#terms related to shards

[heartfullofleeches]

Sunday Broadcast Crew

A quick run through of the (existing) cast for Sunday Broadcast - a T.V Show in which Sunday (Clown Reader) is the star. Lemme know what y'all think-

Sunday the Clown/Clown Reader - Silly, Kind Hearted Clown. Only wants the best for everyone.

Telly (he/they/it) - Sunday's tag along and (second) best friend. A slightly mischievous television who always comes around when needed. Knows more than he's willing to tell, but as long as Sunday is safe he keeps his big mouth shut.

Gus (he/they) Sir (he/it) - A silly clown and his best friend, an anthropomorphic rabbit with a bad habit and a bad attitude. Sir can often be found chewing gum as smoking is forbidden during show hours. Low-key hates Gus, but is his best friend. Gus is unaware of his bed friends true feelings - loves everyone one and thing, but loves Sunday the most (please keep that a secret)

Melan (she/they) and Holly (she/her) - A sad jester and her best friend, a sweet housewife clown who tries her best to cheer her dear up. Melan is an unlucky girl who has little success with her tricks, often can be found sobbing in her room until Sunday, Holly or her siblings can convince her to come out.

Ventri (They/them) and Tres (they/it) - A playful mime and their.....friend? Pet? Ventri is a mime who doubles as a ventriloquist to some extent. Enjoys making hand puppets of their friends and can never be seen without one. "Speaks" solely through their puppets, their ability to mimic voices is scarily accurate. Tres is a giant wood puppet with a candy dispenser fitted into their stomach/chest. Gives candy to those who deserve it, bites those who don't.

Gus, Melan, and Ventri are all related. Sir, Holly, and Tres are their "imaginary friends" who are only visible to those who believe in them/they trust.

Thirteenth (they/them) and Wishbone (they/them) - An unlucky cat and a fortune rabbit shoved into a miserable companionship. The two cancel each other out in terms of their unnatural luck/unluck leading to them being unable to be apart for long. The two can hardly stand each other, their only common interests being Sunday. Wishbone has a permanent limp in their right leg following an accident they don't like to talk about. Thirteenth had their eye torn out by a broken shard of glass.

Margo Maggie (she/her) - An apple girl sweet as can be. Can easily be found in her garden tending to her crops. Her name is not "Margo Maggie" as much as it is Margo and Maggie as Maggie is her best friend abd biggest helper. Maggie has never been seen by anyone else due to how shy they are. If you happen to find a single tooth in an apple Margo gives you, please return it. It isn't not ripe yet.

Ferret (he/him) - A timid doll boy with an intense jealousy streak. Jealous of his peers for being able to feel and eat, and do everything else a normal human can do. The only reason he can "see" is because his eyes are glass. The empty cavity of his body is filled with fake organs and bones. If he is to ever loose a part of himself.... The best thing to do is hold your breath and hope he mistakes you for a doll like him.

The Handyman (It) - Keeps things in order, tolerates Sunday alone, very handy, likes balls of yarn.

Charlie - Charlotte? Charles? Charlene? Sunday's best and only friend :)

[sonic-fankid-showdown]

Poll 12, Round 2.

About Blade: (by @microwave-kid) Hoagie is a Huskal (archaic term for the rare crossbreed between jackals and wolves) that has no biological relation to Ian Jr or Infinite, and was found alone in a sad wet cardboard box by a swan. The swan, acting as a stork, delivered Hoagie to Ian Jr. and Infinite. Infinite could immediately tell that, for some reason, the huskal had latent Phantom Ruby powers. After Ian Jr. took Hoagie (whom he named) to a doctor it was discovered that he had crystalline Phantom Ruby-esq growths in his knees. Neither Ian Jr nor Infinite care to consider the implications of this or what this means for Hoagie's origins. These Ruby shards give Hoagie primarily the power to sense small atmospheric changes in pressure (he can tell when it's about to rain.) Ian Jr. named Hoagie that became during a good day he treats himself to a hoagie, and with his son in his life every day is a good day. Infinite named him Blade Thornslash, though.

About Lily: (by @galacticghoste) Lily is a magic tube baby. She is a genetic copy of her kinda twin Iris only difference is she has Tails DNA.She loves the outdoors and gardening and since she magic tube baby she gain the ability to manipulate plants instead of just being able to communicate and empathize with them she not big on fighting as some of her friends but she will do it to protect those she holds dear.

[arisveah]

thought about life series scott, and how infuriating yet so relatable his character can be (especially in relation to double life), and ended up using his and pearls relationship as a metaphor for chronic pain, which not even i know how happened. anyway its below the cut if you want 6 paragraphs of character study :)

life series scott is honestly such an intriguing and infuriating character. he is honorable, but in the same way he is petty and bitter. he pushes aside his wants and values for the better, more agreeable thing so much that he often ends up pushing the burden of emotional health onto his allies, and makes their choices for them. he's so parentified older sibling that becomes over controlling and emotionally repressed coded, yk?

in his never-ending attempts to do good, he saves the short term pain and leaves longer lasting scars and aftershocks. and scott does this a lot with his characters- think season 1 empires scott and his comparison to elsa. when something bad happens, he scrambles to take it on himself and inevitably creates rifts between himself and others in his plight to be a "hero". hes not evil, or even self centered- he cares so deeply about keeping his friends safe that he smothers them with jagged shards of glass, and when it hurts them he tries to deflect the blame. every person he sees is another he feels responsible for.

as a double life pearl apologist, it was kinda hard for me to see scott in a positive light. but if you think about it, all his decisions make sense for his character. in the last life finale, scotts final move is to kill ren as revenge for him killing pearl. they had been close the whole season, and scott lived to the end BECAUSE pearl was there for him to fall back on. for the first time on screen, scott relied on someone else- and then he saw her die and leave him alone. in the next season, its revealed that he will be tied to someone else again, and they'll need to share EVERYTHING if they want to win. and in this position, scott is most comfortable being the breadwinner. but it starts to seem like his soulmate doesn't need him, and he starts to panic, because the death of pearl (the last person who didnt need him) hit him hard and she might’ve lived if she wasnt giving him lives. he worries he will be a leech in their partnership, but he cant quite bring himself to terms with that. so when pearl and martyn step back into the overworld and take initiative on finding the soulmates at last, scott worries. he's never alone, never been alone, so he subconsciously goes to the closest source of non-painful comfort he can: cleo, his long(er)-dead ally from a previous life. he starts making allies, because scott is nothing if not diplomatic. and then he finds out that he is tied to pearl by life and death, again. that every time he dies, she will also lose a life, again. its a scathing reminder of the previous season, so scott pulls away. he cant do that to her, not again, and maybe if he pulls back she won't pity him when he fails to protect her. hell, maybe he wont even need to protect her.

but then pearl starts getting upset. and scott feels like he owes her, deep down, but he also feels like he's paying his debt and she just keeps hurting them, and he can't handle the blame from both sides anymore. he gets bitter, and decides that pearls death mustve been her own fault, that she's too emotional and that will get them BOTH killed- and he thinks of cleo and how much they need an ally and he cant just leave her- he needs to control the situation.

this whole post was inspired by the interaction during pearls video where hes digging at her tendency to hold grudges, and has her make the team diamond swords. it felt awful to watch, and kinda instilled a dread in me about how they are going to interact for the rest of the season. but i'm going to make a crazy analogy here so buckle up. as someone with chronic pain and joint issues in the american health/school system, the best metaphor i can come up with is when you go to a trusted adult for advisory, health interventions, or pain meds, but the system doesn't allow for them to help you. and its not their fault, but it starts to feel less and less like you should be saying thank you for trying and more like they just dont care. and you start to get bitter, and you start to pretend that you dont even care if they can or cant help you anymore, but you do. scott and pearls relationship feels a lot like putting your trust in someone for the first time, but they fall through by external means, and when they show back up you feel bitter and unwilling to let your walls back down. your fine, you can and have handled it alone your whole life. but everyone keeps offering to take responsibility and it just makes you sick that it took so long and now you dont even want their help.

basically, what im saying is pearl and scott could be besties again if they just talked over what they feel they owe eachother. but ALSO what im saying is yeah, life series scott kinda sucks- but he sucks because he tries so to be honorable that it circles back around to unfair and prejudiced. he just needs a bit of therapy and some anti anxiety meds <3 this somehow became a whole thing about disability and child neglect but like whatever

[feanoryen]

House of Finwe ranked by how much they look like Finwe

Uncanny resemblance tier:

Lalwen - Literally just her dad but genderbent. Same facial structure and blue-grey eyes and gorgeous raven black hair. Only difference is that her hair is wavy rather than pin straight like Finwe’s.

Fingolfin & Argon - Exact same facial structure and eye color, Fingolfin is almost as tall as Finwe but not quite, Argon is taller than Finwe (& the same exact height as Maedhros). They have a very dark brown shade of hair instead of black however.

Aredhel - 60:40 blend of Fingolfin & Anaire but looks more like Fingolfin and therefore looks a good deal like Finwe. She gets her black hair from Anaire rather than Fingolfin but it still adds to her resemblance with Finwe.

Gil-Galad - Finwe’s genes may have almost skipped Angrod & Orodreth entirely but somehow he ended up 57% Finwe.

Maeglin - Looks mostly like his gorgeous mother except he has Eol’s eyes and somewhat of a sharper bone structure than Aredhel though.

Very similar but still notably different tier:

Aegnor - Looks the most like Finwe out of all the Arafinweans. He has the same smile, a very similar face shape, & the same nose. He’s around 55% Finwe, 40% Earwen, & 5% Indis.

Maglor - 53% Finwe, 40% Nerdanel, 7% Miriel. His body type, his eye color, & his freckles are from Nerdanel. A lot of his facial features are Finwe’s but he has a heart shaped face like Miriel and a similar eye shape.

Finarfin - Exactly 50% Finwe & 50% Indis. Some of his facial features are a lot like Finwe’s except people (including both Finwe & Indis) focus way more on his Vanyarin coloring to realize it. His hair is also loosely curled along with being gold like Indis’s rather than straight.

Finrod - Looks just like Finarfin with Earwen’s eyes.

Curufin - Read Feanor’s and then come back. Unlike Feanor he does get his eyes from Finwe but his are more silvery & sparkly.

Feanor - Barely behind Finarfin in terms of resemblance to Finwe but several people would dispute this and say he looks more like Finwe between the two. He’s 50% Miriel, 47% Finwe, & 3% something original entirely. Neither Finwe nor Miriel have his radiant shining eyes that look like they have shards of pale jewels within them but some argue his eyes are a variation of Finwe’s grey ones. His silky raven hair is undeniably Finwe’s but his is wavy. His stature & body shape are similar to Finwe’s but like Fingolfin he’s still a little shorter. His face is a mixture of Finwe & Miriel’s most beautiful features, but he has a little more of Miriel’s.

Celebrimbor - Almost looks exactly like Feanor except his eyes don’t burn with quite the same intensity. There’s also a little something of his mother in his smile.

Caranthir - Canonically got his hair from Finwe, but also got his complexion from Nerdanel. I see him as as 45% Finwe, 50% Nerdanel, & 5% Miriel.

Fingon - He looks very similar to Aredhel but he’s 60% Anaire and 40% Fingolfin whereas she’s the opposite. He looks more like Anaire but also eerily resembles Maglor in some angles due to specifically inheriting a very similar set of features from Finwe (not sure if this makes his relationship with Maedhros more or less weird depending on your interpretation).

A fair deal of resemblance but also looks quite different tier:

Turgon - 50% Anaire, 30% Fingolfin, 20% Indis. Looks the most Vanyarin out of his family, no wonder why he’s the closest to them. Still looks very clearly Noldorin at the same time though. His hair is still the lightest brown out of his siblings.

Elrond & Elros - 30% Finwe, 10% Earendil, 60% Luthien. Due to genes skipping generations like with Gil-Galad, they look more like Finwe than Idril & Earendil do. If you look closely they kind of resemble Maglor despite how far apartly they’re related to him. Maedhros sees a lot of Fingon in them though.

