#theological fiction

[hydropyro]

[egoschwank]

al things considered — when i post my masterpiece #1336

first posted in facebook august 13, 2024

andrea solario -- "mary magdalen" (ca. 1524)

"mary magdalene went to anoint christ's dead body, only to discover that he was resurrected. she is shown here transferring the ointment from a maiolica pharmacy jar to a smaller vessel" … wikipedia (on the andrea solario painting of mary magdalen)

"there are mornings when we must stop entertaining thoughts like yours are often deeper than i sink but if i was merely a carpenter confusing you for a lady then for crissakes doncha think i’d rush past temptation’s brink?

there are nights that i can’t wake from due to dreaming of a messiah who saves me from all the other men’s sins as bishops cast out demons while drinking communion wine again absolutely mrs. mary magdalene … absolutely mrs. mary magdalene" … al janik

"it exposes the erroneous view that mary of magdala was a prostitute for what it is—a piece of theological fiction" … karen king (discussing the gospel of mary)

"myth and legend has it that resurrections are slow in arriving but some weasels & liars claim they come all the time who’da thought your 12 closest friends would need soul asylum but every time the cock crowed you know you tried to deny him?

all these distractions have the advantage of deception where on the surface we find their meanings often skim it always takes a little while to come to think of it (i think) incidentally mrs. mary magdalene … absolutely mrs. mary magdalene" … al janik

"i think they probably got it on, jesus and mary magdalene" … madonna

"there’s been speculation about your uncle peter’s treason it’s been greeted in certain circles with consternation & with grins because as it is written to everything there is a season (turn, turn, turn) and it’s a given fact no hell’s angel ever danced on the head of a safety pin

now it’s about time that your daughter was suspended for all those pranks she played with your neighbor’s mandolin (we won’t go into details) it always takes a little while to try to explain all these things away evidently mrs. mary magdalene … quite contrary mary magdalene … jesus told me all about you magdalene!" … al janik

[literallymechanical]

So, the philosopher’s stone was first synthesized on February 18, 1973, in a Soviet science-city called Sverdlovsk-45.  A day-drunk reactor technician showed up to work with a “weird rock” and boosted the uranium -> plutonium transmutation rate about four percent over what mass/energy equivalence should allow.  The stone was imperfect, and it went inert within a week.  He never managed to recreate it.

The process was independently discovered in 2010 by a very sleep-deprived BYU student who read an article on Cracked.com about David Hahn, the “Nuclear Boy Scout."  She made a stone from smoke detector americium alpha sources, mercury thermometers, and a bunch of fool’s gold – pyrite, crystalline iron sulfide – among other ingredients. She currently leads a schismatic group of Mormon fundamentalists.

We have a stone, obviously. It's likely the Bay Area "startup" we've been monitoring has one, but we haven't confirmed it yet. Brussels never completed their Magnum Opus, thank god. That's all we've found to date, but I'll keep you posted.

[kindred-spirit-93]

EXAM HAS BEEN DELAYED!! till like sunday but still.

heres whats been in the works ft. the ocs that live in my head rent and royalty free. might post darkfic hilal content later tonight too >:)

Strangers in the night

he lied when he said he was going to the pharmacy. he had restocked bandages and antiseptic ages ago and probably wouldnt need to set foot in one for at least a decade to come. he just needed to breathe.

it had maybe started around dinner, a sudden feeling of suffocation like someone was holding a pillow to his face. and slight indigestion. armund had out done himself this time and he was quite proud. he didnt dare mention it lest he think he had somehow messed up.

excusing himself he grabbed something off the rack by the door and left without another word. he cursed himself for it afterwards due to the piercing cold and light fabric of his rain coat.

he hated lying to his dove, which was ironic because he couldnt recall a time he hadnt told him some sort of falsehood, so he took a path that lead to the pharmacy to get it off his conscious. it wasnt much, but it was the small things that seemed to matter the most. very annoying.

he took a long hard look at the neon lights, as if proving to himself that he had been completely honest and not at all lying to his son. nope, not at all. he was an upstanding citizen of which the nasty streets of these parts never saw. he frowned a little. he was a good person at heart. if i had one he thought glumly. have. had. was there a difference?

was it his fault he had become what he now was? tearing away his eyes from the lights he resumed his walk at a somewhat brisk pace. whatever had lodged itself in his throat earlier that evening was indeed remedied by the fresh air. it was quite sharp when he opened the door. better head back before i catch something a small voice in his head suggested unconvincingly.

his feet however didnt oblige and continued down a path less illuminated. luc didnt realise he had strayed away from the well lit street he was on until much later. his frown deepened. how did he get here? was i that deep in my head? looking around he didnt recognise where he was. the lack of lighting was unsetteling but not anything he wasnt used to.

the dark was an ally of his you see. in the shadows lurk all that we cannot, or wish not, to comprehend and face. it was quite poetic almost to think that his namesake was once a being of light, shunned to the dark. and the dark welcomed him. made him their leader. living under his reign of terror as beings of the night. night. night...

it was late. they had a late night dinner and it was late. worse it was new years eve and all sorts of shady people roam these streets looking for some weak creature to set their fangs in at the best of times, tonight drunken scuffles would break out and the last thing he needed was another gunshot anywhere on his being.

theo hated seeing him hurt he thought softly. he hadnt noticed the light rain that began to fall. he was too busy thinking of his little dove waiting for him at home. home. it was home was it not where one was with loved ones was it not? he blinked. had armund spiked the food with something? what was all this sentimentality? disgusting.

he was going soft at his old age he joked to himself, features easing as he recognised the familiar sign of a deli around the corner of his home. it could barely be called one if he was honest. nothing about it was cosy or inviting, save maybe the blankets he and theo would huddle underneath when he was younger. the corners of his mouth twitched this time and he allowed himself a small smile.

his throat threatened to close once more for mysterious reasons when he suddenly found himself face to face with the wet cobblestone of the road. he barely had a second to register what had happened before he heard bullets being fired. fuck.

just what he was missing on this fine evening. he never left the house without a knife on him, a small one he hid in a holster theo had drawn a flower on, but todays romantic stroll under the rain wasnt planned. for some reason he was unable to flip himself on his back. tasting iron he raised his head slightly and stared at the river of red pooling around him.

if it was the adrenaline, the blood loss, or something entirely different hed never know, but it took him embarassingly long to realise that no one had spilled wine on the pavement, and that in fact it was his own blood staining the ground beneath him. when he did manage to get himself back on his feet he was knocked back down though this time he was on his back. and if he didnt know better hed say a vampire had tackled him to the ground.

the clarity was slowly but surely returning to him. his left shoulder was now starting to burn and he could feel his blood vessels make up for their fallen brethren, and the feel of the cold hard ground beneath him was starting to get on his nerves. scowling at the figure hovering on top of him, he wriggled and tried to assess his situation. the call of his name, his birth name, made the air in his lungs momentarily leave. then the life force slowly seeping out of him crashed right back in and with a vengenace.

his neck snapped to glare at the stranger who fittingly winced under the hellish gaze of hell on earths leader. the fuckwad wasnt even pinning him down properly. what is wrong with people these days? had they no dignity? pulling himself out of his thoughts, he kicked the stranger in the groin with as much force as he could muster and lost no time pulling his knees to his chest and shoving him off while he gasped in shock and pain. the idiot then did nothing. nothing.

now on his knees, panting from the sudden burst of exertion, and slightly light headed, luc snapped of his necklace and pressed to the offenders neck. it was an inverted cross, metal but not sharp enough to do enough harm, but they didnt know that. he knew more than anyone that confidence was very convincing, what with his line of work. and he can be very persuasive.

he was now able to get a better look at his would be murderer or whatever if he wasnt such a fucking pathetic excuse of a human being. he wasnt even trying. he wasnt even trying. what the fuck?! in any case the fucker who had long dark hair wet with a mixture of sweat and rain was unnervingly still despite lucs hand being around his throat while the other was slowly digging with the cross into the pale flesh of his skin.

luc couldnt shake of the feeling that this was somehow familiar to him. the strangers face was facing away from him so he couldnt exactly make out his features, but he was clearly much taller and stronger than him; he was pinning him down with a knee pressed into his shoulder and the other squarely above his heart. he meant to ask who the fuck he was and what he wanted, the whole nine yards, but the words died in his throat. he knew he didnt have much left before his left arm gave out. he could avoid hypovolemia only so many times.

he pressed the metal further into the assailants neck to force himself to stay conscious till he drew blood. and then he chuckled. the audacity. luc would be lying if he said he wasnt starting to feel on edge. fuckass was laughing at him and his heart was pounding in his ears still. tonight wasnt going to end well.

