#therefore we suffer

[dotcircledot]

just small thoughts on how i think their established relationship would be like

[glassblossomsthunderstorm]

"Honestly, I don't really care why she lost. I care why he won."

- Desi Lydic

[serpentface]

Two questions regarding the Wardi religion:

In addition to the bull and the lioness, what are the seven faces of god/sacrificial animals?

Given that white animals seem to be sacred, does that influence how albino humans/other sophents are treated by society?

The seven faces of God are as follows:

-the lunar, horned, or 'wild ox' face of God, which presides over the moons, and the fertility of the land, animals, and people. In pre-imperial times, this was functionally the most central face of God (replaced by the lion face/odomache). The most ideal sacrifice is a wild ox (especially white or albino) that has never been bred. -the ‘ox’ face of God, presides over agriculture and labor, as well as the domestic sphere. The most ideal sacrifice is a healthy plow oxen or khait who has never been yoked or bred (if the sacrifice is towards Ox-Face as the domestic sphere, this should be a heifer). -the lion face of God, presides over sovereignty, statehood, military might, and is most associated with the health and continuing existence of the imperial entity. The most ideal sacrifice is a maned lioness (functionally white, though this is a trait of the captive population). -the ocean or skimmer face of God, presides over the seas, winds, as well as fortune and mercantilism. The ideal sacrifice is the skimmer gull or an albatross, especially one taken from one of the sacred rocks in the 'mouth' of the Viper sea. -the serpent face of God, presides over the cosmos and divine Mysteries, associated with funerary rites and death. Also has a wildly disparate association with royalty (which is derived from entirely separate traditions and has not yet fully been reconciled into the faith). The ideal sacrifice is a two headed or melanistic snake, especially a venomous one (both would be MOST ideal, but this is rare beyond any practicality) -The solar face of God, presides over the sun, stars, and fire, also heavily associated with khait and mounted warriors. (this is a VERY direct import from the chief solar god in the Burri pantheon (who rides and/or is a khait with the sun between its horns), hence the seemingly random khait association). The ideal sacrifice is a healthy riding khait (especially with a white spotted coat), or alternatively a golden eagle. -The river face of God, presides over fresh water, seasonal flooding, and the rains. The ideal sacrifice is the migratory reed duck (which arrives at the onset of the wet season) or a freshwater hesperornis (ideally taken from one of the sacred waters). An-Nechoi are also occasionally given.

Though the core religion is monotheistic, each face of God is functionally a syncretic fusion of older ethnic Wardi beliefs, the Burri pantheon, and other regionally native traditions, which have not all been fully reconciled (the process of fusion is more or less still ongoing). Each face in of itself has dozens or more epithets with distinct features. For example, the river face has a specific epithet for each major riverway, each venerated as a distinct aspect of the Godhead. Functionally, common practice of the Wardi faith is pretty indistinguishable from polytheism, and most of the religious authority does not care as long as required orthopraxy is maintained (the central dogma of the religion does not care How you believe, but that the correct practices are enacted).

Also for reference, these are the specific animals taken on the pilgrimage in the story (transporting seven rare animals cross country can be fraught, so each had at least a few backups):

A pure white aurochs calf, found naturally born in a wild herd.

A massive, unbred and unyoked bull draft khait (dies en route, replaced by a less physically impressive backup with the same qualities)

A lioness with a full mane, from the white captive stock

A skimmer gull taken from a nest on the sacred rock in the waters of Od-Koto.

A baby two headed cobra (which dies en-route and is replaced with its backup, a melanistic viper)

A beautiful speckled riding khait mare whose horns form a near perfect circle (which is stolen en-route and replaced with its sister)

A rare wild hesperornis (haven't come up with an in-universe name yet) taken from the reeds of the Brilla river delta.

Anyway the sacrifices listed above are considered the absolute IDEALS when working with a specific face, but a great variety of animals will be sacrificed to various ends. There’s some very specific cultural/religious components to which animals are most valued, but in practice the value of a sacrifice is pretty close to 1:1 with the animal’s monetary value, at an intersection of utility and rarity.

So a young, healthy bull plow oxen who has never been bred or yoked is a more valued sacrifice than an old, experienced plow ox who has already sired offspring. You are giving up an extremely valuable animal and all its unused potential in a very practical sense, which makes the sacrifice more potent and valued. The 'virginal' status of the animal is key when the rite is SPECIFICALLY related to fertility, in the sense that the animal itself is sacrificing its unused fertility, allowing for the sacrifice-rebirth cycle to perpetuate. (Animals which Have been bred may be preferred in certain cases and rituals).

An animal with a rare coloration is usually going to be more valuable than one with more common genetics. This is the core root of why albino animals are of high value. It's less that white animals themselves are valued, just that rare genetics such as albinism = valuable sacrifice.

There are some specific exceptions where the color itself is significant (rather than just an extension of its rarity). God is specifically supposed to have taken the form of a white aurochs (itself emerged from the foam of the sea) during creation, so white oxen and wild oxen SPECIFICALLY have especially high value. Melanism or black scales are valued to the serpent face of God, which is associated with the cosmos and void behind the stars. (this stems from much, MUCH older beliefs in a cosmic serpent god in the region).

