#you know this monkey

[artkaninchenbau]

A h-heartfelt reunion..?

Bonus

[notmuchtoconceal]

[14:00]

The first thing to say here is that an earlier generation of scholars actually argued that the development of the evil Demiurge began in Alexandrian Jewish circles. This theory has speculated that Jews at the very periphery of their social, intellectual and philosophical circles -- perhaps those Jews at the very limits, at the adjacent of some of those magickal practices that produced some of the books like Sefer HaRazim -- were ultimately responsible for the development of the evil Demiurge, says this theory.

(It's largely rejected now, but it's the dominant theory you may read in old books.)

Perhaps it was a rebellion against their more emergent orthodox theologians, an outgrowth of Jewish bitheism with the so-called Two Powers in Heaven Hersey (which really frightened the Rabbis, way more than Christianity ever did) the influence of Dualism on their theology, or a response to the historical material reality of Jewish suffering during the Judean-Roman Wars, the violent Alexandrian pogroms, the Kitos War, and finally the genocide that followed in the Bar Kokhba Rebellion, it was a pretty crappy time to be Jewish in the 2nd century, so you might wanna

... dip out.

In other words, when God gives you lemons -- God must be evil.

In fact, something similar actually emerged after the Holocaust with what is now know as Abusive God Theology and that stuff makes... makes H.P. Lovecraft looks like Elmo on MDMA.

*whew* Abusive God Theology.

But there are logical and evidentiary problems with this line of thinking.

First, there's just no evidence of evil Demiurge thinking in any known Jewish text. It seems to fly in the face of every tenet of Judaism that is foundational to it, and Judaism does a pretty good job of preserving... heterodox opinions. And the Jewish writers at the time -- from the earliest Rabbis to Hellenizing Philo and the generations that follow -- they seem to all fall on the exact opposite position of the evil Demiurge idea and they never polemicize against what would seem to be that position. It's just silent in the narrative. That's just to say there's no Jewish evidence -- positive or negative -- of the emergence or even the presence of the evil Jewish Demiurge in their clrcles.

In fact, it only takes place in Christian works. In Christian Works. Primarily those of the second century like the famous Apocryphon of John, the most popular book in this genre.

However, the idea likely has its origins not in Judaism but in the Pagan demonization of the Israelite God Yahweh. At the heart of post-exilic Israelite mythology is the story of the Exodus, that is the accounts of the descendents of Joseph who were allegedly enslaved by Egyptian pharaohs then forced into labor camps for 400 years. Eventually the Egyptians perceived a demographic threat from the fecund Israelite women and engaged in mass infanticide with Moses surviving -- rescued of course -- and then raised in the house of Pharaoh. After beating an Egyptian taskmaster to death, Moses flees into the wilderness of Midian and gets advice from a.... burning bush... and a divine mission to return to Pharoah and liberate the Israelite people from Egyptian bondage.

Pharoah... he's a ... he's a nope on that one and uh, y'know... what follows are a series of horrifying plagues, eventually the Israelite God murdering all the firstborn Egyptians... even the poor animals get killed by the Angel of Death, including Pharaoh's son. After this, the Israelite people are liberated, but not before plundering Egyptian wealth.

They... they go on a looting rampage. Pharoah's despair of course turns to rage in the Sea of Reeds where the Red Sea is split. The Israelites escape and Pharoah and his army are drowned. Oh yeah, and the Israelites, they live happily ever after after that. Everything's fine. For the Israelites and the Jewish people. Nothing bad ever happens again.

Now, the origins of this myth, the Levitical Exodus story might be a good one. Friedman gives an interesting idea of what is called the Leviticus Exodus Theory. Might be a possible historical seed of the Exodus, but this myth has become foundational in the centuries prior to the turn of the Common Era as Judaism is becoming a religion as we might recognize it. And for Judeans living in Judea celebrating this myth in Hebrew, well... that's all fine and good as well as myths go.

But during this period, most Jews didn't live in Judea, they were increasingly spread throughout the world that would become the Roman empire and were especially concentrated in he Egyptian port city of Alexandria. The Egyptian city of Alexandria.

