right now. And, maybe when this is over, she can exchange her bed for a bunk bed and Aelwyn can move in? If Aelwyn wasn’t crying before, she super is now, and spilling her guts. She’s the one who sank she ship the previous elven oracle was on, she worked for Kalvaxus and Kalina--things Adaine is willing to attribute to being under the thumb of evil, abusive people but that Aelwyn seems desperate to atone for. She gives Adaine an important piece of information for their mission: In the past, heroes going after the Nightmare King have failed because they failed to undo all five curses. They need to make sure they do that.

Adaine gives Aelwyn the tincture she has on her, freeing her from Kalina’s influence, and then Aelwyn gives her one more piece of information before she slips into unconsciousness. Before Aelwyn had the previous Oracle killed, she was sure that Adaine was going to be the next Oracle and she told Kalvaxus that. Why was she sure? Because the elf that becomes the next Oracle is always the most skilled Diviner alive at the time.

“I love you too,” Adaine replies.

Then she nicks the dope sword (and 30 gp) off her dad’s corpse, leaves Aelwyn there to rest, and goes to find her friends.

And, speaking of, let’s pop over to see how Riz and Fig are doing.   

In a word, bad.

They’re still tied up and cornered by the skeletal unicorn who says they’re captured and soon their friends will be too. Nightmare Fig shows up with Baby (who is shortly tied up as well) and reveals herself to actually be this many-armed, snake-woman demon. A whole army of demons show up, ready to start wrecking house as soon as they’re ordered to. 

Fig wants to try and use her lighter to set her bonds on fire and Riz wants to use his spy-watch to laser her bonds off. They both fail but Riz notices they’re not being stopped from trying. It’s like the demons want them to escape so they have an excuse to chase and kill them. He also notices a jiggling from his briefcase.

At the same time, Fig gets a Sending from Bill saying he just hawked all of Gorthalx’s stuff, including the six suits of magic armor. But, wait a minute. There were seven suits. On a Nat 1, she thinks Bill is screwing her over.

But then.

All of a sudden. 

Riz’s briefcase of holding springs open and out pops a figure in gleaming gold Pride Armor. The armored figure, holding a brilliantly gold halberd, cleaves through some demons and the raises his visor showing that it’s none other than the chosen one himself--GILEAR! You see, the Deadly Sin armor feeds on its respective sin in the user and consumes them, but, as Gilear puts it, he has no pride. 

He absolutely wrecks house, killing demon after demon. Riz records it on his tie-camera for posterity. Gorgug and Fabian on Baxter see the commotion and fly down, seeing the tail end of the fight. Gilear kills the last of the demons then gets spit out of the armor like it’s an Iron Man suit, fully dead. Again. He may have had no pride when he put the armor on but watching himself kick ass have him just enough to be fatal.

Fig gets free from her bindings and, on a 27 with Bardic from Fabian, beats the 25 DC she needs to make an illusory diamond (which turns into a real one) of high enough quality to cast Revivify. She does so, after a heartfelt statement about being proud to be like him and a sick lick on her bass.

Gilear comes back up and we learn that he’d been hiding in RIz’s briefcase with the armor since they sent him away because it was the only way he could think of to be useful to them and protect Fig. Fabian and Riz (along with the audience) also unfortunately learn that Gilear is hung like a horse when they fail their saves to look away quickly enough. 

Adaine rushes in with her new sword and the information that she killed her dad which everyone congratulates her for. She then ritual casts Identify on the sword. Aelwyn told her earlier that it’s the sword that belongs to whoever the current Oracle is and she also learns it’s called the Sword of Sight, it can be used as an arcane focus, and was made by Fabian’s Grandad (full stats below). 

Riz gets the footage from his tie onto his crystal and posts it on Fig’s account which has got to be the wildest social media account on Magic Facebook.

The Bad Kids are mainly reunited, but let’s get back to the final missing member. 

Kristen, alone in the woods, starts using her blood to draw a picture of the Mystery goddess. She hears a creepy voice say, “Be careful what you give a face,” and some other ominous stuff. But Kristen ignores it as she lies prostrate in front of her drawing because she understands something extremely important. 

As above, so below.

Galakaya is worshiped primarily by stuck up high elves, so she has become that.

If Kristen is now the only follower of the Mystery goddess and she says that she’s real and she’s good then as above, so below. The math checks out.

The bloody image changes to a beautiful woman’s face. The Mystery goddess. She says she only ever wanted to comfort her followers and tell them that the night itself was nothing to fear. Kristen sees flashes of the chained Court of Elders--the representatives of the five races who worshiped the Mystery Goddess and were convinced to destroy her name (ignoring her warnings not to). Among them are the unicorn and the decaying elf Adaine saw in her Scry. 

Fear of the NK breaks her out of the vision and she finds herself surrounded by Twilight (that she’s generating) with Tracker in front of her, fully wolfed out with a bloody muzzle. Tracker is going feral, all, “You’re so selfish, everything is always about you.” Something is going wrong with her. Now, good news/bad news:

Good News: Kristen is fully committed to this Mystery Goddess so she gets her spells back and she is now a Twilight Domain Cleric.

Bad News: She goes Invisible (eliciting a, “Why are you running? I knew you would leave me. Why won’t you accept me like I am?” from Tracker) and tries to cast Greater Restoration but all she needs is a 4 and she rolls a 3. Tragic. 

She finds that she is insubstantial still and is whisked away from a snarling and lamenting Tracker. As she is traveling, she sees the face of the Nightmare King who asks why she would follow a dead goddess whose path is just going to make her life harder. Kristen feels a pang of doubt and fear that she has just done exactly what her religious upbringing warned her against and put herself and her friends in grave danger for no reason by straying from the path, but then she has another classic Kristen-ism: Everyone is basic and wrong. She’d rather follow a goddess who is like, “Hey y’all, I also don’t have it all figured out but I will for sure do all I can to help you navigate it,” than a god who demands unquestioning faith and loyalty. And with that, she finds herself floating above her friends.

She feels the pull of her missing finger bone in Adaine’s pocket and she feels like it might be impossible for her to fully, properly, come back but on the other hand, she’s died like three times at this point. What does impossible even mean? She gets the sense that she can cast Raise Dead on herself and she does so. 

Welcome back to the Bad Kids, St. Kristen Applebees of [REDACTED], halo aglow, newly reattached finger shedding a bit of light.

(“That’s hot for being gay,” Ally says about Kristen’s new glow.)

Everyone hugs everyone and catches up everyone on everything. Kristen heals up Baxter for 20 HP and gets a +2 bump on her Intelligence mod for her ordeals in the forest. They all make a plan to get everyone in one place so Kristen can put some of her new AoE healing spells to use. Fig wants to go on Baxter to get Ayda. Adaine, bringing us full circle, invites Fabian on a rescue mission to get her sister. 

And we take a break. 

Deep breath y’all. 

Detention

Brennan for Cursing us With Knowledge About Gilear’s Penis

@allsevenmaidens put this very reasonable request in and I have to concur because what’s the alternative? Giving Anguin this spot AGAIN? Like, I don’t even want to give him the satisfaction of being the best of the worst. Adaine gave him the death penalty which is what he deserves and all he’s gonna get. 

So, Brennan gets this spot for forcing me to hear the words “Gilear” and “hung like a horse” in the same sentence.  

Honor Roll

Gilear for Kicking SERIOUS Ass

Listen, SO many Honor Roll-worthy moments happened this episode. Kristen’s Amazing As Above, So Below moment. Aelwyn finally stepping up to protect Adaine. Adaine absolutely obliterating Anguin in a single punch. 

