#so left on my list of Things to Do is literally just like. pantheon all bindings™ | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

bethfuller · 4 years

Note

I took your quiz and would love to see the descriptions/explanations for the other deities on the list! Your pantheon seems so cool!

That’s so sweet! I’d be happy to oblige :))

I largely made the eight of them up as I went, based on myself and my friends, and I like to think that most people have one or maybe a mix of these attributes… Of all of them I’d say the Temple is the most benevolent, and the Revenant the most feared. The Firebrand is the rarest by far.

1. The Wayfaring Stranger - You wander through the world, desperately seeking attention and intimacy, but are ultimately never fully satisfied with the sphere of human connection. You enjoy your relationships, but never truly feel as though you belong the way others seem to. You spend half your time wondering if you have enough friends and whether they like you; and the other half pondering the strange detachment from everyone you know that descends on you more often than it should. Everyone who meets you is blessed by having done so, but ultimately you must move on. In the end, your destiny lies in the natural world, the sea, the grasses and stars, and in the act of wandering itself.

As a deity, you’re the patron god of travel, of weather, of the sea, of ending relationships, of loneliness and of dreams.

2. The Stargazer - Deep in a long term love affair with the constellations, you want to believe in tarot, astrology, the patterns of the stars and of destiny. Too often, though, you find that things don’t obey the roles ascribed to them, and the people in your life spin out of their orbits. You like to imagine that you’re in a film and that everything that happens is just part of a pre-written journey, subject to a formula and written in your favour. An in-born compassion for others shadows you wherever you go, as you put others first with a dogged faithfulness. You value things that help you escape. However, to truly find meaning you must let go of the people who hold you back, and accept that the stars are just stars.

As a deity, you’re the patron god of the night sky, of destiny, of order and logic, of certainty, of wishes and of guidance.

3. The Lost Child - You’re a wayward son, the prodigal leaving home, the empty place at your family’s dinner table. For your own reasons, you left the door wide open on your way out, the people in your life left staring at the mid-August brightness flooding in and suppressing the urge to follow. You’re grown now, and free, and you engage in all the joys of freedom with enthusiasm. Independence and practicality are vital to you, and you’ve come a long way on your own. Somewhere inside you, though, no matter how well you hide it, you’re still that kid who strayed from the path and you need someone to tell you you’re safe at last, that the world can’t hurt you anymore. Will you always walk with nostalgia for those endless childhood summer afternoons dogging your steps?

As a deity, you’re the god of forests, of liminal spaces, or children and childhood, of lost things, of summer and of time.

4. The Firebrand - You were born peaceful and serene, but somewhere along the way a match was struck and burns still. Rage flickers inside you when you read the news only to find that the perfect world you can see so clearly has been nipped in the bud for the hundredth time. So instead, you rally to your cause. You’ve never been one for suffering fools, least of all now when the world totters on the brink. You’re the type of person who can’t see yourself live to a ripe old age because your candle burns brighter than most, but it burns at both ends, and yours is a blaze of glory. You were born to be a revolutionary, and you know better than anyone that scorched soil is the most fertile. Make sure something grows from your strong sense of purpose.

As a deity, you’re the god of fire, of change, of renewal, of anger, of war, of revolution and of righteous justice. You have a gentler aspect, too - you’re the god of hope after destruction, like in Princess Mononoke when the long grasses and flowers grow where the ancient forest used to be.

5. The Mirror Shard - You would describe yourself as laid-back, pleasant, casual and above all funny. In fact, you pride yourself on the ease with which you move through life, your affability, the way you come across to others. You know you see the world in a unique way, and that few know what it truly feels like to be you. However, your childhood wasn’t easy, and that’s a fact you don’t broadcast. People didn’t love you the way they should have, and put their own wants and needs above your own. You were left out or burdened with too much responsibility for the child you were. Because of this, your friends are the most important thing in your life. Don’t allow yourself to lose hope in people because of your past, because cynicism will only get you so far. Protective walls are safe, but they inhibit the growth you know you’re capable of.

As a deity, you’re the god of friendship, of water, of rain, of forgiveness, of self-image, of wisdom and cleverness, of writing and of pain, and you are the god most commonly named when groups of friends come together.

6. The Revenant - At some point in recent years, you suffered what felt to you like a 'death', whether creative, social, emotional, spiritual or even literal, and you've been reborn. This reincarnation didn't come easy, and you're not entirely the person you were, but you sloughed yourself out of your figurative grave with the kind of vigour only a phoenix could have. When you sleep, you dream strange and vivid dreams, and your gaze now holds a certain intensity. When something takes your attention, it doesn't let go. Your kindness is endless, as is your love for vast things like the sea, the sky and the stars. You have a certain unshakable fixation with religion or higher powers, and the prospect of death doesn't scare you. In fact, you feel less fear than you should, and you've never felt more alive than you do now.

As a deity, you're the god of life and death, of moving on, of growth and of courage.

