#hope someone enjoys this ;;

[mueritos]

happy pride to all queer children of immigrants

patreon

[blue-phones]

Serial Experiment Lain inspired Windblade piece

Love vocaloid so much oh my god

[the-worms-in-your-bones]

Echoes through eternity notes

Part 1: damned if you do

(i already did my reactions so this is mostly going to be focusing on lore implications) (fair warning, this is Long)

i will say, i love that they're putting the theme for the era each audio takes place in, season one theme i have missed you

the comments about bad weather not being common on gallifrey are interesting to me, is it a case of they're really just not common, or is it due to environmental manipulation (i'm inclined to go with the latter)

very interesting that the transduction barriers are only over the citadel (pretty sure this is contradicted in other things, but also maybe there are just different layers of transduction barriers, idk)

they're soundproof

outsiders -> societal rejects, like renegades, but without the leaving gallifrey (or possibly that they can't given they never reached time lord status in the first place (called 'uneducated'), is renegade only applicable to time lords) (also shaboggans are referenced later in this audio, are they different or just two names for the same group of people)

leela lives with the outsiders 50% of the time, wonder when this stopped (i'd say after becoming romana's body guard, but i feel like in the early seasons she still managed to find some time to spend in the outlands, and in the later seasons I doubt she leaves the capitol as much) (something something becoming more integrated into time lord society whether or not she or the time lords like it)

'all with more than a passing interest in our temporal capabilities' -> this is either referring to those at the academy and narvin distrusting them because of this or that the academy is open to anyone with an interest and i can't actually tell which

'all cia coordinators' -> very interesting to me that there are multiple coordinatiors, the thing is though that we still only really see narvin as the coordinator (same with vansell while he has that job), so my theory is that there is a head coordinator (in this case narvin) who has oversight over the whole cia and handles the majority of the diplomatic relations with the other branches of the government and is the one who is put in the public eye, allowing the others to work with more secrecy, i'd also assume that other coordinators oversee sections of the agency rather than the whole thing

establishment that the high council, inner council, and supreme council are all separate things, unfortunately this does not tell us what the actual differences between them are and neither does anything else really, though that's typical of anything relating to time lords

'various chancellors and castellans of the chapters and houses' -> there were references to different chapters having their own castellans in other gallifrey audios, but the inclusion of houses is interesting to me, i have the feeling that it wouldn't be all houses with their own castellan, but i'm not entirely sure what he means by this (maybe theres something along the lines of each chapter having a house that represents it on the high council?), also i thought the implication was that there was only one chancellor, it wasn't a per chapter things (though maybe theres like a chancellor chancellor who works directly with the president and then chancellors appointed for each chapter)

'that's the one constant on gallifrey, change is never irreversible' oh buddy you have no clue what's coming. I do find it hilarious how much he talks about not liking romana here knowing what he's going to be like in the future, it is genuinely fun to get to see early narvin in a context we never have before, especially with access to his inner thoughts, because even though he's an ass and still working against romana and leela, you can see the basis for the person he will become later, he still fundamentally is a guy that cares a lot about the things that are important to him

'rassilon, omega, and the other' -> finally the other gets mentioned, also kind of interesting to me how he's remembered, but his name is still lost (do we get an explanation as to why anywhere else? feels like some shit rassilon would pull, and given the other two have their names remembered i don't think it just happened naturally)

matthias used to be cia -> it's interesting to me that he goes from being cia to working in other parts of the government, because from what we've seen it seems that the cia is kind of at odds with the other parts of the government (especially the president and their immediate inner circle) so I feel like being ex-cia would not lend itself well to getting a job in another branch of government, it feels like they wouldn't be trusted enough by other politicians for that (not that there's really a whole lot of trust anywhere in time lord politics but you get my point) (though possibly depending on when he was cia it might just not be known by those outside the cia that he was once a part of it) (i say depending on the time because of the implications that romana forced the cia to become more public with its dealings and stripped it of some of its power) (that being said, i do think the coordinator was always a kind of public facing figure there to cover up what the cia was really doing and have a hand in politics outside the cia to keep the organization informed)