But, at the end of the day, I have to give it to Gilear “Just a Guy” Faeth for cramming himself and a suit of cursed armor into a mostly airless briefcase out of desperate need to do whatever he could to help protect his daughter and her friends who are basically demigods. He truly is the Anti-Anguin and I’m so glad Riz got that on tape for posterity. Way to go man. 

Random Thoughts

I already wrote so many words and we have a five hour finale tomorrow so I’m going to try and keep this section brief. 

We’re staring down the barrel of the last episode (coming Friday at 8PM EST) and I want to say this now rather than later: thanks for reading these and leaving nice comments in the tags and stuff like that. I’m not always the most confident person and the support really means a lot.

We’re also staring down the barrel of a global crisis right now so, you know, be nice to yourself and escape through fiction when you need to, reach out to people, and eat a vegetable if you can. Read a 5000 word recap of an episode you presumably already watched. Whatever you need to do.

The Staff of Doubt has ten charges and can cast the following spells at the cost of the amount of charges listed: Detect Magic (1), Lesser Restoration (2), Dispel Magic (3), Banishment (4), Greater Restoration (5).

The Sword of Sight gives +1 to attack and damage rolls. It gives a base 12 AC which bumps Adaine’s to 15. It lets her cast Divination cantrips as bonus actions. She gets to take the Dodge action when she casts a Divination spell. And she gets no disadvantage on attacks on Invisible creatures (seems very useful against Kalina possibly).   

EDIT: I forgot to say! Gorgug saying very sincerely to Kristen, “I’m sorry I wasn’t there,” “there” being, “at her most recent death” broke me. 

Where in the World is Ragh Backrock? We have at least an approximate idea of where the rest of the hirelings are but nothing on Ragh. I’m concerned. His vision was asking Gorgug if he was his dad. Maybe it has something to do with that?

Very curious about what the mechanics of the final confrontation will be. What Aelwyn said seems like it could be setting up for some shenanigans. Plus, there are still all the hirelings to worry about.  

Another question, I feel like we still have almost no idea what’s going on with the NK. Half of me is almost expecting some kind of Te Fiti/Te Ka situation. On another day I might try to speculate and play detective but that’s not where I’m at today so I’m just gonna leave it at that.

I feel like Kristen is always negging deities to their faces. Like, girl. Her Axe/Dove metaphor was *chef’s kiss* though. Anyway, when (hopefully) Tracker is back to normal, I hope Kristen has a take that’s different than, “I met your goddess and she sucked.”

Kristen makes me feel bad for Helio. He’s just a surfer dude who likes corn, OK. He never did anything to her except give her magic! 

Didn’t have a good place to mention this earlier but Fig alerted Bill to their situation and location so if there’s a Bill Ex-Machina next ep, it’s not out of nowhere. 

(Also, just a small point of order, Gorgug did say he had a bone from Kristen last ep but so did Adaine. Doesn’t really matter but just wanted to explain the mismatch with my last recap). 

Making everyone roll a save to not see Gilear’s dick is so funny. As was Zac invoking danger sense to roll with advantage. 

“I cast Spare the Dying on Gilear’s Penis.”

“I am no man,” from LOTR but instead it’s Gilear saying, “I have no pride.”

“Drink deeply Gilear.”

Why is Kalina working for the NK? She’s supposed to be the Mystery Goddess’s familiar, right? Just another thing that doesn’t add up. Where’s that puzzle piece we’re missing?

The thought of Baxter being so confused and dejected and fatally injured, not understanding what he did so wrong to have his mistress riddle him with arrows makes me wanna throw down with Brennan IRL. Also, I’m Concerned about Sandra-Lynn.  

I need to say this on the record. Ally Beadsley does some bonkers things in D&D that I could not even begin to understand but that As Above So Below Gambit was Galaxy Brained. 

You knew this was coming. Abernant Time Bay-Bee (the abridged version because I need to get this out before Friday)!

First off, I am very happy to say that basically exactly what I predicted/hoped for in my last recap for this scene is what happened, with Anguin making Aelwyn cast Detect Thoughts on Adaine. And basically EVERYTHING I had on my Abernant Sisters Reconciliation checklist was checked. The Detect Thoughts. The pointing out that they’re gonna live for a long time and do they want to do it at each other's throats? Aelwyn finally stepping up to the plate and leaning into her Abjurative Instincts in a positive way and shielding Adaine from their father. And then the stuff that I wanted so bad but didn’t know it. The bunk beds moment? The “I love you too” moment. “She’s a baby!” I mean, “Will you be my big sister?” F off Siobhan. That was beautiful. 

A little concerned about Adaine having left Aelwyn unconscious so close to where their mom is but I am glad she remembered to cure her of Kalina. 

When Brennan said, “In Aelwyn’s last moment,” for a second I thought he meant she was about to be perma-dead and my heart legit stopped. 

I was up until about 2 AM last night, popping bottles with @camwritery (my Abernant Sisters confidant) about Brennan and Siobhan giving us everything we wanted and I’m going to get yelled at by her if I don’t mention something I said while we were talking. Last week, during the fireside chat, all of the players talked about what future lives/jobs they’d want for their characters. I posited the same question for Aelwyn and offered my answer--CPS Case Worker. Because, like, think about it. She is an extremely protective person. She wants to atone for what she did and failed to do for Adaine. When she gets all the therapy she needs, she’s going to be equipped with deep, personal knowledge of what abuse looks like/what it can do to a child and an extremely long lifespan. Can’t you see an adult Aelwyn, in the living room of a well appointed house, speaking cordially to some high class A-hole with his terrified kid sitting next to him, trying not to say anything or do anything that will get them punished and Aelwyn does a surface level Detect Thoughts at the same time so she can mentally kneel before the kid and tell them, “I’m on your side. You can be honest with me. I’m here to protect you. I promise. Don’t be scared.” This is all I want for her.   

This episode Fig rolled one Nat 1 and Gorgug rolled two but one was cancelled with advantage. No Nat 20s were rolled.    

[glamourweaver]

I’m finally returning to my planar revision project for D&D cosmology that I feel better reflects the alignments (rather than rewarding goodness with bliss and punishing sin - only the plane of Lawful Good particularly cares about punishing evil, and pure Goodness involves a great deal of self-sacrifice and suffering in its own right), makes sure all the planes are interesting, and collapses together some redundancies.

Prime Material is the plane of True Neutrality at the middle

The Astral Plane is the transitive planes between the outer planes. It is a lot more active place than in canon D&D, as it is the plane of dreams, filled by the subconsciousness of every being in the Peime Material, cut through by the river of souls constantly moving petitioners and the reincarnating to their destination plane

The plane of Neutral Good is Nirvana. A psychoactive plane of COMPASSION, its cyclical layers each expand endlessly inwards until you open your mind enough to the universe to step into the next inner layer. It has been described as lotus shaped. For many it is not a paradise as it is marked by being psychically opened to the suffering of others through the cosmos, and many petitioners here voluntarily take on the suffering of others to relieve their pain. Some people pick up cool psychic powers too though. The dominant pantheon here thematically draws on Tibetan Dharmapalas

Arcadia is the plane of Chaotic Good. An emotionally reactive plane whose layers branch through a world tree. The petitioners here can die repeatedly and rise again for new tales each day, as the dominant pantheon plays out Indo-European influenced melodramas, romances, new vendettas, and battle elemental titans, shaping geography in new ways every few weeks with new formative legends. FREEDOM is the dominant guiding theme here. Anything you liked from Arborea or Ysgard can be woven in here.

Xaos is largely unchanged from canon Limbo or the Pathfinder Maelstrom. The philosophical theme here is ABSURDISM (in the existential sense, not the comedic sense necessarily). Meaning becomes absent in randomness.