Further, this tale wasn't just in their native language there. It was being translated into the vernacular Greek of the time, and ... worse, it had even been translated into Greek for performance by Ezekiel the Tragedian by the 3rd Century BCE. This Judean Exodus myth was being performed in Egypt in the public vernacular... for all to hear. All during the twilight of the proud Egyptian autonomy. It could have only been salt in the wound of the end of Egyptian civilization as it had existed for thousands of years.

Now as you can well imagine... this myth was not exactly well-perceived by Egyptian people. It paints their empire as defeated by a bunch of slaves who expropriate them in the end. It paints the Egyptians as sorcerers, slavers and psychopathic baby murderers. It paints their traditional gods as helpless against... a single foreign desert god and their divine pharaohs as vicious pawns ultimately drowned, and... that's the worst possible death in the Egyptian religion.

Drowning. Is an awful death for the ancient Egyptians.

Any Egyptian would have found this myth highly offensive at basically every register. In fact, other non-Jews would have found it frankly laughable given the splendor and power of ancient Egypt and the relative backwater that was Judea. If one were to measure the power of the Gods by their relative social success... okay. The Judeans had one rather impressive temple to speak of. One. The Egyptians had hundreds. Thousands. And all of those were of supreme antiquity; ancientness and grandeur both being the prime indicators of the powers of the gods in antiquity. And thus the the Hellenizing Egyptians deployed a powerful religious weapon to counter this scandalous, this offensive Exodus story.

The Judean God was a Donkey Headed Demon.

Yeah, for real. That was the comeback.

Yahweh was a Donkey Headed Demon.

In the indigenous religion of the Egyptians, the demonic god Seth was responsible for chaos, the desert wilderness, violent storms, and the barbaric foreigners that threatened ancient Egypt. He was also the usurper who murdered his brother Osiris, hacking his body into pieces and locked eternally in combat with the symbol of justice, Horus.

He was depicted, at least early on, by a... strange otherwise unknown animal known in scholarship as the Typhonic Beast with a sunken muzzle and floppy ears. Sometimes appearing like a kind of hybrid dog-like, perhaps desert scavenger kind of animal. However, as the centuries went on, the head of this beast became more and more donkey-like. Further, the popular Canaanite storm god Baal also became associated with Seth in the Egyptian imagination. In fact, Baal's name when it's written in the Egyptian language uses this Seth animal determinative, probably indicating his foreignness and desert dwelling character.

This shows they were somehow equivocated in the mind of the average Egyptian scribe, at least. And as Hellenism took hold, so did the interpretatio graeca, whereby the gods of various national pantheons were set in a kind of system of grand correspondences. Thus famously the Greek Hermes was equivalent to the Roman Mercury, the Etruscan Turms, the Egyptian Thoth, the Carthaginian Tautus, the Gaulish Lugus, and most famously in our neck of the woods here, Hermes Trismegistus, sort of a combination of Hermes and Thoth into one mythical Egyptian sage. Of course, this could function in an ecumenical sense. The same Gods worshipped variously in various places acutally went to great lengths to lay the groundwork for the imperial religious tolerance of Roman fame. The Romans were kind of like we all worship the same set of Gods and we can all get a long as long as you pay your taxes.

But this could also be used for polemical ends and that seems to be exactly what the Egyptian answer to the scandal of the Exodus and the Israelite God Yahweh was. To link the demonic Seth of the Egyptian pantheon with the Israelite God Yahweh.

Now such a move would not have been at all theologically difficult for the Egyptians. The first step's already there: the linking of Egyptian Seth with Canaanite Baal. Of course, Judeans would have found this link horrible and offensive. Yahweh and Baal being bitter mythological enemies at least from the Judean perspective.

But from the Egyptian point of view? That would have been just what Freud would have called the narcissism of minor difference.

Both Baal and Yahweh were -- at least as far as the Egyptians cared -- minor Canaanite storm gods worshipped by barbaric foreigners whose only claim to historical fame was actually just trade routes that ran north and south through their lands near the sea down through the Shfela.