'although the practice was frowned upon for a cia coordinator, i had adjusted my wrist communicators chime to identify the caller' -> interesting how he specifies that its frowned upon for his position in particular (something something secrecy and not giving any info to the enemy (other time lords) something something)

'junior rank time lord' -> i do not understand time lord ranks, this seems to be used both in reference to experience and nobility status at different times, i need a fucking encyclopedia or something

shitting on prydonians!!!! <- words of a guy who definitely doesn't have opinions on the chapters and how prydonians are kind of stuck up assholes a lot of the time

'at the end of each semester she was seconded to me' -> she was just mentioned as having been a recent academy graduate, so i'm assuming that this is in reference to her cia training (pretty sure there's an audio somewhere where narvin mentions it being two hundred years, though i could never figure out if that was academy + cia training or just cia training) also if this is here cia training i find it interesting that shes working under a coordinator, i wouldn't exactly imagine the guy who runs the place having to deal with recent academy graduates unless that was something he chose to do (and given narvin's tendency to try and adopt/mentor any young adult he spends more than five minutes around this does not surprise me)

god i would love to see what young narvin was like, i mean we know he was at least somewhat defiant (you know the whole abandoning his chapter for the cia thing) but i wonder what he was like as a cia trainee (also the implication here that he was working under vansell much in the way that kransa is working under him, maybe the cia coordinators do take on apprentices (or what i think is more likely is that they select promising agents young and train them to take on higher up positions within the organization later in life, i mean we know vansell was working with the cia even in his academy days, so i don't feel like this is much of a stretch)) (though the way narvin talks about it makes it seem like it's just a part of the job and not something they choose to do, but then again time lords love nothing more than tradition so maybe its just a thing that is done and has been done, so they do it even if they don't particularly want to or have to)

the matrix keepers -> interesting how its a job for those on their last regenerations (something something the old are given the task of upkeep of gallifreys secrets because they're old enough to know them just from life experience?) (or them knowing the secrets is not seen as a threat because of how close to becoming a part of the matrix they are, whatever they learn there is just going to go back into the matrix after all, and there's really not that much time until that happens), they also seem to be separate from the rest of time lord society (they've got their own coordinators and they seem to live down there) so they're not really at rick of spreading gallifrey's secrets

the ability to see through perception filters is learned

catacombs protected by perception filters at the entrance and psychic defenses within the air itself -> and yet academy era romana was just hanging out down there for fun it seems (also the reference to the ancient beings that live down there ('almost mythical' which is so interesting to me since we see over and over again that gallifreyan myths are just stories about their actual history and that their monsters are real, it seems here that narvin is acknowledging this to some extent), so they just know that there's things down there i guess? i mean seems very time lord to not do anything about it because if they're in the catacombs they're presumably not bothering them, but they're still accessible if needed for whatever purpose they may see fit

love that narvin is just letting kransa tag along even though it mean she's technically disobeying orders just because it annoys valyes

'the cia decides who does and doesn't have clearance in all security matters' -> interesting implications that they have the final say when it comes to security of gallifrey, not entirely surprising though (something something it being leftover from their start as rassilons guards even though they've split from their association with the presidential office by this point)

'i was rather surprised at how easily i lied' -> narvin shouldn't that be part of your fucking job description, though it does have the interesting implication that lying isn't necessarily needed to get into the high rankings of the cia, this could make sense given how much power they seem to hold, its more of a need to know how to proper wield that power than to be able to lie

cia intervention used to get around the legal and political consequences fro certain actions -> they seem to still operate outside the law to an extent, though narvins reaction says that maybe they are still able to be held accountable to it