Abaddon is the plane of Chaotic Evil. DESTRUCTION rules this plane of sinking entropy. The layers here are Prime Material worlds that have been destroyed, and are now small-h hells overrun by demons of countless breeds and apocalyptic environs. In addition to any given layer from the Abyss, this Plane also supports any Pandemonium environment as the dark maddening interior of one given world.

The plane of Neutral Evil is Stygia, a realm of utter SELFISHNESS. This plane is among the least changed from Planescape Grey Wastes or Pathfinder Abaddon. The plane itself is covetous and slowly drains hope, and will, along with color, from those who tarry here. I will add however that one can replenish their vitality and emotional strength on this plane, through acts of predation on others! So the worst people here are vibrant with the life energy they’ve ripped from others, and can even take that power with them. It’s shadowed vaults are also rich with treasure as the covetous plane collects wonders lost throughout the cosmos and guards them jealously.

Kur is the towering mountain plane of Lawful Evil. Structured like canon Celestia, it evokes Dante’s Purgatory with an Olympian paradise on the summit where the dominant pantheon rules, while on the layers below, petitioners and lesser divine being toil in degrees of servitude attempting to rise to the next layer up. Arcane and exploitative taboos easily can cast a subject down to a lower layer of harsher toil, while those who accept the fixed ordained nature of the hierarchy can achieve lesser divinity status overseeing and enjoying the benefits of the toil on a given layer. POWER rules all here.

Axos is the Plane of Lawful Neutrality. Unlike the random existential absurdism of Xaos, it is fixed DETERMINISM that robs individual choice of meaning here. It is largely like Mechanus, except that celestial bodies are part of its machinery, seeming to guide the entire clockwork dance of the Prime Material and cosmos as a whole. Laws of course abound, but they do not impact status as in Kur, nor justice as in Aaru. They are all concerned with every being doing their part in the function of the machine, and breaking those laws results in needing to overcome the metaphysical gravity of the machine itself. If a strong enough being did however, the mechanized immuno-response beings would immediately seek to remove the offender, not with any degree of malice or righteousness, but merely as a broken part that is endangering the workings of the machine.

Aaru is ruled by JUSTICE. The dominant pantheon of this Lawful Good plane combines aspects of Egyptian mythic aesthetics with the structure of traditional Chinese myth. Two layers face each other, like canon Bytopia, illuminated daily by a dying and resurrecting sun god moving between the two layers. Across one layer the crystal cities of the gods and their just petitioners shine as stars mirroring countless Prime Material skies where they are worshipped. On the opposing layer, red flames lick up from dark water to create a hellish sky where the wicked are justly punished under the watchful gaze of their judges above.

In addition to these eight, there are 4 more planes, that reflect how the joined alignments address the other alignments.

Elysium is the Lawful Good example of this concept, as a plane of PEACE, it is a place of concordance between the alignments. I haven’t gotten the full structure figured out yet, but it’s here you’ll fine the anti-magic field the Outlands are known for in canon, combined with almost drug like auras of tranquility.

The Beastlands are where Chaotic Good makes room for the other alignments, via the STATE OF NATURE.

Acheron, unlike its canon alignment, is actually where Chaotic Evil incorporates the other alignments through CONFLICT, as it’s here where Planar armies make war upon each other. The chaotic evil destruction of large enough battles anywhere on the Outer Planes (other than Abaddon) will open gates to here by nature (in contrast those epic battles that form new stories warping the terrain of Arcadia are fought between champions, not armies). Structurally it’s the same as in canon.

Finally, Lawful Evil incorporates the other alignments through IMPRISONMENT in the Plane of Carceri. Largely structured like canon, it’s also where you get all the Gehenna and Yuggoloth elements you may want (as binding contracts of service are one of the only ways to leave Carceri, so mercenary fiends abound), and one of its spheres is Baator, imprisoning defeated rebel celestials ala Dante’s inferno.

[bonesandpoemsandflowers]

Hey! I am asking for advice. I fucked up a few years ago at the telling apart ghosts and gods and would rather not go through that again. Could you help me out? I really want to get back into it but that was a very bad experience so I'm anxious. Thank you!!

Anon, I love this question and if you're willing to drop some more details in my inbox, anon or not, please do. I'm sorry that you had such a bad experience, but take heart, maybe, that everybody does this at SOME point, and taking a few years off to process is actually a pretty snappy turnaround time.

(spooky occult people only pls)

(scroll along, the rest of you)

It IS a tricky question, though.

Tough love up front: there is no entirely safe, entirely pleasant way to do magic. Fundamentally magic is transformative and therefore often uncomfortable. There's fears and negative emotions to work through, and there's also just some straight up tedium and drudgery, and no matter how cool you are, no matter how sure you feel about your place in the grand scheme of the universe, you will eventually question everything and get some things wrong. There will not only always be risk: sooner or later there will be pain.

But! Is it worth it? ABSOLUTELY, anon, and I'm not gonna try to persuade you because if you're asking, you've already made up your mind. You just want to not make the same mistakes over again. You want to make brand new mistakes! It is the only way to move forward.

There is a difference between the merely uncomfortable and the truly dangerous, so ultimately it's a game of knowing when fear is a just a trial to get through versus when fear is a warning keeping you safe. The first time I tried to answer this question I made a quick list of protections, but that's not really the issue. You're wiser than that. You're asking about something diagnostic.

Discernment is the greatest occult skill and one that’s difficult to quantify. It's one of those paradoxes of inexperience, nigh impossible to hone without practice, yet a skill you need in order to get out there and practice.

whatever your prior experience was: what did you learn from it? what was the point where you started to feel something went wrong? identifying that moment, how it felt, how you felt it, will help you more than anything I or anyone else can tell you.

I am, honestly, not the best person to describe how to increase your psychic sensitivity or whatever. The good news, maybe, is that you don't have to be great at discernment before you start. Yes, you can put all your effort into sharpening your senses before you even go out there, which is a noble way of doing it and maybe it will eventually even work, OR—you can put on some safety gear and wade out into the swamp wearing your little floaties so that you don't sink.

Your metaphorical swimming wings here are protections and banishments and the preemptive assistance of something bigger than you on your side. This answer is mostly going to focus on that last part, because "ghosts and gods" implies, I think, that you are ready to work with gods, or at least eager, which is, like, at least half of the process.

However, even then, I do wanna say—while I don't want to discount your negative experiences at all! I don't know anything about them, but I'm sure it was awful!—you, all by yourself, can probably banish most ghostly things you're likely to run into. There's a lotta bark, and usually not that much bite. I wrote up some less formal banishing methods and posted them here on ye old witch blogge, but really, you can mostly just yell at stuff to leave.

(there is a fair amount of repetition between this post and that one! I apologize. I mostly typed these late at night over the course of several days)

Now! Assistance. An ounce of prevention vs a pound of cure and it’s good to pack light.

So much of magic across time and cultures is about negotiating with spirits of some flavor or another. Maybe it's worship or maybe it's bindings or maybe it's strictly transactional, but as beings made of flesh we are forever making pacts with beings made of something else, and hey, it usually works.

The complication here is that the distinction between ghosts and gods maybe isn't that simple. Mess with the wording a little and Catholic saints are basically both. And so are some orisha, some loa, and so on. Baron Samedi (lord of the cemetery, best bang since the big one, etc etc etc) in particular, out of the vodou pantheon, may or may not have been human once, depending on who you ask.

Further: the most readily available spooky occult forces you have are your ancestors. So you'd file that under ghosts, maybe, except that with ancestral veneration practices and all, we inch closer to god territory, in a sense. At least—the rituals start looking the same from an outside perspective. Santeria, Vodou, Epiritismo and many more practices that the ones I'm familiar with involve working with your ancestors to accomplish your worldly goals. We don't consider them ghosts when we work with them; that's not the word we use. But arguably—why not?