7. The Robin and the Thorn - You would do anything to feel, as emotion is the hill you die on. Romance, love, song, art, film, running around for the hell of it - the things that bring a flush to your cheeks and make you breathless and bright-eyed are what you live for. You're a true Romantic, in the Keatsian sense, and you hold fast to the notion that the connections you make with the people in your life is all you truly have. You probably identify with the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice, and you long to have your reckless, head-over-heels affections returned; to be loved the way you love. When you find a film or a song that makes you feel something you play it until you get sick of it, and you would work yourself to burnout to make something beautiful.

As a deity, you're the god of platonic and non-platonic love, of romance, of art in all its forms, of joy and of youth.

8. The Temple - You are steadfast, kind and dependable, and have a habit of making people feel safe when they talk to you. They gravitate towards you because of the patience and calm you exude, and can trust you implicitly. You have a knack for saying the right thing, and have learned to bear your pain with a tolerance and grace that goes unnoticed by many but seen by the important few. You're allergic to drama and conflict, but know when and where to stand your ground. You tend not to be reckless and hasty, as the times you have done so in the past caused pain. You are prone to embarrassment - when you feel you've blundered the shame is almost overwhelming. Even though you may not see your own worth as clearly as you should, those around you are determined to stay with you because you make them feel like they're at home, accepted unconditionally.

As a deity, you're the god of stability, of healing, of sanctuary and safe harbour, of faithfulness and commitment, of mountains, of fields, of growing old, of effort and humble reward, of autumn, of prosperity and kindness of spirit.

#Anonymous #long post #rip to me only posting art here #quiz #my weird little pantheon

280 notes · View notes

handweavers · 4 years

Note

top 5 historical figures :3

there are sooo many i’ll just list the ones i find most interesting at the moment and most of them are roman bc i’ve been reading a lot about the ancient mediterranean lately :3 i tried to make it short but....well

1. the gracchi brothers (late roman republic) - tiberius gracchi was a tribune (basically a bureaucrat) who tried to institute land reform bills to combat the extreme wealth inequality and financial crisis plaguing the poor of rome that would redistribute land to poor people and limit the amount of land that could be owned by one person and the senators literally beat him to death in the street with their bare hands. his brother gaius then became a tribune and tried to do the same thing as well as pushed for the government to give subsidized grain to the urban poor so they wouldn’t starve to death all the time and the senators had him beheaded. they were later greatly admired by left radicals during the french revolution and later lenin in russia.

2. julie d’aubigny (late 17th century france) - sword-slinging bisexual opera singer who wore men’s clothes and seduced many men and women across europe. fell in love with another woman while working as an opera singer and the girl’s family found out and sent her to a convent, julie followed and set the convent on fire and ran away with her girlfriend. like a million things happened after her life was wild but this paragraph from an article on her makes me scream: “her career in paris was interrupted after she attended a court ball in men’s clothes and kissed a young woman on the dance floor, for which insult she was challenged to a duel by three different noblemen. she told each of them she would meet him outside, fought them all at once, and beat them all. but given that louis had outlawed duels, she had to flee to brussels, where she became the lover of the elector of bavaria. he found her a bit too much to handle after she stabbed herself on stage with a real dagger, and offered her 40,000 francs to leave him alone. she threw the coins at the feet of his emissary and stomped off to madrid in a huff.” queen

3. elagabalus (roman emperor c. 218 ce) - this short-lived syrian emperor ascended to the throne aged 14 and was very very very probably a trans girl. i’ll use she/her pronouns bc while i really don’t know how she would have identified within our current framework historical context blah blah blah literally....as a trans person... elagabalus was trans. elagabalus named herself after the latin version of the name of the syrian sun god, and became “notorious” for dressing as a woman, decked in wigs, makeup, and fashionable frocks. she married four women and a male athlete, and also fell in love with her charioteer, a slave named hierocles. elagabalus apparently “delighted to be called the mistress, the wife, the queen of hierocles,” preferred to be called a woman, and reputedly offered to reward any doctor who could give her bottom surgery to have a vulva. she didn’t really care about the roman religion and replaced several roman deities including jupiter with syrian gods. she was also reported to have engaged in sex work, and lavished favours on male courtiers. she was known for being “extremely eccentric and decadent” and she was assassinated in 222 ce aged approx. 18 years of age. modern historians and contemporary writers of her time have been incredibly cruel to her but i think she was really cool and i like that she just did whatever she wanted, and she really didn’t deserve to die like she was literally just a teenager. also think its incredibly funny that she didn’t give a fuck about the roman pantheon and just played around with it and added all of her syrian gods to it and got rid of the roman ones and when it pissed off all of the senators she was like “so????” we stan

