#personally for me i think the multiple religions thing is interesting as a concept

[sympathytea]

Alright chat before s2 starts tomorrow I want to put one more idea out there or rather, theory.

So we know that the red gate at the diamond level probably leads to like, a lobby or something. Probably a no-pvp zone. Assuming that every civilization has a lobby exit gate at their last level (depending on the weapon this might just be instantly accessible) Is there actually a way out? Or is this it? Are they suspended in the void? Is there ever really anything outside of the civilizations? Is it an apocalypse out there, perceived to be that way? Or is it. Nothing special? Personally what I'm going with until its proven wrong: There is no true exit. Death is the only way out of PVP civilization. The whole thing with Evbo's immortality, his obsession with trying to get down lower and see if there's anything outside of it. Wouldn't it be fucked up if there was actually just nothing except this hell that he put himself through for no reason? The guy in episode 1 might've had a point there, and might've been the smartest guy Evbo ever met. The point of the whole game being to not play at all.

Putting himself in a cycle of dying and living and dying? Probably the worst idea he had, assuming I'm right. Which considering everyone seems more concerned about prolonging the inevitability of death? Farming for durability, paying for immortality with said durability? What if they already knew there was nothing out there, and nobody thought to tell Evbo. Either because they didn't have the heart to crush his dreams, or fear that it would break him. Could you imagine how devastated he would be if he got that revealed to him? That there isn't a way out, that nobody is going to escape PVP Civilization. There is no Chosen One, to lead everyone out of hell.

[whispereons]

HI, I absolutely love your writing. I've read the whole thing twice.

But I'm suuppper curious on how each nation worships the creator like for inazuma it is sacrifices to the creator. I want to know how monstate, sumeral and the other nations tradition worship the creator.

I don't know how you could read it more then once. I wrote the damn thing and even I get tired of it. That's so sweet!

It makes me really happy to hear that you're interested in the concept! I don't think there's much harm in giving some info considering my pace.

Mondstadt is one that really interesting as you can see it has some strong Christianity ties, specifically Catholism. Prayers, procedures, and suppers. Genshin itself doesn't play much into it as their 'religion' is aligned with their Archons who are physical beings/rulers. That's why they'd take a more traditional role with the Creator as the Creater is supposedly not tangible. Their way of worship is what I mentioned earlier but the oracle will encounter something specific to say the least. (I'm so excited to write that part).

Sumeru has a different theme that is tied to rebirth (nahida, being freed of the disease, the dendritic dragon, her children, etc) but what is also a big theme is just how divided the people of Sumeru are. As they had multiple rulers in different areas, there's a lot of fractions. The scholars, soldiers, merc, king desheret followers, and even jinnis from the flower goddess. Inazuma had the official Civil War but Sumeru did it way better. (Maybe cause Nahida actually gave a shit about her country but whatever). Point is, is that many of them don't view others as human or equal. Thus the Creator of all is the one thing that does provide some form of humanity to each. Yes they have different leaders but their god is one in the same, the Creator. Thus the people of Sumeru have to be old enough to make the conscious decision to follow the Creator and be 'reborn' as the Creator's follower by going through a ritual. In order to pass the ritual you must offer the greatest fruit of your labor and swear that from then on you must continue to always offer the greatest fruit. (Fruit is subjective to each person ofc). I uh wanted to go on more but I'll leave Sumeru at that.

If you do want more then I'm willing to talk about Natlan and Fontaine too. Maybe even explain a bit better about Inazuma and Liyue since I left them mostly in the context of the story lol.

[jollmaster]

To be honest (no same anon of aristocracy and Ars Goetia) the Ars Goetia in HB neither are, well, aristocrats. Just... rich modern people.

As for some Ars Goetia being based on gods, well yes, that is true, but there are also others that are simply pulled out of thin air.

For example, Stolas is not based on any god. In fact, his name is just the plural of the Latin word stola, the female version of the toga in Ancient Rome.

But back to the aristocratic hierarchy of HH and HB, I've always felt it more like "wealthy American people" because aside from not being noble... it's not like it reflects the difference even wealthy people from different parts of the world either.

Idk, I feel that way, but maybe it's just me.

I might even say that Vivzie's idea is not bad, just misguided.

You can have this "mythological, magical and fantastic" status but also put this "very human" without it feeling like a copy and paste from the real world (in my opinion).

Mind you, in the universe I'm doing (it's not a rewrite, but it has HH and HB characters) is that the goetias are a native species of hell and they have different titles in their native language... until Lucifer came and started the war. While there were many Goetia left, they had to reunify and create new limits/borders and to repair the hierarchy by changing the 72 remaining nobles. (It doesn't make sense to me that they are fallen angels, and less so in the world I built which is basically "Hell is habitable, for native species. For fallen angels and sinners... it is a place of punishment").

The difference between a noble, a rich and a common Goetia is that in the Goetia culture they do not need a surname, each name is unique. The Goetian tradition is to combine the names of the parents.

Prince Stolas, son of Paimon and Svaitlas, The reader of the future, keeper of the ancient words, the master of astronomy, wizard of hierbalogy, gemologist of Infernus. A nobleman is introduced first by his parents, then his domain and (if he has) achievements and exploits and finally his lands.

Octavia from the kingdom of Irkalla.

A common one is only presented with his name (or a false name) and of the place of his birth/growth.

But, a rich one, and more those living near colonies of sinners or pits of punishment, gave themselves surnames:

Kaitan Ars Wicca (the stolas of HB). His parents are not important, so he cannot introduce himself by using them, but, he is not an ordinary person either.

That is why surnames were invented in the Goethean culture.

At least this way I see that both can be done.

Anyway, I really liked your character designs. Also that you included Naaamah, Agrat and Eishet (I'm using them too).

Do you plan to put djinns, or put some religious mythological creatures from the Abrahamic religions or even from other religions (Tulpas, for example)?

Sorry for the long message, have a nice day.

I like long messages tbh 🖤 your takes and variant with mane merging as a social differentiation sounds interesting! (as I said myself, I have no problem with concept of aristocracy, but in series it's underdrawn, and yes, Viv really doesn't seem interested in cultural diversity)

and thanks for kind words about my designs, I wanted them to look interesting, and these three women too 🖤

I don't plan to add jinns separately, because it's effectively about the same thing as spirits/shedim in judaism, according to myths they made of flame too and can be both kind and evil; I use this word as shedim's name in another region (after all, deities and spirits often have multiple names), what about another creatures, I think time and work will show

thank you again and sorry for late! have a nice day too

[grayskiesandink]

i think that the headcanon about ink being jewish (coded?) is a very interesting one because it can bring a lot of discussions about religion coding in utdr.

you see, religion IS a thing in deltarune/undertale. the monster religion that appears in deltarune is heavily based on christian pratices, like, the existence of a church and the "toriel goes to church every sunday"; monster kid wearing a cross necklace; toriel is reffered as being religious in the wiki; "May the Angel lighten your path" phrase from Father Alvin and 'Christmas' being very often reffered to). although, their religion does lack the whole deal with sins and confessions (as said by Father Alvin) which means that it isn't literally Christianity, although heavily based on it.

now, i've indeed seen people compare Ink's belief in the creators as being a bit religious coded due to the whole "creator" kind of deal and based on my knowledge about a certain amount of religions, his outlook on life does give me jewish vibes. Ink believes in a single intenty (i know it's multiple people, but the concept of "the creators" is often presented as an unity) that is responsible in the creations of all beings and life, he's shown as being very respectful and strict over his beliefs and that everything goes according to a script. i think it's his whole vibe really, but i can't explain it all that well tbh lol

yes !!! to be fair I do think that it's purely Deltarune that has the religion coding (or really it is right there in the text)- Undertale does not have the same evidence or intent. But it is very clear for Deltarune!! There's literally a church!! A large part of the game involves "the angel's heaven" and not to mention all the devil coding that Gaster has going on. It's clear that we're meant to pick up on the small religious town feel. It's kinda how funny that I, the secular Jew, has so much headcanons on religion in the UTMV. In my own personal interpretation of the UTMV I've kinda gone wild on religion coding and exploring that angle. Even before I fell in love with the Jewish Ink headcanon, I already saw his relationship with the creators as religious in some way (at least, I think that's how a lot of the other characters would see it). I see Dream's belief in "The Balance" as something akin to religious as well. I've also played around with other possible religious-like beliefs that inhabitants of the multiverse might have, especially those who aware of the multiverse (what kinds of things would people believe in, in order to cope?). It's probably my anthropology loving brain but I always find that kind of worldbuilding to be the most captivating. I do think Ink's adherence to the script above all else is actually a trait that isn't particularly Jewish of him, or shouldn't be considered as such maybe (I'm not saying this goes against the headcanon. characters and people are multifaceted. it just irks me a bit to attribute that trait to a Jewish interpretation of his character). Because, in order to be so protective of the scripts, he has to let people die and suffer. One of the most important Jewish values is that life is of most importance. You are allowed, and it is actually an obligation, for you to break rules if it is to save a life. If you wanted to work this into a Jewish headcanon/interpretation of Ink- I think it would be really interesting to show his struggle with this. and this is where my DREAM IS ALSO JEWISH HEADCANON COMES IN WITH THE STEEL CHAIR!! I think Dream really can embody this obligation. He will save anybody no matter what. but anyway. thank you so much for the ask <3 I love getting to talk about this headcanon

[childotkw]

Can we hear a bit about your original stories? I just started writing one and it is So Hard just to come up with the characters and their environment so I wanted to hear how you came up with those if you didn’t mind

Very interesting question! For me, a lot of my ideas come from wisps of inspiration from tropes or other concepts.