They have about 1 notable feature in common with him tier:

Galadriel - Same eyes as Finwe, she gets her smile from him too, which she also shares with Feanor. She’s 55% Earwen & 45% Finarfin, but she got more of her dad’s Indis features than his Finwe features.

Maedhros - His diamond face shape & high bridged nose are Finwe’s.

Amrod & Amras - They have his eyes, both the blue-grey color and the shape. Nothing else though.

Findis - She’s almost entirely Indis but she has grey eyes and caramel hair between brown & gold. Her Noldorin heritage shines through due to those 2 things but she doesn’t look her dad particularly.

They just don’t look like him tier:

Celegorm - 95% Miriel, 5% Nerdanel. Almost the spitting image of his grandmother but he gets his height, eye color, & freckles from Nerdanel. His hair is straight so maybe 0.5% of him is Finwe but does it really count?

Idril - Takes a lot after both Elenwe & Anaire but she didn’t get Finwe or Fingolfin’s features.

Earendil - Around 60% his mom, who doesn’t look like Finwe, & 40% his dad, who isn’t related to Finwe.

Angrod - Olwe with Vanyarin hair.

Orodreth - Has grey eyes, but he probably got them from his mother rather than Finwe.

Finduilas - Looks almost like a female version of her grandfather and a golden haired version of Earwen.

[irana5711]

Fragility

Word Count: 2.5k

A small fanfic in which you are falsely accused of a crime, and try to clear your name.

Sebastian Solace x gn!reader (who gets their heart broken, kind of)

Contains angst and descriptions related to organs and blood (but no actual gore) and a brief mention of suicidal thoughts if you squint. No comfort or fluff. Critique is highly appreciated!

It was sudden. Unexpected. And obviously, unwelcome. It was a rather funny twist of fate when you discovered those bodies and mindlessly picked up the knife, without thinking about the consequences of your curiosity. It didn't take long before the door was busted open, and a gun fired at your leg. The pain was too much for you to bear, and the sight of uncontrolled blood flow made you feel dizzy. In only a matter of seconds, you were out cold, laying on the concrete as police sirens blared outside the abandoned factory.

A week later, you were found guilty, even after crying and begging the authorities that it wasn't your fault. It was an accident! A coincidence! Yet even with your desperate cries and insistent begging, nothing could be done. It was a heinous crime, yes, and this fact led to you being forced into the cell of a maximum security prison. It was (weirdly) built underwater - dark, cold, and suffocatingly humid. What kind of person could bear this? I mean, even being there was pure torture, both physically and mentally. It couldn't get any worse...

...right? Well, at that time, that's what you felt like. It really was the worst place one could find themselves in, and you wanted to get out. You happened to get that chance, but it was on slightly different terms - execution. A (supposed) criminal like you was far too gone to be wasting resources in rehab, and so, you were scheduled to die. You were given three days to sort out whatever you might have had left in the world of the living, before a guard would pretend to be God and dictate when and how you would take your last breath. Now, comprehending death certainly wasn't easy for someone as young as yourself. What would come after? Is there even something after that? What would happen to your body? Would it hurt? Would someone wait for you on the other side? Anger seeped into your mind as you thought about it. Someone thought of themselves as important enough to force you to give up your life for an act you didn't commit. Someone had total control over your existence, and it frustrated you immensely.

Just as you were about to claim control over the situation yourself (with a pathetic blunt shard of glass nonetheless), a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity presented itself. A facility of the Urbanshade prison was sabotaged and damaged so badly that it could only be destroyed and rebuilt completely. But they needed its lifesource, as it was far too precious to be left behind. And whoever got to it first had the right to leave the prison. It was your chance. Your only chance.

Equipped with an air tank and a wetsuit, you accepted the deal without reading their terms and conditions. You had mindlessly signed the paper that would determine your fate, without even skimming through the pages. Now, the voice of the operative gave you a vague warning along the lines of 'stay alert' as you rummaged through lockers and drawers for what they called 'loose assets'. DNA vials, documents, USB sticks and items that could sometimes be found throughout the facility were instantly shoved in your duffel bag. Something was off, though. The lights flickered once you reached your tenth door, and the hairs on your nape stood up. You approached a locker, but a faint purple glow and a puddle of disgusting slime pooling at its bottom prevented you from opening it. Whatever was in there deserved to remain hidden away. Only two steps forward before an ear-piercing screech made you rush into a free locker. A shadowy mass with an esca hanging from its front passed by you, and through the spaces in the claustrophobic metal box you could see a terrifying face staring straight at you, no matter what angle you looked at it from. With shaky legs, you got out of the locker and made a mental note to stay close to any hiding spots. Your heart was beating wildly and you couldn't breathe. Ultimately, you decided to slump against a wall and rest, even if for a minute. Surely, Urbanshade could wait.

It didn't stop there. The freakish creatures were all over, and the deeper you went, the more you encountered. Squids, sensitive to light, that would chase you if you weren't careful with your lantern, those fish that rushed through the halls in hopes of devouring human meat, a gigantic shark that would mess with your mind and move your muscles. At door 49, you thought you were going to die. You had never prayed to God before, not even when you got sentenced to death, but now you were screaming prayers in your mind as a rotting body with sharp teeth and dozens of eyes peered at you through the locker's spaces while smashing its decomposing body against it. Your muscles contracted painfully as you shook and cried, holding the doors together. Its last push was so hard that the bottom part of the locker caved in and slashed your leg, re-opening your previous gun wound. Thankfully, the monster left, but you barely managed to make it through. You dragged your body to the next door, and the vent on the left side flew open, smashing against the wall. Muffling a scream, you went to inspect the movement. Army-crawling through the dusty tunnel, you found yourself inside a weirdly comfortable establishment. Until the light turned on, that is. A freakishly big, humanoid fish started talking, happily introducing himself and his wares.

'Welcome, welcome! My name is Sebastian. Don't worry, I'm not going to hurt you, despite what you might have seen, heard and/or been told. Here is my collection of wares. You can find something you like and just... pick it off my tail.'

To say you were dumbfounded was an understatement. You stupidly gawked at the creature before you, like a lost child in a candy aisle at the local supermarket. It- or, um, perhaps *he* didn't seem to be too bothered by your actively bleeding leg. Hesitantly, you reached for the medkit on his tail, before he suddenly yanked it away.

'And the payment?' he said, rubbing two of his three hands together, his smile cold.

'Payment? I have no money.' you replied.

'Money is useless here. What would I buy with it? I need data. I hope you have the mental capacity to understand what data is. Do you know what a document looks like? Hmm?'

This was a wonderful start, was it not? Injured and ridiculed even at the bottom of the sea. Even if Urbanshade did tell you to secure loose assets, they wouldn't mind you using it to last longer. I mean, you living would guarantee they have more to collect from you, right? And so, you handed the proper amount of data to the fish-man, mermaid, whatever he was, and used the medkit. It felt nice to have something clean on you, even if it was just a cheap bandage.

One thing was undeniable, however - you were exhausted. You had been denied food, water and humanity for at least six hours by that point. And it would be pathetic to die of exhaustion with so many monsters roaming the halls.

Without thinking about what the shopkeeper would say, you sat on the cold ground at the other side of the shop, resting your back against some boxes, and you fell asleep. Urbanshade could have detonated your gear, but you didn't care. You relied on the pity your operative might have had for you. You would later learn (after you woke up, of course) that the SCRAMBLER device on the shopkeeper's back prevented any connection being made around the place. Including your connection with Urbanshade. You could hear a bit of grumbling here, a complaint there as you rested in the shop. You weren't wanted, but you didn't care. Without bothering to ask how much you stayed, you bid goodbye to the mutant and went on with your journey. Unsurprisingly, it didn't take long for you to die to a stray monster, as the lights didn't flicker. While bleeding out on the pavement, feeling the fish crunch on your leg, a comforting warmth enveloped you.

'This is it.' you thought. 'This is how it ends.'

You closed your eyes and hoped God would still love you, even after you doubted him for so long. Let's be fair, you still did doubt him, but maybe you'd be met with mercy and understanding when crossing to the afterlife, if there even is one.

When you opened your eyes, you were sat at a table, in a dark room, as a snarky comment was being spat at you by none other than the strange shopkeeper.

'Out of sight, out of mind, wink wink nudge nudge...'

A document was slid to you, some parts redacted, and some available for reading. It was a report on the creature that mangled you. Questioning how you cheated death was too taxing on your psyche, and you found that you couldn't talk to the shopkeeper. Was this the Purgatory? Maybe. But it surely wasn't the end.

It was only your first run. Each and every time, you cheated death, sometimes even before reaching the shop. But when you did reach it, you always talked to Sebastian. You bought his file. You read and you cried for him. You opened your heart to him and told him about your troubles while he awkwardly shifted around and offered you a small discount on a flashlight, mostly out of pity. Even if it was sometimes stiff and awkward, it was... nice. Comfortable. You felt excitement everytime you crawled through the vents and opened doors. Soon you could safely say that you were doing this just for him, and not for the lifesource. No, the crystal was a secondary goal. You felt free with him. With your friend. With your best and only friend.

Your heart soon began fluttering at the slightest reminder of him. Sometimes, the intercom voice sounded like him, and you had to stop for a moment to regain your thoughts. Your feet felt cold and your hands were freezing when you talked to him or rested on his tail. You nearly felt your very soul shattering into billions of pieces when you saw his ring. He looked at it so lovingly. So warmly. So... You couldn't think about it any longer. Your skin felt like it was being pricked with needles, your ears were burning and you could swear you felt your organs pulsing and contracting everytime he talked about her. You wanted to claw at your stomach and tear out your insides. You felt disgusted. With him? With her? With yourself? You didn't know. Yet everytime you left the shop, you were trembling and sobbing. You were aware it couldn't become what you wanted it to become. The circumstances were too complicated, and even with an incredible amount of work, you couldn't have gotten him out. And even if you did, you knew he'd go back to her, and you'd be left alone again, suffering even more than right now. No, you couldn't bear giving way to yet another unfortunate event.

The only solution was to avoid his shop. You'd be quiet with your footsteps, tiptoeing when you saw the vent flying open, and you'd always have a code breacher to avoid having to go in for the keycard. You were pretty sure he couldn't recognize you in the darkness of your death room, and for that you thanked whatever deity was looking over you. Even if you were badly wounded and losing blood, you would rather turn the facility upside down, destroying lockers and throwing drawers in search of even a bandaid. It hurt so much that you felt every drop of blood traveling in your heart when it started beating.

Another idea wormed its way into your scrambled mind: confess. You'd confess, get rejected, and move on. So simple, so effective. You hadn't felt so enlightened ever since you understood optical physics, and it was great feat back then. Determined, you stepped into his shop for what you didn't know would be your last ever run. Luckily, you had found a forgotten notebook and a pen in an office, and started writing down your troubles to calm yourself. You needed your mind to be clear. If any dark thought crossed you, it would all crumble. You'd chicken out and suffer more, and you swore to yourself you'd never feel that miserable ever again. The viscous ink stained the paper as you poured your heart out on the pages, talking about your infatuation and your hurt. After you were done, you stood next to the table, looking at the pathetic text plaguing a perfectly fine notebook. If someone were to find it... No. Without a second thought, you took it with you and stuffed it in your bag, along with an incredible amount of data. When you reached his shop, you gave him all of your research without buying anything, and you opened your mouth. It was an embarrassing word vomit that happened that day - unstoppable rambling about how great he is, how perfect, how beautiful and how painfully unachievable. You saw how he looked at you, his eyes pleading with you to stop as he fidgeted with that fucking ring. Your mouth closed when he yelled at you to quiet down, and reminded you of his undying love for his wife. You had been quite selfish to want him for yourself, that's what he thought. And maybe he was right. Your ears rang through the silence that came after, and without any further interaction, you crawled back through the vent and left. Somehow, it went worse than you had expected. Somewhere deep down in your messy head, maybe you had wanted him to be softer. Maybe you had hoped he felt the same, even though your confession was to confirm the other side. Maybe you hoped he had forgotten about her. But he didn't. You weren't special, yes, you had always known that, but now it stung you so deeply and so badly that your nerves were on fire. Your act was self-deprecating to its core, but only now you were acknowledging how rough it was on your psyche.