"fuck you" was the only thing luc managed. short and sweet. he made sure to spit it with as much venom he could. and the dark haired stranger let out another chuckle.

"if you wanted me dead you would have killed me already. whats the hold up?" well he wasnt wrong he thought, seething. the faster he got rid of the dipshit the better, but he still didnt figure out who he was or how he knew his name. could this all be a very very badly times coencidence and nothing more? stranger things have happened.

his thoughts were ricocheting off of each other and his head was filling with useless shit. what the hell was wrong with him tonight? and the smirk. bastard. the smirk was making whatever blood still in his system boil. finally, what seemed to be an eternity later, tall dark and fucking incompetent craned his neck and turned to look at luc

"havent you recognised me yet old man?" dick. i still had no idea who he was, but my subconscious was starting to put 2 and 2 together.

"were the same age fuckass." any moment now i could feel it. on the tip of my tongue. come on. so close

"i wear it better." he grinned and something in my chest stopped, skipped a beat, and dropped all together. how? when? why? who?

lucs eyes widened, and the strangers grin broadened. "missed me?" he asked. the fucking nerve on this man was unreal. old habits die hard i suppose. good thing too. he could no longer keep his eyes open.

falling to the cold ground for the third time that same evening, luc never felt so ridiculous in his life. there was no fucking way in fucking hell his unspoken dying words were going to be the name of his ex.

frankly he couldnt come up with something more pathetic if he tried. if this was it he was going cursing him till his ears bled from the profanities. there was no gracious way to go about bleeding out in your exs arms. he was cornered. fuck.

despite everything he called out to him. barely above a whisper. the reply was somehow even quieter, but to his own ears it could be heard on the other side of the country.

"right here".

a last stupid thought crossed his mind. biting his lip luc muttered something that made titi snort and bonk his head with his own. smiling slightly, he knew hed be fine. he closed his eyes.

"thats what you said."

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

heres a mercy doodle to make up for my atrocious everything <3

will picked her the flower :')

all rights reserved to @sunshines-child lol. serotonin is one hell of a drug lemme tell u

i got sidetracked like 17 times writing this. like it was supposed to be 2 paragraphs but my brain was like lol nope. gotta set the scene. jerk

also, not proofread. i have no idea if the tenses and pronouns make any sense. rip my last braincell. idk its whatever. for the wiggles :D

also also, this is not at all what i had in mind. purely off the top of my head. w i l d.

[strangelittlestories]

“The world is made of giant machines, built piecemeal over centuries by a chain of workers, none of whom can see the whole of what they make.”

Ash sat slowly down in the pulpit. Her bones protested the motion. She quashed the urge to offer a prayer to Iris, the dead god of secrets and investigators. In front of her, the young deity waited for her to continue with wide, ravenous eyes.

She sighed and continued.

“But, every now and again, there will be a time when these machines can be levered into new directions. The change will be sweeping and terrible and, like the machine itself, impossible to understand in one lifetime. On top of that, the change can only be made if there is a person there at the right time with the will to push the lever.”

“So, what?” A wrinkle split the godling’s forehead like a fault in the plates of the earth. “The best we can do is spend our lives waiting around and hoping we’re in the right place at the right time to spot the lever and push it?”

Ash looked around at the church. The last time she had been here, it had been for the inquest into Iris’s death. She could still picture the textureless faces of the Examiners who had been summoned to hear it.

“No. You spend your life - and, believe me, *spend* is the right word - in trying to create the time, in trying to build the lever, and in trying to create the *will*. The gears of the machine are great and uncaring, they cannot be moved and will crush us if we try. Yet we dig our claws in anyway, and we try to find a bolthole in the gaps of the gears’ massive teeth. Still, it may grind us to paste. 

“But in a hundred years, someone may find that we have gummed up the works just enough to buy them a second’s grace. And they may find that the toothpick we lodged in the gap is just sturdy enough to be the lever they need.”

“Or no-one finds it. Or the toothpick breaks. Or a second isn’t enough.” The child god’s voice echoed round the church, and Ash saw the walls shimmer. “And all we bought with our lives is a slightly worse machine.”

Ash could feel the stone around them begin to vibrate, resonating with the boy’s uncertain divine will; unsure whether they should remake themselves or break apart.

“True enough. But if the work of my life is to make a machine that kills hope and makes despair a *tiny* bit worse … I think that may be a life well spent.”

“I don’t think that should be enough. That is not right.”

Ash looked down. She could see her flesh, translucent through her threadbare robes, the whole mess of atoms threatening to fly apart. She willed them back together. Her nerves screamed with the strain of it.

“I have little enough to sacrifice on the world’s wheel. A handful of days. A skinful of blood and bones. A few scraps of truth. I will lay them down where I will and get back what I can. If you don’t like the exchange rate I get in return, find a way to give more. And damn your judgement, otherwise.”

The stained glass light in the church flickered. The vibrations in her skull quickened. Then the little god took a breath.The quiet maelstrom reached its peak and calmed.

“This is not how I expected a priest to speak to a god. But I suppose I am just *barely* a god so far.”

“And I’m only barely still a priest. So, y’know … we make a good pair.”

[brown-little-robin]

.

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

You'll get much further in life with a Bachelor of Harry Potter, or a Star Trek PhD.

People aren’t afraid of those imaginary characters, they actually like them.

[losttranslator]

throwback to my high school philosophy teacher trying to catch me with stuff like "actually Jesus never said he was God, did you know that" and smugly prove that I (kid who was read the bible from the age of 2 and got my own by like 7) didn’t know the gospels.

like my dude, what do you think "before Abraham was, I AM" was about? you don’t know and I’M clueless about the text?

[femwizard]

I used to have a general distaste for religion & I think that a lot of that is rooted in the right wing, Christian machine in the United States. There is a massive prevalence of cults in our country, from Mormons, Amish, and jehovahs witnesses, to evangelical Christian’s and mega churches. Our country was founded by puritans, fleeing persecution for their shitty, manipulative ways, and every year we celebrate them with an entire day of thanks.

None of this is inherent to religion. Yes the crusades were horrible, but colonialism and imperialism has been a common thread through western power, with or without religion.

Community is valuable. Rituals are valuable. Coming together with people you barely know, to bond over something you can easily share, is a very powerful way to form bonds with people. If you struggle to make friends after leaving school, think of the benefit of a low stakes, free, public event that happens every week where everyone partakes in the same group activity and there are regularly people there, who attend religiously, meaning they are there basically every week.

I had this realization in 2020, after starting a small outdoor skating group. It felt so so so good to connect with people regularly. Yes skating was fun but it wasn’t about that. It was about the community of it all. You can find similar things in group sports, and clubs, and popular events with a dedicated fan base. Have you ever been to a con? Similar thing.

To briefly take a step back, one of the reasons that team sports are such an effective way to form community, is that you make a stronger commitment to show up reliably for a reason. This is probably the same reason cults are so effective and popular. I personally enjoy the freedom of a voluntary event, where I don’t feel bad if I miss a week or two for whatever reason. But that leads to a lot less consistent participation, which weakens the community. Our lives are so busy and full and eclectic these days, it’s hard to find somewhere with a truly dedicated following that isn’t enforced in some way.

All this to say I think that facing and excising the cult problem in the US, while finding some nondenominational rituals we can have fun with in a much more scientifically minded world to fill that gap in all of our lives, would be massively beneficial to the country at large. It could help form community, heal the gaping divide between generations, establish stronger mutual aid networks, and make it possible for us to actually come together and enforce change on a large scale.

I'm very frustrated by people who think that religion itself is the problem and should be eradicated.