So the trick here isn't necessarily how to sort ghosts from gods as much as it is to hang out with some NICE (to you) ghosts and/or gods.

How do you do that?

If you have a good relationship with your ancestors, then you start there. If you, like me, or lots of other long disowned and disinherited magicians, have a disconnect there, then—welp. Consider getting over it by going back further in the family tree (this is what you will inevitably eventually do). Somewhere in there you have someone kind, I promise. But that's not advice I could have followed ten years ago, so I'll get to the alternative in a minute. Let's assume, for the moment, that you accept the logic that your ancestors have a vested interest in protecting their line, and in fact having an active magic user willing to work with them probably makes their afterlives much easier.

There's tons of guides online about how to work with your ancestors. I think sincere, unstructured prayer and a glass of water are the simplest and most powerful of offerings. A candle, if you have one. Just flipping on a lamp or a light switch if you don't.

(I travel with a little LED tealight and a mala made of skull beads carved from ox bone, but I am unnecessarily spooky and dramatic. If anything, my ancestors prefer the plain obsidian mala I first started with. But the aesthetic.)

I'm very, very informal in my ancestral practice. It still works.

Tell them you want to establish a working connection, talk to them about what's going on in your life. Keep it short and don't worry about whether or not you feel anything yet. It might take weeks before you feel something, and that's okay—discernment is, like I've said, the most important but also hardest skill, and it usually takes time and repetition. Offer them something—anything, really, and honestly the plain glass of water is traditional—and ask for their protection. They will almost certainly give it to you.

"But Flowers," you might say. "Fuck that and fuck 'em. I'm not ready to fuck with my family yet."

Alright, little one! I feel ya. It took me ages to warm up to the idea. I promise that it's worth it when you're ready, but having covered ghosts, let's move on to

GODS

Step one: ask yourself if you need to fuck around with gods in the first place.

Step two: fuck around and find out.

Step three varies depending on who you're looking for. There is a great deal of anxiety about this in occult circles, especially among people who use the term "baby witch." People are terrified of making the wrong choice. They want it to be PERFECT. They want to be correct. "Who is calling me?" ask a thousand seekers, across forums and places. "I saw a butterfly the other day. IS IT A SIGN?"

(shit, dude, I dunno, probably not, but potentially maybe. Nobody can know but you. just keep in mind that butterflies etc exist on their own and go around doing their own thing and this has absolutely nothing to do with you the vast majority of the time)

You don't need to be wait to be called by a god to offer worship and/or develop a working relationship. I would argue that most people aren't really called, and if you are, you will KNOW. Tumblr likes to say gods need consent and I think that's fucking hilarious. There is no folkloric precedent for that. If you are Called, capital letter Called, you will know, and whatever happens next is between you whatever bizarre shamanic experience you end up having, because you WILL have it, good luck.

But probably that's not the issue here! Moving on with our hypothetical.

You're not waiting around for divine intervention. You're being proactive. You're not waiting for The Call, or even a mild call. How do you choose what god you're petitioning for protection? I doubt you're entirely neutral about it. You probably have a god you identify with or just find really friggin cool. That's a fine and dandy place to start.

The working relationship need not be forever.

Which brings me to my next point. If you are absolutely undecided about what direction to go in, consider going to one of the liminal gods. Your crossroads gods, your messenger gods, often trickster gods. Your between spaces gods. Your portal opening gods.

In Santeria and Vodou, which I keep on referring back to because those are the systems I was raised in, your messenger gods get called very early on in the ritual. Why? To open the way for everybody else. There's a suggestion here that certain gods are closer or more easily reached, so if you want an opener—ask somebody with keys, yeah?

(also technically there's spirits called before then like the rhythm/dance/drums but let's not complicate things. Broadly speaking: key holding gods first)

Catholic saints wise, you've got Saint Peter, right? Santeria has Elegua. Vodou has Legba. Vodou also has the Baron as a crossroads god and yer liminal spaces god and sometimes he also has keys and hey by the way, he's really great, but where was I?

Hermes is another option. Mercury.

There's a bunch of American indigenous options I don't know enough about to confidently say.

SPEAKING of indigenous american, right, there's always Quetzalcoatl—technically—sky god, wind god, messenger god.

There's Odin and I'm actually a big fan, but the Norse magic community is often kind of garbage these days because we've got too many nazis running around, which is a shame.

My point is: there's gonna be somebody who feels close, either because of your cultural background or your aesthetic, and you might as well ask.

Settle down. Call their name. Offer water and a prayer and ask for protection, tell them what it is you want to do, ask for their help on this new life journey.

Worship isn't really complicated unless you want it to be.

Again, don't worry about "feeling" anything. Don't expect anything dramatic. Just offer something, every day or every week or whenever you have the time and headspace for it. Do the motions and mean it even a little bit and with time the rest shall come.

Because EVENTUALLY, you will feel something. It will probably be a mild sense of peace. The ritual feels calming. Something about it feels cozy. Presence is often subtle, but that counts.

Once you feel solidly good about your ritual, I would say that means you have at least some degree of protection, and it's time to wade around the swamp and see what's up. What do you do next? I dunno! I don't know what your goals are! But you have your ancestors at your back, or you're on a god team, or maybe BOTH—go explore!

Confidence isn't everything. But confidence, my friend, is a LOT. There's more to it, of course, but especially early on: fake it till you make it and dream it and you'll be it.

Best of luck, anon. <3

[theonyxpath]

Scion Hero art by Marco Gonzales

Greetings, true believers! Meghan here, with an excerpted preview of the Nemetondevos pantheon from Scion: Mysteries of the World. The Nemetondevos are the Gods of Gaul, a pantheon destroyed long ago by Caesar and only now beginning to return to the World. This preview gives you a rundown of their basic cosmology and current situation, followed by one of their Gods. Enjoy!

Cosmology

The Nemetondevos have no unifying Overworld. Their Sancta make up thousands of individual realms connected to the World via their nemetons. This has given the Nemetondevos a particular interest in preserving the natural Earth, as without it their realms would be eternally isolated, and so the stereotype of “druid as conservationist” is not without merit.

Most of these Godsrealms feature a “downward” theme (caves, pools, roots), but only the Wheel serves as the Nemetondevos’ Underworld. There, souls of the dead ride what looks like an incomprehensibly massive wooden Ferris wheel, weighed down by a lifetime of memories. When they reach the bottom, Belenos washes away these memories in his great cauldron, so they can ride the Wheel back up to their reincarnation. Memory, be it mortal or divine, is the fuel that keeps the Wheel spinning, and the Wheel moves the universe. Its upper half reaches into Taranis’ realm in the sky, the only Gaulish Overworld that fits the term literally.

Titans

The Materes gave form and immense power to primal concepts, creating the Titans of the Nemetondevos. The Gaulish Gods mostly dealt with these beings in prehistory one way or another. Perhaps that void left Fate to invite another pantheon to step into the role of the Nemetondevos’ eternal enemies.

The Nemetondevos’ approaches to Titans have always been as varied as the Nemetondevos themselves. Andarta made war on them, hoping the sacrifice of another Titan could create a World-altering nemeton and put the Gauls back on top. Esos put them to use, as Orgos serves as the Wheel’s center. The Gauls had no qualms about slavery, and the Forester knows the value of using natural forces to power industry. Belenos, ever an idealist, wished to see the Titans reborn into something benign, if not benevolent.

Orgos is death itself, whom the Romans conflated with Dis Pater (a Mantle of Hades). He coupled with the Materes to birth the Nemetondevos, and thus is the ancestor of all Gauls, mortal and divine. His Underworld, Dubnolissos, was a miserable place where the dead were stagnant and forgotten. When Esos bound Orgos into the workings of the great Wheel, it carried the souls back into the World while Orgos struggled to break free.