You pushed forward, and without hearing the screech behind you, a pink angler forced you into the wall and sank its unforgiving fangs into your back. This time you didn't make a peep, not registering the physical pain. You'd die for the last time just as you did the first - to the same monster, with the same hopelessness, on the cold floor. Like an animal.

As you took your last breath, you knew that this was it. This time, it felt real. It felt warm and welcoming, just like his shop did in the past. It was such a bittersweet moment, and you found yourself yearning for death. You could have hid, but you didn't. In the end, you died on your own terms, and you weren't angry anymore.

[trashcanlore]

Kabbalah in the Worldbuilding of Genshin Impact; Part 3: Very Impure, Very Sinful

Written by Sabre (@paimoff on twitter) and Schwan (@abyssalschwan on twitter)

The Origin of Evil

In earlier parts of this theory, we've discussed how the elements of Teyvat and their ideals are similar to the sefirot of Kabbalah, as well as the implications of the similarities between Descenders and the Kabbalistic Primordial Man. In this section, we'll be discussing how the metaphors used to describe evil in Kabbalah are made literal in Genshin, specifically in the form of the Gnoses and the Heavenly Principles. We’ll also be connecting the Traveler’s role as RPG ProtagonistTM to the Kabbalistic concept of Tikkun Olam (repairing the world) and how that relates to their role in the good-evil duality. 

When it comes to the concept of evil in kabbalah, there are generally two perspectives considered: 1) evil is the result of an imbalance in the dichotomy of divine mercy vs divine judgment, and/or 2) the existence of evil is an inherent part of creation that can be affected by the actions of humans.

The Zohar, a foundational text of Jewish Kabbalah and massively influential on Western esotericism, details several explanations for the origin of evil. This theory does not contain a comprehensive analysis of the philosophy of evil in Kabbalah, but we’ve tried to at least mention or summarize the core concepts that can be tied directly into discussion of Genshin’s worldbuilding. 

The primary explanation in the Zohar is that evil originates in the sefira of divine judgment if it is not counterbalanced by divine mercy. This creates a parallel but mirrored/inverted system of the sefirot, called the Sitra Achra, which we will refer to with the literal translation “Other Side”. This dimension is associated with death and anger, and a few other unique traits we’ll explore later on. It’s important to note that according to this perspective, the existence of evil is actually a necessary part of the divine plan for the world - some of the commandments in the Torah (Jewish law), or even regular human activities like sleeping, are described as actions that ‘appease’ the “Other Side” and keep the balance between good and evil forces in the world. The Zohar even goes as far as to suggest that the “Other Side” can function as a ‘test’ for the righteous: In order for someone to be fully righteous, they must descend completely into the realm of the “Other Side” and resist all their temptations and then emerge pure. Those who fail are doomed to become breeding grounds for demons. Interesting.

The Husks in a Nutshell

The Zohar also introduces the concept of the klippot, literally husks, shells, or peels . The name Qlipoth, which players of Honkai Star Rail might be more familiar with, is just another spelling of the same term.

The Zohar’s conception of the sefirot is like a nesting doll: the sefirot are one inside the other, like concentric circles, and the klippot are the shells each sefira makes around the one inside it, as illustrated in the drawings below, where each ring or square represents one of the sefirot.

This ties in to another one of the Zohar’s explanations for the origin of evil: evil has always been mixed in with the sefira of Keter, the first to be emanated, and in order for reality to be formed, the evil had to be purified out. This was done by repeatedly creating worlds and destroying them, until the creative divine energy was purified. Think of it like when you’re washing something you’ve dyed, and it takes multiple washes for the dye to stop bleeding.

This process leaves behind “shards” of evil, which become the foundations of the dimension of evil, the “Other Side”. The Zohar names some of the klippot as direct counterparts to the sefirot, giving them equivalent roles in their respective dimensions, but there is no consistent or complete description of all the names or comparisons. 

Similar to the process of creation and destruction described above, Rabbi Isaac Luria (very influential Kabbalist in the 16th century) described a process where there are multiple iterations of the creation of the world, resulting from the dilution of divine energy as it is emanated into the void where reality is created. (For a more detailed explanation of this, check out Part 2.) Luria compares the sefirot to vessels filled with divine light, and the farther these vessels get from the source of the light, the weaker they get. Eventually the vessels shatter and form the klippot, which here are technically fragments of the divine and not inherently evil. However, unlike the sefirot that can balance each other, these fragments are isolated and intense attributes of the divine that eventually become evil and demonic. 

In the context of Genshin, the klippot take the form of the Gnoses, reflecting their role as both remains of evil and fragments of the divine isolated from the source. 

Demons and Dead Descenders

Back in Part 1 of this theory, we briefly discussed the implications of both the inverted Irminsul and the Demon Gods, or Archons, in the context of Kabbalah. We hypothesized that Teyvat is in the dimension of evil, aka the “Other Side,” and the Archons have demon names to indicate their alignment with each of the evil equivalents of the sefirot: the klippot. There is no standardized list of demons associated with the “Other Side,” so we think that they are using the Goetic demon names instead, like some historical sources have done in their incomplete lists. 

We also suggested that the Gnoses themselves could represent the klippot of each element, the “shell” around the sefirot. This was based on the information we knew about the Gnoses at the time which was basically that: 

a. It is an “internal magical focus that resonates directly with Celestia itself,” and represents the archon’s status as one of The Seven (Archon Quest, Prologue, Act III, Ending Note). This may be related to Zhongli’s concern that giving up his Gnosis will mean that he cannot defend Liyue anymore (Zhongli Character Stories: Gnosis)

b. It can gather elemental energy for the Archon, presumably acting as some kind of amplifier, given that the Archons have elemental abilities without a Gnosis (Nahida Character Story: Gnosis). This is presumably how the Akasha (and the Oratrice) was able to be powered by the Gnosis, and how Nahida was able to use the power of two Gnoses to access Irminsul and delete Rukkhadevata, something she could not do with her own power (dendro+electro amplifying reaction indeed). 

The Fontaine Archon Quest and subsequent Neuvillette character stories introduced two new crucial pieces of information that cemented the role of the Gnoses in this theory: 

a. The Gnoses are the remains of the Third Descender, and since they are remains, they are cursed. Skirk even says that the Gnosis “smells” “very similar to a god's ‘curse’.”

Skirk: Regardless, you should probably get rid of objects of "misfortune," to prevent any disasters from befalling you.

 Skirk: To live is in itself a blessing. But once a person dies, the bonds he once had with this world shall all turn to curses.

b. The Primordial One was wounded in the “great war of vengeance” (probably when the Second Who Came arrived) and couldn’t “suppress the original order” of the world anymore. They and the “one who came after” created the Gnoses from the Third Descender and used them to “subdue and control the resentment and loathing of the world.” This seems to have created a new order to the world, where the remaining primordial “fragments” were destroyed, and humans gained the “seven remembrances.” (Neuvillette Character Story: Vision). This is implied to be related to the Archon War and to humans receiving Visions, which is described as a “shattered shard” of an Archon’s authority. 

With this updated information, we have more evidence for our claims that Teyvat is in the realm of the “Other Side,” and that the Gnoses are the klippot. Here we compare key traits of the Gnoses and the Kabbalistic metaphors used for evil:

While the Gnoses and the “inverted” world of Teyvat are certainly the most overt references to the klippot and the “Other Side” in Genshin lore, derivations of these concepts are sprinkled throughout the worldbuilding in the form of repeated references to ‘shards’ and ‘husks’ of power and will. In the next section, we’ll go through two primary categories where the klippot of Genshin can be found: Death and the anger it leaves behind, and judgment, which includes the concept of sin in Teyvat, and speculation about how the Heavenly Principles turned Teyvat into the “Other Side.”

Rest in Pieces: Death and Anger

As you may have noticed, dying in Teyvat is not exactly straightforward. Death is meant to be a sort of recycling/reincarnation process via the leylines, but it seems like there are infinite exceptions to this rule. Hilichurls are cursed to never be able to enter the leylines, and thus are never able to truly die. When gods die, they can stick around indefinitely as corrosive and resentful energy (like Yaksha’s Karma and Inazuman Tataragami), or their remains can be used to permanently change the environment, like Rukkhadevata creating the Harvisptokhm out of Egeria’s remains to seal Tunigi Hollow. God-like individuals have also ‘died’ after being split in pieces, and those pieces contain some aspect of their will or consciousness, like Liloupar or Hermanubis and his Ba fragments. The Ba fragments are even associated with specific traits like the sefirot are: Sethos specifically mentions might and glory, which could correspond to the sefirot of Gevurah and Hod respectively. Both these and the resentful energy of things like the Tataragami can influence the actions of humans who come in contact with these fragments and remains. 

The will of more ordinary people can also remain after death: the Shadowy Husk enemy descriptions call them “nothing but a husk,” and that “the long years and a curse seems to have robbed them of their reason and memory. Now, all that remains within that armor is the will to "fight for something, someone, and some matter."” 

All shall decay in the end, and this is all that is left of the Black Serpent Knights amidst the merciless march of their sins, curses, and time itself.

We also have instances where a powerful being’s sacrifice provides the power for an ‘impossible’ event to occur: the Goddess of Flowers using her body as a conduit to give Deshret access to forbidden knowledge, or Sybilla sacrificing her life to create Phobos. Sybilla, who was likely also a Seelie, is described as being from the land of the dead - more on Seelies later. And most relevantly, we have the death of the Third Descender being used to create the Gnoses. 

Logically, this death-associated release of power makes sense In a world that is also the “Other Side.” But it also seems to be a double-edged sword: just like how the order of the world itself is held together with the Gnoses sourced from death, the death of other powerful beings can destabilize it. 

And speaking of the Gnoses - how is it that ‘death’ energy can be used to channel elemental energy, which should belong to the sefirot? As we mentioned earlier, that’s because the klippot and the sefirot are derived from the same divine source material - at their core, the realm of the divine and the realm of the demonic are the same. The distinction between these powers in Genshin is their source: are these the true elemental powers original to this world, or is this the power stolen by the Heavenly Principles? 

Teyvat has its own “laws”: Judgment, Sin, and Curses

Earlier we mentioned that the Zohar’s primary explanation for the origin of evil is an excess of divine judgment. In Kabbalistic thought, divine judgment refers to the setting of limits during creation - without it there would be no distinction between anything and the world would just be an everything soup. For more on this idea and its usage in the Fontaine AQ, check here. When it comes to the human expression of this idea, “limits” would be equivalent to the concept of laws, both natural (like physics) and legal (like the concept of social contract).

The Heavenly Principles are thought to be the highest power of “law” in Teyvat, described in the Scroll of Streaming Song as “the universal law created in heaven, the divine laws established in the beginning.” 

Nahida also tells use that the Gnoses represent the laws of the Heavenly Principles: 

Nahida: I'm sure you remember the entity that changed your fate — the Heavenly Principles. Nahida: In fact, the Heavenly Principles has been quiet since the Khaenri'ah disaster five hundred years ago. I used this point as leverage against The Doctor. Nahida: I told him that the Heavenly Principles may be awakened if I destroyed a Gnosis. Although it was just a bluff, he still fell for it. Nahida: I assumed that the Heavenly Principles wouldn't just stand by and let such extensive damage to its "laws" take place.

What do these laws entail, exactly? Rukkhadevata in Scroll of Streaming Song explains:

"One may only bow down and worship Vaana of the heavenly spirits — no arrogation, deception, or trickery is permitted." "If one dares to imitate the forbidden arts, only calamity awaits at the edge of divine knowledge.”

As expected, these “divine laws" include definitions of sins, and conveniently for us, these sins tend to be punished with curses, yet another misfortune associated with the klippot.