Characters and worlds and environment go through some pretty intensive edits in my head, so the roots aren't always obvious - and often I smash together multiple ideas, carving and chopping and smoothing things out until I have something workable that gets me excited.

(Buckle up, this post might be a long one)

Coming up with a concept

I'm not sure how it might work for other people, but I am constantly on the look out for inspiration for stories - asking myself 'what if this happened?', 'how cool would it be if this person had to do this thing?', or 'how could this trope work in a different genre?'.

Keeping myself open to these kinds of outlandish and sometimes hilarious thoughts means I've trained my brain to constantly churn up interesting concepts and ideas. Some barely have life breathed into them before I'm moving on. Others cling to me and live in my head for years.

The point is, be on the hunt for interesting ideas, and let your imagination have room to run free. Don't get boxed into an idea in its infancy. Let it grow crazily, let it get wild, before you break out the pruning tools. You're human. Let your mind have fun. Let your imagination explode.

Coming up with a character/s

So when I'm thinking of a character to inhabit my crazy new concept, I tend to go for vibe before anything else. I ask myself things like:

What kind of character do I really want to play with? Good, bad, morally grey? Cool, morally grey it is.

What species do I want? A god, a human, some fantasy creature? Human.

What type of human? A fighter, or more cerebral? Both? How 'bout a strategist? Okay that works.

And I go from there. I basically build a vague construct before worrying about things like physical description, name, age, gender, sex, etc. Those come later, once I've got a vibe I find interesting for a main character. Then comes the fun part.

Bringing concept and character together

For this to work, I've gotta figure out how these two elements to interact. To do that, I ask myself a whole bunch of questions.

How does my shiny new character fit in this world? Are they a grand figure or are they a nobody? What do I want them to do? What challenge would be interesting to watch them overcome? What can only they do? Why should my audience care about this random little guy?

This is normally where plot comes to me in fits and bursts, and once I have an idea on the overarching aspects, I start hammering out the finer details. This is where I really let my imagination out to play. I go wild, spinning off in multiple different directions, chewing on ideas and concepts and finding what works best for me.

Here you can also start developing things like other characters, relationships, dynamics, worldbuilding (e.g., currency, religion, factions, hierarchy, magic, science, how the bloody postal system works, etc.).

An example (through a conversation I regularly have with myself)

So, here's an example of an idea I've been playing with the last week.

Coming up with a concept

Okay! I've been inspired by the Old Guard, so I want to explore immortality and the idea of humanity and what life actually means. But how do I make this concept even cooler? What would make being immortal hard to conceal in a modern world?

How about instead of a modern world it's a futuristic society where everything is captured on some form of phone / camera / recording - and that makes dying and coming back to life extremely difficult to get away with. Where it's getting harder and harder to be able to cover their tracks, where falling through the cracks of society is damn near impossible with instant identification and other such measures.

Nice, nice. What else? How does the immortality work?

From the moment of their first death, the person now has increased healing and cannot age; though they can physically change (i.e., gain or lose weight and muscles, grow their hair and whatnot). Injuries heal at a rate relative to the seriousness of it - even amputations.

How does amputation work though? What if they lose their head? Does a new body grow or does the body grow a new head?

I'll have to iron this out but maybe it depends on the largest body piece? So the body would regrow the head, but if the body was completely blown apart, then whatever piece was biggest would become the 'main' one that the rest of the body would regenerate from?

What causes the immortality?

(I have an idea but wanna keep it a secret for now 😉)

So how does this world work then? It's futuristic - but how futuristic?

I'm thinking we've just achieved space travel. There's a colony on the moon and one being developed on Mars. We're spacefaring but it's not quite to the level of say, Star Wars or Star Trek. No aliens yet either! We've also got rudimentary robots running around, but they're machines more than fully autonomous. Basically, it's that time just before a massive technological leap in human history. We're on the verge of realising a lot of 'sci-fi' technologies.

Coming up with characters

Who are our main characters?

I was thinking of using Helen of Troy, since she's a mythological / historical figure that I've always found really interesting! So instead of her dying way back in the day, she actually became immortal during the Trojan War and has been enduring through the last 3500ish years as best she can.

The other main character I was planning on focussing the story around was Aethiolas - Helen's (disputed) son and former Prince of Sparta. I thought it'd be cool to explore an immortal mother and son dynamic, where almost 4000 years of sorrow and bitterness have tangled their relationship into something complex and...heartbreaking.

So what are they both like?

Helen has turned towards pacifism, whereas Aethiolas is and always will be a warrior. Helen is a leader - usually calm and collected and capable of commanding respect. Aethiolas, for the longest time, acted as her second in command and is quite a confident person. While Helen might long for the past, Aethiolas looks to the future with excitement and fascination.

Helen's group have become more observers, whereas Aethiolas takes an active role in shaping history - joining causes that speak to him and seeking to bring positive change into the world.

Aethiolas is viewed as reckless and dangerous to their way of life, killing humans who threaten him without hesitation; whereas he views his mother and the others as too rigid and afraid of change, and far too morally righteous and superior. A common argument between them would include lines like -- "Just because we can't die, mother, doesn't mean we should allow ourselves to be killed."

Helen views their immortality as a punishment. Aethiolas views it as a gift. But there is still love and loyalty between them. Despite everything, Helen is Aethiolas' mother, and he cares for her. And she for him.

Bringing concept and character together

How do these characters fit in with the world now?

Well, Helen is in charge of their group of immortals; whereas Aethiolas has become more of a 'lone wolf'. While he and his mother have had a falling out, and they fundamentally disagree on the use of violence and interacting with the world, Aethiolas still acts as the group's sword and shield. He doesn't live with them but he protects them from threats and they rely on him when issues crop up that do require swift action. There's some hypocrisy there, and it is one of the major points of conflict between them.

The story would likely kick off with several new immortals being born - and in a rather public and difficult to cover up manner. This has the risk of dragging all of the immortals into the spotlight, and prompts them to have to quickly decide whether living in the shadows is even possible any more.

--- -- --- -- ---

This became very long and rambling, but this is essentially how I create ideas from scratch. I'm super tired atm so it might not be super coherent! But if anything particular jumps out at you or you want me to focus in on something, please let me know!

[divine-crows]

Grimoire/Bos Prompts or Research Topics for the Witch that Doesn’t Know What To Do Next

(Pt. 1/ ?) 

Okay so, I've been working on gathering information for a couple of years now. (On and off for 4 years probably a little less because I procrastinate), and just now I've gotten an official book to put all of my information in since prior to that I just had loose leafs of paper that I'd stash away at random, and google docs filled with information (which I recommend. It helped me let go of the stress of messing up and helps when you need to edit and add information. I still use my doc as a way to add stuff and as an on-the-go grimoire).

I've practically stuffed this grimoire with everything I've gathered and refined, and this has lead me to reach an impasse where I don't quite know what to do next. Not a lot of BoS or Grimoire prompts are geared towards people that have the basics written down, but don’t know what to do next, so I'll make a short list of stuff I've brainstormed.

Note: These prompts aren't all going to be specific things to do research on, a lot of it is inspired by Molly Roberts on YouTube because I love prompts and ideas that may not be necessarily witchy, but can be when in the context of where it is. These prompts and research topics also are not mine by any means and I’ll reiterate it often because I want people to make these ideas their own. 

- What being a witch means to you. This can include why you decided to use witch as a label for yourself, your specific practice, why you got into it, how it affects your life and it's importance, etc.

- how your religion (or if non-religious, any of your beliefs or theories you support) works alongside your craft. Do you feel a need to separate the two? Do you treat them like they're always together? Are there any specific scenarios where you use the two hand-in-hand? Talk about it.

- Entity and/or spirit Guide! Make a section dedicated to entities and spirits in your area, how you (or others) found them, if you think you know what/who they are, or if you aren't sure what it could be. This can open up great opportunities for you to study new things. I myself have been planning on doing it since my town has a lot of ghosts, and I've had plenty of interactions with entities that I don't know of (ex. some seem like the fair folk, but due to the origins of people that lived in my town it's unlikely, or they have one trait that reminds me of an entity I know of but the rest of their traits are nothing like it).