'perception filters had not been fully triggered' -> ???? narvin what do you mean by that, i've been typing for too long to actually put the effort into thinking about this one, i would like to request that narvin explain it to me personally, but honestly i don't think he actually knows about about perception filters for that

capitol seems to be split up into sectors, i very much would like a map of this place or something because it seems huge and complicated based on everything we've heard about its architecture

love the idea that you can look through a perception filter by catching it out of the corner of your eye

narvin not knowing how the perception filters work -> i wonder if this is a type of thing that you only learn if you pursue certain career paths, like you're not going to learn the details of how a perception filter works in an introductory engineering class, but you might learn how to create one in a more advanced class (also probably something something they don't want people knowing these things because even if they are other time lords they still need to be able to hide information from the general public and people knowing exactly how perception filters work puts that at risk)

being a time lord lets them see through the perception filter -> interesting how this is something that seems explicitly linked with the whole looking into the untempered schism thing, having that experience fundamentally changes a person and how they see the universe (also interesting how he links it to being 'time lords of rank and status' because as we have previously seen its a thing that happens when gallifreyans are pretty young, i am curious as to if he's just saying this to separate them from the alien students that managed to see through it though)

'a time lord, probably of the first or second rank' -> again with the time lord ranks, see he's talking about academy students here so i would assume said time lord is also an academy student, based on other bits from this audio i wonder if the ranks are sort of a way of showing how far along in their education they are (sort of an analog to stuff like elementary, middle, and highschool, as well as college and postgrad stuff), with his comment about the 'time lord of rank' and looking into the untempered schism possibly that is how you earn being a first rank time lord, if you pass the test of the untempered schism you get that rank, and then there's second rank which idk what that would refer to but it seems that it possibly still means you're at the academy, and given kransa is called a junior rank time lord, i'm assuming that is given to time lords pretty fresh out of the academy

interesting the implication that the houses get punished for the actions of their members whether or not they actually had anything to do with what that person was doing (something something legacies and nobility, can't have a bad mark on their record otherwise it says something about the whole bloodline)

the doors use biodata -> interesting to me because we see in other things that there also seem to be retinal scans and just straight up codes, wonder if this is a case of differing security levels, anyone can learn a code, and i would assume its much easier to fake a retinal scan than a scan of someones biodata

is it just the time lords we meet, or are all of them weirdly self sacrificial

'according to some accounts, we were no longer in the same time and space as the rest of the planet' -> fascinated by this, the catacombs are their own sort of pocket dimension (and there's the whole thing with the door disappearing after they go through it)

'the creatures and whatever existed in the catacombs had created their own pocket reality'

the thing about gallifrey as a planet is that it's full of people who insist on scientific belief and that religion and myth and magic are below them, but it fundamentally is a place that is full of magic and myth, their history is so long and complex that the time lords themselves are mythical beings and their myths are historical accounts

'assuming the dimensions in here are stable and not in a state of flux or wither' -> interesting to me because the like fundamental state of things on gallifrey is that they don't flux of wither, but the catacombs seem exempt from this, narvin assures kransa it's probably fine, but there's no guarantee like there is on the rest of gallifrey

and narvin discovers his instinct to adopt people -> i mean on that note i do like that even though this is early narvin and he clearly holds all of the biases instilled in him by time lord society, he still also clearly cares, we see the basis of the passion he puts into the things he cares about that leads him to be a better person in his future

are they using some sort of psychic whatever to choose the direction? intuition? because this is clearly some sort of teaching moment, so its not just random, but a skill that can be learned, what exactly are they basing this off of, like what are they subconsciously looking for to lead the way or do they even not quite know and its just a thing that they do

east gallifrey doesn't have houses!!!!!! -> god i love anything that shows that gallifrey and the time lords aren't just a monolith, they may present themselves that way to outsiders, but they're not all the same, there's also the fact that despite having no house she still has a chapter which actually i feel like helps to clarify a lot of confusion around how the chapters work (at least for me), so houses probably have chapters that they are affiliated with and if you are born into that house, you are probably going to be in that chapter, but at the same time it is perfectly possible to go to the academy for a chapter that your house is not associated with (though i'd assume this is much less common than joining the chapter associated with your house)