There are three* curses specifically associated with the Heavenly Principles: 

The “curse of the wilderness” which turned non-pure-blood Khaenriahns into hillichurls (but may be older than the Cataclysm considering hillichurls have been around since before that time and there are other references to humans turning into various monsters that aren’t associated with the Cataclysm)

The curse of immortality put on pure-blood Khaenriahns during the Cataclysm

The Seelie curse, which has multiple variations: a. Arama says the Seelies were cursed to become “empty husks” if they fell in love with a human. The curse would make them lose their intelligence and their bodies would shrink, becoming the little treasure Seelies found in exploration  b. Wolfy in the Imaginarium Theater talks about the Boar Tribe who were forced to place parts of themselves on a scale, and then lose those parts of themselves, as a punishment. The description of what happened to these boars sounds a lot like the Seelie curse. Wolfy: Those boars who placed their heads on the scales became wolves, lizards, and snakes, leaving only their strength. Those who offered their muscles became rabbits, leaping three paces to a bound, instinctively guiding people to treasure.

*Paimon voice* “Maybe it should be called the rule of four!”: While we don’t know yet if this is associated with the Heavenly Principles, Skirk references a god’s curse, which in context seems to be related to the Gnoses and the fact that Gnoses are the remains of a dead Descender.

In summary, the Heavenly Principles, their “divine laws” and corresponding curses and punishments are the Teyvat equivalent of the excessive divine judgment that leads to the formation of the “Other Side”. According to the Zohar, the “Other Side" and the klippot sustain themselves through stealing divine energy and feeding off human sin. We’ve already discussed how the Gnoses are the means for stealing divine energy, so how does human sin play a role in this equation?

The Sinners Are All That's Left

After the war with the Second Who Came, and the Seelies were cursed, the Heavenly Principles established the order of Teyvat using the power from the death of the Third Descender: the Gnoses. They then had the gods of each nation fight to the death for the chance to win this power and become representative of their “law”, creating resentment in many places across Teyvat. Given what we know about the klippot, we must consider the Archon War as the Heavenly Principles creating strife and death to power themselves enough to maintain the order of Teyvat. 

A similar system is presented in one of the in-game novels, Princess Mina of the Fallen Nation, which tells the story of a princess prophesied to bring destruction. Her nation is plagued with wars due to “Nakura’s Hex,” which drains the life force from people and the environment to strengthen the soldiers, who then in turn, continue fighting to be the most powerful, which leads to them draining more life. In the fifth volume, Mina and her slayful samurai bestie arrive at the Sky Tower, where they meet some priests and learn the truth of their world: Nakura’s Hex was originally created to preserve the “slowly declining” world. Mina learns that she must sacrifice herself, destroy the current world, and use the stored up power from Nakura’s Hex to create a new one. It’s left ambiguous if she succeeds. 

If the Heavenly Principles are able to gain power from wars and death, then they should also be able to gain power from sin as well. And lucky for this theory, we just finished the Fontaine region, where this very concept was explored in the Archon Quest. In order to collect enough power to destroy her Archon throne and return the Hydro authority to Neuvillette, Focalors created the Oratrice. The Oratrice pronounced verdicts during court cases and converted the people’s belief in justice into Indemnitium, which was then used to power Fontaine. In reality though, most of this power was stored up to eventually kill Focalors. In other words, the crimes and well, sins, people committed against each other generated tangible power that could be used by a god. 

In this context, the fact that the title “Sinner” is associated with the cataclysm and Khaenri’ah, and the recent reveal that the Five Sinners split a “world-shattering” Abyssal power between each other become more significant. 

Considering all that we’ve discussed regarding the use of death as a power source in Teyvat and its connection to the Heavenly Principles in their capacity as the Other Side, we are left wondering if the Sinners attempted their own Third Descender moment. In the context of what we’ve theorized about the Primordial Human Project previously, Rhinedottir’s role as a Sinner feels particularly relevant here. Whatever it was exactly that the Sinners were trying to do, their power definitely was “world-shattering,” since 500 years later Teyvat is still recovering from their and the Heavenly Principles’ actions during the Cataclysm.

And speaking of the present day problems of Teyvat, we are now ready to talk about the role the Traveler plays in the interplay between the Heavenly Principles and the original order of Teyvat. 

The Repairing of a World More Broken Than Elon’s Twitter

Ever since the Traveler woke up in Teyvat they have been helping everyone around, whether it’s finding lost pets, defeating evil dragons, finding cures for the sick, cleaning buildings or leyline disorders, maybe defeating another dragon… whether big or small there’s no feat that’s beneath our protagonist. That’s what the heroes do right? Well yes. But it also has a deeper, Kabbalistic significance.

Lurianic Kabbalah builds on the Zohar’s idea that human actions can either strengthen or appease the klippot by proposing there are also specific actions humans can do to have a positive influence on the world. There are two states the world can exist in: Tohu (chaos), where the sefirot are unbalanced, and Tikkun (repair), where the sefirot are harmonized together. Luria taught that humans could contribute to the “Repairing of the World” (Tikkun Olam) by strictly adhering to the religious laws of the Torah. With time, the idea that humans can contribute to the improvement of God’s world by performing acts of kindness and altruism has become mainstream in Judaism, and in the modern day, Tikkun Olam has come to refer to the value of social justice. By performing these “repairing” actions, the Divine Energy that’s “trapped” inside the klippot is released and returns to its rightful place, contributing to the balance and harmony of the world.

Similar concepts are referenced directly in Genshin: In Chinese, the Heavenly Principles are Tiānlǐ: “Heavenly Order.” Li refers to a concept in Confucianism that literally translates to ‘rite,’ and refers to specific ritual actions that connect human action to the harmony of the greater order of the universe. Li is not necessarily religious rites as it also includes “basic” human interactions with each other and nature.

Another similar idea is the alchemical As Above, So Below, which is generally interpreted to refer to either the movement of the celestial bodies affecting events on Earth, or the correspondences between the macrocosm and the microcosm (the human being). You may recognize this second idea from Part 2 of this theory. 

In other words, this means that the actions that humans take in the material world can have a direct impact on the spiritual world (in Judaism) or on the larger movements or changes of the rest of the universe (Li and alchemy). These concepts are all relevant in our discussion of the role of the Traveler, but here we will also be using it to illustrate how the Heavenly Principles have control over Teyvat. 

The concept of As Above, So Below has been mentioned in the context of the Heavenly Principles in Scroll of Streaming Song:

"O wise Princess, if your wisdom is truly as the legends of the people say," "Please answer my second riddle as you did the first." "What rises from the earth, then descends from the sky," "No one has seen it, yet it sees all," "As above, so below, and as at the bottom, so too, the top," "Yet only top to bottom may be, and never bottom to top?" That princess of (...) answered thusly: "You speak of the universal law created in heaven, the divine laws established in the beginning." "No one has seen the eternal law, yet it governs all.”

The Goddess of Flowers is implying here that technically this principle should apply to the Heavenly Principles and their laws, but in the order of Teyvat, only the law can govern the “below,” the world, and the world can not reciprocate their influence on the “above.” This would mean that human action on Teyvat actually does not have an effect on the “sky,” which is the spiritual realm. In the Flower of Paradise Lost artifact lore, she says that the "master of the heavens, consumed by fear for the rising tide of delusion and breakthroughs, sent down the divine nails to mend the land, laying waste to the mortal realm..." This suggests that the sealing off of the connection between Teyvat and the heavens is the result of the Heavenly Principles’ fear of the power of the “invaders” and the effect they and other humans could have on them from the human ‘realm’ of Teyvat. 

More simply, this means that the Heavenly Principles are actively preventing the humans of Teyvat from performing the “Repairing of the World”. 

The (semi)literal translation of Zhongli’s burst voiceline also references this, but in connection with Li and Confucianism, rather than alchemy: “Heaven moves; all follows.” In this scenario, he, as the Archon, has the authority to act as the executor for the Heavenly Principles’ law (Tian Li), and invokes “heaven” to set a limit/boundary. You can even see this illustrated with how his burst stops the enemies from moving, as he restores ‘order’. (Credit to Cristal Marie for this insight)

The one exception to the restriction set by the Heavenly Principles seems to be the Traveler, whose helpful acts are excellent displays of “Repairing the World”: Indeed, while Traveler was initially just showing their good nature, many of their actions have contributed to restoring a balance to a Teyvat that seems to be in a state of “Tohu” (chaos).

Examples are varied and extensive, but we can categorize Traveler’s actions as follows:

Returning things to their rightful place: repairing the Statues of the Seven by returning the Oculi, helping the Seelie return to their courts.

Repairing and balancing Leylines: cleansing Leyline disorders at places like Chenyu Vale, the different islands of Inazuma, cleansing leftover Forbidden Knowledge at Sumeru.

Aiding people and living beings: from the Aranara and Melusines to Scaramouche and Dvalin,  ill or struggling NPCs,  lingering ghosts, etc

Defeating and suppressing evil forces: Osial, Beisht, an eroded Azhdaha, the Thunder Manifestation, the Tatarigami at Yashiori, different agents of the Abyss Order, the All-Devouring Narwhal.

Performing appropriate rituals: the Funerary Rites for the “passing” of Morax, the Rainjade Rite at Chenyu Vale, the Festival Utsava, the Watatsumi Goryou Matsuri, the Sakura Cleansing Ritual, etc.

All this repairing, cleansing, returning things to correct places and balancing elemental energy fits with the Lurianic description of how “Repairing the World” is achieved.

In the first part of this theory we compared the Kabbalistic sefirot with the seven elements of Teyvat, as different “colors” derived from elemental energy. We also mentioned how the famous array of the Sefirot in the “Tree of Life” is an idealized state: the truth is that they won’t be arranged in such a balanced way until the coming of the Messianic Age, and that will only be achieved once the repairing of the world is complete. In this context then, the Traveler’s actions should be accelerating the arrival of this ideal state. 

But… isn’t Teyvat the world of the “Other Side”? Who exactly is the Traveler aiding with their actions? Aren’t they strengthening the klippot by maintaining the order set by the Heavenly Principles, who have been accused of being “usurpers” chaining the world to an unnatural order? Or is the Traveler actually reversing this and returning the world to its natural state?

There are a few instances when we are led to doubt that the Traveler is doing the ‘correct’ thing as they purify/restore places in Teyvat. During the Chenyu Vale world questline, Lingyuan says that the adeptal energy the Traveler gets from Fujin has the power to “suppress nature” and that their efforts to perform the Rainjade Rite go against nature as it is intended to be. She also makes a cryptic comment about how humans used to be part of nature, but are no longer. This may simply refer to how humans affect the world around them, or perhaps it’s meant also as commentary on the Traveler’s actions and the way they are generally considered to be positive and restorative. 

In this case, if the Traveler is doing wrong, could it be that the “true Messiah” is out there, being labeled as a “sinner” for trying to release Divine Energy from the evil grasp of the klippot?

After all, we know someone who fits that description: the Traveler’s own sibling.

Purification through Sin: how the Abyss Order are the good guys akshually

There was actually a movement in Jewish mysticism that believed that doing exactly the opposite of what Luria advised (following the laws of the Torah) is what would achieve the complete repairing of the world. This movement  started in the 17th century, in the Ottoman Empire, when a man named Sabbatai Zvi claimed to be the long awaited Messiah. It wasn’t the first time this happened, indeed Christianity arose from one of those very claims. 

The Sabbatean movement, like many before them, drew criticism from more conservative Rabbis particularly due to the seemingly unstable behavior of their leader: sometimes boldly going against Jewish law, other times falling into periods of melancholy that were “unbecoming” of the Messiah. The breaking point for the detractors of Sabbatai Zvi was his public conversion to Islam after being threatened with torture and execution by the Ottoman authorities, effectively becoming an apostate to the Jewish faith. Despite this, Sabbatai Zvi had a big following, and his conversion didn’t deter them.

What’s relevant about this Messianic claimant movement is that much of the fuel for its credibility was based on Kabbalistic thought. Nathan of Gaza, an accomplished student of Jewish theology, was the first believer that Sabbatai was the real Messiah, and from then on used his deep knowledge of Lurianic Kabbalah to argue why Zvi’s questionable actions were what had to be expected from the Messiah, including the most serious sins. Much of the reasoning for this is explained in a text that is still polemical today: the Treatise on Dragons.