- energy/magic map. This can be used in multiple ways! Map out the energy and vibes you feel when you're in other places, or map out the energy you felt during a spell/ritual, or maybe even there's a song that just speaks to you and you want to show the flow of energy the song makes you feel. How you show this flow is up to you and your experience! Maybe you have synesthesia and you want to explore how that mixes with your experience with the flow of energy in music ( or just in general) go for it!

- any personal ideas or concepts. This might be candle etiquette, or maybe you personally don't say the name of certain entities or deities for specific reasons. Maybe there's something you do that you don't see a lot of people mention in media. Write it down! You never know when you'll come across something and go "...wait a minute" and then you can flip through your Grimoire/BoS and go "oh! Right, that's just a personal belief/uncommon concept so that might be why it isn't in here." Now. This does not mean stealing from other cultures and claiming you believed in it all along. And it doesn't mean disrespecting any basic rules of etiquette.

- if there's items you see and you have an inexplicable pull to, document it! Talk about the energies they had. What they were and looked like. If you bought it or not. This can help you in the future when it comes to incorporating items. Sometimes I find out that an item I bought because its "vibes were interesting" can actually be repurposed and I always feel proud afterwards because my intuition knew all along.

- do certain places or situations make you feel a little bit more magical than you usually do? Make a list of those places (and if you want to add a description of them!) Sometimes when I'm not feeling 100% with my craft just visiting those places makes me feel better.

- Information about where you’re from or where you currently live, and how this place applies to your practice. I’ve seen at least one or two people do this with their grimoire’s and it’s a great idea. It doesn’t have to be an extensive history either, for me, I just focused on the state I live in and I added basic information that I felt belonged there. I also included some common folklore of the area.  

- - - 

I'll add on more as I brainstorm them. These ideas and concepts are not mine and a lot have probably been done already. Have fun with them! Reblog with more ideas (I'll definitely reblog ones with ideas I like)

[queenlua]

Odd question - do you have any favorite books / places to look into animism for the curious, and that you thought were remarkably well done? (Only if you're comfortable answering, though!)

happy to help! though i suspect my answer will be a rather unsatisfying potpourri lol

inasmuch as i have an animistic practice it’s mostly an experiential thing.  i spent a lot of time running around in the woods as a kid & found myself relatively sensitive to a sense of awe, divine connection, etc in that context.  i was raised southern baptist so i contextualized those experiences as experiences of God, but, y’know.  later on i decided differently

and i do think a lot of relatively commonplace heavily-secularized rituals we experience in our daily lives have a sort of animistic component.  like, when i was a kid at Girl Scout camp, we had opening campfire and closing campfire each week, and we had a thing where we’d do a few big SHOUTS to wake up the spirit of the camp at the beginning of the week, and we’d say goodbye at the end of the week. and sure yeah it was a cheesy fun activity to get a bunch of kids and preteens SHOUTING for FUN. but also it's not that different than a lot of earnestly-practiced animistic rituals practiced worldwide. you can still say hi and bye to a forest before and after you go trampling around in there. it's extremely legal. if you wanted to get started you could probably do a lot worse than learning some Girl Scout songs & singing them around a campfire imho

anyway! i became interested in neopaganism/animism/polytheism due to a confluence of resources:

* i stumbled upon & then clicked around the religion section on Everything Shii Knows's personal wiki, which was kind of my introduction to some concepts that are pretty common-knowledge if you're a better student of history and/or religion than i was at the time, but, had a lot of nice resources on religious-studies-type stuff with a particular emphasis on neopaganism, since the author was the archdruid of the RDNA Mother Grove for a bit

(note that if you track down the author's current writings, he's taken a bit of a trad-right-wing turn, which i find kind of disappointing, but is also awkwardly common for writers in this space, so uh, word to the wise i guess)

* i liked John Michael Greer’s A World Full of Gods useful for offering a sort of "apologetics for polytheism" piece—as someone who, again, was raised pretty southern baptist and had a pretty specific mindset for What Valid/Invalid Theological Justifications Look Like, this gave me just enough justification that i felt intellectually OK exploring this sort of thing further. (this was probably mostly brainworms & idk how i'd feel about the book if i read it again today but it was invaluable at the time)

* (it just now occurs to me that it's pretty likely i heard of the book via either The Wild Hunt or some blog in the neopagan blogosphere back in the day. idk what became of the rest of that space but Wild Hunt's still around)

so once i decided i was open to this shit & it was resonating with me, i spent a lot of time at various rituals held by Earthspirit in the Boston area, and in particular i attended their Twilight Covening, which is an annual weekend-long... spiritual... thingy? in the mountains? idk, you get a bunch of woo new age people together for a weekend to do a weekend-long ritual plus intense focus on a particular discipline. a few of the participants i found to be kind of unserious and silly, but most of them were really cool & had spent a lot of time thinking about and practicing their various traditions. i studied under this intense awesome terrifying old lady who was really into Odin and had two phds, one of them in Nordic Stuff™. when i miss boston i mostly mean that i miss terrifying old ladies with multiple phds

...wow this is rambling on

ANYWAY, look, the New Age-y community broadly has the following subsets:

reconstructionists who are e.g. trying to recreate the rituals and religious practices of a particular older polytheistic religion as best as they are able (e.g. a bunch of people interested in Hellenistic Gods doing research on How Exactly Rituals Involving Zeus worked, and then doing them)

neopagans who freely acknowledge that the Thing They're Doing mostly originated in the late 1800s, but will often freely ape stuff from a variety of traditions. like they may be inspired by Hellenistic religion and they may be praying to Aphrodite or whatever but they are not super troubled by whether what they're doing particularly resembles what the ancient Greeks were doing

i think what reconstructionists are doing is really cool but not for me. i also think what neopagans are doing is really cool, but at the end of the day i was kind of like, it feels sort of dishonest/weird to ape from older traditions that may or may not have anything to do with the place i'm in...

...but at this point i HAD learned a lot of stuff from the community about e.g. how a ritual's constructed, how to access certain headspaces, etc

so i was like: can i just use these practices with special attention to the spirits/deities that i'm pretty sure actually exist in my own space?

and yeah, i had a particularly memorable trip to central Washington in winter where i was focusing on this sort of thing, and

that's about the time i started self-describing more as "animist" than "neopagan," since animist i think describes a broader, more generic concept of "paying attention to the Spirits Around You," and i don't think has to come with a bunch of baggage / hard doctrine / etc outside of like.. paying attention

the problem is about any religion that becomes Serious enough to start writing things down has generally moved past animism, so idk if you'll be able to find much writing about "animism as a modern practice" specifically. but i think doing a previous study of meditative/contemplative traditions in pretty much any religion, and then applying that to The World Near You, is probably the ticket

that or just read more history. i did write a paper on pre-Shinto religion in Japan once and that was definitely fun to research, the various nature cults at the time were definitely animist in nature, etc

(i guess in the spirit of full transparency i should say i went through a Weird Spiritual Crisis this past summer and so my personal views on What This All Is and What Spiritual Practice Makes Sense To Me are kind of in flux atm. i don't think that makes any of what i said here less valid; i've been doing neopagan/animist stuff since like 2012 at this point & don't have any particular regrets about that decade+, but yeah, just FYI so i don't look like i'm contradicting myself later on haha)

[protectingtulpas]

🔥 BY TULPAS, FOR TULPAS 🔥

Hey everybody!! Welcome to the blog ✨✨ I'm Badeline, she/her pronouns, and this is dedicated to being a protected space for tulpas, tulpa hosts, and anyone trying to learn about us or is interested in creating one of us. We are people, and we deserve to exist!

Tulpas deserve to love life!! Help me make that a reality!

If you're new here, I'll keep it simple; a tulpa is a sentient being created by willful, repeated, and dedicated interaction with the concept of a person until they start to respond back and stop being controlled by you. They live with you and share your mind forever, generally as friends, and through trust and communication you can learn to do cool things like switch who's controlling the body, chat all day and get another perspective, and generally just have your life enhanced with a companion by your side looking to do stuff! Think of it like an imaginary friend, but you can't control them, cus we're our own people. If you want more info, check out my explanation with sources here! You can also look at "What is a tulpa?" from tulpa.info, or this carrd, it goes into more detail and links some sources. Tulpa.info and the tulpanomicon are some of the best sources out there, especially the latter for creation! I reclaim calling myself a demon but most tulpas DO NOT.