[catgirlreisuwa]

Noooo Ogino don't talk about death as an speculative concept you know that's one of my favourite topiiiiiiics

[jessamine-rose]

⋆˚♱ଘ Requiem for the Damned ଓ♱˚⋆

*holds head in hands* Idk why Dottore keeps haunting me with writing inspo. And for this idea to manifest just before Holy Week….fuck it, I hope you all enjoy the blasphemous tale of Priest! Dottore x Demon! Darling _:(´ཀ`」 ∠):

Tw:: yandere, violence, death, religious abuse, dubcon, mention of nsfw, MINORS DNI

Note:: fictional depictions of religion

♡ 2.7k words under the cut ♡

♡ Despite your status as a wandering demon, you have no place in human cognizance. Rather, you conceal yourself from mortal eyes in favor of close observations and whispered temptations. Humans, from your perspective, are interesting creatures—they are ambitious, easily influenced by spiritual beings, capable of both good and evil.

♡ And what better example than the one who summoned you on a starry night? Such rituals are not uncommon amongst heretics, but most only succeed in invoking the contempt of their fellow humans. And few would invoke your name, much less commit sacrilege within the walls of the Church.

♡ You sense danger immediately upon your appearance. Within the summoning circle, you take note of your sigil perfectly illustrated in blood against marble. Beyond it, what alarms you is not your sacred surroundings nor the fresh corpse mixed with your offerings of books and fruit. It is the figure standing over you, cloaked in moonlight, gazing at you with eyes the color of hellfire.

“My ritual is a success. Welcome to my humble church, o noble demon…or would you rather be addressed by your epithet? ______, Fallen Seraph, the Seeker of Forbidden Knowledge.”

♡ A glimpse into his soul is all it takes to strike fear into your heart. Within Hell, there are rumors of a small village in Sumeru. Its people are nothing of note, a congregation of simpletons whose lives revolve around the beliefs of their Church. The lone exception is the main priest, Father Zandik, better known as Il Dottore.

♡ The stories, passed through human voices, speak of a child ostracized for his unconventional beliefs and his interest in the macabre. Branded a madman, he was placed in the care of the Church elders who corrected his ways of thinking. Once he became of age, Zandik was given the choice to move out of the rectory or to remain as a priest; he chose the latter of his own volition.

♡ Since his ordination, Zandik has proved himself to be an exceptional priest. He educates the masses, reviews theological texts, performs exorcisms, and provides religious counsel for the doubtful. He even serves as the town’s doctor, fully gaining the acceptance of his community.

♡ The rumors don’t stop there. For Il Dottore earned his title by performing miracles. It is he who guides the people into religious ecstasy, he who cures the sick from mysterious curses, he who blesses the weak into “enhanced humans.” There are already whispers that once Dottore’s mortality catches up with him, he will surely be canonized as the Patron Saint of Doctors and Miracles.

♡ But spiritual beings such as yourself know the truth. That Dottore is neither a kind priest nor a devout believer, that his days in the Church only magnified his heretical inclinations. Disillusioned with God, Zandik decided to turn His religious sanctuary into his own laboratory, one where he could fulfill his lust for knowledge through a mask of holiness.

♡ He manipulates the people with false teachings. He triggers religious ecstasy with drugged incense. He singles out devotees to “test their faith” during the quiet hours of the Church. And what the town perceives as curses and miracles are actually scientific experiments in which Dottore plays god.

♡ It’s too late to escape. No matter your divine powers, nothing prepares you for Dottore’s traps. The incantations, the barrier of the summoning circle, an aura so holy yet sinister that it couldn’t possibly come from ordinary religious objects—all you can do is fall to your knees and beg for his mercy, all the while he watches you with a confident smile.

♡ His intentions are like that of any human: He summoned you to form a contract. In exchange for his soul, he demands your knowledge, your resources, your full servitude for so long as he roams the mortal plane. Your hesitation only triggers another wave of scorching pain, followed by panic as Dottore grips your horn and forces you to face him.

“Make no mistake, ______. The mere fact of your divinity does not make you indestructible. In exchange for your cooperation, you will bear witness to experiments of the same magnitude as God’s creations. What say you?”

♡ You have no other choice. And that is how, in the sanctity of the Church, you make a deal with the human named Zandik. Once the pact has been forged, Dottore admires the bright sigil on his chest, plucks a few feathers from your wings, and disables the summoning circle so you can leave. Thus begins your personal hell.

♡ It is easy for you to answer Dottore’s questions about the divine. The horror lies in assisting him in experiments, responding to his summons no matter the inconvenience, allowing him to extract your blood, tears, and feathers. No, what’s most humiliating is when he uses your body for his “research,” bending you over the altar and bringing you to physical ecstasy against your will.

♡ At this point, you don’t know who to pray to. One night, Dottore shows you a secret room in his laboratory. As soon as he lights the lamps, your eyes take in numerous bodies and skeletons of a different classification from his usual victims. The extra bones jutting from the scapulas, the amputated wings, the halos pinned to the walls, the holy aura you’d felt from his religious objects…instantly, Dottore’s powers make sense.

“This is my first specimen. She was my guardian angel…no, I jest. She was a mere messenger who implored me to repent for my sins. From her words, I deduced it had been within Heaven’s capacity to save me during my youth—and yet God only sent an angel to me after my first act of blasphemy.”

The angels…how many has he killed? Not even during your fall from Heaven did you feel such primal fear for your life. But you cannot scream—you have long been trained to resist fight and flight. All you can do is listen to Dottore’s explanation, watch as he approaches a pure white skeleton and wraps his hands around its fractured hyoid bone.

He gives you a calm smile. “Luckily, her body provided me with indispensable resources for my experiments and my procurement of her brethren. I believe her name was Sohreh.”

♡ Just when you think it can’t get any worse, Dottore points at the far corner of the room to reveal a space dedicated to demons. Four dead bodies, their causes of death vividly described. Horns, wings, and other body parts amputated in exchange for lives spared after exorcisms. And when Dottore returns to your side, tracing the wound from where he broke off your horn, you can only tremble and acquiesce to a checkup. It grows back fully by the end of the year.

♡ He has his moments of vulnerability, however. Perhaps it is due to your nature as a demon, a creature which represents evil, that Dottore does not hide his heart from you. Once, after his usual confessions—he always makes up trivial sins—he remains in the confessional until his fellow priest has left. Then he goes to the altar and summons you.

♡ What catches you off-guard is not his lack of greetings. Rather, it’s the way he pulls you close to his body, lips ghosting the curve of your ear. There, in the heart of the Church, he whispers to you every sin he has ever committed. Despite his normal tone of voice, his words have never betrayed a language so guiltless, so sincere, so human.

♡ He asks how much of his madness is to blame on the influence of demons, or if he had been born wicked. He asks if humans were truly given the mental faculties to withstand temptation regardless of their circumstances. He asks if the same can be said for spiritual beings, questioning why former angels like you were also created with the capacity to sin. He even asks if praying for a demon can offer them any hope of salvation.

♡ It takes you a while to answer his questions. It’s just like him to put your emotions in disarray, to make you feel pity for the very cause of your current suffering. Against your nature, you wonder if there is still a chance for Zandik, if he can somehow repent or find a way to save himself from your contract and all of his sins. Even if it is too late, He has always been more forgiving to humans than angels.

ﮩ٨ـﮩﮩ٨ـ♡ﮩ٨ـﮩﮩ٨

“Do you know why I became a demon, Zandik?”

Your question is what prompts Zandik to pull away from you, though his touch lingers. His gaze, as always, is unfathomable; you can never discern what hides within those pools of crimson.

“No, I do not. Few demonological texts allude to your existence, and only the Lesser Key of Deshret cites your previous status as an angel of the highest ranking. I have made theories in relation to your epithets but I respect all possibilities. Now what would you, as the primary source, reveal to me?”

Now it is your turn to confess.

“Seraphim are the closest to God but for that reason, we are the most distant from His creations. Everything we know of the world is derived only from what He tells us, not our own insights. And so I defied His Word and ate the forbidden fruit from the Tree of Knowledge, committing the same sin which condemned all of humanity.”

The tip of your upper wing brushes against Zandik’s face, while your middle wings encircle his body in a loose hug. As for your lower wings…they are nothing but twin scars covered in short feathers. After your descent, it seemed like a rational decision to chop them off, broken as they were. It helped that your wings had just outgrown their original purpose.