Nathan argued that even though the entirety of the created universe was emanated from Divine Light, that doesn’t mean all of this divine essence was used up: there was a good amount of Divine Light that wasn’t involved in creation, and in a way “didn’t desire” to become created matter.  When the endless Divine Light “retracted” to make space for the future world, the leftover “Void realm” had remnants of Divine Light that didn’t want to be part of creation, and were even hostile to it. Afterwards, Divine Light entered the Void in a “vertical line”, penetrating it and kicking off creation, including the subsequent shattering of the vessels mentioned earlier. Eventually, the shattered fragments of the vessels and the hostile remnants of Divine Light  formed the realm of the “Other Side.” So now, the upper levels of the Void is where the created world is located, and it’s also the realm where humans can aid the “Repairing of the World”. However the lower levels, where the klippot are located, are so evil that only the Messiah themselves can “repair” them. That’s why the soul of the Messiah was cast into the “Other Side” even before creation, when Divine Light penetrated into the Void Realm. This soul would be particularly connected with the klippot, incarnating many times across history as different people that would endure terrible temptations and suffering, all with the objective of purifying the klippot at the bottom of the “hole of the great Abyss”, from the inside.

 While this interpretation of Lurianic Kabbalah was devised to explain the behavior and life of one particular individual (Sabbatai Zvi), for our Genshin Impact theory it serves as an explanation for the actions of the Traveler’s Sibling. After all, we have never seen them hold contempt or hatred against Teyvat like the exiled dragon sovereigns seem to have. Rather, the Sibling and the Abyss Order focus on toppling the Heavenly Principles. The Sibling even seems to have tried to reverse the initial effects of the Cataclysm, attempting to save Khaenri’ah and parts of Teyvat along with Dainsleif, until whatever they saw at the “sea of flowers at the end” made them change their mind. Abyss Sibling is also constantly somber and serious, even when chatting amicably with the Traveler during Bedtime Story, which fits Nathan’s explanation on how different people containing the soul of the Messiah have tended to have a melancholy disposition, constantly battling the temptation to sin and struggling with the uglier side of life.

All this, plus the constant description of the Abyss Order and other Khaenri’ans as “sinners” leads us to think that the actions of its current leader, the Princess/Prince of the Abyss, are in line with the Sabbatean notion of “purifying the klippot through sin”.

Why Am I A Broken Messiah and other old Death Note anime lyrics

One final comparison to draw in this “redemption through sin” is actually from different Abrahamic religions other than Judaism. Gerschom Scholem in his book about Sabbateanism also points out the similarities of this movement to at least one, or perhaps more, early Gnostic Christian sects.

It’s difficult to discern what was genuine belief and what were accusations of heresy by mainstream Christian theologians, but there are at least two Gnostic groups that seemed to identify themselves with Biblical characters typically associated with sin. 

The Cainites allegedly claimed that since the God of the Old Testament was nothing but an evil imposter, salvation would come by opposing his laws and engaging in sin. In their narrative, Cain was but a victim that triumphed over the evil Demiurge and his minion: Abel, while Judas was either the most illuminated disciple of Jesus, who aided him in opening a path for humanity’s salvation, or a hero who opposed the evil Jesus’s attempt to further hide the truth of the world. The second group were the Ophites, who identified themselves with the snake that invited Adam and Eve to go against God’s prohibitions in the Garden of Eden, because doing so would actually reveal the truth about the Imposter God and the True God to them and their descendants.

Whether what we know of these groups is reliable or false, we also know that there was a more generalized Gnostic belief that humans were “sinful bodies” made of “lesser matter” that nonetheless contained “sparks of divine essence” within them: it was through the discarding of the “lesser body” and the “ascending of the divine sparks” towards the Pleroma that humanity could gain salvation. This is very reminiscent of the Kabbalistic notion of “releasing the sparks of Divine Light” from the “husks” of the klippot.

Gnosticism is one of the chief inspirations for the world building of Genshin Impact. If the notion of the Other Side accurately describes the condition of Teyvat, and the characteristics of the klippot are comparable to the order imposed by the Heavenly Principles, then it’s very likely that “repairing” the world will be done in a Gnostic way, whether it’s escaping Teyvat or entirely destroying it.

Also, the Twins having opposite stances when it comes to the “salvation of the world” could be compared to the Christian and Islamic belief that the arrival of the end times will be heralded by a fake “Anti Messiah”, right before the appearance of the actual Messiah of salvation. It could be then, considering the role of the “Sinful Messiah” described before, that the Princess/Prince of the Abyss is behaving like the Antichrist precisely because this is a necessary role to be performed so the Traveler can bring salvation to the world.

At this time, we still don't know which of the twins are the one whose actions are actually leading to the “salvation” of Teyvat. Is the Traveler unwittingly helping the klippot exert tyrannical control over an exiled, scattered Divine Light? Or are they returning the world to a state older than the Heavenly Principles? Is the Abyss Order actually trying to liberate Teyvat from the oppression of the “Other Side,” or are they just looking for power and vengeance? And what role does the exiled Dragon race play in this dichotomy of divine and demonic? 

Perhaps Natlan can bring us those long-awaited answers…

References:

The Origins of the Klippot / Qliphoth & Sitra Achra in the Zohar - Kabbalah on the Problem of Evil

Introduction to Kabbalah and Jewish Mysticism - Part 10/14 - Christian and Lurianic Kabbalah

Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism (Scholem). Sixth Lecture: The Zohar II: The Theosophic Doctrine of the Zohar

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Li_(Confucianism)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/As_above,_so_below

Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism (Scholem). Seventh Lecture: Isaac Luria and his School

Introduction to Kabbalah and Jewish Mysticism - Part 10/14 - Christian and Lurianic Kabbalah https://youtu.be/gqvcifVWjvM?si=BYS_7FbX8lz9iQJy 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabbateans 

Introduction to Kabbalah and Jewish Mysticism - Part 12/14 - Sabbateanism and Mystical Heresy II https://youtu.be/F5QU5ylhOqA?si=dSR4SEbnkMfCUJj_ 

Sabbatai Ṣevi : the mystical Messiah, 1626-1676 (Scholem). Chapter 3: The Beginnings of the Movement in Palestine (1665)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cainites 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ophites

Anticosmicism: Gnostic Dualism https://gnosticismexplained.org/anticosmicism-gnostic-dualism/ 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antichrist 

[rin-and-jade]

Copy, and then Paste! : A Post About Introjection

You know it—the title is based off the Ctrl C and Ctrl V function from computers, but did you know we have our own version too?

Introjection is more than just mimicry or replicating something though, it apparently plays a far more important role than you'd initially thought. Want to know the answer? Let's check it out then! (not a clickbait)

Okay google, what is: to introject

Out of 1253 results, here is the recommended definition,

"Introjection occurs when a person internalizes the ideas or voices of other people" from Therapist Development Center

From the related result, here are top 3 examples: - When you internalize the idea of "crying is for the weak" - When you believe that you're not good enough - "I must dress pretty so i am socially accepted"

You can introject many sorts of things such as behaviors, mindsets, beliefs, traits, concepts or even feelings.

Articles on: How introjection happens

Well, it is a very complex process on how introjection happens, or why. But this search engine (me) will try to explain the whole concept to you in a simplified manner!

We have started to introject many things ever since a child, the world is difficult on its own to learn from scratch, which is why taking in qualities and behaviors from what we expose ourselves to the most shapes how we navigate the world.

Call it a framework to work with,, it is used to learn manners, or understand how to respond to a certain situation by observing, then, these values are internalized, importantly shaping us as we grow older. Though, introjection doesn't understand good or bad qualities as they're seen as "the truth" to one's mind, therefore it's possible to introject literally anything.

It can also function as a defense mechanism, where we adopt these values and internalize them in order to cope, or to repeat similar tactics that proved to be successful for the previous person. For example, if you were bullied, bullying back will mitigate the hurt you could receive in the future. This generally represents fictives and persecutors respectively, though varies for each person.

Fictive.. Factive.. What is that, Siri??

There are many kinds of introjects.. they can be based from fictional medias, real people, or even concepts like art or songs. But what the??

Easy now, sure the amount of introject kinds could throw anyone off, but the concept still stands true, though it gets trickier when it comes to other introjected concepts such as OCtives or Songtives, which i will explain too.

Thing is, what will help you understand many different kinds of them existing, is envisioning that introjection operates in a spectrum. Thats right, they are on a scale.

The idea is that introjection exists in a continuum. Just like how alters have varying degrees of development (a shard, or fragment), this scale is not meant to simplify or categorize things in its literal sense, but to help visualize and understand the level of complexities.

The level of complexity of a scale lies at what it/you introjected: Lvl 1: Introjection - the most basic forms can start from traits, ideas, or concepts. Example: Alters that formed off songs, art, thoughts, and even feelings. Lvl 2: Internalization - then getting to more fledged values like behaviors, life views. Example: Persecutors who had internalized negative attitudes from abusers. Lvl 3: Identification - and then lastly, when you identify the qualities of a specific person. Example: General Introjects, Fictives, Factives. (identification varies in intensity)

Sometimes, these introjected qualities are absorbed by multiple alters or by oneself. If it does not get absorbed to a pre-existing part, a new alter will be created to contain these qualities that it has internalized instead.

An introject possessing multiple sources from different aspects is also possible due to this process. (these three terms are originally interchangeable as they are under an umbrella of introjection, but i prefer to use them to represent each levels)

There's no result on the internet..

"What bests explains multiple introjects of the same source? What's with source separation? What about the memories that comes with said source?" Might be the search history in your phone right now, It's okay to stop searching, your answers are right under these fingertips!

Duplication of sources

When it comes to multiple parts of the same or similar source, it can be due to reasons like current hyperfixation or resonating with the qualities of said media. It can as be simple as wanting to have the same qualities from the media, too. Lastly, comorbids like autism and BPD plays a factor on how often you will introject.

Even duplicates will not act the same as the other one, which means each can introject different things from the same source, in different intensity or variation or alternative versions of source.

Additionally, being polyfragmented increases the amount of fragments/alters that could form, thus contributing to higher chances of having duplicates.

Source separating

When one introjected the qualities of a person/media, there might be a chance they identify as person/media due to it. The idea is that when one associates these qualities directly to the person, which then has a feedback loop where because the specific qualities are present, means they are that person.

Continuing from the example of bullying to not get bullied, they might see themselves just like the bully from the past due internalizing its behavior, in general this is equivalent to identification. Any negative or positive qualities can be introjected that later grow to identification.

The notion of needing to source separate is not something that have to be forced upon immediately. As it should be a transient process where one has to detach from the current sense of identity with one that is original.

No one can be 100% free from introjection, so source separation would mean minimizing the intensity of identification while developing a more whole sense of true self.

Being attached to a source in some level can be a positive outcome to implement, especially if it reinforces positive emotions or memories. As long it is not causing harm to anyone, since sometimes the urge to become the source or convincing of being one can be destructive.

Source memories

Remember something that had happened to you, but never happened to the body? It doesn't mean the memory itself is entirely fake, it is more to abstract context like how dreams manifests according to how you feel on a specific situation.

Just like dreams, the whole accident may never have happened in reality, but it is reenacting what had happened in the past with its own version/remake.

This happens when the true event is too much to take in or remember. When you cannot remember what truly happened, the somatic and emotional aspects to the trauma is still intact. Which contributes to why these fake memories aren't entirely fake.

Its good to take note that having a memory of going through an event, that doesn't happen bodily, never means you do understand the true experience of such event. It's only the impressions and assumptions of it.

With that being said, you can understand what your source memories are trying to convey by matching up similarities in your current life, or uncover how you feel or think of the event. Then, you can start healing whatever was left unresolved.

A scroll to the end of the web

Basically to reiterate things, we do copy and paste people's qualities for a living. But, not as a mere function like how computers implemented it.

Don't forget to consider who you will be friends with and how it'll impact you socially, and double-check whether you have adopted someone's essence that doesn't serve a meaningful purpose for you. You do become what you are exposed to, just like how you are what you eat.

Feel free to let us know your introject experiences, it could help validate someone else's experience, too!