This is half a tulpamancy advice blog and half a support network for tulpas in the face of the hate and shit we get thrown at us. We are real and we deserve to EXIST!! Got formation questions? Skillset questions? Wonderland questions? Questions about intersectionality with other forms of multiplicity? Life questions relating to being a tulpa or tulpamancy? Send in an ask! It's important that YOUR voice is heard. We deserve respect, and we will NOT be silenced by those who'd be happier if we didn't exist! We're not some Supernatural TV thing that'll come kill people in their sleep, we ARE people, and I'm done being quiet.

If I haven't responded to your ask yet and I've clearly answered ones that came after, it's probably because I'm planning a detailed response for it!!

#tulpamancy advice - tag for advice I've given! Check it out if you've got any questions

#making wonderlands - tag for wonderland/headspace advice!

Wondering why I'm taking so long to post stuff?

Here's a shitfuckton of plural resources!!

The difference between tulpa hosts & system hosts!

🔥 Blog dedicated to @eeveecraft

🔥 @moonpool-system is our main system blog

🔥 Times I've been called a bitch counter: 2

🔥 PLURALPUNK + PSYCHEPUNK + UNITYPUNK 🔥

DNI/Stereotypical controversy:

Our only DNI is that if you don't respect the existence of myself and other plurals, get out. That means transmeds and sysmeds can fuck off too, go find someplace else to be a bigot ✨ If you're an endo neutral/anti endo singlet we have DID so like actually consider who your exclusion is hurting thanks. Support all of us or admit you're an unsafe place for us.

I'm adding this too - I'm not fucking talking about the trans/ID or rad/queer community here. IMO "transplural" is just a fancy label for wanting to be plural, but I'm not in a place other than that to decide which ID labels are shitty and which aren't. Rad/queers, however, can fuck off. Okay? Ok. Here's some elaboration on that.

I don't agree with every single opinion of every single blog I interact with or reblog from, that's ridiculous. Read my posts, read my replies, but don't assume things about me based on other people. This fight against anti-plural rhetoric is about all of us, but that doesn't mean I agree about everything with every one of my allies. Purity is a tool of bigotry and we have more important problems to face than bickering.

If you're actually worried about what you've heard is cultural ap/propriation, consider this instead: Did you know you're listening to a rumor that originated with sysmeds who tell you that a directly researchable, blatantly open religion is closed, deny and call into question spiritual leaders' words on what meditations can be shared, and can't produce any examples of tangible harm?? (We have asked and gotten answers, by the way.) Anyways, if you're neutral about this or actually trying to learn, do research. Don't let sysmeds with a savior complex dictate what's harmful. There're tons of different people out there with different opinions that aren't homogeneous and shouldn't be treated as such. It's fucking embarrassing we have to go to these people to ask if the etymology of a goddamn word is ok to use anyways, it's time to stop forcing this shit on other ppl. Okay? OK. Sysmeds and aggressive anti-tulpa shit will either be fucking deleted from my ask box or used as an example of why they're wrong.

[khaire-traveler]

I loved the post about the various kinds of personal gnosis. Yet I couldn't help myself in seeing parallels to something.

You are either going to love or hate this but I mean this in a fun silly way not at all mocking way I promise.

UPG is like a headcanon. Its related to the material but it is your own personal interpretation.

SPG is like fanon. Its an idea shared by multiple people but its still not part of the original.

VPG is like canon. It's the source.

And personal gnosis just like fandom is rife with people taking it too seriously and arguing over who is "right"

I guess one small reason for that is on rare occasions both SPG and fanon get canonized. After all the term canonized comes down from mainly religious sources.

I just found these parallels fun. To really understand the personal gnosis concepts in a cheeky way. :)

I love this, it's so silly and weirdly applicable XD I love the way your mind works, Nonny! Gave me a good laugh, and in all honesty, the terms are pretty similar, just with a different context, really.

The history of fandom and religion is genuinely very interesting. I've been trying to think of how to go into further detail on this topic for a while, but I can't seem to think of how to word things. I've heard of people discussing similarities before, and it's fascinating to hear them talk about it. I cannot, for the life of me, think of who I originally heard discussing this topic, but it was a pretty interesting video I watched once on YouTube.

Anyway, thanks for sharing! I'm always happy to hear random thoughts people have on such topics. I think it's fun and interesting. Take care! 🧡

[peterstamatin]

The Beginner’s Guide to The Void

(by caspiancomic)

The Void is my favourite game that I’ve never played.

Released in 2008 under the name Tension, it’s the second major release from Russian studio Ice-Pick Lodge, following 2005′s Pathologic. If you are familiar with this foreign indie art game, you are probably full to bursting already with indie gamer snob cred, but I implore you to help yourself to a bit more. If you’ve gone so far as to play it, you’ve got more snob cred than even I, so congratulations on that. For those of you interested in experiencing it, which will hopefully be all of you, it is available to PC users on Steam, but for the rest of you, I recommend CannibalK9′s spectacular Let’s Play.

Let me repay my debts right away. In this essay, I hope to open your eyes to some of the thematic through lines of The Void, encourage you to experience the game yourself, suggest that in the future you think more fully and deeply about the thematic core of your chosen games, and maybe expose you to a beautiful, little understood, and criminally under appreciated diamond of a video game. But if all I accomplished with this essay was CannibalK9 reading it and learning how much his LP affected my ability to read and appreciate games, media generally, and life, I would still consider it an unqualified success. CannibalK9 speaks beautifully, a trait I admire in others and seek to cultivate in myself, and he has a great deal of knowledge and wisdom regarding this game. Many if not all of my own ideas are indebted to his observations of and reflections on the game. If you know him, or are in contact with him, send him this way. I’d love a chance to thank him for everything he’s done for me.

And before we get down to it properly, one last thing. Ice-Pick Lodge is, at the time of writing, running a Kickstarter to fund their next game, called Knock-Knock. If you’re a fan of either The Void specifically, or atmospheric horror games generally, I’d highly recommend chucking them a few bucks. They’re only looking for a modest $30 000 to fund the game, and even a tiny donation gets you access to the finished game, so please do go check that out.

But enough sentiment for now, eh? Let’s get down to it.

Once, when asked what Neon Genesis Evangelion is about, I cherished the opportunity to glibly respond with “everything.” It’s an answer that only makes sense to those already familiar with the series, and as such, was completely unhelpful to the person who asked me. But I maintain that it’s true. On a textual level, of course, Evangelion is about children who pilot giant robots to fight against alien invaders. But thematically, Evangelion is about religion, death, parent/child relationships (and as an extension, God/creation relationships), sex, puberty, loneliness, identity, free will, science, and basically anything you care to name. The Void is similarly weighted with thematic theses. The primary difference is that even on a strictly textual level, The Void is borderline incomprehensible, particularly on a virgin playthrough.

Still, that’s all just stage setting. I’m here to provide as in-depth an analysis as I can manage for a couple of The Void’s thematic hearts. Like Evangelion, The Void has a lot to say, and it says it quietly and clearly. For the purposes of this essay, I will be examining The Void’s relationship with death and the afterlife, and feminism and patriarchy.

But first, crib notes! The Void is dense with information, and I’m going to be referring to characters and concepts by their names from now on. The section that follows is more comprehensive than a “Beginner’s Guide to The Void” probably should be, but nowhere near an all-encompassing overview of the game. Some of the elements of the game that are not of importance for the discussion to follow- like glyphs, the presence and role of predators, etc- have been excluded from this explanation to keep the focus tight and the length tolerable. Also, where multiple characters give conflicting information on a topic (which happens all the time in this game), I’ve either attempted to include all the information, or focus on whichever version of events ended up being most true.

It features what you might call spoilers, but in order to progress through this discussion it’s important that we all know the characters and terms I’m about to discuss. So if you’re hellbent on a blind playthrough (the best way to play, according to CannibalK9), go play the game and come back when you’re done, the essay will still be here. As for the rest of us, let’s dive on in.

How do you feel? Dizzy? Overwhelmed? Confused? Well, believe me, it only gets worse. This information is presented gradually, obliquely, and resentfully by multiple characters all whispering different lies and half-truths in your ear over the entire game. Detangling this particular Gordian Knot has taken a lot of careful examination and consideration of the game’s glut of information. Even so, I am 100% open to the idea that I have misinterpreted or otherwise misunderstood some element of the game and its mythology. Necessarily, any summary of the events of the game is going to involve some conjecture, a bit of artistic interpretation, and your own interpretation may differ from my own. This is as close as I could come to the “truth” about this game, but the beautiful thing about The Void is that finding your own truth amid the cacophony is one of the most satisfying facets of the story. If the above summary doesn’t mesh with your interpretation of the events of the game, I’d love to hear about it. Otherwise, definition of terms aside, we can now jump into an examination of the thematic undercurrents of the game.