For once, you barely flinch at the sensation of his touch against your scars. Many times, Zandik has inquired about the loss of your lower wings and even asked if he could have them. They still remain in Hell, tucked away in a corner of your home, eyes forever closed.

It takes a few seconds for him to respond. “Do you ever regret your decision?”

You shrug. “It was difficult at first, naturally. Many of my eyes were blinded—yes, that is why I rarely open the ones on my wings—but those which still function have seen so many wonderful sights up-close. Neither must I cover my face with my remaining wings. And despite being what your kind and my former brethren would dub a monster…I’m happier now.”

“I see, I see.” His curiosity appears far from sated, however, a sentiment you can empathize with. “As I thought, God is incomprehensible. For Him to deny even His greatest creation of salvation…it confirms that there are limits to the forgiveness of that which humans call a ‘loving god.’ Thank you for sharing this knowledge with me.”

And just as quickly as he initiated his confession, Zandik steps out of your grasp and dismisses you. But you make no haste, silently watching him after you “leave.”

His expression is thoughtful. A gloved hand touches his chest, right above your sigil.

Such an interesting creature.

Honestly, you don’t know what to make of your feelings for this human. Much as you despise his cruel treatment towards you, he never fails to capture your interest with his experiments and philosophies. Whenever he speaks of God, you wonder if a small part of him still desires to be saved. But that will never be.

Zandik preaches salvation with the knowledge that he will never receive it. For the Church never taught him how to love.

ﮩ٨ـﮩﮩ٨ـ♡ﮩ٨ـﮩﮩ٨

♡ Il Dottore never became the Patron Saint of Doctors and Miracles. Neither did he have a funeral mass befitting of a priest, nor a peaceful death from natural causes. Instead, he died young, laicized, once again denounced as a heretic by his community.

♡ You don’t know how his crimes were exposed, and why now. Perhaps it is God’s punishment for him, a blessing for his victims, or both. Either way, Dottore paid for his sins on a sunny day, burned at the stake before a disdainful crowd. Not long after his heart stopped beating, his belongings were thrown into the fire—research, tools, anything which carried his memory.

♡ You never left his side. After his last rites, led by an elderly bishop who condemned Zandik as he did in the past, you sat next to him and offered a final conversation. He didn’t express any fear nor sadness in regards to his imminent death, merely stating it a pity that his achievements could never be appreciated in his town.

♡ …He did ask if there is any chance of meeting again in Hell, but you reminded him that the punishment of sinners is out of your jurisdiction. Plus, it’s better that way—you have no desire to avenge yourself, and you’d rather not witness Zandik’s suffering for all eternity. You can only imagine the severity of his punishment, what more if he is assigned to one of the demons he exorcized.

♡ During his execution, you stood at the front of the crowd. You kept your eyes trained on him, for so long as his scarlet orbs remained open, whispering the prayers for the dead on his behalf. While a part of you felt liberated, another was mournful. You hope your last words to Zandik gave him solace in his final moments.

“Rest now, Zandik. God may never forgive your sins, but I shall.”

♡ And thus ends the life of Il Dottore. In the following days, the Church is purged of its holy, sinister aura, mainly because they discarded the religious objects tainted with angel remains. You continue your usual obligations as a wandering demon, but the humans you observe pale in comparison to your companion of many years.

♡ Not long after, you return to Hell for your other divine duties. As soon as you appear in your abode, however, something feels off. The sinister aura, the offering of books and fruit, your lower wings gone from their original place… The answer comes in the form of a hand grabbing you by the horn, pulling you backwards, twisting your body to meet a familiar gaze the color of hearth-fire. Only, this time, those eyes are brimming with pure joy, paired with a genuine smile.

♡ Apparently, Dottore’s soul did end up in Hell but not in the way you expected. In a proud voice, he explains that the Devil gave him a special fate. Whether it was due to vacant positions or everyone’s fear of the infamous “Demon-Killer,” you’ll never know. What Dottore does confirm is that as the demon bound to him via contract, you have to take responsibility and act as his companion in Hell.

“Rather than subject me to eternal suffering, the Devil believed that my talents would prove useful for the punishments of my fellow sinners. How wonderful is it for my achievements to be recognized in Hell? …Oh? I didn’t predict such a physical reaction from you. All of your eyes are wide open, and you seem to be on the verge of fainting.”

♡ You don’t know if you want to laugh or cry. To think your personal hell has been extended to eternity—are your sins enough to warrant such a fate?! But after confirming your misfortune, all you can do is sigh and tend to Zandik. He looks exactly the same, with the exception of a few burn scars on his body. And judging by the familiar black feathers on his person, he seems eager to discard his former religious attire along with his mask of faith.

♡ And when Zandik unfastens his scorched cassock, he takes your hand and places it on his unburned chest, right above your sigil. It glows vibrantly, brighter than any light you laid eyes on in Heaven. And beneath the flesh, you can feel his heart beating in sync with yours.

“Tell me, ______, do I still appear human to you?”

“You already know my answer to that question. But fine, I’ll admit it: Yes, you always have.”

♡ 

More Church AU here!! Capitano ๑ Arlecchino ๑ Pantalone ๑ Pierro ๑ Dainsleif

Note:: Please do not send me any Church AU asks/ requests involving other characters or dynamics who are not listed in my masterlist.

At long last, I am free from Priesttore…thank you to everyone. To my readers, to my fellow Dottore simps, to my mutuals who indulged my tortured DMs after midnight, to the artist whose fan art inspired this idea to begin with. May you all have a lovely day╰(*´︶`*)╯♡

Tag a Dottore enjoyer!! @leftdestiny-posts @beloved-blaiddyd @mochinon-yah @diodellet @lcveaesop @oofasleep @bye-bye-sunbird @yandere-romanticaa @boundinparchment @harmonysanreads @teabutmakeitazure @yandere-wishes @yanmaresu @nicebonescomrades @nimandu @lesanyanyas @moarar

[theoxenfree]

OF FLESH SIN

vampire priest x reader | 2.6k | 18+

you're the child of a monastery groundskeeper and come to find out that one of the senior clergy, father marius, was brutally maimed in his chambers overnight. you're approached by the monastery's new recruit: father shaw; who claims he had witnessed the scene of the crime and invites you to his chambers to tell the tale.

warnings; dark content bc of descriptions of gore and violence towards the end, obsessive behaviors, theological themes, probs inaccurate representation of monastery life lmao, outdated + deragatory mention of psychiatric care to fit the narrative, very brief mention of animal death, classism (mc getting shit on for being poor and coming from an "uneducated" family), kinda honestly cheesy if you think about it, roughly proofread, vampires are monsters y'all—that's the only way I write them

shouldn't have to say it, but: none of this is indicative of my personal viewpoints. it's just fiction, folks.

second prompt fulfilled for my lil' october writing project! this won the second poll! please reblog + leave feedback to be kind and help a sister out 🥹💕

Father Marius died in quite some awful way last night, as reported to you by the nuns hanging fresh washed garments on the clothesline in the waning, purpling daylight.

“A look of horror! Utter terror! So frightened that his jaw had become dislocated in forever a scream,” shivered one young nun, Lucy; recently a convert from the slums. “I, well, I didn't see it myself. Neither did the rest of us, actually. They say it was that new Father Shaw who found him at dawn.”

You had been raking gravel out of the yard, tiny stones kicked off of the path into the kempt lawn by prancing horses and wagon wheels, when Lucy and the other nun, Esme, had caught your attention with their hard, dense gossip. They regarded your approach with less caution than they would have had with their other sisters, as gossip was deemed inappropriate, a violation, a flickering serpent’s tongue carrying covert temptations leading to luscious sins and debauchery.

They saw you—poor, morose, the groundskeeper's only child and reminder of loveless trysts—and thought nothing of snaking you into their prattle. You were not the sort to divulge anyone's secrets without gain, without reward, and you knew that the nuns kept nothing to their names once they took their vows and donned their habits.

“Father Shaw,” you continued the discussion with some intrigue, mostly from the fact that he was very new, very young, and modestly handsome, “why was he awake so early? Why was he in Father Marius’ chambers? Curious to me.”