Otherwise, they were just desert-dwelling nomads or highlander bandits or both. Seth, the god of storms, chaos, the desert waste and foreigners, as historically linked with Baal... it was an easy slide to link with Yahweh. Yahweh himself was a kind of warrior storm god.

(Thunderstorms, though. Not coastal storms.)

In fact, just reading the Exodus story reveals more Seth-like properties.

He's a causer of pestilences and eclipses and brings darkness and turns the life-giving Nile into blood. Blood was used over the lentils of Israelite homes as a horrifying angel went through, murdering all these children and animals. Even the color red is linked to Seth in the ancient literature and in the Greek magical papyri. Yahweh leads them into the desert of all places to worship in the wilderness of Mt. Sinai at a mountain enshrouded in araphel in Hebrew.

Deep Darkness and fire and lightning abounding.

Even one of the major Greek terms for Yahweh Iao sounds a bit like the indigenous Egyptian word for donkey, : Iō. Or later the Coptic Iohao. literally Donkey-Headed. Iohoa. Yahweh. Eh. Donkey God. The animal at that time most associated with the demonic Seth.

Thus by the first few centuries before the common era, it had become a bit of token slander to suggest that the Jews worshipped a donkey-headed diety despite their claim that no images of their God were allowed, either in their Jerusalem temple of otherwise, for that matter.

Around 200 BCE we hear from the Alexandrian Menaceus that an Idumean -- a Southern person from same stock as Herod, actually -- had torn off the head off the Donkey shrine within the Jerusalem temple. It was a golden donkey head. A narrative that's repeated a century later by Apollonius Mullon and the Stoic philosopher Posidonius where in that story, Antiochus the IV Epiphanes (Hanukkah Antiochus) the Seleucid leader whose outrages would ultimately lead to war, he entered the temple and found a golden statue with a donkey headed deity around 167 BCE. Around the same time, around the turn of the common era, a certain Democritus also recounted Jewish worship of a donkey headed golden deity and likewise did Appion and even the historian Tacitus who should have known better, but he repeats the story anyway.

In the 90s in the common era, the Roman Jewish historian Josephus would actually have to defend Judeans from just these claims in his writings. Indeed the entire Exodus narrative was being inverted. Rather than being saved by a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, in the literature -- the pagan literature -- the Israelites were being depicted as lepers actually just expelled en mass from Egypt. Not liberated by any God. In fact, Plutarch even depicts the demon god Seth escaping Egypt on donkey back; a journey taking seven days, precisely to mock the origins of the Jewish sabbath. He's even said to father sons, one named Jerusalem, and one named Judea, literally making the Jews the descendants of the demon god Seth.

Of course, this would have been all the more outrageous and horrifying to the Judeans of the time considering their traditional way of making fun of the Egyptians. They mocked the Egyptian gods by saying they worshipped a bunch of animals -- with bird heads and crocodile heads, now their God -- their God -- now their god Yahweh was the stereotypically stupidest beast of them all: the braying donkey.

I apologize for any donkeys [reading]. I apologize.

Got to be careful this episode. I'm gonna get donkey cancelled.

[kyri45]

My own personal take on why Macaque fur isn’t usually white despite being, well, a macaque. And since MK also owns his shadow powers weeeeelll… Also MK is much more towards the blonde than the white since he still took from Wukong fur color.

Congrats on @brightonsart017 for being the one who guessed it the closest.

Shadowpeach Bio Parent AU (PREV / FIRST / NEXT)

Also I will die on the gentle Mamacaque rock, he’s just proud his baby takes so much from him

[monsterqueers]

Hey if people are thinking of 'stockpiling HRT' and you are doing it with Testosterone, be aware that is a controlled substance and doing this WILL GET YOU A FELONY CHARGE IF YOU ARE CAUGHT (and it would be very easy for this to happen through the way those posts reccomend).

Its your decision if you want to risk imprisonment (and then definitely losing hrt access), but be aware of the serious consequences- especially if you are recommending this to people!