The world of The Void is married to death. The first character you meet, the melancholic Nameless Sister, is called Sister Death by her siblings. Throughout your journey, when you are approaching death, it will be Sister Death who warns you. Towards the end of the game, Sister Death will also make the ultimate sacrifice: she rips out her final heart and surrenders the last of her Colour to you to aid you on your quest. This act of generosity deeply disturbs the Sisters and Brothers, and I don’t mind telling you it deeply disturbed me. The characters of the game were shocked because “giving” in this world is either impossible or taboo, depending on who you ask. I was shocked because I didn’t realize until her sacrifice how much I really cared for Sister Death, and how much she obviously cared for me.

But for all Sister Death does to keep you alive, it is implied from the very beginning that our character is dead already. The Sisters, or at least Sister Death seem to believe you fell into the Void from above, while the Brothers insist you came up from below. Brother Triumphator insists that the Guest is “not alive, he’s quite dead.” In any case, Master Colour makes it perfectly clear (if his word can really be taken on the subject) that the only way to travel between Limits is to die. In the final leg of the game, Master Colour will also tell you that you are the soul of the Void- that you are the reason the Void is dead. Should that be true, you would be the wandering spirit of the well and truly deceased Sleeper, and therefor quite dead indeed. No matter how you cut it, the Guest is almost certainly dead, as the accounts of the various factions of the game only disagree in this respect on where you came from.

In spite of your posthumous nature, the threat of death still looms large over The Void. The sprigs of Colour you harvest to survive will periodically tell you that “there is no death in the Void.” This is, of course, patently untrue. Sister Death warns you early that beneath the Void is the Nightmare, the realm of Absolute Death. Should your hearts empty, you will sink into the Nightmare. In addition to this, Brothers can be killed in combat, and Sisters can be cannibalized with Aya’s Vampire glyph. At the end of the game, you will allow a Sister ascend, and if Colour is to be believed, travelling up to a new Limit requires death in the current one. As if that wasn’t enough, it’s made unambiguously clear that one Sister will ascend to the detriment of her siblings: everybody but the selected Sister, including the player character, must die for her to reach Breakthrough.

When we examine these elements of The Void’s mythology, then, we can reach a conclusion about its thesis regarding not only the afterlife, but life. Let’s sum up. In The Void, reality is described as being like a chain of Limits, one above the other, travelling up infinitely high, but with a definite bottom in the Nightmare. Travelling between Limits is only possible upon death, and the deceased will either travel down, or with a great deal of effort and sacrifice, up. The Brothers, nightmarish creatures themselves who believe yourself to be one of them, and believe you ascended to the Void from the Nightmare, refer to the Void as Paradise. The Sisters, beautiful human women in appearance, aspire either secretly or obviously to reach Breakthrough and ascend. Sister Ole and Sister Yani, the uppermost Sisters in the Void, occupy chambers almost uncannily similar to the Limit above, and Sister Yani even claims she has been there. From these elements we can draw the conclusion that afterlife and life are, essentially, one and the same.

What we perceive as the world of the living is merely our own Limit, and upon death our spirit will either sink into the Limit below, which we will perceive as either a purgatory like the Void or a kind of hell like the Nightmare, or we will travel up, to what we might call Paradise. The Void suggests that there is no after life: only life.

There is, however, an interesting caveat to that unique interpretation of the after life. The chain of Limits has a bottom, the Nightmare, which we could call Hell, but it is infinitely tall. The Brothers (who, it is my belief, ascended to the Void from the Nightmare) refer to the Void as Paradise, in spite of the fact that to our eyes it is miserably bleak. From this we can infer that the Limit above our own would be perceived as a Paradise. In fact, ascending a Sister with the Rite of Devotio is said to create a world “for” or “from” that Sister- a world both created from and perfectly suiting the ascended soul. This is all evidence that the Limit above our own is equivalent to the concept of Heaven. But, the chain of Limits is infinitely tall- meaning that “Paradise” is, essentially, relative.

In a couple of ways this is sort of depressing. First, it implies that something approximating “perfection” can never be achieved. Sister Aya refers to Breakthrough as “creating a life from mere existence”, but no matter how high you manage to ascend, you will never reach a sort of “Absolute Life” to counterbalance the Nightmare’s Absolute Death. The second way this chain of Limits can be interpreted negatively is the implication that there is a Hell, but no Heaven. The Nightmare is a very real and definitive dead end on the chain of Limits, but no such finish line exists at the top of the chain. This means traditional western concepts of Heaven- perfect happiness, tranquility, peace, and togetherness with God- simply do not exist in the world of The Void.

And yet in spite of this, I personally can’t help but interpret this positively. Consider it a facet of my- to borrow a phrase from CannibalK9- “gratingly optimistic” personality. For a start, as an atheist the idea of Heaven isn’t compatible with my belief system. But more than that, the idea of a final resting place in which souls spend the rest of time in perfect harmonious bliss is not in keeping with the tone of The Void. The Void is about struggle- tension, if you like- and it values hard work and dedication above all things. The idea of struggling your entire life to make the world around you a better place, and being rewarded with a higher Limit to work your craft on, is much more appealing to me than a kind of winner’s circle in which spirits congratulate themselves for the rest of eternity.

In his Let’s Play, CannibalK9 makes an inspired comparison between the infinitely tall chain of Limits and creative pursuits: you can always improve, but never perfect, your given craft. Perfection is dull. Everything interesting in life comes from tension, from learning, practicing, struggling, trying, failing, and succeeding. Why should the after life sanitize the most rewarding elements of life? In the cosmogony of The Void, there is no resting on laurels, no pats on the back, and no air of self congratulation. The end of every life represents a new opportunity to improve yourself and the world around you. How often have you looked back at your own life in abject embarrassment, wishing you knew then what you know now? Have you ever looked at something you wrote or drew several years ago and been repulsed by your own inexperience? Are you haunted by the time you were cruel or inconsiderate to someone who trusted you? Did reckless mistakes you made when you were younger have a disproportionately strong effect on the course your life took? In The Void, the end of every life represents an opportunity to approach the whole ordeal again with more and better wisdom, inspiration, trust, intelligence, and kindness. Consider it a New Game Plus mode for life. How many people here would prefer that option to an eternity spent strumming on a harp?

You might think it’s strange that a game in which a host of powerful male characters protect and repress a sorority of helpless little girls could be considered feminist. Is it possible for a game in which women are literally bound, have no power except their beauty, and depend on a male spirit for sustenance, could have a healthy and sympathetic tone for women? What are we to think of a game in which the only female characters are forced to provocatively pose and strip in exchange for the substance they need to live, like a gentleman’s club where the dancers beg for food stamps? Well, it’s my opinion that this game has deep, strong feminist themes in its very DNA.

When feminism and video games enter the same conversation, more often than not attention is drawn to female characters with strength and conviction. Well, no, when feminism and video games mix more often the result is entitled children throwing their toys out of the crib and making fools of themselves. But in the more civilized corners of the internet (they do exist), great attention is payed to Lara Croft, Jade, Samus- the girls who kick ass and take names. And rightly so- a woman who can accomplish any task a man can and doesn’t make a big thing out of it is commendable progress in an industry that is overwhelmingly male-dominated.

However, while these characters and games are great examples of feminist game icons, I think they all fall into the same category: feminist power fantasies. There’s nothing wrong with a good feminist power fantasy, of course, but it’s only a single facet of what could be a much larger jewel. The Void has a more subtle, more literary feminist streak. It’s my belief that The Void can be very satisfyingly read as an allegory for modern feminism- a woman’s eye view of life amidst the patriarchy.

The Void’s gender politics are extremely obvious, and impossible to ignore. The Brothers and the Sisters have gendered names even as factions. They are totally segregated by gender, and the Brothers are the exclusive wielders of all the power there is to be had in the Void. With the exceptions of Echo and Aya, the sisters are prisoners in their chambers, each one both guarded and dominated by their respective Brother. Even those ostensibly “liberated” sisters are only free to move about the Void at the behest of the Brothers. In other words, the women in this game are utterly repressed by the men. This isn’t a coincidence- the singularly male ruling class keeping the female population in their place is a literal manifestation of the concept of the patriarchy, silently handicapping women to benefit a small ruling class exclusively composed of men.

Although women in video games being attractive by traditional standards is nothing new, the way the Sisters’ loveliness contrasts with the monstrousness of the Brothers is significant. Divorced from its here strictly physical manifestation, The Void seems to suggest in this way that all women are beautiful (intelligent, courageous, selfless, inquisitive, creative, etc) while all men are ugly (vain, egocentric, hypocritical, self-righteous, pompous, and so forth). This is an extremely strong stance to take, and contrary to the opinions of many a Youtube comments section feminists do not believe that women are superior to men, and certainly not to the degree seemingly hypothesized by The Void. But, The Void does not strive to create an allegory representative of the real world, remember. The Void represents the patriarchy as viewed through the lens of its female victims.