Neither of them gave much caution to your questions, shrugging as if to dismiss your ambivalence and accusatory tone. You were bold in the way that the faithless and lost always tended to be: asking senseless things, always concerned with the wrongdoings of others, always suspicious, always inquiring—forever inquiring.

“Oh, my, you're so defensive,” Esme fanned a yellow bedspread out with an oncoming breeze, catching the wind beneath the fabric so it billowed and rippled midair. “If that’s how you're going to be, then: why does your father stumble around the yard at night with a lantern, swinging around a pistol like a madman? Won't he hurt someone?”

Because he's a godless, superstitious drunk. Perhaps, even, a bit disturbed in his mind, but you couldn't bear to think that way, that he might be the type to need his head locked in a metal cage, gagged, arms bound, and padlocked in some damp, distant corner of an asylum.

“He's a good man,” you relented, taking your hands from the top of the smoothed out, worn handle of the rake and resumed your task. The gravel made an awful, grinding sound as the teeth of the rake collected pieces of stone and led it back to the rest. “He's served this monastery well. I don't mean offense about Father Shaw, I'm simply curious about what transpired is all.”

“No offense taken,” came a voice from behind, startling both the twittering nuns and yourself at the same time. They saw it to be Father Shaw standing there, hands cuffed behind his back with a particularly demure disposition, hiked their skirts and whisked themselves away back inside. “Ah, am I really such a frightful figure? I couldn't really find an opening during your conversation to invite myself in. I apologize.”

You were of a similar fretful nature, quickening your clawing and the reach of the rake. “Nay, Father. I think it's simply because you're a strange man to them still. A handsome face, a warm voice, mysterious; give them time, they'll come around.”

“Have you?” Father Shaw asked, taking measured strides in a half-circle around to your front. He concentrated on where the teeth of your instrument struck next, tips temporarily wedged into the soft dirt before being ripped up with chunks of earth and gray gravel. “It wouldn't do for me if you… were still ill at ease with me as well. I consider you my one, true friend in this place.”

Your father held a certain destestation towards Father Shaw that you'd never witnessed before, saying nothing else than that something was terribly wrong with him and not to place yourself in a position to be alone with him. This you attributed to his unsoundness, but it was always the sudden flicker a sharp breath against candlelight—a jarring shift in his demeanor when he spoke about the Father, neurotic and prone to throwing things about the cottage interior, that caused you to pay some mind to what he told you.

“And, you're a great friend of mine as well,” you hoped you sounded coherent and paced your words evenly enough. “I'm sorry if you thought I was accusing you of something, sir. I really meant nothing to it.”

Father Shaw’s lips sprawled tight and pale into a fond smile, never showing his teeth, though the imprint of them seemed massive and the skin of his lips startlingly thin across them. “I know. You have nothing to fear. My feelings were not affected. If you'd like, come to my chambers later, we may pray together first, and I'll tell you everything you wish to know about what I saw to sate your curiosity.”

“That seems improper, sir.” You said.

“How so?”

“Inviting someone to your chambers at night seems an unbecoming venture for a pious man of status, such as yourself,” you continued, now standing upright beside your rake, “if any of the sisters were to witness it, worse another priest, aren't you afraid you'd be horribly chastised? Even worse, excommunicated altogether?”

Although Father Shaw’s dark eyes reflected no light, holding such demanding depth to them that it was hard to keep your bearings whenever you realized you'd been staring, his entire face was alight in amusement.

“Wherever did you learn to speak like that?” he asked candidly, still glowing despite his pallor. “Forgive me when I say, but your father is not an educated man. I mean no offense, please don't look at me in such a way. You are so well spoken, I only wish to know more about you.”

“I've lived here my entire life,” you told him. “The nuns taught me how to read.”

He looked impressed. “You can read?”

“I can!” From a near distance, you could make out your father’s haddard form, bent sideways on a walking cane and limping towards the pair of you. You looked up at the priest’s smooth face. “It'd be best for you to leave before my father can speak to you. He isn't the kindest soul after a long day.

Father Shaw didn't react with any semblance of worry, but agreed that there were other things needing to be done and began away. Just as he passed you on his way towards the monastery, he let his hand rest atop of your shoulder and leaned you towards him to whisper in your ear: “come to me tonight. I'll be waiting for you.”

There was something so luxurious and cooling about his voice; fine silks sitting in the shade during autumn gliding across your bare skin, wrapping your neck, your chest, your nether parts. His voice was a fine, chilly mist after the first rains in spring which felt refreshing and new after a glacial winter, yet still had capacity to soak you to the bone. It was a nighttime breeze caressing your cheek, sweeping through the hairs of your scalp, making your skin burst all over with bumps.

“I don't like the way he looks at you,” said your father with a mouthful of porridge you'd seasoned with herbs of the season. It was wonderfully fragrant and warm during nights that were still a bit too uncomfortable to sip anything cold. “He looks at you like you're a slab of meat! Some prize after a hunt. I don't like him, love. Not one bit. You'd do well to stay to mind yourself and do your chores and nothing else, y’hear?”

After dinner, you cleaned up, swept the floors with hard bristles, and snuffed all the lights except for the fireplace where your father sat in his old chair, fiddling with his favorite pistol.

“It's time for bed, old man.” You watched him fit a couple of small bullets into the loading chamber. They glinted against the orange flames. “Goodness. What have you gotten this time? Something new?”

“Aye!” he grinned, nearly toothless and in a sickly sort of way. “Went to market the other day while the nuns bullied you and picked out some fine bullets from the silversmith,” he cracked the two halves of the pistol shut. “Better to be prepared.”

You waited until sometime later once he was finally asleep, possibly after midnight, before leaving the humble cottage sitting on the fringes of the massive monastery yard and rushing across the grounds to get inside.

Once, they'd kept a guard dog on the property, one of those meaner breeds that were used for gambling, but the poor thing wound up shot dead in the middle of the night by a traveling friar who'd come to seek refuge at the monastery. The sisters, and yourself, were horribly distraught by the entire ordeal and all vetoed the consideration of bringing another dog here.

Since then, it was no task for you (or anyone else) to get inside the building and shuffle along the shadows through the corridors. At night, the place stirred with patient insects, feral rodents large and small in the pantry, and hungry owls tamely whining from the rafters when something startled them away from their hunt of vermin.

Your feet were a light sound on the masonry below, padded by thin leather soles which alerted you to your enthusiasm as the thwap thwap thwap became louder, aggressive as you closed in on a wall and turned down another hallway for a sturdy wood door at the end of it.

As your knuckles rapped, hoping the sound wouldn't disturb the animals’ nighttime caroling, a swift darkness moved across the floor from behind the door, briefly blocking out the soft light seeping out from underneath.

The next moment, you were being pulled inside and sat at a small table tucked to the side of Father Shaw’s rather generous room. It was a simple space, sparsely furnished for the barest of comforts—only for what was needed to live—but what had been made for him was of exquisite craftsmanship, some made of teakwood, which Shaw assured you was remarkably durable and highly resistant to rotting.

“It's wonderful for boats,” he said, pouring a light amber colored brew from a metal kettle he'd heated a short while ago. “It’s good for all elements, really. Exceptional longevity. I've heard it has become a popular option in the city for burying the deceased.”

“Will Father Marius be buried in a teakwood coffin, then?” you asked, sipping politely from the cup even though you had no appetite for it. You already felt ill at ease enough having disobeyed your father by sneaking into a priest's personal chambers at night. The things the sisters would say about you—

“He will be entombed underneath the monastery with the rest who have served here and passed. I believe that is all stone down there, my dear.” Father Shaw smiled tepidly, kettle aside, no tea of his own. “But, I know that your curiosity led you here to me with questions, yes? About the state I found Father Marius in, yes?”

You tried to disguise your intrigue by drinking more of the tea, of whatever it was he had given you, and listened to the sounds of your fingertips sticking to the porcelain from sweat and steam.

“If you wouldn't mind sharing…”

“I wouldn't!” he leaned on his arms on the table, closer towards you as though with a secret. “As I've said, you are truly the only soul here who I can confide in. You are not a sheep. And you do not fear sin as the rest do. So, you can ask me anything and I'll tell you everything.”

“Tell me about Father Marius, then.”

Father Shaw reached across the table for one of your hands; his far larger, fingers much longer and colder than your own and held it as he recounted the event.

