#is this the greatest power in the universe?

[talonabraxas]

“The time has come for us to understand that the Eternal Feminine is the greatest power in this Universe.” — Samael Aun Weor

[whencyclopedia]

Zorvanism

Zorvanism (also given as Zuvanism, Zurvanism) was a sect of the Persian religion Zoroastrianism which emerged in the late Achaemenid Empire (c. 550-330 BCE) and flourished during the Sassanian Empire (224-651 CE). It is often referenced as a Zoroastrian heresy because it departed significantly from two central Zoroastrian beliefs:

That the Supreme Deity Ahura Mazda was the One Uncreated God

That human beings had free will to choose between good and evil

Zorvanism claimed that Ahura Mazda (here known as Ormuzd, principle of good) was a created being, the twin brother of Angra Mainyu (known as Ahriman, principle of evil) and the Supreme Deity was Zorvan Akarana ("Infinite Time", also given as Zurvan and Zurvan Akarana). Time brought all things into being and caused them to pass away and, since time was implacable and human beings were helpless in resisting it, human existence was directed by fate, not free will.

After the Muslim Arab Invasion of Persia in the 7th century CE, Zoroastrianism was suppressed and Zorvanism all but disappeared. Its influence continued, however, in that the Zorvanite version of Zoroastrianism was the first to reach the West and so dictated how that religion was understood - as a dualist, instead of a monotheistic, faith – an interpretation which still affects how Zoroastrianism is understood in the present day. The concept of fate as more powerful than free will also influenced later Persian poets and the literary motifs which inform some of the greatest works of Persian literature and, through them, world culture.

Early Persian Religion

The early Persian religion was polytheistic with many gods under the Supreme King, Ahura Mazda (Lord of Wisdom) who had brought everything into being, including the younger gods. Ahura Mazda's enemy was Angra Mainyu, lord of the dark forces of evil and chaos whose sole purpose was to disrupt Ahura Mazda's order and thwart every one of his plans for the greater good.

The sky, earth, water, and fire had all been created by Ahura Mazda who also made vegetation, animals, and human beings and every attempt by Angra Mainyu to disrupt the universal good was transformed by Ahura Mazda to positive ends. When Ahura Mazda created the beautiful Primordial Bull, Gavaevodata, Angra Mainyu killed it; but Ahura Mazda brought the bull's corpse to the moon where it was purified and, from its purified seed, all animals were generated. When Angra Mainyu poisoned the minds of the first mortal couple – Mashya and Mashyanag – causing them to turn away from Ahura Mazda, their descendants were given purpose in life through the exercise of free will; they had the power to direct their own lives and choose good over evil and higher values over self-interest.

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[nym-wibbly]

Fanvidding used to be one of my things, last century and early in this one. I'd spend hours, days, with two VCRs or basic editing software, or with a mixer deck, especially if I wanted to extract a snippet of dialogue and mute the background music. "Labour of love" doesn't even begin to describe the process of getting a fanvid from concept to convention in the 1980s or 1990s.

I just had a couple of days trying out vidding on a high-powered Mac for the first time; a quarter-way-into-the-21st-century hardware and software setup, with nearly instant access to HD source video via the internet, and with by-the-hour rented cloud servers for uber processing power and AI automation when I need it.

It's like I've lived in 2 different worlds. Like, all that stuff I'd spend days doing by hand and ear and eye and brain to control the sound levels or trim a clip to the millisecond - there's software today that can do it at the click of a button in seconds. You want the soundtrack or ambient noise to vanish to isolate the dialogue? Done. Poof. Magic! Upscale that fuzzy old TV show to HD? Click! In an absolute pinch, my bloody phone can output a passable vid.

Vidding is still a labour of love, no question, if only because you need an awesomely detailed working knowledge/memory of the canon to cherrypick, but the whole production time scale has changed immeasurably within my adult lifetime. Amazing.

[zinderant]

Oh this is great, it makes me think of the magic user's limit being not exhausting a resource but reaching the point where they've channeled so much otherworldly power that it starts to permanently warp their bodies. Monstergarden has wizards for whom bodily change is an inevitable consequence of doing magic but I also like the thought that magic is available to anyone but that it takes training and skill to manage the side effects inflicted on the body and mind.

Cryomancer trying to sap the heat from an incoming lava flow? Now their body temperature won't go over 30 degrees. Floramancer growing a tree in seconds to support a crumbling castle? Their entire right arm turned to wood. Scryer needed to find the one universe out of ten million where they'd survive? They're going to be seeing echoes of alternate universes for the rest of their life.