Animal sacrifice is a very significant part of the religious framework and involved in most rituals and prayers intended to affect significant change and transformation. (This is due in part to a deeply ingrained belief in the world being perpetually sustained in a cycle of sacrifice and rebirth, and in God Itself being the physical mechanism of rebirth and requiring sacrifice to be sustained). While blood itself is seen as potent, the nature of sacrifice isn't just 'spill blood and make thing happen', it's got a self contained value system and is very calculated and intentional in nature. You aren’t going to just grab a random rat and bleed it and pray, there needs to be a perceived ‘loss’. Sacrifice via killing is also not the only form, the most common day to day sacrifice is in (very minor) bloodletting and offerings of food and drink- the key is allowing a personal loss to sustain a greater cycle.

That being said, there is a HUGE trade system built up around the breeding and selling of animals solely for sacrifice. The industry revolves mostly around birds (doves are the cheapest, but also poultry, waterfowl, some birds of prey, a few select songbirds and ornamental birds), goats, sheep, and horses (the small, premodern kind). Cattle and camelids are a higher tier, and khait are among the highest of common sacrifices due to their great value.

Other animals that have no direct utility but are sacred are also bred or captured for sacrifice (hesperornis, lacetor, gulls and albatrosses, several kinds of snake, a bunch of wild ungulates, nechoi, etc). Some '''‘exotic’''' animals are imported specifically for this purpose, mostly as a means of displaying the wealth and reach of the state, with their sacrificial value rooted in the difficulty of acquisition. Animals taken from sacred sites are also prime candidates (ie cattle bred and grazed on the foothills of the Sons of Creation are VERY valuable).

---

So all that being said the importance of albino animals has come off a little overstated on my part, and doesn't have any particular impact on how albinism in people is regarded. It’s valued mainly for its rarity in the context of animal sacrifice, which would not have direct translations to how it’s perceived in people.

Albinism in people doesn’t have a super well defined significance in broader Imperial Wardi culture, but perspectives mostly skew negative and towards seeing it as a sign of ill fortune (physical differences in people tend to be seen as a result of being cursed in the womb). Imperial Wardin is culturally diverse (united mostly by a identity based in shared religion), so exact nuances would vary and this statement should not be taken as a universal.

Imperial Wardi population is mostly human (with its citizen population being MAYBE 5% elowey, 2% qilik, and a decimal point of caelin). Overall sentiment towards other sophonts by the human majority is not outright hostile, but is human-centric and tinged with xenophobia (as most qilik and elowey in the region are immigrants, with the only elowey ethnic group historically inhabiting the region (the Jazait) being regarded as 'heathens'). Albino elowey or qilik might be similarly seen as products of a curse, or may be given a 'wow how beautiful' treatment (in a heavily patronizing capacity) and seen as a curiosity, or otherwise just subject to varying perspectives on albinism in the region.

The one other thing I have established in this vein is that the semi-mythological hero Janise (sworn brother of other semi-mythological founder hero Erub) is said to have been albino. While he is positively regarded, he is supposed to have died young of a snakebite (assumed to be the product of a curse from his enemies) and this would not improve perceptions of albinism being related to ill fortune.

[bookwyrminspiration]

chat should I do the 50k words in a month this november, as per usual, or since we're ditching the site due to shitty management should I break free of the ill-timing and do the challenge in like. june.

[loserboyfriendrjl]

thinking about sirius and walburga, and about how they’re so similar; for this very reason they tear at each other, because “i can’t love myself, so i will not be able love you either, but i will try to show you the little i have and that is through blood and spit and tears”, and how they used to be a mother and a son, and he used to hold her hand, and she used to kiss his temple and hold him in her arms, the skirt of her dress an aura around them, and how they grew to be strangers, and about how how walburga was chained to the destiny sirius was supposed to have too, but sirius had always been so, so stubborn, more so than her, even, and he was not tied to a family that he did not want to have. because the thing is, walburga was a mother. she was supposed to stay, to love, to care for, but how could she, when not even her own mother had loved her? when all she carried with herself was bitterness and resentment? how was she supposed to love the boy who had her eyes, her mouth, her temper, her undying devotion, flesh from her flesh and blood from her blood, the boy of her tears and joy and anger? besides, he wasn’t her son anymore, he was euphemia’s, because even though he has walburga’s mouth, he smiles like euphemia, and even though he has walburga’s eyes, his eyes crinkle the same way as euphemia’s do. maybe he just wasn’t meant to be her son, and that hurt more than anything else ever hurt her. she knows he’s happy, he saw him at the station when he boarded to hogwarts, his eyes bright and his smile wide, and although she held resentment toward him because he got away, she was happy that at least he did not have to live the life she had to. and sirius is a star, bound to burn until there’s nothing really left of him, and she is a saint, chained to a life she did not want to have, a martyr of some sort.

[hyacinthsdiamonds]

@ Franco, someone please give him a seat for next year I beg!