'someone from one of the greater houses' -> brax house (sort of) mention, there's also his thing about chapters and houses not mattering as much these days and it being like a thing that he wasn't ostracized for this (something something the houses must maintain their image because their image is their power, but that power (and with it the need to control the image) is slowly fading), the whole everything about gallifreyan class structure is very interesting to me, because clearly the time lords are the ruling class on gallifrey, but even among them theres differences, your house or chapter has an influence (prydon has produced more presidents than any other chapter and we know that multiple of the chapters hold little to no political power) (and with the houses we see in transference that being born into a house doesn't mean you'll go to the academy and become a time lord, but i'm sure that for the houses of higher status (say lungbarrow since we're talking about brax here) it's pretty much a guarantee that a person will go on to become a time lord)

'my own origins from a family of humble temporal engineers, my uncles transgressions that brought about his exile many years ago' -> i need to know more about narvins backstory, please tell me more about narvins backstory, what did his uncle do? also theres the fact that narvin was not born into high status but still managed to achieve high rank within the cia, wonder what that process was like for him

the bit about narvin wondering if brax was goading him personally -> the implication that narvin is very much affected by his house status in his everyday life/his career while brax probably doesn't have to worry too much since he was born into a high house

'is my background a problem for my training or future' -> time lord classism runs deep, i mean the eveything about this interaction shows this, but yeah

'the ground beneath us, well beneath me, i can only assume it was the same for kransa' -> the fact that the catacombs are weird and fucked up enough for this to be a thing he says is really something, i mean he does go onto talk about the wall being weird and them moving, the dimensions around here are weird and i like that, citatels haunted

seventh door -> what is the significance of the different matrix doors?

'conceptual environments that simply couldn't exist but appeared completely real' -> like i said before citadels haunted, but seriously i think its interesting that the structures themselves are alive, i mean we see this with the houses and stuff, but with the matrix it's a repository for the minds of dead time lords, so i have the feeling that it's less it was built to be alive in the first place and more the accumulation of time lords within it gave it a sort of life, and that even though these structures aren't entirely 'real' because they are built from the minds of a psychic species and are interacting with the minds of a psychic species they may as well be

'were the catacombs simply an extension of the apc net itself' -> see above

'but surely others had studied it before' -> if you have to say this they probably didn't (or it was like one guy) (speaking from experience)

'everyone knew about the catacombs ..... but i couldn't recall any reports from people who'd explored beyond, but surely they must exist. all the stories of the creatures that dwelt here must come from somewhere, someone, so why couldn't i remember reading anything' -> the information is known but it does not exist, love this concept, a society that catalogues everything and yet things from right under their own feet go unwritten, i feel like to an extent this is probably a product of how their society is structured and what beliefs they deem acceptable, all their myths and monsters are real, but that's too close to magic so we won't write it down, on the other hand maybe they don't want to be written down, maybe its that there is information that can only be properly passed on through stories and not reports, also something something all time lords are connected to the matrix, the matrix is the repository of all time lord knowledge, there are something that you don't need to read about, that you don't need to learn, but you still know them

there are non humanoid students at the academy -> don't think there's actually any big lore implications with this one, just seemed like something to note

'their torch light appeared to unnaturally stop' -> narvin your planet is haunted i don't know what to tell you

'it was as if by standing there he, she, it somehow absorbed light, shadow, anything' -> like i said before the time lords may like to present themselves as a society that's above 'primitive' beliefs, but fundamentally gallifrey is a place of magic (now there's the argument to be made that magic and science are one and the same but i don't thing that negates my point)

'the head was a black globe .... it gave neither light nor reflection, again as if absorbing everything around it. a black hole'

'i don't know why but i knew this thing was not benign' -> has some sort of psychic aura?

the implication here that narvin considers like actual emotional responses to be below time lords (reminds me of homunculette crying about marie while going why am i crying i'm a time lord i don't care about things)

'its ability to create pockets of frozen isolated time meant it was more powerful than anything i could ever have imagined' -> very interesting to me knowing that the cia have put whole planets in stasis or time loops or whatever before, does it get more complex as you get to smaller spaces? actually maybe its that they need complex technology to do this and the time shade is just kind of doing it

also i've said it before and i'll say it again, gallifrey is a deeply haunted planet, and i don't just mean that as a joke, it has a long enough history and its technology works in such a way that its myths and gods and ghosts are all real