- j & chaos

[utilitycaster]

(this is tagged for it as well, but putting it here: the below involves some non-graphic mention/discussion of suicide in relation to episode 3x78)

I think it's important to keep in mind, regarding the most recent episode, that while Ashton's behavior was extremely dangerous and reckless, it was not suicidal in intent. Ashton thought it would work. They thought that they would fix things, and they ignored all the smart people warning them against it because it would imply a lot of negative things about their parents. That doesn't mean it wasn't an action taken out of a certain lack of self-regard (Ashton's realization of this is what drives much of his conversations in the first half of the episode); but it's much more akin to an accidental overdose, or a drunk/reckless driving, or other dangerous choices. It feels very true to the idea of punk that Taliesin is going for, in which dying young is always very much a possibility, even perhaps an expectation; but not necessarily a goal. Ashton did not expect taking the shard to result in their death, and is incredibly shaken specifically because it did.

With that in mind I think the party's reactions seem very real and very understandable. The fact is, when someone does something very risky and nearly dies (or even is briefly clinically dead, using real-world terms) but ultimately survives it's extremely normal for one of the emotional responses to be anger that they put themselves in such danger. It is not, perhaps, rational, but most emotions aren't. It hurts a lot when someone one is close to does something that harmful to themselves. I don't judge the other members of Bells Hells for expressing those feelings. Frankly, them not expressing similar feelings in the past might very well be why Ashton made the decisions he did: the party lacking trust and walking on eggshells around each other is why he didn't confide in them, and why they fell apart so completely here.

I think it's relevant that Chetney tells Fearne, after stating he likes Ashton, that either she or Ashton can talk to him if they "want out", and he pretty heavily implies that this indicates not just leaving Bells Hells, but suicide, and that he has considered the latter in the past. It's clear that initially Chetney considers that a possible reason for Ashton's actions. He then gives Ashton the "You should leave" speech only after everyone present has been talking at dinner, after Ashton has indicated that he will help find Laudna. It only comes out after Ashton's emotional state is made more clear to him: it's pretty bad, but not actively at risk of self-harm (and indeed, desperately trying to avoid it and to change).

Finally, it's worth considering how important anger is to Ashton. Obviously I don't think having Imogen, FCG, and Chetney yell at them feels good. I also think it's going to feel better than apathy, and more honest than any other option. I don't think a forced gentleness would be better; in fact it might be worse, with them taking a break because clearly Ashton is having a hard time and needs to recover (shades of how Marisha mentioned Laudna feeling like a burden following her resurrection), rather than "we are clearly all in disarray and all have been not dealing with a lot of emotions, and this could have been any of us, and we should all regroup." I mentioned before that ultimately what's important is, angry as they are, Bells Hells undeniably stayed, and FCG and Imogen at least made it clear early on that they would, even if they were angry. Ashton was abandoned in the past by people who weren't even angry, is the thing. I don't think they cared enough to be.

[12u3ie]

Hi I am NOT normal about pottery shards and I WILL talk about them

AKA: under the cut is me explaining all the pottery shard designs out in Minecraft 1.20 snapshots as of now (March 23, 2023) in alphabetical order, going over their design and their possible meaning in the lore. Pictures of each shard will be above the text of the listed shard. Now, let's get on with it shall we?

Angler. Starting off simple. A fishing rod with a fish at the end. The ancient society knew how to craft fishing rods and catch fish.

Archer. A drawn bow and arrow. They crafted bows and arrows and knew how to use them. Probably related to skeletons somehow. Maybe the skeletons are them? Maybe the skeletons just stole their technology once they were gone? Unsure.

In real life, bow-and-arrow technology was revolutionary in terms of human evolution. Some archeologists even theorize that bows were the tools that began the end for our cousins, Neanderthals. But in Minecraft... who knows?

Arms Up. A humanoid figure with their arms raised. The arms-up pose means something unknown. Perhaps a gesture of friendship, or peace? What we do know is that, for near certain, the ancient peoples were humanoid in nature, close if not near identical to modern players.

Blade. A sword. Very similar to the standard Minecraft sword model, with a slightly different hilt. Maybe a pixel art limitation, maybe not. The ancient peoples knew how to make swords.

Brewer. A bottle of some description. Seems like a mixed design between a glass bottle and a cauldron. Nevertheless, it has its origins in brewing. They knew how to brew potions. Did they have a different system of brewing to the modern day, or did they have access to the Nether for materials? Currently unknown.

Burn. A flame. They knew how to make fire, or at least knew of its existence. But drawing on the last point, perhaps it's not a fire, but a blaze powder instead. The textures are oddly similar to one another.

Danger. A creeper. Seems like these mobs have been around for a while, and have always been a pain in the backside to watch out for. Wonder if they replied to such a call of danger with "aw man."

Explorer. A map with an X, marking a specific spot. They hid treasures in the ground likely in the same way of IRL pirates - marking a spot on a map for later. Sadly, from modern treasure maps found in shipwrecks, it seems they weren't able to get back to all their spoils in time. Also indicates they knew how to make and use maps.

Friend. An iron golem face. The ancient peoples knew that iron golems existed and that they were protective and friendly towards them. Perhaps, building upon other, older theories, they made the iron golems themselves.

Heart. A standard heart shape. Possibly a visualization of love. Or perhaps they had hearts within them as humans do in the real world, and this is what they looked like.

Heartbreak. A heart broken in two down the vertical center. ...Let's go with the first assumption of the previous shard's imagery. A broken heart is often a symbol of a bad feeling over a lost relationship. The ancient society had intricate relationships between its peoples. They loved and fell out of love, in any and possibly every such meaning of the term.

Howl. A wolf. In the words of a dear friend of mine, "They had doggies!" Or, more likely, began the process of domesticating wolves into the tamable breed we know today. At the very least, they knew of the existence of wolves, regardless of whether the ancient people-wolf relations were good or not.

Miner. A pickaxe. The ancient peoples were able to craft tools like pickaxes to mine for resources. The pickaxe here, much like the sword, is slightly different in design to what we know today.

Mourner. A warden. Now this... this is a very interesting one. I have my own theories that would require a bit more explaining than this format will allow for. (Maybe I will express such thoughts at a later date, if readers wish to hear them...) Let your thoughts be known in the tags!

Plenty. An open chest. This proves that the ancient peoples had the ability to craft chests, and the need for extra storage beyond what could be carried (presumably in their inventories, if they had them).

Prize. A gem. This is an indicator that they were able to mine for resources. Now, some sources may indicate this as a diamond. However, the shape is very distinct from that of any diamonds ever in Minecraft. This may be a completely new - or rather, very old - and different gem than anything players have seen before.

Sheaf. A bundle of wheat. They had means of farming and collecting wheat, and perhaps other crops as well. Agriculture is a part of their culture.

Shelter. A tree. They were able to hide from the elements underneath trees, later emulating this with their own buildings.

Skull. A skull. This could either be the skull of a skeleton mob, from which the skull item drops today, or perhaps the skull of the deceased. They knew of skeletons and death in one form or another.

Snort. A sniffer. This proves that sniffers existed at the same time as this ancient civilization, and that these people were in some form of contact with sniffers.

-~-~-

Remember that anything listed here was important enough to the society of ancient peoples to be immortalized in the art of their pottery. Each one of these has some sort of significance.

-~-~-

Taglist: @darubyprincxx @nightshadeowl @eagle-warri

[aspenonpawzzz]

HENLO! (pls read )

Hi-hi-hi!

My name is Aspen! I’m the host of the Canis Constellation. My pronouns are They/them and It/its, so please use gender-neutral, non human terms when refering to me! I am a TransAlterine Omniromantic Asexual, and support All identities (except p3d0s, z0()s, maps, dreamsexuals, or other thing such as those!) NO POLITICS PLEASE (alterine https://yb3.fandom.com/wiki/Alterine)

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Theory Time: Nine's Redemption

So the shards can all do something, right? The shard of the Bosscage Maze could generate powers of nature and grow plants and trees instantaneously, which goes along with that dimension as a whole. The No Place shard could shoot lightning from the looks of it, something storm related, ties in somewhat well with the dimension. The Grim Shard could create things. Since the world of Grim is empty, that kinda makes sense.

But what about the shard of the Ghost Green Hill?

Sonic and Nine had a heart wrenching argument in the last episode, and when Sonic slipped up and accidentally compared Nine to "the real Tails," how did Nine respond?

I seriously don't think Sonic intended to imply that Nine was fake. He was just finally coming to terms with the fact that Nine truly isn't Tails.

In the Ghost Green Hill, the only "living" beings are the ghostly versions of Sonic's friends that just keep repeating the same lines over and over. They're like memories caught in a broken record. So what if the shard of Ghost Green Hill can show memories? And do we recall another argument had in the exact same place at the beginning of this season? Remember what Sonic said in response to Shadow saying the variants of his friends weren't real?

He harshly defended Nine (the others too, but mostly Nine) to Shadow's face. Shadow ended up dropping the subject because Sonic was getting fired up over it.

Nine has all the shards with him now, including the Ghost Green Hill shard. What if he actually sees this memory? What if seeing Sonic defend him like that will help change his mind?

[yaeggravate]

Theory: Kaeya's Vision was Given to Him by The Sinner and his Vision Gives us a Major Hint as to The Sinner's Identity.

can we talk about kaeya's vision? i've been dying to talk about kaeya's vision again.

(spoilers for everything up until 4.2)

good news, we finally got some more insight on what visions are! according to neuvilette's character story, when a person's desire reaches the heavens, archons are dutybound to put aside a shard of their mastery for them. this "mastery" originally belongs to the seven sovereigns.

To continue to subdue and control the resentments and loathing of the world, the usurper and one who came after created the Gnoses together. So it came to be that an order was made to be upheld, and thus did humans come to only possess these seven remembrances, and all fragments of the primordial were driven to devour each other. From that day on, whenever a person's wishes reached the heavens, the seven overseers of the material realm were duty-bound to grant them a gift. Though they might know nothing of who or what wish had stepped into the threshold of the sacred, the Seven Archons still had to impart a shattered shard of their mastery to that person.

after focalors destroyed the throne of the hydro archon, neuvilette gained complete authority over the hydro element. because he's a nice guy, he decided to also put aside some of his mastery to grant visions to people.

furina is one such person.

here's the cool part; her vision looks different from other fontainians. the decoration combines ousia and pneuma elements and there are four little fangs holding the vision in place.

KAEYA'S VISION

that brings me back to the conundrum that is kaeya's vision. before furina, he was the only character with a vision that deviated from the norm.

there are two unique oddities about his standard vision: it's missing two wings; the strings on the back are on the other side: this is an indication that it's mirrored.

(for simplicity's sake i will ignore the vision on his other outfit since it's essentially modified to match zosimos' design.)

what if kaeya's situation is similar to furina's? and i'm not just talking about their never-ending masquerade… what if his vision was granted by someone else?

WHY ARE THE STRINGS ON THE RIGHT SIDE?

i have briefly talked about this before but mirrors are associated with the abyss. this lead me to believe that it's possible that kaeya's vision might have been given by the abyss/the sinner.

note how the strings on furina's gem also switch sides when she changes from pneuma to ousia. (pneuma (light) on the left and ousia (dark) on the right.)

it's relatively common knowledge by now that kaeya's kit shares similarities with abyss mages and heralds and that many khaenri'ahns were turned into abyssal creatures, (possibly due to them being in a similar situation as jakob ingold who possessed a "bit of the dark cold cosmos's power").

Paimon: And you said the people turned into monsters... You're trying to tell Paimon that the Abyss Order is not only related to Khaenri'ah but is actually the people of Khaenri'ah themselves!?

with the new information given, this theory seems more plausible. if neuvilette can give out visions, why not mr. purple crystal as well? if wishes can reach the "heavens", couldn't they also reach the abyss? we saw the crystal respond to clothar's praying and display a bit of creepy omniscience so you know it's powerful.