Unfortunately for Orgos, even though the Wheel stopped spinning when the Nemetondevos fell, his wooden prison did not break. But he is not entirely powerless, as his titanspawn, the Ankou, still do his bidding. These skeletal, scythe-wielding figures in wide-brimmed hats drive carts to collect the dead who have gone astray, a mockery of the wagons devout Gauls were buried with to ride to Belenos. They return these souls to Orgos, that he might break the Wheel’s bindings and return Belenos’ realm to his own control. Purview: Death. Virtues: Dominance, Fecundity.

The Tarvos Trigaranus: The decapitated head of the massive bull is buried deep beneath the World. While Andarta sacrificed the monster to create the first nemeton, the bull’s head still holds some power, creating the horrible tarasques that crawl out from beneath the earth. These nightmarish titanspawn resemble dragon-lion hybrids with spiked tortoise shells and a scorpion’s stinging tail, echoes of the Tarvos’ madness and cruelty.Purview: Beasts.Virtues: Dominance, Rapacity.

Primordials: The Materes

The Materes are not just mothers; they are motherhood. These three Primordial women, also known as the August Nurses, birthed the World and its earliest inhabitants. But they are more than just producers of life: they ache to protect and nurture their offspring well after the children grow to no longer need them. Like many mothers, they have difficulty admitting their children have reached that point. Their milk allowed the first bull to grow into the colossal Tarvos Trigaranus, which trampled mountains until Andarta slew it. The Materes themselves reside in a Terra Incognita deep beneath the World, where they sired the myriad Gaulish deities until their lovers fell to Caesar.

Callings: Creator, Guardian, Healer

Purviews: Health, Fertility, Passion (Maternal Love)

Religion: None

Unlike other pantheons in the World, the ancient powers of the Nemetondevos truly did go away. This left their mortal worship in the lurch, and while their priests, the druids, retained their remarkable knowledge, they could no longer access their Gods’ powers. Prayers were met with an eerie silence. Mistletoe stopped growing on the sacred oaks. The water of holy springs cured thirst, nothing more.

Over time, worship of the Nemetondevos faded. The druids had refused to write their tales down, believing their strong memories would power the Wheel upon their deaths. When the Wheel stopped, they lost their motivation to teach their lore to apprentices, instead moving on to other pantheons to share their gifts and wisdom. Votives and religious artwork became little more than names and pictures with no context. Movements tried over the centuries to reconstruct the old beliefs and rituals, but without the aid of sacred writings, Scions, or miracles, these efforts were futile on both scholarly and divine levels. On the rare occasion some definitive key to the Gauls’ beliefs popped up, it was met with an “unfortunate accident,” with a Scion of the Theoi not far behind.

With the Wheel turning again, their only religions are the cults of their Incarnate Scions. Some spread the Nemetondevos’ true rites, unearthing their Godly predecessors’ memories in their rebirth; they might quest for moments of revelation by seeking places where those Gods’ nemetons once were or hunting down clues in Terra Incognitae where lost lore might linger. Such moments are much more common the closer Scions are to the Memory end of their Virtue track. Insular druidic orders are happy to relearn their own faith’s funeral rites to keep the Wheel turning. Other cults are global organizations searching for returning Gaulish Gods to aid and protect. Still others labor over secret plans of revenge against the Theoi.

Belenos, Keeper of the Wheel

Alias: Vindonnus

Belenos, reviver of the dead, keeps the universe moving. The weight of memory turns the great Wheel, which moves the stars, the sun, and the World. Those dead who are buried with carts, wagons, or chariots (anything with a wheel) ride spectral vehicles from their graves on sacred days. When their souls reach a nemeton of Belenos, druids bless their passage onto the great Wheel. This impossibly massive wooden structure takes them to his divine realm, their memories of life weighing them down. Belenos washes away these memories in his great cauldron, and the purgation of these souls lightens them to rise back to the World to be reborn.

Belenos himself is the oldest of the Nemetondevos, first son of the Materes. His nemetons are circular, and his incarnation would be surprised to find his followers using henges and other megaliths for his rituals. Such monuments are either new to him or older than the God he was, but he doesn’t mind the change of venue. He gets a kick out of making cryptic references to people’s previous lives that only he, as Belenos’ incarnation, remembers. Those who meet him (and recall the experience) say he wears a friendly smirk, like a man listening to a joke he’s heard before but loves to hear again.

As keeper of the Wheel, he alone knows when and where a God or Hero reincarnates. He frequently leads other Gaulish Scions to their former Birthrights, sometimes acting as a Birthright guide himself. His own incarnations are no exception; the Virtue of Memory drives them to help their fellow Nemetondevos find themselves. The firstborn of the Gauls is likely to be the first reborn, too; some people think he must be for the Wheel to start turning again at all.

Callings: Healer, Liminal, Sage

Purviews: Death, Health, Stars, Sun

[sorcererinthestars]

A very happy belated birthday to my darling @shadeofazmeinya. My apologies for not being around much this weekend, but to make up for it, here is a birthday ficlet! I hope you enjoy!

unedited, so sorry if it makes no sense!

Loosely inspired by this beauty by the one and only @fahchaus

---

A wedding was not seen often in the lands of the Gods. Particularly a union between so powerful gods as the Solar Queen and the Wild One. The humans below had even felt a Stirring - something was happening as the sun and the shadows seemed to shift on themselves. It was a feeling of mystery, similar to the one that gripped hearts in the center of an unknowing wood. Not bad. Just ... unsettling. Like a higher power was now changing and the way the world works would be forever changed. For the Pantheon, well, they were just thrilled that such a happy union was able to be created right under their noses. They turned their small world into a utopia, a beautiful place for a wedding. Their Tree - the giant Tree, the One Tree - was decked out in floating lights. Flowers and garlands were strewn everywhere. Michael watched the whole affair from the throne in the sky. He wasn’t hiding, per se. Not really. Hiding meant he didn’t want to see the others and that wasn’t true at all. He wanted to see them. Especially Gavin. But he felt kind of ill. Binding a human union was broken by death. A godly union couldn’t be broken by anything at all. They could throw away the rings, sure, but they’d still be Bound by blood and magic. It was a strong Oath. Jack - it was always Jack - landed next to him after about an hour of sulking. His feet hung off the edge of the platform and he gave Michael a bit of a smile, flowers braided into his beard for the festivities. “Nervous?” “No!” Michael snaps. He shifts, hoping not to muss his ceremonial clothing. His pink armor was gone for now, but his pink sword stayed. Instead, he was shirtless, his clothing simple but somehow made magnificent by the swirls of magic glyphs painted on his skin like war paint. Binding Runes, given to him by the Creator - Ryan.  “Yes,” Jack just chuckled. “It’s okay to be nervous, Michael. I haven’t said I’ve ever wed before, but the humans pray to me sometimes when they do it, and it seems like they all have marvelous times.” “They’re humans...,” Michael murmurs. “It’s different.” “Maybe,” Jack shrugs, squeezing his leg a bit in solidarity. “But the Solar Queen has always been there for you. You love him. This is just binding the Wild Places with the Sun. It’s helping the world Below. And it’s helping you. I don’t think its something to be frightened of.” Michael frowns and looks below, catching sight of a small retinue by the machines. The flash of light too powerful to be anything that wasn’t his Lover. His Gavin. He frowns but can’t help the flash of longing in his throat. Jack chuckles. “Look at you. Pining when he’s just down below. You’re smitten. Just give it a few more hours and you’ll be together. I promise.”