If you do this with E, you get a slap on the wrist. If you do this with T its a felony. A felony charge deeply effects everything you do. Its not just hard to DYI T, its MANY TIMES LEGALLY RISKIER AND HARDER.

[sparrowlucero]

if you're working on a project as a lowly concept artist should you, like, warn clients not to call the evil tech company in their tv show "vore incorporated" or name a villain "the bad dragon" or whatever? is that your moral duty?

[general-cyno]

I need you, Zoro. You're my captain, Luffy. And I'm your first mate.

[where-does-the-heart-lie]

Warning: Major major one piece spoilers of wano and egghead!!!!!

Tw: death & blood

The idea of luffy’s vivre card flash-banging sabo in that pitch black bilge is making me laugh so much

Bonuses:

Full pic of that last page👇

Here’s the full pic of this since it being a gif absolutely tanked the quality of the image.

[penn-dragon]

Thank you for giving me an excuse to ramble about my headcanons and to draw all the Straw Hats!

[pyr0frnzy]

(PRETTY PLEASE READ FROM RIGHT TO LEFT…)

Luffy Zoro Sanji and Usopp if they ever all went on a waterslide together…

[ningadudexx]

how the world looks when i draw sunburst duo 🐬🌈✨🌊🐟☀️

[jelly-boi]

inherited will

[confessedlyfannish]

Writing Prompt #13

"So?" Red Hood asks, arms crossed. "Was I right?"

"Yes," Phantom says, deepening his voice, "this is one of mine."

"One of your what?" Robin growls. Nightwing's hand on his shoulder is the only thing keeping him from invading Phantom's personal space, which, please, continue to do so Mr. Nightwing, Sir.

Phantom would take a deep calming breath if a) he wasn't trying to appear as otherworldly as possible which means no human breathing and b) if that wouldn't so obviously telegraph how uncomfortable he is in the Batcave surrounded by the entire Batfamily.

Next to him Red Hood shifts in slight discomfort. His ties to the spectral realm mean he's picking up on Danny's unease even if he can't fully translate the feeling. Which is good. Danny needs to maintain what little control he has over this situation.

"There's a gh-spirit in my...realm," Phantom says, letting himself drift gently to the other side of Batman's medical table which just coincidentally puts more distance between him and the the rest of the clan staring him down. Black Bat leans forward and he violently suppresses a flinch. "They're known as Nocturne. They wield power over dreams. Their signature is all over this."

And Danny means that literally. Their ecto-signature couldn't be more apparent if they'd written it in sharpie across Batman's suit. This is what Jason—Red Hood, because Danny couldn't have been dealing with a simple civilian case of ecto-contamination, nooo, he's got to have connections to the superheroes Danny has spent the better part of his afterlife avoiding—managed to pick up on, even being the low level entity that he is.

At which point he'd called Phantom in, even though Danny had spent the better part of two weeks trying to intimidate the guy into never contacting him, Ruler of the Spirit Realm (lightning crash!), again, but here is his calling card just in case (thunder and creaking noises!!), but again, you should never use it unless things are very serious, OoOoOoOo~~~

Damn it. It's been like 10 days.

"So how do we fix it, Your, uh, Ghostliness?" Nightwing says, ducking his head in a sort of half-assed supplication when Phantom turns to him. Nightwing glances at Jason for affirmation who shrugs out of the corner of Danny's eye.

"Phantom is fine," Danny says, waving his hand and letting his upper lip curl in an expression of distaste. "Remember, it's like you're Vlad when Dad offers him a glass of eight dollar wine!" Jazz's voice reminds him. Robin growls lowly, likely meaning he's nailing it. He looks away dismissively ("Honestly, it's like you're Vlad, anytime, ever." Sam notes dryly) and thanks god he doesn't have a heart in this form because it would be beating so loud right now.

Beside him, Jason scratches compulsively at the back of his neck. Huh, his anxiety is manifesting physically as an itch. Good to know.

"You can't fix it," Phantom says. "I can."