“Dreadful sight, it was. It was, oh, perhaps sometime after three o'clock when I heard a massive racket. A struggle. When I knocked, all of the noise subsided at once and there was complete stillness. Silence, my dear, silence so deep, dark, and damning that I knew something awful had happened.

“I didn't knock again, I was too afraid to! But, Father Marius was getting on in age, so I couldn't just stand by, either. I kicked the door in—just once was all it took—and I rushed inside to see the room was a complete mess. A fight had clearly taken place, and the walls—oh, the walls—”

His remorse was carefully placed, stiff, and uncertain and he couldn't be seen in the vastness of his black gaze. You were moved by the vulnerability he was trying to show you, going as far to abandon your drink to place your warm hand on top of his.

“The walls, my dear, were a mess of blood. Something vicious and awful had happened in that room. But, then, I found Father Marius lying there on the ground next to a broken window. I think he'd tried to throw himself through it. His face was shredded to pieces, his eyes gouged. When I got closer, I noticed that his tongue had been severed from his head!”

You were holding Father Shaw’s hands in a bloodless grip, face ashen, teeth chattering behind your lips. “What on earth! That is not only horror, but cruelty!”

“Oh, my love, it gets worse!” Father Shaw held you mesmerized in his gaze, the conviction and anguish with which he told his story. “Closer still, Father Marius’ face was locked in one of pure terror, I've—I’ve never seen a human react in quite a way such as that before, to fear. The man unhinged his own jaw in a hideous scream, and it seemed to me he was skeletal. By that, it's like he was, well, quite dry.

“So, I crouched down so much lower and inspected him all over. Do you want to know what I found?”

“Yes.” You spoke breathlessly.

Father Shaw had moved out of his seat and was on one knee in front of you, both of his frigid hands on your face to smooth across your cheeks, pushing away pieces of hair obscuring some part of you he'd wanted to see.

“My love, I saw marks in his neck. Two, beautifully, wonderfully symmetrical marks that were far too clean to be of any animal that we know of. The bite was clean, it was patient and cunning. And the fangs that had sunk into his tender flesh had drained him of blood, of the very essence that kept his heart beating until the very last.”

“Sir—” your stomach plummeted, falling forever, when he smiled, teeth longer than any humans should be shown through to you. He wouldn't let you go when you went to move out of his hands, away from him. “Father Shaw, please—”

“I wish you could have seen it, my love. It was a breathtaking sight and I long for someone else to admire the beauty of my work alongside me.”

It was unthinkable that a vampire could walk on these holy grounds and in the bright of day, yet Father Shaw had for countless days. Evil held you sweetly by the cheek and in your hair, kissed you with a corpse’s cold lips, and laved the skin of your skin with a long, serpentine tongue.

“O’, my merciful lord…”

Father Shaw bent your head back with a fistful of hair and spoke from your throat:

“There is no God, only me. Come into the endless night with me, my love.”

[room-surprise]

EXTERNAL INFLUENCES IN DUNGEON MESHI: INDIAN PHILOSOPHY

(SPOILERS FOR DUNGEON MESHI BELOW)

We know that Ryoko Kui spent considerable time at the beginning of working on Dungeon Meshi doing research and planning the series. Kui constantly references real world culture, history and mythology, but she also occasionally references real-world philosophy.

The story of Dungeon Meshi is full of philosophical questions about the joy and privilege of being alive, the inevitability of death and loss, the importance of taking care of yourself and your loved ones, and the purpose and true nature of desire. Kui explores these issues through the plot, the characters, and even the fundamental building blocks that make up her fictional fantasy world. Though it’s impossible to say without Kui making a statement on the issue, I believe Dungeon Meshi reflects many elements of ancient Indian philosophy and religion.

It’s possible that Kui just finds these ideas interesting to write about, but doesn’t have any personal affiliation with either religion, however I would not be at all surprised if I learned that Kui is a Buddhist, or has personal experience with Buddhism, since it’s one of the major religions in Japan.

I could write many essays trying to explain these extremely complex concepts, and I know that my understanding of them is imperfect, but I’ll do my best to explain them in as simple a way as possible to illustrate how these ideas may have influenced Kui’s work.

HINDUISM

Hinduism is the third-largest religion in the world and originates in India. The term Hinduism is a huge umbrella that encompasses many diverse systems of thought, but they have some shared theological elements, and share many ancient texts and myths.

According to Classical Hindu belief, there are four core goals in human life, and they are the pursuit of dharma, artha, kama, and moksha.

Dharma is the natural order of the universe, and also one’s obligation to carry out their part in it. It is the pursuit and execution of one’s inherent nature and true calling, playing one’s role in the cosmic order.

Artha is the resources needed for an individual’s material well-being. A central premise of Hindu philosophy is that every person should live a joyous, pleasurable and fulfilling life, where every person's needs are acknowledged and fulfilled. A person's needs can only be fulfilled when sufficient means are available.

Kama is sensory, emotional, and aesthetic pleasure. Often misinterpreted to only mean “sexual desire”, kama is any kind of enjoyment derived from one or more of the five senses, including things like having sex, eating, listening to music, or admiring a painting. The pursuit of kama is considered an essential part of healthy human life, as long as it is in balance with the pursuit of the three other goals.

Moksha is peace, release, nirvana, and ultimate enlightenment. Moksha is freedom from ignorance through self-knowledge and true understanding of the universe, and the end of the inevitable suffering caused by the struggle of being alive. When one has reached true enlightenment, has nothing more to learn or understand about the universe, and has let go of all earthly desires, they have attained moksha, and they will not be reborn again. In Hinduism’s ancient texts, moksha is seen as achievable through the same techniques used to practice dharma, for example self-reflection and self-control. Moksha is sometimes described as self-discipline that is so perfect that it becomes unconscious behavior.

The core conflict of Hinduism is the eternal struggle between the material and immaterial world. It is often said that all of the material world is “an illusion,” and what this means is that all good and bad things will inevitably end, because the material world is finite. On the one hand, this is sad, because everything good in life will one day cease to exist, but on the other hand, this is reassuring, because all of the bad things will eventually end as well, and if one can accept this, they will be at peace.

The central debate of Hinduism is, which is more important: Satisfying your needs as a living thing, having a good life as a productive member of society, serving yourself, your family, and the world by participating in it the way nature intended? Or is it rejecting desire and attachment, discovering the true nature of existence, realizing the impermanence of material things, and that one can only escape the suffering that comes from the struggle of life by accepting that death and loss are inevitable?

There is no set answer to this question, and most believers of Hinduism tend to strike a balance between the two extremes simply because that’s what happens when a person leads a normal, average life, however there are also those who believe that pursuing extremes will lead to ultimate enlightenment and final release as well.

BUDDHISM

Buddhism is an Indian religion and philosophical tradition that originated in the 5th century BCE, based on teachings attributed to religious teacher the Buddha. It is the world's fourth-largest religion and though it began in India, it has spread throughout all of Asia and has played a major role in Asian culture and spirituality, eventually spreading to the West beginning in the 20th century.

Buddhism is partially derived from the same worldview and philosophical belief system as Hinduism, and the main difference is that the Buddha taught that there is a “middle way” that all people should strive to attain, and that the excesses of asceticism (total self-denial) or hedonism (total self-indulgence) practiced by some Hindus could not lead a person to moksha/enlightenment/release from suffering.

Buddhism teaches that the primary source of suffering in life is caused by misperception or ignorance of two truths; nothing is permanent, and there is no individual self.

Buddhists believe that dukkha (suffering) is an innate characteristic of life, and it is manifested in trying to “have” or “keep” things, due to fear of loss and suffering. Dukkha is caused by desire. Dukkha can be ended by ceasing to feel desire through achieving enlightenment and understanding that everything is a temporary illusion.

There are many, many other differences between Hinduism and Buddhism, but these elements are the ones that I think are most relevant to Kui’s work.

Extreme hedonism involves seeking sensual pleasure without any limits. This could just be indulging in what people would consider “normal” pleasures, like food, sex, drugs and the arts, but it can also involve doing things which are considered socially repugnant, either literally or by taking part in symbolic rituals that represent these acts. Some examples are holding religious meetings in forbidden places, consuming forbidden substances (including human flesh), using human bones as tools, or engaging in sex with partners who are considered socially unacceptable (unclean, wrong gender, too young, too old, related to the practitioner). Again, these acts may be done literally or symbolically.