'i'm going to be destroyed by the living embodiment of sarcasm' -> i mean really narvin, how else would you go out if not that

'the time shades were legendary, reports of their existence going back to the days of rassilon' -> something something the time lords dared to mess with time so it forever changed how their world worked, like with the matrix dimensions being weird and that information just being Known i feel like that could be a product of accumulated time lord minds within it, but with the time shades i feel like its more a consequence of if you mess with time it will forever change everything, both in your past and future, these things have consequences on the fabric of the universe itself

'the shade of eternity, the shade of war, the shade of dreams, the shade of protection, the shade of.. i couldn't remember the entire pantheon at the moment' + the shade of portent -> i truly do love how time lords act like they're above religion and all that but they undeniably have gods and they still do treat them as gods

i feel like there's probably something to the fact that it's wearing gold, i just don't know what at the moment

'for a time lord of so low a rank' -> see here i think its talking about rank in terms of houses not like achievement of status, because in terms of job narvin is pretty high ranking, but as we've established he does not come from a particularly noble background

'you are a pivot around which so much of what is to come rotates' -> this kind of plays into an idea that i really like and its that gallifrey's future is largely fixed, the time lords can mess with the time lines of other species and planets all they want, but by the nature of them being the ones to wield that power over time, they can't actually alter their own time lines all that much, since they can change time they are also the center around which time changes, the eye of the storm if you will, and that means that they have very little control over what happens to them (maybe this is why they're so obsessed with controlling the narrative, because if they can't actually control the events themselves, they can at least control how everyone perceives them)

'shocking really but it has been decreed' -> time herself said it and we can't argue with that (at least that's how i'm choosing to interpret this)

'free will, change, alteration is not an option'

the way the time shade talks to narvin (i'm not writing it all out sorry) about how he's just a small bit of practically nothing in the scheme of existence -> the time lords see themselves as so important, but really they are just people like everyone else in the universe and the universe will largely treat them as such, a king may hold more power, but at the end of the day he's just as human as a farmer, and the dirt they're buried in won't be able to tell the difference

'a shard of the essence of the untempered schism, but wrapped around reality, my reality' -> this is very cool imagery to me, just the fact that for a moment the web of time is bent to wrap around narvin and his existence, that the time shade has the power to do that

'the high collared black of a magistrate' -> more info about how time lords dress is always good to have, if you're me at least, not that i particularly do anything with this information, i just like having it

narvin seeing that he's the one to start the war :(

narvin is actually linked with a tardis (i'm assuming its the one ace rigged), i love that we get confirmation that it's not just a tardis he is flying, but His tardis (also the 'linked eternally' bit -> the bond between a time lord and their tardis is forever then? interesting given how other things have implied that the bond can be severed, but maybe this is only the case in extreme cases, but otherwise it just stays? also maybe something something tardises exist in a relationship with the vortex that means they don't perceive time linearly and that applies to their bond with their time lords)

the encounter with the time shade is erased from his memory, he still has the impression of it, but of course just writes it off as shadows, what else are you going to do in a place like that where reality isn't quite real

knowledge comes with a price -> the price was kransa

i said this in another post, but i'm going to say it again because it's still funny to me, but i know narvins note to romana is probably through official channels, but i am just imagining him sending her anonymous hate mail

interesting how even if its been erased narvin seems to be able to know something is gone and even what is gone (something something time lords and their unique relationship and ability to perceive time)

he still dreams about it, the burning planet and kransa -> he needs that knowledge for time to happen as it should, as it must (the time war was always going to happen and he was always going to start it, it's unavoidable, it's what time has determined will happen so it has to happen, the story can change, but the ending will stay the same)

'saving gallifrey from its president' -> well he will be doing that in the future, but definitely not from the president he was expecting

[cold-heart-warm-writings]

Studying with Mikey

- Mikey does not last long. Right from the start, you haven’t even finished reading the paragraph for the math question, he is checked out and ready to be done, and is doing EVERYTHING in his power to distract you to do something, anything, else. 