WHY IS THE VISION MISSING WINGS?

consider that the fangs on furina's vision is neuvilette's tongue-in-cheek way of hinting at him being a dragon, as his own personal touch. then could clipped wings hint towards the identity of whoever gave kaeya his vision? what do clipped wings indicate? fallen angels. what's a fallen angel? a sinner. 😏💯

Fallen angels are angels who were expelled from heaven. The literal term "fallen angel" does not appear in any Abrahamic religious texts, but is used to describe angels cast out of heaven or angels who sinned. Such angels often tempt humans to sin.

fun fact, the abyss mages are always chanting in ENOCHIAN which is popularized as the language of the angels.

The script for this language appears while Abyss Mages are chanting to regenerate their shields as well as over their heads when performing spells outside of combat. […] The script also appears in the yellow protective runes around the weak points of Automatons, where the mirrored glyphs for B, L, and G circle around the core. Ruin Guards are known to have been made by the people of Khaenri'ah, many of whom turned into "monsters of the Abyss," so this script was possibly used in Khaenri'ah as well.

way back in the first archon quest, an abyss mage speaks to kaeya in enochian. it's significant enough that they give us a subtitle to imply kaeya can understand this angelic language; we have been shown he knows other ancient languages as well, like the language of the hilichurls and a strange script in the manga.

Kaeya: There's no way hilichurls organized an ambush like this themselves — not with their limited mental capacity... Kaeya: Thus YOU were behind this. Hydro Abyss Mage: Gohus, Chiso Vonph.

perhaps a reach but kaeya has one giant wing on his outfit, possibly a reference to the most famous video game villain in history, sephiroth, the one-winged angel?

this one is not a reach because kaeya also owns a book called the adventures of angelos. angelos is from greek ἄγγελος which means angel.

Between the pages of "The Adventures of Angelos," you find a list of names written on a sheet of official Knights of Favonius letterhead paper.

a book named angel containing a list of names, just to show the traveler he has eyes everywhere is a little on the nose if you ask me.

*edit: i forgot to include the most obvious hint, kaeya's favorite hangout: angel's share. and in the book of revelation there is a star or angel that fell to earth known as wormwood, (apsinthion in greek), which is the name of a plant used to make absinthe, which in turn is thee main ingredient of death (in the) afternoon, kaeya's favorite drink. dainsleif also likes this drink.

Wormwood (ἀψίνθιον apsinthion or ἄψινθος apsinthos in Greek) is a star or angel which appears in the Book of Revelation.

another fun fact, nabu malikata's last name malikata, besides meaning queen, could also mean angels.

In Islam, angels (Arabic: ملاك٬ ملك‎, romanized: malāk; plural: ملائِكة‎, malāʾik/malāʾikah) are believed to be heavenly beings.

nabu malikata is a survivor of the seelie race who were abandoned by the heavens; they are heavily implied to be angels. she is also the originator of the jinn. huh, i wonder why kaeya gifted us a seemingly random lamp which is said to have housed a powerful jinni...

all this is pointing to the sinner being a fallen angel which makes sense since the archons have demonic names from the ars goetia, it stands to reason that higher abyssal beings should have angelic names.

in islam, there is a fallen angel named iblis who had four wings (like kaeya's vision) and who was chained up in the deepest part of hell (like the sinner), whose original name was azazil. khaenri'ah has some ties to arabic mythology, so who knows? this is just one possibility. interestingly enough, the names of four of the archangels ARE referenced in mona's magic circle but not azazil.

the interesting part about the crystal is that he denies being a god and addresses the traveller as "creature"… there has been some speculation that the dragon king nibelung is the sinner, but we honestly don't have enough information to make that leap.

**edit: the domain we find the sinner in is located inside the chasm. thousands of years ago, back when zhongli was still young, an entity known as the sun or solar chariot fell to teyvat forming the chasm. this was during the time the moon sisters fell.

according to one legend, they refer to the entity as a fallen star. the star stayed in the chasm until the archon war, but before it returned to the sky it permanently left a piece of itself behind.

also, the sinner's domain has enkanomiyan statues and architecture. in enkanomiya, there is an achievement you can get called phosphorus' guidance, which you get by following seelies. phosphorus is the greek name for the morning star. the latin name for the morning star is lucifer, now best known as the name of a fallen angel.

The Ancient Greeks called the morning star Φωσφόρος, Phosphoros, the "Bringer of Light". Another Greek name for the morning star was Heosphoros, meaning "Dawn-Bringer".

dawn-bringer, you say? reminds me of the harbinger of dawn kaeya gives you in the very beginning of the game. what are you trying to tell us, bud?

lastly, the traveler notes the upside down defiled statue of the anemo archon is similar to the sinner. the statue, of course, has wings. it's funny because when we meet kaeya for the very first time, it's in front of the anemo god statue in front of the cathedral... notably, both dainsleif, and kaeya in his hangout route do not go inside the cathedral.

Kaeya: Perfect. (Traveler), why don't you head into the Cathedral and invite Sister Barbara to join us? I'll look for another friend who's interested in helping us.

Dainsleif: When a non-believer steps onto holy ground, the result is never pretty.

WHY DOES THE VISION HAVE A MONDSTADT CASING?

khaenri'ah was outside of the rule of the seven, hidden from the gaze of the gods. we don't know yet if in days of old khaenri'ahns could receive visions but we do have dainsleif's character card to give us a clue.

The listed name of his Vision's element, as announced on his Chinese Character Card, is a set of indecipherable symbols.

so dainsleif does have a vision; it's just that it has manifested as something else, possibly because unlike kaeya-seemingly a normal human-he is cursed.

in any case, we've seen wanderer receive a complete sumeru vision despite not even being from there and arlecchino has a shneznayan casing despite loving her homeland fontaine. (although there might be some other shit going on with her.)

this means vision casings are tied to the region the receiver is in and has nothing to do with where a person is born. if neuvilette were to gift someone from outside fontaine a hydro vision, they would receive a casing from the region they're in. fontainians have pneuma or ousia alignments but arlecchino's shneznayan vision has no indication of what she is aligned with. though again, arlecchino is not a normal human being, who knows what's going on there.

Along with Divinity: Prologue [...] we should be conscious of the fact that what shapes our thinking, logic, culture, philosophy and aesthetics is not the archons themselves, but the objective environment that exists around us. This world around us is what we have inherited, and what this book shows is that the people of Teyvat have always been, and always will be, heirs to a divine legacy — but not to divinity itself.

(also thought it was pretty interesting how capitano calls the gnosis, the gnosis from inazuma instead of "the electro gnosis" or the "gnosis from the electro archon".)

aaand scene. please note that this is all kind of jumbled wild speculation and should not be taken as fact! this is all in good fun.

[sonic-fankid-showdown]

Poll 24, Round 1.

About Blade: (by @microwave-kid) Hoagie is a Huskal (archaic term for the rare crossbreed between jackals and wolves) that has no biological relation to Ian Jr or Infinite, and was found alone in a sad wet cardboard box by a swan. The swan, acting as a stork, delivered Hoagie to Ian Jr. and Infinite. Infinite could immediately tell that, for some reason, the huskal had latent Phantom Ruby powers. After Ian Jr. took Hoagie (whom he named) to a doctor it was discovered that he had crystalline Phantom Ruby-esq growths in his knees. Neither Ian Jr nor Infinite care to consider the implications of this or what this means for Hoagie's origins. These Ruby shards give Hoagie primarily the power to sense small atmospheric changes in pressure (he can tell when it's about to rain.) Ian Jr. named Hoagie that became during a good day he treats himself to a hoagie, and with his son in his life every day is a good day. Infinite named him Blade Thornslash, though.

About Mary: (by @veo-queenofcards) She's very sweet, but isn't afraid to throw hands, though she prefers to stay out of unnecessary conflicts. She would be a power type and her black arms dna is more noticeable. She has a twin named Windy.

[bulletproofthroat]

this painting was inspired by edvard munchs "Despair"

it came under the pretext of suffering BPD, and as somebody who suffers it severely, it only helped if i tried to face these issues, ulterior illnesses such as ASD, ADHD, OCD and bipolar I only added fuel to the flaming rapture of my illnesses and i don't wish this upon anybody. I remember some people were talking on how corey himself must have BPD from his traits, myself, i agree 100% on these claims, spotting a borderline takes no effort because our emotions are so erratic and the way our cognition exists is in the term "borderline" we see the world in black and white, gray areas don't exist for us. One second I'll be infatuated by somebody just for them to do nothing more than a trivial act, sending me into a spiral of disdain and hatred, it guts me each time i have to use "oh i have bpd sorry" as an excuse because i know the whole world doesn't know about this disorder, nor do the people i hurt or sabotaged relations with, am i a bad person for this? that's a debate, part of me knows i am no angel, though was it my fault for turning out like this? being groomed just as i turned 11? Being sexually assaulted in school or on the bus when i was 8? I still blame myself for these actions regardless of what the ordinary person says. I am born to parents who are war survivors, a grandfather who was a political prisoner in Iraq, a mother who has endured war during her childhood, losing her father for a good portion of her life, on the flip side of the same coin, my father who grew up in 1970's iraq without a mother or father due to the circumstances of saddam hussein, he was left to grow up with his sisters and his grandparents. Do i blame them for displacing the extreme trauma onto me? cracking my weak ego day by day from what they interpret as normal or righteous? No. I know they have unresolved mental punctures but that's not for me to stigmatize because I'm taking it secondhanded now, though it has stunted my performance socially and rationally, and this isn't holistically from my parents, though extraneous issues such as being groomed played a large factor. 2018-2020 was maybe one of the worst years of my life, what i simply enjoyed was playing roblox until the man who had ruined my life unconsciously came and exchanged discords with me. From then my life had seemed to be nothing but a whirlwind of hell that i couldn't reach out, i stayed quiet, i walked quiet and never spoke. The day I was in iraq for holiday was maybe the day I had shattered as a child, the breakup between us, when i was 12, had acted as a catalyst for me to engage in risky behaviour, self harm and, you guessed it, suicidal plans. I remember the first time I was cutting myself was with a piece of glass I smashed outside in the barren area of iraq, ranya. I took dusty shards of glass and sat outside on the stairs, unsure of how self harm even worked, or how to purposely make myself bleed for such a horrific cause. The most i had succeeded in was a galore of scratches with some small cuts on my legs. I was scared to touch my wrists but the will for self harm lingered. Houses in iraq typically consist of two floors for 2 separate families to live in, so there i sat on the second floor on the balcony with my legs dangling off the railings, wishing i wasn't scared to throw myself off because i knew i was nothing, i was empty, docile, without the so called man of my life. What baffles me to this day was that he never gave me an actual age, he had said he was 16, to then being able to own an apartment filled with booze on each crevice of the shelf. i remember that discord call like it was yesterday, and i was maybe 12? he had laughed saying he was 18, though he was reassuring he was 16. that wasn't the case until i turned 15, realising i was groomed to then he typed at me with such condescending vocabulary, asking me as a rhetoric, "why should i trust you with my age?" and nothing had tore me more as a person than to hear that.