4. al-khayzuran (abbasid queen-mother, wife, and slave c. 8th century ce) her story is really complex and fascinating but basically, she was of yemeni arab descent and was sold into slavery before becoming the favourite concubine of the abbasid caliph al-mahdi and mothering two children who would go on to become caliphs themselves. during the reign of her husband and her two children, she was their de-facto co-ruler and involved herself in politics outside of the harem (women’s quarters), which was unusual for the time. this article on her is really good and this bit summarizes her well: “harun al-rashid (r. 786-809), arguably one of the greatest of the abbasid caliphs, is well known to many historians and history enthusiasts for his deeds and for presiding over the “golden age” of the abbasid caliphate. however, his mother, khayzuran, does not lay as much claim to fame as her illustrious son, despite the fact that she was the power behind his throne (while she lived) and that of his father and brother before him. during her life and career khayzuran rose from the status of slave to becoming the caliph, al-mahdi’s (r. 775-785), favorite concubine, and then his legal wife and a queen in her own right who wielded an immense amount of political power and whose wealth was second only to that of her husband’s in the entire caliphate. this feat was impressive not only because khayzuran was able to elevate herself from slavery to royalty, but also because she did it during an era when social mobility, for both men and women, was very limited or in most cases impossible.” also, one of my favourite bits of info about her: when her son, caliph al-hadi, disrespected her and threatened to have her favourite son (harun al-rashid) killed and attempted to assassinate her, she secretly had HIM assassinated by getting some of her pretty female slaves to seduce and then smother him with pillows, which made harun al-rashid caliph of the abbasid empire.

5. as always......hadrian (roman emperor c. 117-138 ce) - he was born in roman spain and became emperor after trajan, and is considered one of the last “good five emperors” prior to the decline of western rome. he spent most of his reign travelling across the empire basically as a tourist, wanting to learn as much as possible about everything, and constructing new buildings as he went including hadrian’s wall in brittania. he had “an insatiable curiosity about everything and everybody. the christian writer tertullian called him omnium curiositatum explorator, an explorer of everything interesting. that curiosity was bred of a keen intellect and an anguished spirit.” he was interested in astrology, greek poetry, and considered himself an “aesthete” who would climb mount etna and jabal agra (in sicily and syrian antioch respectively) just to watch the sun rise. he wore a beard in the greek style even though he was mocked by his senators (but the beard would become a trend that future emperors would follow) and they considered him to be complicated and often paradoxical - he could be extremely kind and also very cruel, loud and rapacious and yet gentle and compassionate, rational and logical and yet completely irrational, etc. his marriage was childless, likely because he was gay and not at all interested in women. he developed an intense relationship with a turko-greek youth antinous, who later died under suspicious circumstances and hadrian’s grief was so immense he had thousands of statues erected for him and immortalized him in the roman pantheon of gods. to this day people across the former roman empire still find statues of antinous, accidentally digging them up in their backyards. in extreme contrast, he was also the emperor who suppressed the bar kokhba revolt in judea, basically wiped judea off the map and replaced it with the region of syria palestina, and this war resulted in the deaths of thousands of jewish people, and those who survived were sold into slavery or exiled. this event basically created the concept of jewish people as a diaspora, the major exile. this was the only major war or conflict during his reign - the rest was notably peaceful - but it was one of the bloodiest in roman history and the consequences of it are still extremely relevant. i find him a really fascinating historical figure as a result of all of these paradoxes and because he was ultimately responsible for one of the most consequential actions in world history.

#i meant to type this in 5 minutes but well........#god help me #long post #transmisogyny tw #antisemitism tw

36 notes · View notes

crowdvscritic · 3 years

Text

round up // NOVEMBER 20

Hi, I’m tired. Actually, my friend Celeste created a piece of art that puts the emphasis needed on that sentiment:

I’m very tired. November felt like it was three years and also felt like it went by in a blink and also I’m not sure where October ended and November began—how does time work like that? (I’ve yet to see Tenet, but maybe that will explain it.) But like Michael Scott, somehow I manage, and lately it’s been like this:

Late-night Etsy scrolling. Browsing beautiful, non-big-box-store artwork is very calming just before I go to bed. I’d recommend Etsy stores like Celeste’s chr paperie shop, which I know from experience is full of great Christmas gift ideas.

Taking a day off of work to do laundry. I’m not sure if it’s more #adulting that I did that or that I was excited to do that.

Eating Ghiradelli chocolate chips straight from the bag. I actually don’t recommend this as a healthy option, but this is also not a health blog.

Watching lots and lots of ‘80s movies. One day I’ll ask a therapist why this decade of films is so comforting for me despite its many flaws, but for now I’m just rolling with it.

Reading. Have you heard of this? It’s a form of entertainment but doesn’t require screens—wild!

Memes. All good Pippin “Fool of a” Took jokes are welcome here.

Leaning into the Christmas spirit by ordering that Starbucks peppermint mocha, making plans to watch everything in that TCM Christmas book I haven’t seen, and keeping the lights on my hot pink tinsel tree on all day as I work from home.

This month’s Round Up is full of stuff that made me smile and stuff that sucked me into its world—I think they’ll do the same for you, too.