Extreme ascetic practices involve anything that torments the physical body, and some examples are meditation without breathing, the total suppression of bodily movement, refusing to lay down, tearing out the hair, going naked, wearing rough and painful clothing, laying on a mat of thorns, or starving oneself.

HOW THIS CONNECTS TO DUNGEON MESHI

Kui’s most emphasized message in Dungeon Meshi is that being alive is a fleeting, temporary experience that once lost, cannot truly be regained, and is therefore precious in its rarity. Kui also tells us that to be alive means to desire things, that one cannot exist without the other, that desire is essential for life. This reflects the four core goals of human life in Hinduism and Buddhism, but also could be a criticism of some aspects of these philosophies.

I think Kui’s story shows the logical functionality of the four core goals: only characters who properly take care of themselves, and who accept the risk of suffering are able to thrive and experience joy. I think Kui agrees with the Buddhist stance that neither extreme hedonism nor extreme self-denial can lead to enlightenment and ultimate bliss… But I also think that Kui may be saying that ultimate bliss is an illusion, and that the greatest bliss can only be found while a person is still alive, experiencing both loss and desire as a living being.

Kui tells us living things should strive to remain alive, no matter how difficult living may be sometimes, because taking part in life is inherently valuable. All joy and happiness comes from being alive and sharing that precious, limited life with the people around you, and knowing that happiness is finite and must be savored.

Dungeon Meshi tells us souls exist, but never tells us where they go or what happens after death. I think this is very intentional, because Kui doesn’t want readers to think that the characters can just give up and be happy in their next life, or in an afterlife.

There is resurrection in Dungeon Meshi, but thematically there are really no true “second chances.” Although in-universe society views revival as an unambiguous good and moral imperative, Kui repeatedly reminds us of its unnatural and dangerous nature. Although reviving Falin is a central goal of the story, it is only when Laios and Marcille are able to let go of her that the revival finally works… And after the manga’s ending, Kui tells us Falin leaves Laios and Marcille behind to travel the world alone, which essentially makes her dead to them anyway, since she is absent from their lives.

At the same time, Kui tells us that trying to prevent death, or avoid all suffering and loss is a foolish quest that will never end in happiness, because loss and suffering are inevitable and must someday be endured as part of the cycle of life. Happiness cannot exist without suffering, just like the joy of eating requires the existence of hunger, and even starvation.

Kui equates eating with desire itself, using it as a metaphor to describe anything a living creature might want, Kui also views the literal act of eating as the deepest, most fundamental desire of a living thing, the desire that all other desires are built on top of. If a living thing doesn’t eat, it will not have the energy necessary to engage with any other part of life. Toshiro, Mithrun, and Kabru are all examples of this in the story: They don’t take care of themselves and they actively avoid eating, and as a result they suffer from weakness, and struggle to realize their other desires.

Kui suggests that the key difference between being alive or dead is whether or not someone experiences desire. If you are alive, even if you feel empty and cannot identify your desires like Mithrun, you still have desires because you would be dead without them. The living body desires to breathe, to eat, to sleep, even if a person has become numb, or rejected those desires either to punish themselves, or out of a lack of self-love.

Sometimes, we have to do things which are painful and unpleasant, in order to enjoy the good things that make us happy. I believe Kui is telling us that giving up, falling into despair, and refusing to participate in life is not a viable solution either.

The demon only learns to experience desire by entering into and existing in the material, finite world. This experience intoxicates the demon, and it becomes addicted to feeling both the suffering of desire, and the satisfaction of having it fulfilled. This unnatural situation is what endangers the Dungeon Meshi world, and it’s only by purging the demon of this ability to desire that the world can be saved. The demon is like a corrupted Buddha that must give up its desires in order to return to the peaceful existence it had before it was corrupted.

The demon curses Laios to never achieve his greatest desires at the end of the manga, which manifests in several ways, such as losing his monstrous form, Falin choosing to leave after she’s revived, and being unable to get close to monsters because they are afraid of him. In some ways you could compare Laios to a Bodhisattva, a person who tries to aid others in finding nirvana/moksha, even if it prolongs their own suffering and prevents them from finding personal release. Laios gives the demon peace, but Laios himself will never be able to satisfy his desires, and must eventually come to accept his loss and move on with his life.

(This is an excerpt from Chapter 3 of my Real World Cultural and Linguistic influences in Dungeon Meshi essay.)

[literallymechanical]

Heads up everybody, Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI just died, and the fact that an ex-Pope has passed while a still-living Pope Francis sits in the Holy See is causing a runaway feedback loop the likes of which we haven't seen since the end of the Avignon Papacy.

All the Tiktok astral projectors need to be even more careful around the Vatican's psychic barrier for a while. The tradcath Twittermagi are also flush with unprecedented power and are currently operating at the christopsionic equivalent of OT VII, maybe even higher.

Annihilation Products

The Western Schism of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries saw three simultaneous claimants to the papacy — one each in Rome, Pisa, and Avignon. The crisis ended with the Avignon and Pisa popes being declared “antipopes,” and a new pontifex being elected in the Vatican. While the political fallout of the schism was settled long ago, we’re still feeling the radioactive effects in the 21st century.

To this day, the Avignon-Vatican-Pisa triangle has high levels of ambient pope-antipope collisions, which enclaves like Monaco have long utilized for profit – the tax breaks aren’t the only reason that a full third of the residents are millionaires. Radiation levels deeper within the AVP zone are sometimes high enough to be temporally dangerous when concentrated, but Monaco is close enough to the edge that they’re willing to take their particular risk.

As one could imagine, research into performing artificial pope-antipope particle annihilation has been going on for decades, with little success. Very small amounts of isolated antipope radiation can be created in controlled laboratory settings, but measurements are extremely difficult. There simply isn't much for antipope particles to interact with outside the AVP zone, and the synthesis is too delicate to work in a high-papal environment. However, the CERN Neutrinos To Gran Sasso experiment provided a path forward.

CNGS was a linear neutrino accelerator at CERN pointed at the Gran Sasso laboratory, just to the east of Rome. The neutrino beam passed straight through hundreds of kilometers of the earth's crust and arrived precisely at the detector target. While the data on neutrinos were certainly of great value to science, the long-distance beamline construction technology was the more economically fruitful development.

We believe that two similar beamline tunnels are currently being dug at CERN for long-range antipope radiation delivery. One is aligned with the Grail facility at Glastonbury Tor, and the other points towards the collection of True Cross fragments in Brussels. With these beams, small amounts of artificial antipope radiation can be effectively shot through solid Earth, even towards targets that are too Catholic to support antipope generators. While the emanations from antepetrine relics are not identical to pope radiation, CERN seems confident that they’ll be at least partially reactive. Though it is worth noting that so far, there is no evidence of a beamline for the Holy Lance at Kurchatov.

It isn’t quite that simple, as I’m sure you’ve guessed. Glastonbury is an isolated facility, and the UK hasn’t had much need for the Grail since the succession debacle. Dousing a bit of English countryside in radiation would be well worth the cost, economically speaking. However, we’re pretty sure the True Cross collection is still being used to power the black articles of the Maastricht Treaty. Not to mention that it’s literally buried underneath the EU Parliament.

I’m sure CERN has done their calculations well. They’re the world experts on theoparticle physics. But from everything my team has discovered, the risk to Belgium is not insubstantial. Probably nothing immanent, but it’s still a concern. Monaco already suffers an extremely high damnation rate — even by the standards of the ultra-wealthy — and they’re only irradiating a few saintly relics.

We can draw a couple of tentative conclusions here. First, Russia really is just as much in the dark as we are, they’re not bluffing. If they knew how to monetize the Lance, they would have done it already. Second, we finally have an explanation for why the UK tripled its contribution to CERN this year. And third… well, it’s been over a decade since Brexit, and they’re still taking every opportunity to talk about how badly they were, ah, “mistreated” by the EU. This is just speculation, of course, but I wonder if they’ve finally decided to get some biblical-style payback.