"At what cost?" Red Robin asks. "Red Hood mentioned you'd want something in return?"

Frick. His other contingency to keep Jason from ever contacting him again. Phantom had lightly hinted his taste du jour was, uh, souls.

Something Red Hood has apparently let slip, because now Robin shakes off Nightwing's hand, puffs out his chest and declares "I will trade myself for my father's safe awakening, Spirit!"

The other members burst into denials which almost covers up Danny floating sharply back and saying "What? No!!!"

Key word: almost.

Danny coughs as they stare at him.

"That is to say, I have no desire for a child," he puts a bit of snarl into it, showing fang. The mood in the room plummets drastically as Nightwing gently grabs Robin by the arm and pulls him back to his side.

"We see," he says. He steps forward more assertively, placing himself in front of the others, all of which are now eying him warily. "Then, is there a gender you prefer?"

It takes a second to click in Danny's head and then he swings his head wildly away from his audience to hide his reaction, nausea and embarrassment turning his face bright green. "Fika Kristo," he mutters in Esperanto as quietly as he possibly can, pinching the bridge of his nose.

He gives himself a moment to settle and game plan before turning back around. "I have no desire for any of you, and it matters not. In this instance, a deal need not be struck. Nocturne is my subject, and they have done this without my permission." Danny blinks, eyes widening. "Not—not! that I would give them permission to do such a thing. In the first place. Ahem."

"Okay...so you'll do this for free?" Jason asks. "Seems like a bad business practice since you also fixed me up for nothing—"

"What he means to say, Your Majesty, Phantom, is thank you!" Signal says in a rush as Nightwing starts, "Wait, Hood, what do you mean—"

"Enough!" Phantom says loudly (nearby bats take off and Jason's itch migrates to his forearms) "I have little time," read: he has a test tomorrow and he's only one-third of the way through the study guide "And I grow tired of this...dilly-dally." Frick! Is that an old-timey word?

"Of course. Thank you again, Phantom." Nightwing says stiffly, eyes still narrowed in Hood's direction.

"Wait, sorry, Phantom, Majesty, I'm Spoiler by the way," the purple-caped vigilante Danny already knew was Spoiler says. "How do we keep this from happening again? To any of us? Is there a way to defeat this Nocturne?"

"Moreover, why Batman?" Red Robin asks. "Why would a spirit from another dimension want him asleep?"

Phantom sighs. "Nocturne was trying to send a message. To me. Through you," he says, nodding at Red Hood. "They...how do I put this. They like attention. Being the spirit of uh, dreaming, they don't receive that attention. And you were in my realms for quite some time. And they wanted...attention."

The lackluster explanation sits for a moment before "They were jealous? Of me?" Red Hood asks skeptically.

"It's more complicated than that. Your...physiology," Danny puts it as delicately as possible, watching regretfully when Red Hood still stiffens at the mention, "Is particular. You gather attention in our realm. And having my attention is...special. But not!" He says to the group at large, a touch panicked, "Romantic!"

Jesus, he's never gonna hear the end of this from the others.

"Anyway, I will ensure it does not happen again."

"By paying them attention," Spoiler says under her breath, wiggling her eyebrows at Black Bat, Red Robin shooting them both a glare. Nightwing ignores them in favor of staring at Red Hood and Phantom. Danny is unsure what Red Hood has disclosed about how he knows Danny, but now he feels confident the answer is close to nothing.

Before Nightwing can ask whatever uncomfortable thing he's about to ask, Phantom disappears. Invisibly, he hovers over Batman's sleeping body and silently apologizes for the intrusion before intangibly slipping into Batman's REM realm and finding the man...oh...

Probably thirty minutes later he reappears to the group, who all perk up at the sight of him. Their eyes bounce from him to Batman; who does not move, to the monitor; which shows no change in his brain activity.

"I'm going to need your help," Danny says to Jason, getting to the point.

"Why? What can I do?"

"It's easier if you come with me," Danny says, grabbing his arm.