November Crowd-Pleasers

Sister Act (1992)

If in four years you aren’t in an emotional state to watch election results roll in, I recommend watching Whoopi Goldberg pretend to be a nun for 100 minutes. (Though, incidentally, if you want to watch that clip edited to specifically depict how the results came in this year, you’ll need to watch Sister Act 2.) This musical-comedy is about as feel-good as it gets, meaning there’s no reason you should wait four more years to watch it. Crowd: 9/10 // Critic: 7.5/10

Nevada Memes

Speaking of election results, Nevada memes. That’s it—that’s the tweet. Vulture has a round up of some of the best.

youtube

SNL Round Up

Laugh and enjoy!

“Cinema Classics: The Birds” (4605 with John Mulaney)

“Uncle Ben” (4606 with Dave Chappelle)

RoboCop (1987)

I’m not surprised I liked RoboCop, but I am surprised at why I liked RoboCop. Not only is this a boss action blockbuster, it’s an investigation into consumerism and the commodification of the human body. It’s also a critique of institutions that treat crime like statistics instead of actions done by people that impact people. That said, it’s also movie about a guy who’s fused with a robot and melts another guy’s face off with toxic sludge, so there’s a reason I’m not listing this under the Critic section. Crowd: 9/10 // Critic: 8/10

Double Feature – ‘80s Comedies: National Lampoon’s Vacation (1983) + Major League (1989)

The ‘80s-palooza is in full swing! In Vacation (Crowd: 9.5/10 // Critic: 8/10), Chevy Chase just wants to spend time with his family on a vacation to Wally World, but wouldn’t you know it, Murphy’s Law kicks into gear as soon as the Griswold family shifts from out of Park. The brilliance of the movie is that every one of these terrible things is plausible, but the Griswolds create the biggest problems themselves. In Major League (Crowd: 8.5/10 // Critic: 6.5/10), Tom Berenger, Charlie Sheen, and Wesley Snipes are Cleveland’s last hope for a winning baseball team. Like the Griswolds, mishaps and hijinks ensue in their attempt to prevent their greedy owner from moving the Indians to Miami, but the real win is this movie totally gets baseball fans. Like most ‘80s movies, not everything in this pair has aged well, but they brought some laughs when I needed them most.

This Time Next Year by Sophie Cousens (2020)

They’re born a minute apart in the same hospital, but they don’t meet until their 30th birthday on New Year’s Day. So, yes, it’s a little bit Serendipity, and it’s a little bit sappy, but those are both marks in this book’s favor. This Time Next Year is a time-hopping rom-com with lots of almost-meet-cutes that will have you laughing, believing in romantic twists of fate, and finding hope for the new year.

Double Feature – ‘80s Angsty Teens: Teen Wolf (1985) + Uncle Buck (1989)

In the ‘80s, Hollywood finally understood the angsty teen, and this pair of comedies isn’t interested in the melodrama earlier movies like Rebel Without a Cause were depicting. (I’d recommend Rebel, but not if you want to look back on your teen years with any sense of humor.) In Teen Wolf (Crowd: 8/10 // Critic: 5/10), Michael J. Fox discovers he’s a werewolf.one that looks more like the kid in Jumanji than any other portrayal of a werewolf you’ve seen. It’s a plot so ‘80s and so bizarre you won’t believe this movie was greenlit.

In Uncle Buck (Crowd: 8/10 // Critic: 7.5/10), John Candy is attempting to connect with the nieces and nephew he hasn’t seen in years, including one moody high schooler. (Plus, baby Gaby Hoffman and pre-Home Alone Macauley Culkin!) This is my second pick from one of my all-time fave filmmakers, John Hughes (along with National Lampoon’s Vacation, above), and it’s one more entry that balances heart and humor in a way only he could do. You can see where I rank this movie in Hughes’s pantheon on Letterboxd.

Lord of the Rings memes

This month on SO IT’S A SHOW?, Kyla and I revisited The Lord of the Rings, a trilogy we love almost as much as we love Gilmore Girls. You can listen to our episode about the series on your fave podcast app, and you can laugh through hundreds of memes like I did for “research” on Twitter.

Nothing to See Here by Kevin Wilson (2019)

Most adults are afraid of children’s temper tantrums, but can you imagine how terrified you’d be if they caught on fire in their fits of rage? That’s the premise of this novel, which begins when an aimless twentysomething becomes the nanny of a Tennessee politician’s twins who burst into flames when they get emotional. The book is filled with laugh-out-loud moments but never leaves behind the human emotion you need to make a magical realistic story.