- He’s already a successful leader of Toman, can’t he just put “leadership skills” on his resume? Why does he need good grades on top of that? He’s already an unstoppable fighter, Mikey fully believes adding on height a school smart brain would make him too OP.

- 87% of the time, you are convinced by Mikey, and decide that goofing off is the way to go. Besides, you paid attention in class, surely you’ll remember for the test. 

- Spoiler alert:... you do not.

- 13% of the time, you threaten to kick him out of the classroom/your room/the library/café/wherever you convinced Mikey to study with you because “well, I’m not the ruler of Toman, so I don’t have those “leadership skills” to fall back on. I need to pass this class.”

- Mikey tries again: “Every right answer you get, you can earn a kiss.” >:) 

- You: “One, that sounds like you’re trying to distract me and two, you also have not studied, so how would you know if the answer is right now?”

- Mikey returns to his own very much closed and barely touched books. “I guess I could try…” he grumbles. 

- “Oh wow, what a good boy.” You say absentmindedly, actually starting to understand the new grammar pattern your teacher had been going over in class.

- “Hehehe… I’m a good boy, huh? And are you… a good girl?” 

- That was the wrong answer.

- You actually kick him out this time.

- Maybe he should’ve studied more so he could answer correctly.

TLDR: Mikey does not study, and in the end... neither do you. 0/10 if you actually want to pass, 10/10 if you want to enjoy your school years.

[bramblesbriars]

Finally, I cranked this thing out. It took entirely too long, and I'm so burnt out lol

[dotcie]

Writers Truth & Dare Ask Game

🎱 ⇢ post your AO3 total stats  🍓 ⇢ how did you get into writing fanfiction?  🌵 ⇢ share the link to a playlist you love 🕯️ ⇢ on a scale from 1 to 10, how much do you enjoy editing? why is that? 🛼 ⇢ describe your latest wip with five emojis 🥑 ⇢ you accidentally killed somebody, which mutual(s) do you text for help? 🥤 ⇢ recommend an author or fanfic you love 💌 ⇢ how many unread emails do you have right now?  🌻 ⇢ tag someone you appreciate but don't talk to on a regular basis 🐇 ⇢ do you prefer writing original characters, reader inserts, or a mix of both?  🧃 ⇢ share some personal lore you never posted about before 🎲 ⇢ what stops you from writing more in your free time?  🍄 ⇢ share a head canon for one of your favourite ships or pairings 🧸 ⇢ what's the fastest way to become your mutual? 🪐 ⇢ name three good things going on in your life right now 📚 ⇢ what's the last thing you wrote down in your notes app?  🍬 ⇢ post an unpopular opinion about a popular fandom character 🔪 ⇢ what's the weirdest topic you researched for a writing project? 🦷 ⇢ share some personal wisdom or a life hack you swear on ❄️ ⇢ what's your dream theme/plot for a fic, and who would write it best? 🌿 ⇢ give some advice on writer's block and low creativity 🥐 ⇢ name one internet reference that will always make you laugh  🏜️ ⇢ what's your favourite type of comment to receive on your work? 🍦 ⇢ name three good things about a character you hate 🥝 ⇢ do you lie a lot? what's the most recent lie you told? 🦋 ⇢ share something that has been on your heart and mind lately  🦴 ⇢ is there a piece of media that inspires your writing?  🍅 ⇢ give yourself some constructive criticism on your own writing 🐚 ⇢ do you like or dislike surprises? 🪲 ⇢ add 50 words to your current wip and share the paragraph here ☁️ ⇢ what made you choose your username? 🐝 ⇢ tag your biggest supporter(s) and say one nice thing about them 🌸 ⇢ do you have any pets? if you do, post some pictures of them 🎨 ⇢ link your favourite piece of fanart and explain why you like it 🧩 ⇢ what will make you click away from a fanfiction immediately?