from that encounter onwards, my relationships had all been nothing but short and difficult. I was always known as "sabotaging" or "impulsive and incapable to deal with" a plethora of words were used for me that fits the criteria perfectly. It didn't help that from when i was 14 i had abused alcohol behind my parents back. from 2021 in iraq, i had drank and drank, when i wasnt with my mother, i had drank beer, whiskey, vodka, anything my uncles had, i took, and i took and took to the point i slept with alcohol in the same mattress. i had grown more infatuated to being intoxicated than sober because being sober ached my conscience as a child, and to be in a state where i could barely move or talk decently, it grabbed me. I'm turning 18 years of age in less than 150 days, my relationship with alcohol is like a tidal wave, i either cut off for good on some days, until i relapse incredibly hard and wake up in the bath tub, and that's what happened to me around august of 2023, the month my uncle died before i received my exam results, i was dating my ex, who had never hurt me. he had lived an hour from me and i wished for nothing more than to meet him and be in love, or so i thought. until that 1 month relationship had fell. i grieved hard to the point my £100 in my account had rinsed completely to £3 because of the alcohol i had bought. all i remember from august was the amount of jack daniels i had drank, nothing more or less. my ex, being concerned had called me along with my ex friend, scared for my well being as i would randomly be angry. it was petty. we had all been friends since 2019, those two had been friends since 2016-17. it was natural for them to be close and friendly with eachother, though for me, i took it the wrong way, i saw it as he was cheating on me, did he love me? was he taking the piss out of me by making sexual jokes? but it was stupid, we all made sex jokes, what was the difference? now that we're dating? i got angry quickly, i had been known to "press" people a lot, like a leech, i wanted something out of them, a reaction, something explosive. i wanted control over him, and it turned horribly. when i went to birmingham for my uncles funeral, whom i never said goodbye to because he was murdered in cold blood by a silencer. It was typical iraq politics, rationale doesn't exist, just cold blooded cavemen who will get what they want, even if that means tearing a family apart. september 4th, the day he broke up with me, was the day i had tore down completely, how does one reach such volatile state that it only depletes and depletes further? Here I am now. I have 1 last session left of cognitive behaviour therapy, then i'm onto psychotherapy. it's nice knowing what they are as i have been taught these in my psychology class. in school, when i was 15, a boy in the year below, i had been close with him because we were in the school band playing soul music, we had the same hobbies and taste in music. he was a guitarist and i was the vocalist/bassist, at the time i thought we had the chemistry until he had got with another girl in his year group. angering me enough, i tried to prove myself, though it never worked. skip until now, 2024, i have removed him off my socials, what once were close friends now are nothing but strangers, somebody i loathe completely. you'll assume it's something dastardly from his end, however it was never the case. the day he had told me he had broken with his girlfriend, i felt relieved, though i knew he wasn't mentally well himself, i felt nothing but like a stepping stool or his boredom to be levitated, i had been there on site 24/7 if he felt, sad i cried for him, i drunkenly proposed when i was in iraq during 2022, out of guilt and shame i apologised. he had led me on. This had fueled my borderline. Now here I am. avoidant and spiteful. Nobody's obliged to read this, though this will stay here, love yall

(bpd gang rise)

[lu-is-not-ok]

okay so your post abt Hong Lu NOT smiling in his base ego made me look at it reeeal closely. And Im sorry if it was mentioned somewhere apparently I cant read but what do you think about this statement: in his base ego he is not just chilling out there, he is locked in a room with treasures. And window frame looks like an allegory to jail bars. And I imply locked like literally. As if he was just a jewelry piece thrown to a pile of money and other jewelries.

— Hong Lu simp- I mean shrimp anon

Alright, let's actually discuss Hong Lu's base E.G.O art properly, shall we?

For a refresher, allow me to post the image here:

Now, let's get the obvious out of the way. The bars on the window.

Sure, they could symbolize Hong Lu being locked away in his home by his family... However, there's one issue with that.

Every. Single. Base E.G.O has the bars over the window.

Reminder that All of the Sinners are also All Prisoners. The Korean word used to describe them could mean both Sinners and Prisoners.

So... That lead is a bust. However, I don't think we're quite done here.

There's actually something far more innocuous I want to talk about - the pose Hong Lu is in. Specifically, the fact that he's sitting in a chair.

Only two other characters are seen to be sitting in a chair in their base E.G.Os - Sinclair and Meursault. It might just be the contentless brain speaking, but the fact that it's those three specifically makes me wonder if it's a subtle hint that there's a similarity between them.

Consider the fact that the two characters with a Sloth Core Sin - Gregor and Yi Sang, are also sitting in their base E.G.Os, however they're sitting on the ground instead, with notably dangerous objects scattered on that floor around them (in Gregor's case, it's weapons; in Yi Sang's case, it's shards of glass).

I think likewise Sinclair, Meursault, and Hong Lu being sat down in chairs is meant to symbolize something similar to Gregor and Yi Sang sitting on the ground surrounded by things that could harm them reflecting them resigning to their fates and becoming apathetic to the harm that was being caused to them.

For the three chair-sitters, I posit this idea: they're all people being forced into specific roles by expectations put on them. Sinclair ends up walking on this line between the worlds of good and evil because of societal pressure and Kromer's influence. Meursault constantly acts in whatever way other people wish him to act. And Hong Lu... well, there's his family, isn't it?

Now, let's take a closer look at some other details around Hong Lu's base E.G.O art.

The image in his window is actually quite evocative, in my opinion. It's a massive complex of red-colored mansions atop a stone platform above water, surrounded by nature in the distance. There's this feeling like the mansions don't actually belong in this environment, the red looking bright against the dark greens of the leaves and the pale blue of the sky. Likewise, this image carries a sense of isolation. The mansions are all centered on one stone island in the middle of a body of water, isolated from all this nature.

Is that how Hong Lu felt in his own home? Like he didn't fit in with the world? Like he was isolated from everything that he admired about the outside?

Also, note how important of a motif water is to Hong Lu. On Limbus's own terms, water is closely related to Gloom, due to that Sin representing the idea of Sinking (literally and figuratively) into your negative emotions, and being swept away by them. There's also likely Something to be said about Hong Lu and his motif of water in terms of wuxing, but I don't know enough about that to confidently say anything. Anyone with better grasp on those concepts, I would love to hear your thoughts!

In fact, this isn't the only time water is referenced in this art.

The chair Hong Lu sits in has a very notable engraving of waves and what looks to be a serpent, or perhaps a dragon, hidden among them.

And just like with the water motif, the dragon motif is also repeated somewhere else.

The weapon Hong Lu wields in this E.G.O actually includes a head of a dragon as part of its blade. Something about the way Hong Lu cradles it and the expression he looks at it with is so interesting to me. Dragons are often symbols of power, prosperity, and good fortune.

Is he clinging to it in fear because it's the only thing he has left that is truly his? Or is this a representation of some inner worry that that's all he is to his family, some symbol of their fortune?

Kind of hard to tell for sure at this moment.

Now, I'm about to go on a tangent about a background detail that might not mean much, but stay with me here.

Looking at the riches Hong Lu is surrounded by in this illustration, most of it is things that you'd probably expect. Coins, golden rings and trinkets, various colored gems, chests both closed and open... However, there's one thing in these piles that caught my attention as seeming... kind of odd.

This golden braid looking thing that wraps and winds around the gold piles in the background.

It made me think, because it's a very specific thing to include, and in actually rather sparce amounts as well. There seems to be only one braid, but it goes through the whole length of the background, disappearing behind objects every now and then.

So, I googled if there's any symbolism related to this idea of a golden braid and... I found something interesting. A book called Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid.

I've never read this book, but from what a wikipedia summary says, it's a book that tries to convey the idea of "strange loops". Cycles that continue through several levels, both upward and downward, and always end up forming a closed loop despite those shifts in levels. Recursion and self-reference are important themes to this book.

And... that made me think. Book Jia Bao-yu's nature as a jade stone reincarnated as a human. Hong Lu, seemingly referencing Bao-yu, yet at the same time being seemingly named after the jade itself. Hong Lu's odd connection to death, and this idea of rebirth. The idea of a loop that travels upward, yet ends up back at the bottom where it started.

...I might be looking way too deep into an inconsequential background detail, but this wouldn't be the first time PM decided to mix and match their inspirations and make them into a far bigger deal than it seems to at first. Demian as The Little Prince, anyone?

It just. Almost feels right, you know?

[werechicken]

Siffren Trauma Stuff (Warning Spoilers)

-Siffren sometimes wakes up screaming in the night that he’s still in the loops and any happy memories and things he’s doing now are reset. Isabeau finds the best way to help Siffren sleep better is to squeeze his hand while sleeping.

-when living with Isabeau Sriffen had a bad spell of it and begged Isabeau to hide all the sharp objects. Isabeau felt worried when Sriffen had accidentally broke a drinking glass and stared at the shards for a full ten minutes before cleaning them up without incident.

-due to all the Timeceafting Siffrens body smells faintly of sugar, which gets more intense when he sweats or gets anxious. It’s theorized his body is permeated with the Time craft stuff and will always be part of his bodies makeup

-as a result the smell of his own body can sometimes bring back a panic attack, making him think that something will reset time and undo everything.

-Isabeau gradually has to get Siffren used to the idea the smell means nothing and it’s a boon to smell so sweet

-for a long while after tho, Siffren got horrible rashes due to having bad panic attacks over smelling like sugar and attempting to scrub his skin raw to get the smell away.

-Siffren gets better and much to his and others delight, he acts as a mobile air-fresher that can make a room smell sweet like a bakery, especially prevalent in winter evenings with a roaring fireplace going.

-Siffren is a cuddle slut and people can tell when he and Isabeau cuddled or spent any amount of time together because Isabeau would smell heavily of cane sugar.

-a new thing Siffren finds to ground himself is to carry a pocket watch and watch the hands move.

-Isabeau has made Siffren a new eyepatch with a starry eye stitched pattern on it. Ever since this happens Siffren has made at least a weeks worth of groan worthy eye related puns. Bonnie is absolutely delighted.

-Siffren still bumps into stuff out of his field of vision and one time bumped into a store counter so hard he just slumped to the floor and sat there for an hour, remembering the dreaded counter from the time-stricken House of Change. The store felt so bad they gave Siffren a permanent 50% discount. He pays double out of politeness, unless they are selling Malanga Fritters.

-someday, Siffren teaches Bonnie the importance of peppers in Malanga Fritters. They’re the best thing they ever tasted.

In the end, Bonnie moves back home and becomes a Rock craft instructor. They send Siffren and Isabeau a large box of Malanga Fritters to this day.

-Mirabelle becomes a teacher of the House of Change and one day becomes Headmistress. She has a very strict policy on the forbidding of Wishcraft and Timeceaft, except in the grounds of how to identify its use and counter it should it be misused. She one day encounters the God of Change and let’s then know she is very cross with how they treated Siffren. She doesn’t remember the details of the aftermath of that, but she dimly recalls a contest, the terms of which if she wins the Change God has to apologize to Siffren for enjoying watching his Suffering during the loops. She wakes up with an apology letter that is addressed to Siffren which consists of the words “ims sowwy” and a box of Malanga Fritters that never seems to empty for a year.

-Isabeau designs clothes and with Siffren as a model manages to perfect the advanced craftwork that made Siffrens cloaks so comfortable in all temperatures, and even alter itself to grow and change with the wearer. The clothes become a hit across the nation of Vauguaarde and other continents. While Siffrens home nation may be gone for good, some measure of its crafting marvels live on in the clothes Isabeau makes that were reverse engineered from Siffrens own.

-Odile eventually returns home and founds a school to study Time Craft, particularly to study what exactly happened to Siffrens homeland. While it left more questions than answers, the entire populace is now aware of the survivors struggling without memory of growing up, without a past. In Conjunction with Mirabelle, Odile also founds a series of charity orgs that focus on finding the displaced survivors of the disappeared Nation to the North, offering counseling and a means of reconnecting to others. Siffren encounters the Croissant Vendor once again, and through hard work starts to enjoy Croissants once again.

Loop sometimes pops up. They still feel tremendously guilty of attempting to kill Siffren. They managed to work with Odile sometimes, and eventually reconnect with people. They work full time with the Vanished Kingdom Outreach, and find a fulfillment they had missed for so long. Loop tries to give Siffren his coin back, but he has Loop keep it. Loop immediately uses it to buy a croissant from the new vendor in town, who finds him familiar…

-While each of them drift over time, once a year the King Butt Kicker Gang reunite in a cabin and catch up over the years events. They also each attempt to hold Siffrens hands, but by now the Trauma of the Loops and the past are nearly a distant memory.

-The King is still frozen in time, and a resting place is built around them as memorial and reminder that we should all tend to the hurt and the lonely amongst us. While they can’t perceive anything but the name of their country, somehow he is aware that Sriffens clothes have become something everyone wears and holds dear. His heart leaps with joy during these locked moments, as he realizes all along these fragmented artifacts are more than enough to have the world remember the Nation that Was, in some way or another. He will never become unfrozen, but this is his personal choice. He would rather be frozen with the name of his Country fresh in his memory, than die without it.

———-

Stiffen grows old with Isabeau and his friends, and they even make new ones that are in awe of their tale of heroism, tragedy, and comraderie.

And while Sriffen still can’t stand the taste of bananas, they all lived happily ever after.