An Officer and a Gentlemen (1982)

Speaking of aimless twentysomethings and emotion, feel free to laugh, cry, and swoon through this melodrama in the ‘80s canon. Richard Gere meanders his way into the Navy when he has nowhere else to go, and he tries to survive basic training, work through his family issues, and figure out his future as he also falls in love with Debra Winger. So, yeah, it’s a schamltzier version of Top Gun, but it’s schmaltz at its finest. Crowd: 8.5/10 // Critic: 7.5/10

November Critic Picks

Double Feature – ‘40s Amensia Romances: Random Harvest (1942) + The Ghost and Mrs. Muir (1947)

Speaking of schmaltz at its finest, let me share a few more titles fitting that description. In Random Harvest (Crowd: 8/10 // Critic: 8.5/10), Greer Garson falls in love with a veteran who can’t remember his life before he left for war. In The Ghost and Mrs. Muir (Crowd: 8.5/10 // Critic: 8.5/10), Gene Tierney discovers a ghost played by a crotchety Rex Harrison in her new home. Mild spoiler: Both feature amnesiac plot developments, and while amnesia has become a cliché in the long history of romance films, Harvest is moving enough and Mr. Muir is charming enough that you won’t roll your eyes. You can see these and more romances complicated by forced forgetfulness in this Letterboxd round up.

The African Queen (1951)

It’s Humphrey Bogart and Katharine Hepburn directed by John Huston—I mean, I don’t feel like I need to explain why this is a winner. Bogart (in his Oscar-winning role) and Hepburn star in a two-hander script, dominating the screen time except for a select few scenes with supporting cast. The pair fight for survival while cruising on a small boat called The African Queen during World War I (in Africa, natch), and the two make this small story feel grand and epic. Crowd: 8.5/10 // Critic: 9/10

Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949)

A young man’s (Dennis Price) mother is disowned from their wealthy family because she marries for love. After her death, he seeks vengeance by killing all of the family members ahead of him in line to be the Duke D'Ascoyne. The twist? All of his victims are played by Sir Alec Guinness! Almost every character in this black comedy is a terrible person, so you won’t be too sorry to see them go—you can just enjoy the creative “accidents” he stages and stay in suspense on whether our “hero” gets his comeuppance. Crowd: 8/10 // Critic: 8.5/10

Bluebeard’s Eighth Wife (1937)

What would you do if you found out you were to be someone’s eighth wife? Well, it’s probably not what Claudette Colbert does in this screwball comedy that reminds me a bit of Love Crazy. This isn’t the first time I’ve recommended Colbert, Gary Cooper, or Ernst Lubitsch films, so it’s no surprise these stars and this director can make magic together in this hilarious battle of the wills. Crowd: 9/10 // Critic: 8.5/10

The Red Shoes (1948)

I love stories about the competition between your life and your art, and The Red Shoes makes that competition literal. Moira Shearer plays a ballerina who feels life is meaningless without dancing—then she falls in love. That’s an oversimplification of a rich character study and some of the most beautiful ballet on film, but I can’t do it justice in a short paragraph. Just watch (perhaps while you’re putting up your hot pink tinsel tree?) and soak in all the goodness. Crowd: 8/10 // Critic: 10/10

The Third Man (1949)

Everybody loves to talk about Citizen Kane, and with the release of Mank on Netflix, it’s newsworthy again. But don’t miss this other ‘40s team up of Joseph Cotten and Orson Welles. Cotten is a writer digging for the truth of his friend’s (Welles) death in a mysterious car accident. Eyewitness accounts differ on what happened, and who was the third man at the scene only one witness remembers? 71 years later, this movie is still tense, and this actor pairing is still electric. Crowd: 8.5/10 // Critic: 9/10

The Untouchables (1987)

At the end of October, we lost Sean Connery. I looked back on his career first by writing a remembrance for ZekeFilm and then by watching The Untouchables. (In a perfect world I would’ve reversed that order, but c’est la vie.) In my last selection from the ‘80s, Connery and Kevin Costner attempt to convict Robert De Niro’s Al Capone of anything that will stick and end his reign of crime in Chicago. Directed by Brian De Palma and set to an Ennio Morricone soundtrack, this film is both an exciting action flick and an artistic achievement that we literally discussed in one of my college film classes. Connery won his Oscar, and K. Cos is giving one of the best of his career, too. Crowd: 9/10 // Critic: 9.5/10

Remember the Night (1940)

Fred MacMurray and Barbara Stanwyck in my favorite team up yet! Double Indemnity may be the bona fide classic in the canon, but this Christmas story—with MacMurray as a district attorney prosecuting shoplifter Stanwyck— is a charmer. I’ve added it to my list of must-watch Christmas movies—watch for some holiday cheer and rom-com feels. Crowd: 8.5/10 // Critic: 8.5/10

Photo credits: chr paperie. Books my own. All others IMDb.com.

18 notes · View notes

xellandria · 3 years

Photo

Zmija Yilan was a temporary character I played towards the end of our Tomb of Annihilation campaign after my boy Alexus got petrified by a beholder somewhere deep in the bowels of the tomb itself. We were able to “salvage” both him and Amara (who had also gotten petrified in the same fight) by shoving them into the Bag of Holding, but short of having the two of us sit on the bench while the remaining two party members waddled back to town, we had to roll some new characters.