*** Jeremy had to wear special glasses to get Gavin ready for his big day. The man was positively glowing in excitement. No nerves here, just enthusiasm. He was the one who proposed, after all, and the Sun never really dimmed on his love. He was a man who had dark moods, dreadful moods, but not today.  Shimmering, he seemed to wear cloth spun from the very rays of sunlight he controlled. White and shining, they draped over his body, gold bands around both arms. A halo of sunlight wrapped around his head. Jeremy finished the last of the draping and stepped back to admire his work. “Hell,” he huffs. “I’d hate to get blood on this.” Gavin shot him a look. “I’ll incinerate you, you knob.” Snorting, Jeremy shook his head. “I’m clean, I promise. And hey, this marriage thing doesn’t mean you can get out of helping me with the blood .. you know that, right?” The other chuckled and his grin was positively menacing. “No, of course it won’t,” he purrs. “I want to see what happens when we finally active the minging thing anyways.” “You two seem to be almost done,” a third voice pitched in. It was warm and dark and the man who carried it seemed to have an aura of night around him, sparking like the spots of stars reflected in the warm pools of shadows that condensed in every footstep.  They didn’t often show off like this. But this was a special occasion and they all felt the need to act their best. The Dark God brushed his fingers over his Solar Queen’s face, just gently. “Seems like you finally found the perfect fit for your energy,” he smiles. “I’m happy for you.” Gavin seemed to shine a bit brighter and he laughs. “I’m not dying, you mong, I’m just moving into Michael’s cabin. Works on as usual tomorrow.” Ryan smiles back, chuckling too. “I suppose, but I won’t be surprised to see your mantles both change a bit because this. The Solar Queen and the God of the Wild Ones may be forever changed.” Gavin frowns a bit, his heart skipping a beat, but he swallows back the fear. “We’re ready for this.” Ryan bowed his head a bit. “I’m sure you are.” ** The wedding was a small affair, in the end. They didn’t have any other followers except them on the island anyways. They even dressed Geoff up and got him to leave his chickens for the party. The man had hugged both Gavin and Michael and gave them his best. He said he’d name chickens after them... which was a big step, seeing who had killed the most of his beloveds. When Gavin came through the gates and into the farm where they all waited by the tree, Michael thought his heart was going to stop in joy. The Creator, Ryan, officiated the ceremony. It was soft and sweet, but the binding magic felt firm around them both. When they kissed, the small crowd erupted in joy. Michael almost couldn’t let go, his head dizzy from the warmth and power of his lovely boy. The rings seemed to echo that power... they were One now, for better or for worse. The sky seemed brighter to Michael, but maybe that was just excitement. But he could have sworn he saw a tree extend a few leaves Gavin’s way... a True sign of the Lord of the Wilds. ** It was quiet when they finally got back to their small cabin after the ceremonies were complete. They closed the doors and were finally alone together, staring at each other across the pool of light from their small torches. Gavin was still glowing slightly, but looked tired. It didn’t dampen the smile across his face. Michael stepped forward, putting his sword to the side. “Hello,” he purrs, pulling Gavin closer to him a bit. His boy laughed. “Hi.” They kissed then, soft but demanding, passionate in the way that the kiss at the wedding could not be. Michael twisted his hands in the fabric and yanked him close, pulling his Solar Queen against his body as Gavin’s arms wrapped around his waist. They kissed as if the other was air, was life, was warmth.  When they pulled apart, foreheads pressed together, Michael laughed and Gavin did too, until they were both cackling, unable to understand the magic that now tied them together. Michael looked down at his ring, shaking his head in disbelief. “I can’t believe we went through with it,” he whispers. “Second thoughts?” Gavin asks, a bit of anxiety in his tone. “Jack was saying...” “Jack needs to learn to keep a fucking secret,” Michael retorts, pulling him in for another soft kiss. “I’m not having second thoughts. Anything but. I’m just... it’s a lot.” “It is,” Gavin said, kissing at his neck while Michael spoke, before pulling back a bit. “But for now, it’s our wedding night, and I want to see how many of those war paint sigils I can break before morning.” Michael’s smile is bright. “Come on, then, you.” The sun may be setting down on their little island, but the start of a new life was just beginning. Down a bit on their Island, the other Gods smiled, knowing that they had started a new life, a new generation of happiness in their world. And down below, humans celebrated without knowing why, without fully grasping the triumph of the heavens. For now the Wilds, once dark and full of terror, were tamed by the Solar Queen. And the brightness of the sun now brought new life where there wasn’t one before. All hail the Union and let it burn bright.

[didanawisgi]

Masonic Tracing Boards and the Western Metaphysical Tradition

W. Kirk MacNulty

Introduction

Masonic Tracing Boards are training devices. They depict Masonic symbols in pictures which can be interpreted to reveal the teachings of Masonry. The Boards which we considered at the Forum were drawn by a Mason named J Harris in the 1820s and 30s. They are references to a vast body of literature and philosophical doctrine which is at the core of Renaissance thought. Many of the ideas are kabbalistic. Someone who really wants to understand the Tracing Boards (and Masonry itself) must read into and understand those doctrines; and the presentation to the forum considered the Tracing Boards from this point of view.

I have to make a disclaimer: the ideas expressed here are my own. They do not represent the attitudes or teachings of any Grand Lodge or Private Lodge.

Metaphysics

There are many metaphysical systems in use throughout the world; for the last 2000 years those in the West have been dominated by a metaphysics based on some variant of Judeo-Christian monotheism. The Renaissance was no exception, although it was also characterized by a revival of interest in the Classical world (in particular the Greek and Roman civilizations) and its thought.

Medieval scholars had been interested in Classical Philosophy from the point of view of reconciling it to Christian doctrine. Renaissance thinkers were interested in Classical Philosophy for what it said about man, himself. These Renaissance philosophers incorporated a good many hermetic and kabbalistic ideas into their orthodox Christian thought. Frances Yates has called this fusion of classical and Jewish philosophy the ‘Hermetic/Kabbalistic Tradition,’ and after it had been interpreted in the context of orthodox Christian doctrine it became fundamental to the thought of the early Renaissance. Speculative Masonry dates from the end of the Renaissance (the mid-to-late 17th century), and it seems to me that Masonic symbolism reflects this Renaissance tradition.

Three fundamental ideas seem to characterize the Renaissance view: First, the Deity was considered to be without limit. This resulted in a view of all existence as a single, tightly integrated unity centered on the Deity. A particularly clear statement of this view comes from the Hermetica:

‘… for God contains all things, and there is nothing that is not in God, and nothing which God is not. Nay, I would rather say, not that God contains all things, but that, to speak the full truth, God is all things.’1

Second, earthly experiences were considered to reflect events in the heavenly realms; the succinct statement of this idea is, ‘As above; so below.’ There must be a correspondence between that which occurs in the higher (heavenly, causal) levels and that which occurs at the lower (earthly) ones.2 Third, knowledge of the ‘higher,’ or more subtle, aspects of the Universe was thought to be available only by experience (i.e. by one’s own revelation); certainly not by logical argument, nor, ultimately, by faith in the authority of another’s revelations I think that the Masonic symbolism, as represented on the tracing boards, reflects these principles which make up the Renaissance world view.

The First Degree Tracing Board

The picture, which looks at first glance like a collection of heterogeneous objects, is, I think, a representation of God, the Universe, and Everything. It is also a picture of a human being standing in a landscape. Neither of these images is immediately obvious; but I hope I can convince you that they are, at least, reasonable interpretations of the data.

Ornaments

A central idea which was fundamental to Renaissance thought was the unity of the system and the consequent omnipresence of the Deity. For me, this idea is represented on the First Degree Board by a group of three symbols which are called, collectively, the ‘Ornaments of the Lodge.’