[joffyworld]

Okay so I did the briefest look, I will look into this more, but here's what I found:

Shamash (coming from the Akkadian "šamaš", although also known as Utu in the Sumerian tradition) was the name of the mesopotamian sun god, known mostly for divine protection and he acted as a god of justice, dealing with the protection of travellers alongside that. HOWEVER, what's also interesting is that the God Shamash could also be interpreted according to some sources as a God of Divination, which would lead directly into the idea of Shamura as the God of Wisdom!

This leads into where the Devs may have found their actual inspiration, as the word šamaš is the direct cognate to classical Syriac, Arabic, Aramaic and Hebrew names for the sun: šmš, šams, šemešā and šemeš respectively.

As for the suffix -ura, that's up for debate and interpretation. I found a small paper that quotes "Mārum" and "Mārtum" as being found in Akkadian as the words for son and daughter respectively. I also found that Latin uses the suffix "-ura" to denote the result of an action taken, such as "incisura". This could mean that perhaps Shamura is the result of the God of Wisdom, maybe a play on how despite her wisdom she still messed up? Hard to say

Apparently there are also Ugaritic suffixes in Semitic languages that go by "-āyu" and "-ānu"? But my Arabic is not great and I have literally no training in Semitic languages beyond a year of Arabic so make of that what you will

Very cool anyway, thought I'd share! Maybe I'll do more research into it since it's a bit of a tricky one, but I think at the very least the šamaš -> Sham pipeline can be taken fairly easily, especially with Heket having her own origins in Ancient Egyptian language with "hkt", which is pretty straightforward as it's also the name of an Egyptian God (with a rather easy link to harvests too!)

Wait, River, I must know

How do you pronounce Shamura? Their name?

For the longest time I had thought it was [Sham-mur-ah], but after hearing in "PESTILENCE" that their name was pronounced [Sha-mor-rah] instead I'm not sure

I know it wouldn't bother many people but to me, being accurate is absolute in my mind, as correct as possible, and as you too, are a devoted Shamura follower, I must inqcuire,

How do you pronounce the almighty God's name?

VERY GOOD QUESTION, THE BISHOP NAMES HAVE HAUNTED ME SINCE I FIRST PLAYED THE GAME. For shamura, I'm pretty sure I've been pronouncing it like how they say it in pestilence? "shuh-murr-uh" is the best spelling I'm able to come up with but there's a lot going on in the song so I'm not able to hear it that clearly. I remember when pestilence dropped, I was kinda bewildered by the fact I'd heard their name spoken out loud in an official piece of cotl media because I had NO IDEA if I was saying it right this whole time.

I've also heard "shammer-uh" and "shah-moo-ruh" so I have no idea. The other bishops have pretty straightforward names that can be traced to a source pretty easily so it's really weird that they made sham's name so cryptic, this is why I project my culture onto them cause I literally have no idea what they're supposed to be lmao. I've seen someone say it's a variation of an old akkadian or hebrew word I think?? Maybe the devs have clarified it somewhere but I just don't keep up with that kind of thing so idk

edit: the word I was thinking of was "shamar" and that's gotta be the right one because the definition of it is to protect, guard, watch over, that kinda thing which is VERY shamura tbh

[adaki]

Wanted to try drawing something a little ornate, I think they’d make each other worse

[setaflow]

Anyway I had fun this season

[mothgenes]

Part 3

Part 1 / Part 2 / Part 3

[wretchedbroth]

Can’t get this scene out of my head…like…the layers…ough…

[taxkha]

I saw a couple people do like AUs where Apollo is a magician and I found the idea so cute, I wanted to make my own. Of course Klavier teases him just as much.

[hunnam]

Sam Vass via IG December 15th, 2024

[paper-mario-wiki]

Could you explain how Ambrosia is able to come back after dying?

1

Sure yeah, I'll give it a shot.

[Fursona Lore/ Mild Existential Horror presented in charmingly primitive MS Paint style under the cut]

2

[At the top of the panel there is the label "conceptual space (currently being created. The middle is labeled "THE UNIVERSE, REALITY (the other)". The bottom is labeled "CONSCIOUSNESS, REFLECTION (the self). The very bottom of the panel reads "OTHER, FREAKIER BUT LESS IMPORTANT STUFF" ]

To keep it brief, a person is when a certain amount of consciousness slips upwards into reality. Consciousness is, like the laws of thermo dynamics [sic], a fundamental property of the universe.