I spent most of the week between the petrification and the new characters appearing being mad at myself for not remembering I had Inspiration I could have used to reroll either of my failed dex saves and not being able to do much beyond that, but with less than 72 hours left until she had to debut, I finally pulled an idea out of my butt, ran it by the DM because it involved Shenanigans™, got the OK and started designing her. Thus was born Zmija Yilan, whose appearance was based partly on an old photo that was semi-viral on Tumblr several years prior and partly on Xelloss from Slayers because when I’m in a pinch, that’s always who I fall back on, and have been doing so for like, 20+ years at this point lmao. Personality-wise, there was a post floating around Tumblr that week about proverbs in various languages that, when translated literally or without context, made very little sense so she got a lot of that (and associated misunderstandings based on language mix-ups) mixed in with—again—Xelloss from Slayers, because I am a hack. I would probably never play her again because she was so firmly entrenched in that campaign and also there’s some parts of how I designed/played her that I look back on and am like “ehhh I’m not sure I’m comfortable with the optics of this,” but I enjoyed playing her a lot more than I expected, and I look back on the end of our Tomb campaign very fondly because of it.

I haven’t been able to talk about her in public both for a lack of reason to do so and because I didn’t want to “spoil” my group in case they found my various social media posts, but as it’s nearly a year since she was introduced and nine months since the campaign ended, I’m gonna absolutely wall of text the shit outta this bitch, rofl (that said there’s baby’s first nekkid pin-up under here so assuming Tumblr lets me actually post it, fair warning for that under the cut)

Zmija Yilan - level 8-10 Human* Warlock (Great Old Ones/Pact of the Tome) (usually this is where my D&D character posts put stats but I don’t actually have access to her character sheet anymore, so let’s just pretend she had something ridiculous like maxed Charisma because I remember my spell DC being ridiculously high)

Zmija Yilan is a traveler from the far-off land of Zemlya, and a disciple of Matrymriy, one of the "family" of five gods in the pantheon of that region. Matrymriy came to Zmija in a dream one night and told her to travel across the seas because She had a task for her, and that she would learn more once she reached her destination. She's been traveling around Faerun for seven or so years—reaching one place, being given hints to go to a specific location, and upon reaching it, being told to travel on without seeming to do much more than just Be There. Upon reaching Chult sometime within the last few months, her patron's hints indicated that she should travel to a place called Shilku Bay; she hired a guide (named Salida) and a bodyguard (a Fort Belurian mook) with what little locally-acceptable currency she had; they got separated after being attacked by a band of undead, and after failing to reunite with them, she was wandering around lost, trusting that Matrymriy will guide her where She desires her to go.

Part of her wandering had her end up in the Tomb of the Nine Gods itself, where she encountered our adventuring party (down two player characters) desperately trying to find their way out of the tomb in the hopes of returning to Port Nyanzaru to depetrify their friends. Our barbarian’s player immediately distrusted her because I’d drawn her tabletop token with her back to the camera, which was an awkward feeling almost immediately returned in-game because both the barbarian and paladin aren’t hardcore RPers but they had to carry all the RP weight as they were introduced to this new character and explain that they were there to destroy a lich (both because it was the source of all the bad undead in the area, and because they’d been promised a reward—a motivation Zmija understood, as “a hungry bear will not dance.”) Beyond the usual RP awkwardness there was an additional layer of awkwardness between the characters IC as at the time, Thokk was barely wearing more than a breastplate and loincloth, while Zmija was covered neck-to-ankle despite the heat and humidity of the region. She claimed that in the culture of Zemlya, having strangers see your skin was a mark of great shame and that modesty was of paramount importance, so seeing so much of him was very off-putting and threw her off-balance for much of their initial interactions.

Getting off on the “wrong” foot with the party and pushing as hard as I could into Zmija’s quirks (the weird proverbs, sprinkling in her Zemlyan vocabulary and making a point of her being from Very Far Away with Very Different Customs) meant I went a little too hard on them at the beginning, which is partly what I’d do differently and partly why the whole thing ended up working, so it’s a weird retrospective balance. If my partymates had ever shoved (almost) any of the names or places Zmija mentioned into google, they probably would have twigged to the scheme pretty dang fast.

In reality, Zmija is not a human traveler from Zemlya, because surprise! she's actually Zsaksatyi, a Chultian Yuan-Ti Pureblood under the command of Fenthaza. She worked as a bit of a double agent/interrogator within the Fane prior to her current assignment (hence her spell list's focus on information gathering, silent communication, and manipulation); she's been fleshing out her alternate persona for years and would occasionally pretend to be a captive and be thrown in one of those cells the party was in to get relevant information from the other prisoners, or assist others that were interrogating prisoners by more direct means (via Detect Thoughts). In-universe, the language she pretends to speak is mostly made up, and something she's been working on for years at this point—it's not a fully-fleshed conlang and she only has a couple hundred words and phrases but it's enough to be consistent and believable when she sprinkles it into regular speech. Since there's no real risk of running into anyone else from Zemlya (because it doesn't actually exist), it mostly didn't matter, and since there's actual meaning behind the words she does have, in theory it would have held up to a spell like Comprehend Languages as well. Out of universe, the language she speaks is an amalgamation of my own conlang stuff (which, like the in-universe version, is very limited and not complete) and various words and phrases pulled mostly from real-world Slavic languages (russian, croatian, hungarian, etc) with a little bit of Turkish thrown in when my English-only ear felt that it fit or when I had already used a word and needed another word for the same thing. Zsaksatyi (pronounced dzahk sot-YEE) is the only name/word in the whole mess that doesn’t actually mean something somewhere, and was a combination of syllables from an online Yuan-Ti name generator that I kinda liked together. If she had ever been outed, I would probably have come up with something a little less cumbersome for me and my (almost certainly wholly monolingual) D&D group to say... but she didn’t, so Zsaksatyi it stays!