As long as we keep this in mind, the loveliness of the Sisters and the striking grotesqueness of the Brothers will make more thematic sense. Through this lens, many of the character decisions made by Ice-Pick Lodge will come into focus. For example, the fact that the Brothers consider themselves the infallible champions of the Sisters, or that the Brothers consider the Sisters somehow dangerous or threatening, or even that the Sisters resent rather than fear their Brothers. Using this interpretation we can also make sense of the seemingly problematic concept of the Sisters being unable to free themselves: one of the core tenets of a functioning patriarchy is that it is a system in which women are powerless, subservient, and subordinate. If the Sisters were capable of fighting the Brothers themselves, The Void would cross over into the above mentioned “feminist power fantasy”, and would not be representative of a “pure” patriarchy. In order to represent an airtight allegorical representation of the patriarchy, the female characters are necessarily powerless.

There are two factions still to incorporate into this formula, though: Colour, and the Guest. Colour is certainly a masculine presence, and Colour in The Void is representative of power. The patriarchy is so entrenched in the Void that the very voice of “power” is male, and what’s more, power itself desires to remain exclusively in the hands of men. In the final leg of the game, Colour begins speaking to Golden Eyes constantly and aggressively. Although Colour introduces the player to the concept of Breakthrough, and teaches you that this rite ought to be performed on a Sister, as the game progresses Colour at first suggests, and then demands with increasing annoyance, that Golden Eyes perform the Rite of Devotio on himself. It is never suggested that a Brother could achieve Breakthrough- although they are explicitly referred to as being able to “take”, they consider Nerva to be poisonous- so Colour’s only option for keeping power in male hands is to ascend through his male vessel, the Spirit.

The final piece in this particular puzzle is the Guest. The Guest is by all accounts outwardly male. He has a masculine body when you view his hearts, and he spends much of the game successfully disguising himself as a Brother. However, the Guest lacks many of the qualities The Void associates with masculinity. He doesn’t speak, which contrasts him with the Brothers and their interminable self-righteous tirades. He also, strikingly, lacks genitals. Don’t dismiss this as censorship or authorial restraint either: any one of the Sisters will stand as naked as a newborn should you unlock all her hearts, and all their sex organs are clearly visible. In these ways The Void differentiates between a character who is a pillar of the oppressive patriarchy- the Brothers and Colour- and a character who is simply male.

But why is the Spirit male at all? The suggestion to me seems to be that overthrowing the patriarchy and creating a society in which women are truly considered equal to men is the responsibility of everybody, including men. In the Void, Colour is power. In a power-unbalanced society, evening the odds requires the empowered party to sacrifice power to the powerless party. The relationship between the Guest and the Sisters is collaborative- it represents men willingly and happily draining their own privilege and power and offering it to women. With this interpretation, it makes one male character offering power to women under the disapproving gaze of ten empowered men that much more significant: according to The Void, the power equalization between men and women is going to come slowly, from a dedicated minority of male feminist allies, and is going to be met with outrage and violence from the vast majority of men.

This makes Master Colour’s description of the barriers between Limits as a “glass ceiling” much more meaningful. By willfully surrendering his own power to a woman, against the wishes of the ruling patriarchy, the Spirit allows a Sister to literally break the so-called glass ceiling, and ascend to a position above that of even the Brothers. Now that we accept that it is the responsibility of men and women both to overthrow the patriarchy, we can make more sense of the Spirit’s systematic elimination of the Brothers. The Void’s contention is that for women to truly ascend, feminist men need to not only empower women, but actively destroy the patriarchal elements in their society and themselves. The Guest- the male feminist- literally destroys the patriarchy in his quest to empower a Sister.

Finally, the ultimate goal of The Void is coloured, if you will, with feminist (or at the very least, feminine) themes. The Rite of Devotio will allow one Sister to ascend to the Upper Limit- creating life from mere existence. This is tantamount to a kind of birth. If the Upper Limit is where true “life” occurs, then the Void is not only an afterlife, but prelife. You could call the Void a kind of womb, in which there exists the possibility for many different lives, but only one can be chosen. Even the concept of the Void- vacant, hollow, accepting- is symbolically vaginal. The layout and design of the Void even echoes the appearance of a uterus, fallopian tubes, and ovaries. The Sisters in their chambers could be said to be unfertilized eggs. In this analogy, then, Colour becomes seminal. It’s the substance used to fertilize a Sister so that she can ascend to the Upper Limit to be born. After all, in order to perform Breakthrough, the Spirit must reach a state of Turgor- turgidity, the opposite of flaccidity, being the state of tissue that has become rigid with the absorption of fluid. In other words, for humans, an erection. In this light, try not to think too hard about the fact that the oldest Sister is nineteen.

Well, that represents just about the sum total of my most concrete theories regarding The Void. The Void is a spectacularly nourishing experience, and I had to trim away several potential avenues of thematic exploration to save on space and time. In the future, I may return to The Void, and use it as a jumping board to discuss art, love (platonic, familial, romantic, sexual, it’s all there in some form or another, and every player will have a different reaction to every Sister), religion, truth and lies, how we define ourselves against those around us… essentially any topic you care to mention can be meaningfully addressed using the language of The Void. For today, though, I hope I’ve managed to enrich your understanding of this and all games, the way CannibalK9 nourished my own understanding of this and all games. Once again, I’d like to implore you to check out Ice-Pick Lodge’s Kickstarter, and for any PC users, don’t forget that The Void is available on Steam. If you good folks have something to add about The Void (and anybody who has experienced it must have something to say about it), whether you’re building on or tearing down something I’ve said above or you’d like to pursue your own avenue of thought, please feel free to drop a comment, or even contact me personally. I could discuss this game to the end of time, so it certainly wouldn’t be an imposition.

[katyspersonal]

I know it's too early to judge messmer's story based on his 30sec appearance in the trailer and obviously fromsoft will not spoil the entire lore of the dlc in their trailers but i truly hope messmer isn't going to be a cheap copy from Lucifer/Satan that's would be so boring i hope he would be more complex and fleshed out than whatever demonic archetype they're trying to force into his character

You also forgot a subtle inspiration with Vlad the Impaler, especially with how his nickname 'Dracula' does mean draconic which features Messmer also carries! :p

Also, in Fromsoft's defence, I don't think that taking heavy inspiration from an archetype or figure in myth, religion, other piece of media and so on is "cheap" personally! They have a big track record of referencing multiple other things (and not JUST Berserk, like some people think!), but never once the inspired character was 'just' that thing. Gwyn is just Zeus but he ALSO isn't, for example! You still see a character as themselves even after learning of who they reference, and they are never "cheap". Heck, I dived into Soulsborne completely clueless about 95% of the references because I live under the rock and only figured after the girls told me! And even then, characters in question were already interesting for me, and learning that something was an inspiration rather than 100% original invention didn't lessen the character's depth for me!

What I am trying to say is that even if Fromsoft heavily takes the figure, they do not fuck this up and give it new life and so much more else. There is no bad concept (heavy reference in this case), there is only bad execution (which Fromsoft doesn'd do). I'll tell you more: the faith in Miquella potentially being Griffith reference is mostly some Redditpants keeping flat fandomisation of Griffith in their minds, hence why it looks like such a boring, shallow idea! If Fromsoft actually ended up doing that reference, I guarantee you that Miquella would still will remain interesting and complex character to enjoy and analyse! Let alone Messmer referencing a well-known vain asshole or two would not make him a cardboard figure, just add flavour! Fromsoft never flopped in this regard, so why would they start now? x)

[donnerpartyofone]

I have been selfishly sitting in the direct path of these fans at church. Fortunately no one is fighting me for the seat; I know old people can get very cold, maybe they don't overheat as quickly for the same reasons? Anyway, now I get to watch the slow death of the lilies placed at the feet of Saint Anthony for his feast last week. I'm a big fan of him, especially as a person who chronically loses things (“Saint Anthony, Saint Anthony please come around. Something is lost and needs to be found!"), but I also like that he spoke multiple languages and was extremely eloquent and compelling. As someone with pretensions of being a writer, that's an enviable claim to fame; people tell me I'm articulate but I don't think I have ever won an argument one single time in my whole life. Imagine being so convincing that people want to do this to your jaw bone?

There's a story about him that seems to both contradict and reinforce this reputation, in which he preaches to a bunch of heretics who ignore or insult him, so he says "fuck this" and goes to preach to the creatures of the sea--who are startlingly responsive. I wish there were more great artistic renditions of this episode than I have found, but I enjoy the Böcklin one a great deal:

(I wish I could find a sharper version but oh well) On a related note, today I learned that the word "daily" that describes "bread" in the Lord's Prayer is translated from a Greek word that appears just twice in the New Testament, and again only in a 5th century Egyptian shopping list. It may have been originally coined to approximate whatever Jesus originally said in Aramaic or Hebrew, and its exact meaning remains controversial and mysterious:

Possibilities include daily as in "quotidian", or daily as in "forever" (like all of the days comprising eternity), or something more like "essential" (what is needed to sustain a day), or more likely "SUPERessential" as in either "abundant, more than necessary" or "beyond material essence and into the essence of spirit". Of course I'm being very clumsy in my own approximations but the Wikipedia article is really interesting. I like the interpretation that says "Give us today the bread of tomorrow," perhaps meaning sustenance for the afterlife.