3

I'm sure you've heard of the sticking-a-pencil-through-paper metaphor for theoretical wormhole travel, right? Staying within that visual metaphor, imagine the moisture in the air around that "piece of paper" as what consciousness is. It creates tiny, imperceivable changes in the surface and makeup of the paper. Imagine a microscopic rain cloud making a tiny fraction of the paper a little bit soggy. That's what you are in the universe. A tiny soggy fraction of a massive piece of paper. (That's why you feel so small btw).

Of course, putting it into that metaphor IS greatly simplifying it, since in real life things like time and space sorta overlap, ya know? Because they're entirely separate dimensions of measurement. Consciousness is the same, it is everywhere in the universe all at once, but only after it seeps in from a place that is exactly where we are, but elsewhere. 4D stuff is complicated sorry if that's not super clear ha ha.

4

Normal people happen when a bunch of that stray potential-consciousness starts stacking more and more layers of reality on top of itself. Sort of like those pastries that you fold butter into and then fold it like 10 times and that makes it so theres like a billion layers of butter and dough and butter and dough and butter and dough and on and on and on. But with, uh. The other stuff. Consiousness and matter from the universe.

Speaking semantically, that's all the little tiny organisms that work really hard to make you alive. Like the biome in your gut, or the bacteria in your tissue and blood cells. Look it up, 43% of the human body is made of bacteria. Like, that's just on google.

Anyway, all their effort culminates in an increasingly complex meat shell that constitutes a person.

5

For the sake of practicality, we can imagine the way consciousness "seeps in" to the universe is like heat coming off the sun. The two overlapping infinite planes radiate into each other like heat radiates off the sun.

That clear? Heat from the sun. Remember that, it's important for the next part.

6

I'm sort of like a solar flare.

My consciousness, in its raw form, was so concentrated that it was like a tiny shooting star straight from the source.

Also kind of like a kidney stone, I guess.

7

Since my consciousness (which, to be clear, is approximately the same "amount" of consciouessness as anyone else, just all smooshed together into a single clump) is smooshed together into a single clump, the shell forms naturally as "reality" settles onto it. The "shape" the consciousness takes is basically the same as your body or anyone else's since the framework of both entities are the "same" on the "outside". Thus the "shells" turn out "similar" too.

Sorry for all the quotation marks, it's hard to talk about concepts outside of the third dimension in third dimensional terms, and like. I also am not super sure about this stuff either. I'm only relaying what I've learned from the scientists but some of it goes over my head.

I like to think I'm clever but like. I'm not a genius.

8

So here's the part where me and you are different: When your shell breaks apart (when you die) it's because the consciouessness had been escaping your shell, like air from a balloon, and the physical structure can't support itself anymore. Or, like, maybe you just fall over and hit your head on the concrete one day and pop the balloon all together.

Either way, the consciousness escapes from the pressure, and either goes back "down" where it came from, or goes upward into conceptual space, which is sorta being constituted through forces exerted in the physical universe. Well, I mean, really it's more of a product of a reaction between consciousness and physical space. Whatever I'm getting off topic.

The point is the shell breaks cuz the balloon pops. I think that was my point.

9

Now that you get all that, you can probably deduce on your own how and why I'm able to keep "coming back".

It's cuz I'm not really "coming back", I'm still here! The shell representing me here was just lost.

10

And while the facade may not look precisely the same every single time...

11

I remain the same.

[just-null]

i am literally on my KNEEEEEESSSSS. please please make more yandere hantengu clone art.. i don’t care if you don’t color it in or if it’s just a simple sketch PLEASE 😞

is the threat directed at you??? at others??? at something else??? do you even want to find out??? You'll probably be okay if you get back home before dark and make it up to him.

[queerdraws]

projecting on luffy again. get bited.