There's a notion that I think is decently popular, of the mortal <> divine spectrum, where moving towards the divine end of the spectrum allows you more power but less freedom. As a bog-standard mortal, you shape your own identity, laze away your days in a drunken stupor, or build a cabin in the woods and be accountable to no one. As Teshub the Storm God, you can command the winds, throw lightning, and lay waste to armies with a torrent of hail. Each is not available to the other.

This echoes Cultist Simulator a bit: as you get closer to transcending your mortality, you may no longer need to sustain your physical body, but now you have other requirements: maybe you need to maintain a level of spiritual purity, you have new urges that need to be satisfied, or you've entered into an endless struggle with other immortals. As your power grows, your agency wanes, and the more you master your domain the stronger you fetter yourself to it. Perhaps a being of ultimate power loses their agency altogether, as they become synonymous with the fundamental laws of the universe.

I really like the combination of these two concepts, which ends up being sort of the reverse of the clerics in TUTBAD: magic lets you do things otherwise impossible but if you fail to control it, it changes you according to its own principles. This is a path for amateur casters to be transformed into monstrous elementals or for the greatest mages to ascend to godhood, but it can have consequences at every level in between, with both physical and mental alterations common to certain domains of magic. It's even more interesting when especially skilled mages can hide the fact that they know magic entirely, by virtue of having none of the tells that characterize mages of less skill! Food for thought.

I loveee fantasy settings doing magical exhaustion:

burnt out pyromancers emitting steam and smoke

tired cryomancers shivering with visible foggy breath

weary necromancers looking ill and hearing voices

frazzled healers receiving the same cuts, bruises, and injuries of their patients

[cuntylouis]

INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE 1.03 "Is My Very Nature That of the Devil"

[aingeal98]

Early orv Han Sooyoung is so important to me. She's one of the three most powerful and important people in the universe and no one knows it including herself. The first time we meet her she's formed a cult. She convinces said cult to unleash a dragon that kills many people including the main character. Then she gets her head cut off by the protagonist and just keeps talking shit. The MC lectures her on plagiarism while she's a decapitated head. She thinks she's one step ahead of everyone. She's not. Dokja thinks he's got her all figured out. He really, really doesn't. They're both so silly and also their scheming causes many, many deaths. The first time we meet her main body, her carefully planned evil scheme, that we've been building up to for an entire arc, lasts all of 10 seconds before falling apart:

She's incredible. She's there solely to cause problems for everyone including herself. At this point I was already in love when the only thing I knew was that she was an evil loser who Dokja hated for being a plagarist. She then goes on to kill Dokja's bully, get cursed, antagonise Sangah, unsuccessfully try to convince everyone to kill a kid, and then get hit by a bus offscreen and dies. She fails upwards more than any white man you know. Who's doing it like her honestly.

[turtleblogatlast]

I am once again overcome by the sheer magnitude of pranks Mikey and Leo could commit on the world of archaeology through their combined abilities of time and space

With enough time for Mikey in particular to be strong enough to make a small time portal - again within Leo’s portal opened in Someplace, Somewhere - they could plant so much shit just to mess with historians.

Like - Mikey wanted to try painting Greek-style pottery and Leo is like “hey hey wait…”

And now there is newly discovered evidence of Greek depictions of humanoid turtles laying around.

[quantumleper]

Goku throughout the Tournament of Power | Dragon Ball Super | Universal Survival Saga

[eddis-not-eeddis]

One of the most beautiful things about being a Christian is the fact that I can take my sorrows, my worries, my pain, my joys, my desires, my hope--all of it!--directly to God. And he cares about it. Even when it's small and personal, and even when it's so big I can't deal with it myself. I can take all of it to him, and I know he will take care of it.

[wonderbatbvs]

I NEEDED MORE WONDERBAT & WONDERGAL IN MY LIFE DO YOU UNDERSTAND?!

THE MVP OF THE TRINITY DESERVED BETTER

[illholy]

in light of the 'Judith is stupid' allegation. I will not deny it, also I think if she isnt careful she'd forget her name so. . .

[braceletofteeth]

“This movie is the sequel of a spin-off, and also a crossover. There are about 300 side characters. You won't understand anything.”

👆👆 This sign can't stop me because Yagi Yusei is in it!!!!