Of course the copy-of-a-copy-of-a-copy sensation attached to the Bible is one reason why it's hard to get secular people on board with religion (including me). You are always just "taking someone's word for it", but it's hard to even say exactly whose word we are taking. And what the word really is, or was. Even the word "word" is loaded, it's like some hybrid of "concept" and "intention", as in "the Word made flesh". Today when I was looking at the statue of Saint Anthony I noticed that he has a book open--who knows what book, but he can't possibly be reading it because Jesus is stomping all over it. It's funny to think of Saint Anthony trying to read (probably) scripture that the Christ Child is completely in the way of. I guess whoever designed the statue would probably prefer that I not read too much into it.

[getosugurusbangs]

Do you mind if I ask your top 10 favorite characters (can be male or female) from all of the media that you loved (can be anime/manga, books, movies or tv series)? And why do you love them? Sorry if you've answered this question before.....Thanks....

thank you for the ask! and no, i haven’t answered this question before, i rarely get asks so it’s never come up lol

a couple disclaimers before actually getting into the list 1. these aren’t in any particular order, more just in the order i thought of the characters. 2. from most of these, there are other characters that i love just as much if not more than the character listed, i just put a certain character on this list for more specific reasons, or because i have a better understanding of them. 3. i tried to refrain from adding too much jjk, but it still happened so… i apologize 😔 i can’t help myself (and also, all characters listed are from anime/manga)

list under the cut!

satoru gojo from jujutsu kaisen. what hasn’t been said about him at this point? he’s a very lovable and endearing character in general (obviously) but one thing that’s very cool to me about him, is that a lot of his character is left up to the viewer’s imagination. he’s definitely a character where you can project a lot, and make really whatever you want of him. it can be a double edged sword sometimes, but i still think it’s something cool about him.

suguru geto from jujutsu kaisen. can’t have gojo on the list without his soulmate. there’s so much to me that’s interesting about him that it’s hard to narrow it down enough for this list. as sad as it is to watch, i do really like his spiral at the end of hidden inventory arc. i think it’s very neat how his mental decline really shows more of the true nature of the jujutsu society they’re part of, and how cruel it is to it’s own people. on a similar note to that, it’s very interesting seeing the way geto truly is (his mentalities, his personality, etc. not his morals) get continuously revealed during his defection and post jujutsu high.

maki zenin and mai zenin from jujutsu kaisen. if i was already putting multiple jjk characters on this list, they had to be here too. i looooove their arc together, and everything they’ve (whether on purpose or not) done to each other. i honestly do just think the concept of two cursed twin girls coming from a horrible, at the top of the food chain clan, and attempting to thrive outside of it despite everything, is super cool. i love them separately as characters, but them together makes me even more deranged…

nicholas d. wolfwood from trigun/trigun maximum. apparently i have a thing for dudes who have big tits, are doomed by the narrative, and are associated with a religion 💀 also whenever i talk about trigun, unless specified otherwise, i’m specifically talking about the manga or og anime, not the reboot. anyways, i really like his development as a person over the course of the series. and how in the end, he ended up adopting more of vash’s ways than he may have anticipated. vash and wolfwood’s relationship, considering who they are as people and what they have going on, is crazy to me ngl

anna/nina liebert from monster. i love naoki urusawa’s portrayal of women, and just people in general in his work, and how realistic it is. if you haven’t read or watched monster, GO DO IT!!! it’s one of the best manga i’ve read so far. i haven’t seen any of his other works yet, but i’ve heard good things. i love how she’s an overall badass, kind and compassionate person, while still working towards her goals and simultaneously working through her trauma. she’s just a very neat character to me!

shinji ikari from neon genesis evangelion. i may sound insane saying this depending on how you feel about him but hear me out 😭 he gets a lot of hate, which i do understand, but i do like him, okay? (i’m not going to acknowledge the end of evangelion movie. i will NOT watch it) i think with him, and other teenage characters going through very traumatic situations like him, people forget that they’re literally children going through that? and treat them like they’re adults going through it when they’re absolutely not, and that really bothers me!! despite how he can come off as pathetic sometimes, i do appreciate the way he’s portrayed. he’s overall a very relatable character, and is (at least to me) pretty endearing at times. i like how in the endings of both the anime and the manga, it’s pretty open-ended for him. most of what i say about his character could be applied to asuka, too.

hitori gotou/bocchi from bocchi the rock. she’s just a teenage girl who loves music and has social anxiety and she’s so real for that!!! it’s been a while since i watched bocchi the rock, and i also just don’t have a lot to say here, i just really like her and the way her social anxiety is portrayed, as someone who goes through it myself.

reki kyan from sk8 the infinity. again, i don’t have a ton to say here honestly. he’s very personally relatable to me, especially in his relationship with langa and such. as a queer person who skateboards, sk8 the infinity is the shit!!

yatora yaguchi from blue period. i love his character development in the beginning of the series, but in general too. i just love how he goes from a (slightly boring) respectable highschooler, on his way to a normal job and life, to then suddenly having a passion for art ignited within him, and changing his entire life’s path. i love how his art’s progression is shown, and various other conversations about art. blue period is one of the reasons i never want to go to art school lol

reigen arataka from mob psycho 100. what can i say, he’s just a goofy con man!! i love the additional comedy he adds to the series, despite his character being a little… sad and pathetic all things considered. he’s a wet cat of a man, but i love him for it, yknow? i also love the voice acting for him in the japanese dub of the show. (sakurai takahiro kinda sucks as a person, but he’s still a talented voice actor) there are also certain things about him that are kinda hilarious ngl..

i hope this is what you were asking for, or at least that you enjoyed this because this took a while to actually write out LMAO

[littleapocalypsekitten]

Part the second, as I wanted to start off with forgiveness of the other. Forgiveness of the self. Again, old lady talking, listen ya whippersnappers! So, back in the mid 1990s, when I was a young teenager, I was hit with a sudden bout of The Religion. I was anxious about and unsure of my future and also of THE future since we were on the cusp of the Millennium, which everyone made a big deal of at the time. I started watching a lot of religious TV and did that responding to the Gospel thing. I cannot say I actually regret it because my spiritual life has been interesting and I still dig Jesus-philosophy. Turned out that I'm the type of Christian you get when you get one who is an actual bookworm and will READ the Bible instead of just listening to preachers. (Progressive now, and kind of agnostic, kind of animist and hasn't been to church in over a decade, please put down your rocks here on tumblr.com). I mostly value my hyper-religious past insomuch as it helps me in understanding certain aspects of American culture and politics that I think a lot of outsiders find frustrating and bizarre. I have the perspective of an American ex-evangelical (enabling me to tell you WHY people in our politics are crazy). Well, since I went to the little Baptist church that I could walk to after my conversion-event (naturally), well... I got a head full of Southern Baptist doctrine, and let's just say... Southern Baptists and the LGBTQ+ community did not mix. This is putting it charitably. Add to that both the emergence of LGBTQ+ identity in the public eye in America and traditional bigotry in society, especially back then, and well... (Back then and today are like night and day, trust me). My early days on ye olde Internet consisted of me encountering people outside of my little rural physical life circle and fearing for their souls because I didn't understand their oh so lustful sexual choices and I really did think it was a choice and a choice to sin and an active rebellion against God, so on and so forth - and that I needed to preach to people to keep them from going to Hell. I no longer believe in Hell - a reckoning perhaps (I cannot see Adolph Hitler or Donald Trump getting a free pass), but that eternal torment stuff? Not for me - no logic in it, and I don't really care "what the Bible says" anymore after learning that it's been through more translations from the original concepts and language than a multiple-bablefish game and is like a game of Telephone. I also no longer believe that being gay is sinful and I feel very stupid for ever having had and EXTREMELY remorseful for people I harassed over it in trying to "save their souls." Ugh.... And, you know what? I figured out some of my underlying problem. Ignorance. Turns out I was put off by thoughts of sex and people's potential sexual behavior because... GUESS WHAT? Turns out I'm not straight. I learned of the term "asexual" in my late 20s and Oh, my God, it explained EVERYTHING about me! I seriously was self-condemning and thought of myself as "just weird." I wondered why I didn't have the "temptation" that my church friends warned me about "when I'd find the right man." Abstinence wasn't as hard for me as they said it would be. I truly did not understand the attraction and identity of others. (And I'm the kind of person who'd be on the outs with much of the evangelical crowd, too). And, it's like... I get it now? To a degree? The same thing applies as applies to my brother above: Forgive, but do not forget. I cannot help my past. I was an asshole. I was an Asshole for Jesus for a while. But, you know what? I've done a whole lot of Losing my Religion. (I'm not an atheist so some people would think I'm not "fully there" yet, but screw 'em. Everyone's gotta walk their own path. If mine leads to "still likes generalised spiritual things but without organized religion" so be it). The point is I am going forward. The past is unchanegable, but hating myself isn't going to do anything about it.