The fact that the Masons who formulated our symbolism gathered these three objects into a single group seems to require that we consider them together. The Ornaments of the Lodge are the Blazing Star or Glory, the Chequered Pavement, and the Indented, Tessellated Border, and they are all intended to refer to the Deity. The Blazing Star or Glory is a straightforward heraldic representation of the Deity. On the Great Seal of the United States the Deity is represented in the same manner. The Blazing Star, shown in the Heavens, represents the Deity as It is, in all Its Glory, as It projects Itself into existence. The Chequered Pavement represents the Deity as It is perceived to be at the opposite pole of consciousness, here on Earth in ordinary life. The light and dark squares represent paired opposites, a mixture of mercy and justice, reward and punishment, vengeance and loving kindness. They also represent the human experience of life, light and dark, good and evil, easy and difficult. But that is only how it is perceived. The squares are not the symbol; the Pavement is the symbol. The light and dark squares fit together with exact nicety to form the Pavement, a single thing, a unity. The whole is surrounded by the Tessellated Border which binds it into a single symbol. In this representation on the Tracing Board the Border binds not simply the squares, but the entire picture, into a unity.

Columns

Except for the Glory, the idea of duality occurs throughout the Board – from the black and white squares at the bottom to the Sun and Moon, an ancient symbol for the paired opposites of masculine and feminine, at the top. In the central area of the Board duality is represented by two of the three columns; but here the third column introduces a new idea. The striking thing about these columns is that each is of a different Order of Architecture. In Masonic symbolism they are assigned names: Wisdom to the Ionic Column in the middle, Strength to the Doric Column on the left, and Beauty to the Corinthian Column on the right. How shall we interpret these Columns and their names?

Consider the Columns in the context of the ‘Tree of Life.’ In the Tree the column on the right is called the ‘Column of Mercy,’ the active column. That on the left is called the ‘Column of Severity,’ the passive column. The central column is called the ‘Column of Consciousness’ the column of equilibrium which keeps the other two in balance. The three columns all terminate in (depend on) Divinity at the top of the central column. Look again at the columns on the Tracing Board. The Corinthian Pillar of Beauty is on the right, and in the classical world the Corinthian Order was used for buildings dedicated to vigorous, expansive activities. The Doric Pillar of Strength is on the left, and the Doric Order was used for buildings where discipline, restraint and stability were important. TheIonic Pillar of Wisdom is in the middle. The Ionic Order was used for Temples to the rulers of the gods who coordinated the activities of the pantheon. The Three Pillars, like the Tree of Life, speak of a universe in which expansive and constraining forces are held in balance by a coordinating agency.

Four Worlds

The Universe as it was perceived by the Renaissance philosophers consisted of ‘four worlds.’ Kabbalah has the same division. They are the ‘elemental’ or physical world, the ‘celestial’ world of the psyche or soul, the ‘supercelestial’ world of spirit, and the Divine world. We see that these same levels are represented on the board. The Pavement represents the physical world, the central part of the Board including the columns and most of the symbols, represents the psychological world, the Heavens represent the spiritual world, and the Glory, represents Divinity. In this way the picture represents the metaphysical structure of the universe. That is the ‘landscape.’ Where is the man?

The Man

Remember the idea that the universe and human beings are structured using the same principles (both having been made ‘in the image of God’), and that there is always a correspondence between activity in the greater and lesser worlds. We have seen that in the Hermetica, ‘As above, so below.’

Thus far we have not spoken of the Ladder. It extends from the Scripture open on the Pedestal to the Glory which represents the Deity; and in the Masonic symbolism it is said to be Jacob’s Ladder. We considered the ladder together with another symbol, the Point-within-a-Circle-Bounded-by-Two-Parallel-Lines which is shown on the face of the Pedestal. We considered these two symbols together because in some early Masonic drawings they appear together as if they have some connection. The Two Parallel Lines, like the Doric and Corinthian columns, represent paired opposites, active and passive qualities. Why? Because in Masonic symbolism they are associated with the Saints John, and the Baptist’s Day is Mid-summer, and the Evangelist’s Day is Mid-winter. In English Masonry the lines represent Moses (the Prophet) and Solomon (the Lawgiver), which is substantially the same idea. The ladder with its ‘three principal rounds,’ Faith, Hope, and Charity, rises to the Heavens between the two parallels.

Now, when you look at this Point-within-a-Circle-Bounded-by-Two-Parallel-Lines together with the Ladder and its three levels you see a pattern very similar to the three columns. There are three verticals, two of which relate to active and passive functions while the third, the Ladder between them, reaches to the heavens. The ladder, a representation of individual consciousness, has ‘three principal rounds,’ represented by Faith, Hope and Charity, which correspond to the three lower levels of the four-level Universe we observed earlier. Both the Macrocosmic ‘Landscape’ and the Microcosmic ‘Man’ share the fourth level of Divinity, represented by the Blazing Star, or Glory. Taken together the Ladder and the Point within a Circle bounded by Two Parallel Lines represent the human individual, made ‘… in the image of God,’ according to the same principles on which the Universe is based.

East-West Direction

There is one more idea we should touch on before we leave the First Degree Board. A Mason is sometimes called ‘a travelling man,’ and one of the Masonic catechisms gives us a little insight into this seldom used epithet.

Q Did you ever travel?

A My forefathers did.

Q Where did they travel?

A Due East and West.

Q What was the object of their travels?

A They travelled East in search of instruction, and West to propagate the knowledge they had gained.

The cardinal points of the compass on the Border of this Tracing Board define the East-West direction as it is to be understood in terms of Masonic Symbolism and thus describe the journey which the new Mason apprentices himself to undertake. That journey from West to East is represented, symbolically, by the progress through the Masonic Degrees; and it is, in fact, the ascent up Jacob’s Ladder – one of the ‘Principal Rounds’ for each Degree. We looked then at how these ideas are represented in the Second Degree.

The Second Degree Tracing Board

The Second Degree Board is an illustration of an interior, in marked contrast with the previous Board which seems to be an exterior. It suggests that the Mason who embarks on the Second Degree comes from the outdoors and enters the building for that purpose.

Notice that here (once again) we have two columns (also, as we will see, representing opposites) with a ladder (it has become a staircase) between them. I think the Second Degree Board is a detailed drawing of the ‘person’ we saw in the previous drawings. This suggests that the individual who embarks on the Second Degree is about to undertake some interior journey, an ascent through the soul and spirit.

The Masonic Lectures assign characteristics to these two pillars which suggest they represent paired opposites: first, they are said to be a memorial of the Pillar of Cloud and the Pillar of Fire that guided the Children of Israel (by day and night, respectively) during the Exodus; and second, on their tops they have representations of the Celestial and Terrestrial Spheres. Like Jacob’s Ladder on the First Degree Board, the Staircase forms the central column of this ‘three pillar model.’ The Mason is expected to ‘climb’ this symbolic staircase in the course of his life as he does symbolically during the ritual.

Masonic Lectures relating to the Staircase associate a good deal of information with each of the various steps; specifically, the Seven Liberal Arts and Sciences are related to the seven steps and the Five Classical Orders of Architecture are related to the top five. These subjects comprised the formal educational curriculum of the Renaissance, and there is a large body of literature associated with each. The intent of that curriculum was certainly to give the student the sort of contemplative intellectual work we are discussing. If we consider the Staircase to be a representation of levels of consciousness through which the individual must ascend, we can see that the symbol refers the Mason to information about each step, or level of consciousness, through which he must pass along the way. The Masonic explanation of the Staircase also associates the seven Officers of the Lodge with the seven steps. That association assists in the understanding of progress through the positions of the Of ricers of the Lodge.