"Come with—"

Danny wastes no time in turning them both invisible and flying them into Batman's mind.

"What the—" Red Hood twists and turns, taking in the hallways of the manor. From afar, they can hear the tinkling of a piano. "You, I had your word—"

"This isn't where you think it is," Danny says hurriedly. "We're in your—Batman's dream." He walks quickly down the hallway, towards the music. Jason follows.

"What?"

"The way to break a dream spell is to wake the dreamer. You can't do that externally so you do it internally. Usually you wake the dreamer by turning the dream into the nightmare, scaring them awake."

The hallway stretches on longer than realistic, the dream attempting to divert them. But it can't outrun Danny. His power seeps into the halls, ice creeping along the paneling and freezing the way behind them.

"Batman, however, is hard to scare."

"So you want me to do it."

"What? No." Phantom shoots him a confused look. "Why would I—Ahem, The other way is to convince the dreamer they are dreaming. They break the dream themselves."

"Alright..." Jason says slowly, now keeping pace with him. His breath forms a cloud as he speaks. "And you think I'm the person to do it? I'm not the one he listens to you know, that's more Nightwing's schtick, or hell, anyone other than me."

"This isn't just Batman's dream, Jason," he says. Hood's eyes narrow at his real name, but now the truth is necessary. "This is The Dream. The perfect life. Everything he could ever want."

They're approaching an opening on the right side of the corridor. A bright light emanates from it, alongside the noise of stumbling piano keys and laughter, deep and male and unrecognizable. The Dream.

"Thomas Wayne," Jason breathes. "You want me to convince Bruce it's worth walking away from the center of his universe? It'd be easier if I put a bullet in their chests."

Danny stops abruptly before the doorway, turning to face Jason.

"You know, I fixed you," he says, head cocked. "Those feelings you felt, you shouldn't be feeling them anymore."

"I...I don't."

"Then why do you act like it?" He lets himself drift up, reaching beyond their planes of existence and extending a metaphysical hand to Jason's spirit. It shivers away. "You don't have to hide behind what was."

"I'm not hiding! And I don't have to explain myself to you!" He tries to move forward but Danny puts a hand out and he cannot move past it. He growls in frustration.

"I'm grateful to you, but with or without the Pits I'm fucked up. This is just who I am. This is just what he made me."

"You've never asked why I look like this. But did you know my form is malleable?" Phantom says, letting his legs shift into a tail, letting two eyes become three. "What I believe is what I am."

And then he takes several steps back, putting the doorway between them. "From here on out, the Pits can't tell you how to think or feel. Your decisions are wholly your own. Starting with this one."

Jason stares at the doorway, then Danny.

"I won't make you," Danny says simply. "And if you desire, I will retrieve Nightwing instead."

Jason scratches at his arms, grits his teeth, and stomps through. The light resolves into the sitting room, massive windows letting in sunlight so bright it streaks yellow-white across the room. Bruce sits on the maroon versailles couch next to Cassandra, who sits cross legged, excitedly watching Alfred pour her a cup of tea. To their right, in the open space, Damian barks instructions at Tim on handling a katana. Stephanie and Duke sit on the ground besides the coffee table, homework sheets sprawled across the surface, suffering their way through a calculus problem.

Bruce, smiling softly, looks across the room to where the atrocious playing is coming from. Red Hood follows his gaze.

Sitting at the piano, trying to play while Dick distracts him with a pair of chopsticks, is Jason. He puts a hand on Dick's face and shoves, both of them hitting the wrong keys.

"Get—away—dumbass!"

"No, see, it's a duet! Jay!"

"That's not why it's named—" and Jason Todd-Wayne tips his white-tipped head back and laughs.

[kyri45]

Day 1 of parenting MK: Monkey Training

It’s happening he’s uncounsciusly starting to feel FFM as his home

Shadowpeach Bio Parent AU (PREV / FIRST / NEXT )

[bismuthfool]

silly cat

and wukong (also a silly cat)

[shima-draws]

Huh...wonder what he's thinkin about...

[meirimerens]

curious and curiouser