She very much looks up to Fenthaza and almost idolizes and worships her—if she ever had to choose between Fenthaza or Dendar, things might have gotten a little bit rough for her (possibly no matter which way she ultimately jumped, though I imagine Dendar's vengeance would be more immediate, if Dendar's a hands-on sort of patron). Thankfully (for her), there was very little risk of that given that the party had left Fenthaza on reasonably neutral terms (having already helped her oust Ras Nsi from his position of power in the Fane and the party having essentially marked that dungeon as “cleared”). Fenthaza had sent her to scout the Tomb of the Nine Gods and locate (or steal) an artifact known as the Black Opal Crown, which will allow the Night Mother to emerge into the world. The group actually came across the crown pretty soon after Zmija (and our other new character, a firbolg druid named Mei Ren who replaced our cleric, Amara) joined them, but the party couldn’t figure out how to get it out of the room it was in and Zsaksatyi was content that it would be safe from both our group and other adventurers there while she found her way back to the Fane (though she Sent the location to Fenthaza in case she wasn’t able to make it back). That was actually like, halfway through the session right after she’d been introduced so having her sneak off that fast would have been absolutely wild, so I kept playing her as Zmija and while there were myriad opportunities for her to be discovered—including a hallway where any non-magical non-living thing got evaporated, up to and including clothing—she never was. The fact that the only spells she ever used spell slots on were Hex, Counterspell, and Identify never really got commented upon, because prior to her joining the party we didn’t have a source for any sort of utility magic and we’d been feeling the lack for a while. She was a lot of fun to play just as Zmija once I got the hang of her, but the hidden agenda that only our DM & I knew about was an extra layer of fun, too. It would have been neat to see how the party reacted to a reveal, but unless Jim wants to take us back to Chult to actually deal with the Night Mother’s return (because without having to keep up appearances and alignments, I’m pretty sure I could have gotten that crown out of there even before the weird teleport-defying magic of the Tomb got turned off), her story is over for us—taking her outside of the setting she was designed for would be weird... plus we already have two warlocks (well, one and a half) in a party of four PCs; adding a third would be a little bit bizarre, I think.

Her more Yuan-ti features include scales down her spine and across her shoulderblades, on the backs of her hands, and on her hips and thighs—mostly in reds, oranges, and browns, but as she increases in power and connection with the Night Mother, more of them are darkening to Her blue-black; it started right at that spot between the shoulderblades where you always picture being stabbed in the back, and has expanded from there; I imagine by level 20 all of her scales would be that blue-black and may have encroached further on the more human-y leather bits, probably encroaching on her face at the last, which would make being a spy a lot more difficult (even moreso than wearing as much clothing as she already does) but I guess at level 20, do you really need to be sneaking around pretending to be human?

In direct sunlight or other very bright light, her pupils constrict to slits, which is the real reason for her heavy eye makeup—between the distraction of it and the (somewhat exaggerated) squinting that such light induces, it often goes unnoticed, as it did with her character portrait (although to be fair to my party, Alexus also has slit eyes because that’s one of the traits of elves and half elves in D&D, and also I’m not sure if they ever saw her portrait any larger than 150x150 or whatever Roll20 shows them at). Both her top and bottom canine teeth are sharper, longer, and narrower than is typical for humans, and she is careful not to grin too widely and will cover her mouth when she laughs or yawns, whether she is in disguise or not. That part I’ve never drawn though, so I can’t really point to that as something the party overlooked, heh. In hindsight, I wish I'd given her more/heavier snake features but even the official art for Yuan-Ti player characters are very light on them and getting around the differences between human and yuan-ti racials without tipping off the party was hard enough as it was—I took the 120 feet of magic-ignoring darkvision invocation to disguise the fact that she innately had darkvision, I never used my racial spells and abilities unless I was willing to “use” a spell slot on them and had another plausible way to have obtained them, the one time I got hit with a poison ability (which she was immune to) I spent a lot of time “figuring out the math” on how much HP I had to drop, etc. I also wish I’d given her darker skin, as she is supposed to be Chultian but she is significantly lighter than all the NPCs we came across. Then again, I’m as white as a sheet soaked in bleach so there’s something weird about me RPing folks of colour regardless (especially given her fake backstory, agh agh agh) so yeah. Really enjoyed her, don’t regret her, will not ever play her again rofl