[castieldelamancha]

the thing is dean's acts weren't the only lessons about free will he was teaching cas, since god was the one moving them around like puppets for the most of it, it was the love he learned from dean what actually gave him freedom, not only through confessing it all, but also in the way that love had cas messing the script, feeling and choosing when he shouldn't have been doing any of that

[kaerinio]

@messanique approached her grace at her name day feast:

Rhaella won't lie and say that Dany's birth was a happy, peaceful day -- it was a wild April storm deep in the southern countryside, in a half-abandoned mansion with no one around except for eight-year-old Viserys, Willem Darry, and Father Bonifer, none of whom knew anything about giving birth (you see, Daenerys was just early enough to throw a wrench into Rhaella's birthing plans, but not early enough to be overly worried about the fact -- though with her history, Rhaella did, in fact, worry a lot). The storm lasted as long as Rhaella's labor did, and afterward? Oh afterward, Rhaella doesn't remember ever feeling that peaceful; just from holding her, Rhaella could tell that Dany was different from Shaena, from Daeron, from Aegon, and from Jaehaerys -- she was built from the same stern stuff as Rhaegar, and Rhaella knew this baby of hers would live, and not even be sick as Viserys was as a toddler. It was nighttime by the time Dany was born and they both were cleaned up -- still raining, though not enough to be classified as a storm still. Darry kept Viserys occupied by making peach cobbler and lemonade from the fruits that fell off the trees outside, and they feasted on that to celebrate Daenerys Hope coming into the world. (There might be other desserts and traditions through the years, but Rhaella always has lemonade and peach cobbler made for Dany's birthday).

But truthfully, Dany's half-birthday is the most special day to Rhaella. This day, more or less, coincides with when Rhaella discovered she was pregnant in the first place. Whatever else might have surrounded Dany's conception, the news of her existence lit a spark in Rhaella. It was the first time she was pregnant since Viserys, and she was determined for this one to live, too. To ensure that, she knew she had to get away from Aerys. And she did it; Dany's way of sparking rebellion, enacting change, ensuring people's freedom began first with her own mother. That shift in her, that newfound hope and desire for life, is not something Rhaella will ever forget, so she has to celebrate it. When early October comes around, Rhaella puts together a brunch that will last until supper (ideally just mother and daughter, but Rhaegar and Rhaenys are welcomed too) and will give Dany personal gifts (an old locket that was once Nana Betha's; Rhaella's favorite book from her childhood, worn and yellowed; Granny Shaera's old diary; things of that sort) while they talk, and laugh, and cry, and finish an entire bottle of champagne between them. While Dany's birthday is an event with shopping and trips and events galore, her half-birthday is meant to be intimate, just the two of them, so Rhaella can pass on how important having a daughter, having Daenerys, is to her.

currently sitting here screaming, crying, weeping, rolling on the ground! i'm sitting here thinking about rhaella in this sanctuary she's created and how she raises dany in this place of love, safety, and warmth. 🥹 the fact that rhaella just brings everything to life and together on her birthday with peach cobbler and lemonade, made completely from the fruits of the mansion, linking herself and dany together to that beautiful home! DAENERYS HOPE? I'M ON THE GROUND. her half birthday being their day . . . how special it is and how special it remains. the familial gifts!! the way dany cherishes them so deeply?? especially her mama's favorite book (which . . . of course she reads when she's tired and cannot sleep or stressed or feeling lost). the way dany always looks forward to not just her birthday, but her half-birthday, as well, because she gets to spend the day with her mama, bonding and being and also celebrating the love that rhaella has gifted her. this is a day she marks off on her calendar, blocking it off automatically. she will never make plans on that day, and she defends that time. when she's younger, she doesn't quite understand why the day is so important, but as she ages, as she begins to recognize that insistence, that shining light in her mother's eyes . . . she gets it. and she becomes so protective of that day, deeming it truly as theirs. 🥹

[ferinehuntressmoved]

TAGS 004.

— FAMILIAL SHIPS what is a mother if not a sacrifice of pure love — [ ship: caitlyn/cassandra ] your heart is your greatest power — [ ship: caitlyn/tobias ] even when its darkest i will be right with you — [ ship: caitlyn/grayson ]

— ROMANTIC SHIPS you found parts of me I did not know still existed — [ ship: caitlyn/vi ] : shimmerbeasts to love a monster is to accept her nature — [ ship: caitlyn/jinx ] : shimmerbeasts there is a secret universe written in the freckles of your face — [ ship: caitlyn/vi ] : decidentia loving you is the most natural feeling i know — [ ship: caitlyn/vi ] : gauntletsshot we shine together like the moon and stars — [ ship: caitlyn/lux ] : knifvd

— SIBLING/PLATONIC SHIPS two hearts of feral nature meant to be untamed — [ ship: caitlyn/sett ] : goldenfists you are a landmark on my heart little star — [ ship: caitlyn/soraka ] : knifvdan a song of sea and air — [ ship: caitlyn/angelica ] : angelicaaster for in our loneliness we sought out a heart — [ ship: caitlyn/kassandra ] : ofspvrta

— ANTOGONISTIC SHIPS our lives are intertangled in a complex game of intricacies — [ ship: caitlyn/jinx ] : shimmerbeasts

[sheilamurrey]

the mightiest power of all

Silver Birch was a spirit guide who spoke through Maurice Barbanellthe mightiest power of all