The Staircase leads to a room called the Middle Chamber where Masons were said to go to receive their wages. In that interior room (interior to the Mason himself) the individual is able to see a representation of the Deity. He also has access to a Perfect Ashlar. A Perfect Ashlar is a building stone which has been completed and is ready to be placed in the building. It is found in the Middle Chamber ‘… for the experienced Craftsmen to try and adjust their jewels (tools) on.’ I don’t want to talk about working tools at this time, but Masons will recognize that the Fellowcraft’s tools are tools of measurement and testing, that two of them measure against absolute criteria which are opposite one another, while the third defines the relationship between the other two. Given an environment in which paired opposites are held in balance by a coordinating agency, those tools sound to me like a functional model of morality. Tools of morality, together with the Perfect Ashlar, a standard against which to calibrate them, all found in an interior Middle Chamber seems to me to be a pregnant idea. All this happens in the place where one ‘… receives his wages …;’ that is, where he gets what he deserves.

The Third Degree Tracing Board

The Grave

I do not think that the images in this Degree refer to physical death. During the renaissance there was a good deal of discussion about the nature of the biblical story of ‘the Fall of man’ and its effect. ‘The Fall’ seems to have referred to some event by which human beings, who were at one time conscious of the Divine Presence, lost that consciousness. They thought that ordinary human life (that is, life after the Fall) is ‘like death’ when compared to human potential and to a life lived in the conscious awareness of the presence of God. It seems to me that one interpretation of the grave suggests such a ‘death’ to be our present state.

The view of the Temple shows ‘King Solomon’s Porch’ which is said to be the entrance to the ‘Holy of Holies.’ In the picture the veil is drawn back a little offering a glimpse into that sacred chamber where the Deity was said to reside. This suggests that at the end of the journey from West to East some process analogous to death enables the individual to experience the presence of the Deity. After this process has occurred he lives once more at his full potential. Again, I think that this refers neither to a physical resurrection after physical death nor to a life after physical death; both of which are the concerns of religion. It seems to me that this refers to a psychological/spiritual process which can occur within any devout individual who seeks it earnestly and which I believe it to be the business of Freemasonry to encourage. After all we claim to be Freemasons, and this is that Truth the knowing of which ‘make(s) you free.’

Points of the Compass

There is one last thing we should note. We saw earlier that Masons ‘travelled’ from West to East: ‘They travelled East in search of instruction, and West to propagate the knowledge they had gained,’ as the Lecture in the First Degree has it. Notice that on this Board the cardinal compass points have been reversed, and West is now at the top where East was on the First Degree Board. It suggests that the Master Mason (Master in fact, not in titular rank), the individual who is represented by the symbolism depicted here, has changed his orientation and started his Westward journey. It is a journey involving the teaching and charitable nurturing of those who follow – with all the obligations that sort of thing implies.

References

1 Hermetica, translation Scott W, (Boston, Shambhala, 1993), Libellus ix, p185

2 Hermetica, The Emerald Tablet

3 Reuchlin J, De Arte Cabalistica (1517, reprint University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln, 1993), Book Two, for example.

[slashtakemylife]

Vld thingie extra

I love art on the lions being actual lions so I thought up of an au of this and it’s really my excuse to have big furry lions being actual cats and exasperating their paladins

It’s set up on Altea because I want to be free to move some mythology so yeah that means they all altean

The lore is that the vld Lions are mythical beings that are sort of like muses, in which they visit certain people and help them in their endeavors by inspiring them in a certain way unique to them, they are ethereal and can’t be seen unless they want to

So Lance is exploring with Hunk when they find this Blue Lion asleep, it’s actually frozen/hybernating and has it’s protective shield but Lance knows the stories so he wonders why the lion is in physical shape

Lance is able to waken the Blue Lion and it’s eyes shine and Lance feels the bond, he is now it’s paladin, aka the lions has chosen him t help him in a way and will stay with him until it’s complete

He sees Blue needs help finding the rest of they lions since they are also incorrectly in a physical form and not in their ethereal one

I’m doing a time skip because eventually they find the lions and they too have chosen a paladin but please keep in mind these are real fluffy actual lions, their fur is the color they are (Blue, Red etc.) they all don’t have manes except Black but also they are mythical beings so no genitalia so none have a real gender just based on their features

Shiro knows they are also incredibly powerful so they can’t fall on wrong hands, so he goes to a trusted friend, Allura, as the heir to the throne, she lives in a manor away from the palace were she manages it and also receives her alchemy lessons, there is few staff that is selected by her

So Shiro comes barging in with the supposedly destroyed in the last Altean-Galra war by her father Alfor, super powerful Lions and is like, ejem, can we stay?

It’s worth noting all the gang has to stay because their lions don’t leave their side so they have giant cats following them aroung and yes they are soft big kitties that like to cuddle their paladins and demand to be petted and play with

Allura tells them that the lions jump from person to person and the person they are currently helping out it’s called their paladin, like I said they are ethereal and unseen to those but their paladins so they are just like ghosts floating around, they are not supposed to be physical

Coran tells them that in the last war, Emperor Zarkon searched for the then current paladins of voltron and his witch Haggar made the lions into physical beings so that Zarkon could control them and bind them to just one person and also make use of their combative power (something they have but don’t use since they just go around inspiring people)

So now the gang has these big kitties they have to take to Oriande, hoping the witch doesn’t see them and change them back to their original forms

Basically I just want big giant playful kitties that are really super powerful and part of the Altean pantheon, being bothersome to their reluctant paladins but they all want to help them get back to their OG shape and in the journey they, without realizing, are also being helped by them, even if they have to scratch bellies and get licked by scratchy tongues a lot of times XD

So I pictured scenes like Green stealing and wearing Pidge’s glasses and running in circles but the blurryness and movement helps Pide out

Since I’m an adashi slut I thought on exes Shiro and Adam, were Shiro was so focused on studying he didn’t enjoy life, or gave time to it, thus after just a year Adam dumped his ass since he was the only one putting some work, unfortunately for Shiro, Adam is part of Allura’s trusted staff so he is around and it doesn’t help at all that Black looooves him and is constantly being Shiro and Adam’s winglion until they finally kiss and make up

I haven’t fully planned out how these mythical lions would work but here’s my thoughts so far

The green lion often visits researchers of any field and inspires their curiosity and helps them make break throughs as well as to make them see the beauty of their research and the beauty of how it connects them to the world, Curiosity (Pidge likes knowledge and is curious but like with the olkari episode she finds more meaning to her research and a goal, like to unite people through technology and also a bit respect/ appreciation/ gratitude in her research as in the elements that make it and what it will become, smth smth like that)

The Yellow lions helps ppl not be indifferent to others or be paralyzed by fear and thus not want to trouble themselves to help others, it’s Kindness (with Hunk, Yellow helps him embrace the fact that Hunk loves helping people and guides him towards it, to get out of his fears and be confident in his skills and therefore help others)

Blue is similar to Yellow, it helps people more likely to look and understand other’s POVs, so it’s Empathy (By understanding others, Lance can also understand himself and reach out for help with his own insecurities and create like a two way helping hand)

Red is Courage, it inspires a fiery noble rage to fight for any personal cause or just any cause (with Keith is finding his path and pull through his rough edges, give him the courage to open up to others and be brave but also not so reckless, although Red can also learn from its own words because Red can also be a little reckless)

Black is Leadership and Responsibility, Black usually visits natural born leader and helps them reach their potential or take steps towards it (Shiro was so absorbed on his studying he wasn’t seeing others and as a born leader Black knew his real calling was to look out and guide people so he helps him come out of his shell and see life, first of course via getting back together with Adam because he was the first one Shiro opened up to and he lost him because of his sole fixation to his work but Black shows him he can have his dream job and also a beautiful relationship because Black knows they are just destined to be together and Black won’t let Shiro get between them and second by just the mission, Shiro learns to be a leader with the vld squad)