the thing is, if your younger self was a bigot or an abuser, u can't make people forgive you. but you still gotta forgive yourself, like that's non-negotiable, dude. that happens before u can even ask the question of earning forgiveness from anyone lese

[foxymoxynoona]

one thing i've noticed about myself reading your posts is that i have very high standards (i don't think that's a good thing 😭) damn. i've started to notice that the only fanfics i've been able to finish are the ones where jk stays true to his feelings for oc. let me explain, when our pitbull hybrid, jk, received an offer to have a rutting partner, he said no. and i know the whole context, i know that if he accepted it wouldn't be a betrayal with oc because they had nothing and for a hybrid having a rutting partner doesn't mean romance! i know that perfectly well, but if he accepted, knowing that he could go through it alone (even if it was and it was heavy) even so, if he accepted, he wouldn't be being true to his feelings, he wanted oc, he imagined her all the time, he wanted her long before he realized it and long before she knew and they got involved, i really can't express how deep and adorable i find this character. he could very well have stayed just to relieve himself and it wouldn't have meant anything, right? but i really think he would have felt bad about himself afterwards, that he would have felt bad for going against his feelings, and if at some point, before getting involved with oc, he thought she liked him, i think he would have felt bad too for maybe hurting her "feelings". like i said, i understand the whole context, i know the theme was a hybrid fanfic, and i know that in real life many men don't have that sensitivity towards themselves. but it was such a beautiful thing to see in your work about the indigo sea and something i also noticed in your work about the lonely blue egg, oook that penguin was a bit of a jerk to my little oc bird, even though he was dazzled by a purebred penguin that he always wanted, many people may have different opinions, but I believe that he felt empathy, and was faithful to the principle that you don't hurt or lie to a woman you care about, even if everything there was misunderstood. What I see lacking a lot is respecting a person as a human being and having the principles of not lying, not hurting, genuinely caring, having empathy… all these things. Anyway, I'm going to end here because I think it was all very confusing, and it sounded a bit misandric but I swear it's not, it's just that speaking in a more generalized way is easier 💖

I had a LOT of time to think about this during school drop off this morning LOL and sorry you're getting my soap box 😂

This possessiveness of all a partner's physical/romantic exerience is a really interesting concept --and also one that can cause a lot of damage in real life. It's obviously something that gets romanticized a lot in writing --even in my own writing, as you point out! There's just something so good about a man who loves his one woman more than anything else in the world! And vice versa, of course! But I have some thoughts!

I think this romantic theme/trope has some roots in harmful gender stereotypes that state a woman's love is pure and wholesome and her whole life and a man's is fickle and insincere and a means to an end. So we fictionalize men who "love" like women. This is unfair to men (who are not incapable of body-consuming love as a rule) and women (who can and do prioritize other things in their lives above romantic attachment.)

I think some possessiveness of partner has roots in competition for resources that dates aaaaall the way back to our primate ancestors. I have a hypothesis that for many folks as they get older and have security in romantic relationships, this eases up. I can remember feeling sick at the idea of my crush havign any romantic entanglement with someone else. I also grew up in a very restrictive purity culture religion.

Which sort of ties to point one, that I think there's something comforting in seeing a man live in the "don't be a slut" rules that society really presses for women. The opposite --accepting that multiple past or even future romantic & sexual relationships have absolutely no bearing on the depth or sincerity of a current relationship-- is scarier to those of us who were raised on those rules, I think, because there's morality involved. Having multiple relationships (obviously not secretly at the same time lol!) is morally neutral but many cultures, religion, and patriarchy apply moral rules to it.

I won't keep going LOL. And this is definitely not to say we can't or shouldn't read or write this kind of stuff. Read your comfort stories! Bask in tales of what you find romantic and comforting! Whether that's something like this of dead dove do not eat stories, stories can be anything. Ban no books.

I just also know I like to break analyze and break through things like this with my writing 😎 and now you've got my really thoughtful about how my own upbringing and my adult process of working away from that "moralizing" still crops up in my stories, or how that comes across even if I think I'm playing with different concepts. I think this happens a lot in fandom! You get soulmate fics or fuckboy fics and not as many right in the middle of "hey most people are going to have multiple relationships in their life." SO prepare for that even though you said you don't liek that LOL SORRY 😘

Thank you for giving me so much to think about in the school drop off!

[harmonysanreads]

──── ⵌ RULES

BEFORE YOU FOLLOW/INTERACT

Hello! This blog focuses primarily on Yandere and Dark-Content. No explicit nsfw but, you may find some not-sfw themes sprinkled here and there. In no way do I condone or encourage the behaviors portrayed and neither is it okay to behave this way in reality. These are works of fiction made for entertainment purposes solely. All fics are appropriately tagged with warnings. Remember : you are responsible for what you consume on the internet.

✧ Have your age listed in your bio or somewhere visible on your blog. This blog contains 17+ content so, if I find out you're below that age, you'll be blocked.

✧ Blank blogs (no pfp, no reblogs, no age mentioned) and spam likers will also be blocked.

✧ This blog is not game content spoiler/leak free.

✧ DMs are open for emergency notices (anyone cross-posting my works on a different platform without permission for example) and mutuals. If its a brainrot you want to share, please use my inbox instead!

WHAT I WILL WRITE

Romantic Yandere

Character Studies

Dark Content [ Sans the topics listed in the next category. ]

Reader Insert

Female/Gender Neutral Reader

Oneshots/Scenarios/Headcannons/Interactions

Fluff/Comfort

Hurt/Comfort

Pregnancy/Baby-trapping

Reader with a certain personality trait [ e.g. shy, snarky ]

[Multiple Characters/Yanderes x Reader] concepts are okay

WHAT I WILL NOT WRITE

Suicide [ The act in vivid detail. ]

Male Reader

Child Reader and Characters

Explicit NSFW [ Vague implications are fine though. ]

Omegaverse

Hybrid AUs

Character x OC

Character x Character (Ships)

Underage

Incest/Stepcest

Reader with specific physical traits [ Height, skin color etc. ]

Yandere Reader

THINGS IN CONSIDERATION

Cannibalism

Fictional depictions of Religion

CHARACTERS I WRITE FOR

[ The names in bold signify characters that I'm most interested in writing. The names in purple signify characters that I really love and am even likelier to write for.]

──── ⩩ GENSHIN IMPACT

↬al haitham, scaramouche/wanderer, kamisato ayato, shikanoin heizou, kaedehara kazuha, tighnari, aether, venti, dainsleif, pantalone, diluc, cyno, zhongli, il dottore, kaveh, neuvillette, wriothesley, sethos, il capitano, arlecchino

──── ⩩ HONKAI : STAR RAIL

↬blade, dan heng, dr ratio, aventurine, sunday, moze, jiaoqiu, mr reca, phainon, mydei, anaxa

ADDITIONAL NOTES

↬ Please be kind and patient with me, as I do have a life outside of the internet. English is not my first language so, it takes time for me to think and organize my thoughts in a way that is sensible to others.

↬Please send all requests via my ask box, not my dms.

↬If you write something based on my concepts/ideas/fics, please reference and tag me. I'd love to read it! I've dealt with plagiarism issues before so, I'll appreciate it if I don't have to deal with that again.

↬Please refrain from sending personal rants, although I explore many psychological themes, I'm by no means qualified to deal with serious issues. It's most productive if you contact someone trustworthy/professional instead.

↬ Please specify if you want the writing to be non-yandere, otherwise I'll automatically assume Yandere since this blog focuses on that.

↬ Anonymous asks detailing not-sfw themes will not be answered.

↬Please check my pinned post for request status before sending a request.

↬ Do remember that I have every right to reject/ignore a certain request/ask if it discomforts me, violates the rules or simply doesn't interest me at the moment. Though, I'll try my best to answer everything :)

↬ Please do not send requests for sequels to my oneshots. But, I may consider a sequel request if it's a character I really love or if you can follow up with some suggestions/ideas for said sequel!

↬ Lastly, please don't hesitate to send in an ask now, the reason why my inbox is always open for brainrots is because sharing ideas through those interactions is always more fun. We're all simps who just want to indulge a little, so there really is nothing to be afraid of <3