Again, that's speculation! But if I’m right, the Salt Lake project becomes all the more urgent. We had some resounding successes in synthetic relic bootstrapping this summer, and we’re ready to begin fabrication and assembly of a prototype golden plate. With full funding, I believe we can get one into the hands of Brigham Young archeologists within the next six years.

[centrally-unplanned]

My take on Dante Theology discourse is that the book is obviously an impressive piece of literature dealing with wide themes of man and morality, that never claimed it was making any concrete theological claims. Any criticism of the book itself on that axis is bogus.

But also that there are many people out there - more than have read The Inferno probably! - that do kneejerk treat its concept as theological canon, and that is both a fair enough thing to criricize and in fact it is difficult to explain why its criticism-worthy without admitting that all Christian conceptions of hell are equally fictional. And not just because Christianity is wrong inherently; Christian traditions have constantly vagueblogged and flip-flopped over what hell actually is. That is why Dante's tale so easily slipped into canon, it is filling a vacuum.

[sepublic]

The Rapture, the Day of Unity, and Happily Ever After

I wouldn’t be surprised if the upper echelons of the coven regime weren’t concerned with being sustainable, because they were privy before the public was to the Day of Unity, which was itself essentially one big rapture where everyone goes to a perfect utopia! They don’t have to worry about the world they’ve left behind, they just need to last long enough to make it to this endpoint, like Belos talking about how he only needs to ‘live long enough to see this through’.

So it must’ve been quite a shock, realizing that’s not it; There’s nothing for all their hard work. They have to go back to their lives as normal, but knowing it’s eternal in the sense of worrying about living life until it naturally ends for them, and making society run ahead of them for the next to pick up. Now people have to do their jobs in creating an actual functioning society instead of loftily dreaming of a fantasy, which is of course topical to the show’s themes about being beholden to the world and people around you as you make dreams practical.

I can see a comparison between the apathy that came from the Day of Unity and how a lot of rich, powerful folk —especially the ones running fossil fuel companies— don’t care about destroying the Earth and its environment, because they’ll be dead before it gets bad enough that the devastation reaches them in their cushy little suites. On the Day of Unity, Emira’s frustrations over her mother only caring about money feel in a similar vein, it all hearkens back to the same problem with these CEOs where their personal, material enjoyment is the only priority.

And this makes me think of the rapture comparison too; It comes from the Evangelicals, who are the descendants of the Puritans. I can see the writers playing with how Marx called religion the opiate of the masses; The idea that Christianity was often exploited by the upper class against the lower class to justify their suffering. The idea was that if you were poor, you didn’t need to worry about improving your material world because as long as you remained pious and faithful, you’d eventually inherit a heavenly afterlife.

Thus, working-class Christians were made complacent, believing their mortal suffering was just temporary and even a test for their ascension. Whether you think they actually got a heavenly afterlife is an entirely separate real-life theological discussion, but the point was that it was an excuse by those in power to avoid being held accountable in making the living world actually tolerable for everyone else, and everyone else would not hold them to that standard because they thought it didn’t matter anyway.

So I can see the Day of Unity functioning exactly like that, in fact I’m pretty sure it just did onscreen because we see wild witches such as the Demon Hunters accept the coven bindings because for whatever losses they suffer, eventually the Titan will make it all worth it right? And this framing of the Titan as an abstract God who will take you to an abstract universe is interesting; We know tangibly that other worlds exist of course, but in the context of the show, the utopia bit is a lie.

And if we apply it to real life, much how the show calls out IRL witch hunters (and its fictional one, because TOH’s fictional witches warranted nothing for their existence) as insincere… I do remember a college lecture in things like Animism or cosmocentric belief systems; They saw the ‘spirits’ as not existing on a separate plane, but our own. There was no afterlife or heaven, it was all in this world, people live on when they die and break down and are consumed by other beings, that sort of thing.

The practices of wild magic and the worship of the Titan seem to follow in a similar vein to these and Animism; The Titan is sacred and her body has its own life reborn as the environment, but she’s also undeniably dead, as pointed out by a Deadwardian witch. Eda stresses learning from the natural environment around you for magic, their ‘god’ is a mortal being and also their tangible world. The magic comes via glyphs in nature, as well as the magic in everything that witches get their own magic from. There IS something resembling an afterlife in-universe but we never get to see it, the beliefs of wild magic seem to be at odds with Belos’ Christian colonialism, and again its promise of a rapture and a separate, abstract God and utopia.

Point is; There is no universe after this, or at least that’s not how wild witches treat it. The focus is on the here and now and making this world last, and making it last for the future generations that will take your place. And this defiance of a rapture in favor of life always going on makes me think of how Dana hates the term Happily Ever After, for the implications of everything just being over and that’s it. That’s the end. All the problems are solved now, there is no story left to tell.

I can’t say this was intentional on a conscious level or otherwise, but I do have to draw a connection between this and how TOH’s ending was in response to this critique; Life keeps going on, the protagonists have to keep fixing the Boiling Isles, and then keep it going even if it IS fixed. They just undid coven bindings and King found his first glyph. The Archivists are still out there. The protagonists don’t get an eternal unambiguous happy ending where there’s nothing left to do, they don’t get a ‘heavenly afterlife’ as one could call it, and that’s good!

From a meta standpoint, you can see how it encourages fans to write more stories, to be inspired to keep it going, and it’s another way Dana made the shortening work in the show’s favor. Dana said back in 2020 that she encourages fans to build off of things, as she did as a kid with her own shows, she also wanted it to be that deep growing up! So both in-universe and IRL, TOH isn’t meant to be over, there is no absolute ending because fandom lives on.

Hell, Dana even professed interest in a prequel following Eda’s childhood; She’s since become pessimistic about the possibility, more than likely on account of her cutting ties with Disney and executives’ disinterest. But the point still stands; Life keeps going, IRL. The lives of the characters keep going, in-universe and IRL through fandom.

I also wonder if you could discuss Lumity under this lens; I’m making exceptions for queer romances, especially in children’s media, because they often have to deal with censorship pushing them to the last minute. But when it comes to romance in general, romance involving the main character largely consists of Will They/Won’t They, with the climax having the romance achieved. But because of the Thrill of the Chase, a lot of writers don’t want to explore how characters actually navigate a relationship, hence why it’s drawn out and saved for the ending; The romance has been nearly tied up as a Happily Ever After, there’s no more story to tell. So when they get a continuation, they’ll often undo progress.

Lumity avoids this; Lumity has them get together at the halfway point of the series, and then actually explores their dynamic as a couple together, without creating misunderstandings or breakups or anything. We see how they work as a couple, how they get to enjoy each other as a couple. So them getting together isn’t the ending climax, it’s just another stage in their continuing dynamic. There is no Happily Ever After; There’s problems for them to face together that do sometimes strain their relationship, but they still work on it together; Dana was adamant on showing these things instead of settling for them asking each other out and letting the rest be an implication.

And I think that’s so much more healthy to show kids than just idealizing the Thrill of the Chase and its climax, without appreciating the mundanity of just being together. Because kids grow into adults and don’t really expect or care to pursue a romance past that point, and I wonder if this is part of the culture behind cheating, of still reaching for something unattainable because media doesn’t normalize already having things when it comes to romance. Nor does it care for tackling things together as a couple most of the time.

Dana was raised Catholic, which is separate from Puritanism, but she did have to deal with Evangelicals growing up, as they raged about innocuous things like Pokemon; And Pokemon was her Good Witch Azura, a last gift from her father before he died in a car crash. It’s something Dana still enjoys and she’s done crossover art for it and TOH.

So I can see the coincidence/connection in Dana critiquing Evangelicals’ rapture ideology and how the end of everything is used to placate people instead of worrying about what needs to be eternally maintained, and like. Her feeling similarly with stories and even romances where it ends definitively and perfectly. Because fandom keeps going and she’s a part of it too.

The world keeps going, there is no endpoint to history IRL or in the show; People have to adjust going back to the banality of continuing to live and worry about running society in the long-term, rather than expecting it to not matter because they were going to be raptured anyway. And you know what, this could be good, it means it lasts forever as we see Luz and co. embrace it, happy to enjoy their lives, actually getting to be in a relationship; But life is fragile as we see with the Titan, so we gotta work to keep it going, so that even when we get our definitive end, the people after get their time.