#Because it may accidentally fall into a case where those beliefs are misrepresented and stigmatized

[ell-arts]

Does Hell and Heaven exist in your pmatga aus? If so, does the Netherworld count as it's own version of Hell or is it a separate thing?

If they're all separate things in your aus I'd be hocked! I'd love to see your interpretations of them!

I was writing a whole-ass essay to this question when I realised that I was drawing it out unnecessarily 😅 SO I've decided to rather move the bulk of what I wanted to write into a separate post that focuses on my headcanons for the Netherworld and its reason for being.

So, short answer:

Heaven and hell do exist in most of my PMATGA written work, but they are separate from the Netherworld, in which the Nether acts as a border between eternal life and eternal death. The Nether is where ghosts go when they are not at peace and remain in limbo (or have unfinished business, so to say.)

This is not comparable to the concept of purgatory though, nor could the Nether be considered an equivalent of hell, even though it may have similarities. The Netherworld doesn't qualify for the rules and definitions of purgatory, nor does it portray the same amount of suffering that you would find in hell. But I'll elaborate more in that future post about headcanons for the Netherworld.

On the other hand, I also feel a bit inclined to headcanon that the Netherworld is not the type of 'afterlife' that we think of when we think of heaven and hell - rather, I wonder if the Nether is just a different dimension entirely, and the only way to access it is either through portals or through an abnormal separation of one's body and soul (like bodystripping) in which a person's soul is trapped in a different dimension (Netherworld) while it's body remains unconscious in the former dimension (Pacworld).

So, to sum it up, I hc that Pacworlders do believe in a heaven and a hell, but the Netherworld is a separate realm that comes prior to any sort of final/eternal afterlife.

#ask #pmatga #pacman and the ghostly adventures #This whole thing falls into a grey area for me #You can't headcanon or speculate about the Netherworld without referencing religion - where the concept of heaven and hell comes into play #And as a Christian I'm very careful about bringing in real-world beliefs and putting them in fictional portrayals of said beliefs #Because it may accidentally fall into a case where those beliefs are misrepresented and stigmatized #because of its inclusion in a fictional piece of media #Not necessarily because of a lack of awareness on the author's part #but for lack of awareness on the reader's part #For example: if ppl think that the Nether is just like purgatory then they'll have a misguided idea of what purgatory actually is #But yeah will elaborate more in a separate post sometime in the future