[sorin-sunchild]

Depressing seeing blogs who claim to be 'all about loving trans people!' and 'omg totally t4t' etc reblogging and making memes claiming yet again that believing that the intersectionality of being a man and trans (or masc and trans) causes unique forms of bigotry to emerge targeted at both those things - is inherently transmisogynistic and ofc indicates that the person loves to harass and bully trans women and blame them for everything.

Instead of, you know, it being coincidental that some of the people who talk about their own oppression with their own word which just happens to be controversial (because some trans feminine and even trans masculine people have a bee in their bonnets due to critically misunderstanding the way the world works) happen to be shitty people.

Maybe it shouldn't be if everyone grew up a bit and learnt that the world is more complex than they think and nothing is black and white.

(also tagging it as transandrophobia to make sure we see how much you hate us is cruel and unusual btw)

[imminent-danger-came]

Gotta say my tags from this post are killing me

We're living past the end of our myth for a 3rd time. Number three. Triple of 'em

[madeoftwinklingstars]

something i think is really interesting about judaism is that there are movements that simply. do not believe that the torah (the main book of judaism) was written by god. i mean in what other religion would this be widely adopted. why hasn’t similar ideas spread further? what makes judaism different from them? while orthodox claim that jews who believe this are heretical, they are still forced to engage with these arguments that the torah was simply written by people trying to make sense of the world. there are also multiple movements within orthodoxy that force them to engage with this argument as well— like the fact that there are orthodox individuals who believe in science and evolution. if the torah is wrong about adam and eve, what else could it be wrong about? it’s so just so interesting to me.

[familyagrestefanblog]

Me being rant-y, I need to get this out of my system

You know what? I'm not sure if people in this fandom actually don't put together that Adrien only writing "I don't know what I want to do in future, but I know that I love Marinette Dupain-Cheng" is the result of him not having been allowed to grow up being his own person and under harsh conditional love (and literal mind control but go off), him then being abused, neglected and forced further into his father's international business where he basically was exploited as it's face and Adrien now loosing all hope in his future because his father is sending him into another country as punishment to make Adrien comply in that his future is already long decided for him and he has no choice.

Or, you know, if yall genuinely just don't care anymore for any other mental health than Marinette Dupain-Cheng and Félix Fathom very loudly crying, screaming and stressing over things, and now yall are just making fun of a depressed teenager - whose about to loose his home, remaining family, his love and friends and future - by calling him a malewife who doesn't and shouldn't have dreams and his own ambitions anyway because Marinette needs someone to raise her kids and cook for her.

So you're doing the same thing Gabriel does, taking Adrien's potential dreams and ambitions away from him before he can possibly have them to fit your own agenda to make you and only you happy, because you decided long ago that Marinette Dupain-Cheng's husband is not allowed to have a job, while you wanna make condescending malewife jokes at stay-at-home husband's expenses.

Like, at this point in this fandom I genuinely can't tell anymore if yall just genuinely can't put that together anymore because only Marinette's and Félix' crying matters since season 4, or if you guys are just actively being bullies now and you don't care anymore since Marinette got her prince serving himself to her on a silver platter and that was all that ever mattered to you about Adrien.

Truly, I can't tell. Because I can barely see any genuine sympathy for Adrien who is about to loose everything in a couple of days, which will also mean that he probably questions if he'll ever see Nathalie alive again.

No? Non of that? Just condescending malewife jokes that actually discourage boys who just wanna enjoy this show and Fandom from being stay-at-home dad's cause all you do is mock? Well alright.

But God help us if Marinette has so much as a paper cut on a finger..

[thetimelordbatgirl]

How playing Pirate101 for me and @dani-luminae is going when it comes to our musketeer characters.

[oidheadh-con-culainn]

I think people watch those things as punishment because they don't have the means, time, extra money, etc, to do anything meaningful to help. So at least they can acknowledge and bear witness to the horror, even if they're not able to actually help.

right but like. "at least they can do this" makes it sound like doing that is actually materially useful, and i'm not convinced it is. i think in many cases it is only increasing the number of people suffering in the world. i agree that people are doing it because they feel powerless in other regards but in the majority of cases i think it's harming more than helping

[wickershells]

One of the attitudes that frustrates me most about the mainstream response to art these days is the general insistence that it must impart some grand moral lesson or enlighten you to something you did not already know. Art can and very often does exist merely as a reflection or portrayal or expression of something otherwise unseen. You write a poem about grief not to illustrate how to cope with it but to write about grief. To embody the disembodied and make it solid, tangible, palpable

[mars-ipan]

this post is not going to be very well planned out so i’d like you all to be niceys to me if i bungle the wording but i feel like the moment people understand that certain forms of bigotry stem from hatred for certain groups but can affect people not belonging to those groups and hurt them just the same is the moment a lot of our conversations about diversity, oppression, and how to combat marginalization stop going so hard in circles and start being productive

[theood]

Mentally ill boy whines again. Solution: Get Out Of There

[angeltannis]

breaking the cycle of generations of my family who were taught to never tell “outsiders” anything about their personal lives by being autistic with no shame and sharing whatever with anyone