In our very last session of Tomb of Annhiliation, the party—fresh off the victory over the big bad lich whose name I can never spell and his weird world-eating fetus—headed back to Port Nyanzaru via the Aarakocra village of Kir Sabal, which the previous variant of the party (of whom only Thokk remained alive and mobile enough to talk to them) had helped out significantly earlier in the campaign, unlocking a flying ritual that we were like “man we’re not coming back here if we’re gonna use it we gotta do it now” to get us the rest of the way to the port. En route, Zmija tried to leave the group and rolled a secret 15 Stealth roll... contested by 17 and 18 perception rolls from Mei Ren and Thokk, but as she wasn’t carrying much of the party’s stuff and it was the end of the campaign, they kinda just let her give some line about seeing them again in the future maybe, the Mother’s will is unknowable, etc etc. I think if Duf and Kattii didn’t know that I wanted Alexus back as badly as I did and that we were like twenty minutes (real time) away from actually getting him back, they might have considered that more suspicious than they did.

Pronunciations (and translations): (mostly C&Ped from her bio, which is the only part of her character sheet I can still access on Roll20)

Zmija Yilan: zMEE-ah yee-LAHN. Because I'm subtle as hell, that's Croatian/Russian/Ukranian (first name) and Turkish (last name) for "snake/serpent," according to the internet. What do you mean Remus Lupin is a werewolf?!

Matrymriy: mah-tRRuh mRREE (Rs are rolled). Matrymriy is Zmija's claimed patron—one of five major Zemlyashan dieties—but she'll state that she doesn't know the name that she goes by in the local dialect. That's only partly true, of course—мати мрій is Ukranian for "Mother of Dreams" (at least according to google translate), which is close enough to her patron's actual names and titles (Dendar, the Night Mother) that she can get away with it without actually raising suspicions about the true source of her powers. She'll also do that thing where if someone tries to say the name back to her she'll "correct" them by saying it exactly the same four or five times and then "give up" and accept whatever "butchered" version the speaker comes up with, except she'll do it even if they're actually saying it perfectly correctly. She may do this with her own name as well (sorry, Jim. And Duf. And Dustin. And Kattii. And Kattii's coworker, if he ever joins us and I'm still playing this character by then, lmao.) (2021 addition: and literally everyone who has a name that isn’t typically pronounced by us English-only plebians, I am so sorry I’m not better at your language)

Zsaksatyi: dzahk sot-YEE. Zmija's real name, when she isn't pretending to be a human. That doesn't mean anything as far as I know, it was just a combination of some of the syllables the random Yuan-Ti name generator was coming up with that I liked (which is also where "Itszella" was from), lol. I may end up changing it to be less cumbersome at some point, unless it comes up before then and ends up written in stone, but I'm on a bit of a time crunch for the moment.

Zemlya: zem-lyah. If pressed for more detail on where in Zemlya she's from (e.g. by someone pretending to know details about her country), her home town is Fal'shyva (fall-sheh-VAH), southeast of the capital of Hayali (HI-yah-LEE) and just north of the port city of Farazi (fah-ra-DZI), which is where she originally sailed from seven years ago. фальшива земля is Ukranian for "fake land," Hayali is Turkish for "imaginary," and Farazi is Turkish for "hypothetical," lol.

Proverbs & (approximate) Pronounciations: (if I recall correctly, asterisks indicate ones I had used, so I didn’t repeat myself too frequently)

Wziąć się w garść (zvun shih garsch): lit. take the self into the fist (polish), pull yourself together Галопом по Zemlya (gal-OH-pohm poe zem-lyah): lit. galloping across Zemlya (russian), to be hasty/haphazard. * У кого немає собаки, полює з котом (Ooh koe-hoe meh-MIGH-eh soe-BAH-kay, poe-LOO-yay koh-tome): lit. who does not have dog, hunts with cat (ukranian, original proverb is portugese), make do with what you have. Z choinki się urwałaś? (dzi hoink-E she urr-vahl-wash): lit. did you fall from a Candlenights(aka Christmas) tree? (polish), you are obviously not well-informed; are you dumb? * Mi o vuku (MEE oh voo-koo): lit. to talk of the wolf (croatian), speak of the devil. * Thalai muzhuguthal (tha-LIE MOOz-GOO-thal): lit. pour water over someone's head (tamil), cut off a relationship. * Хоть кол на голове теши (coat-coal nah gohl-ehvee teh-SHEE): lit. you can sharpen an axe on this head (russian), a very stubborn person.

Other Languages Are Hard Today, Let’s Just Proverb It In English:

Cat's Forehead (japanese): a tiny space, usually used humbly to refer to owned land. It fell between chairs (swedish): group work that everyone assumed someone else would do, and didn't get done as a result * It gives me a beautiful leg (french): fat lot of good that'll do me Drown the fish (french): avoid a subject by talking about anything and everything else, confuse the issue In a river with piranhas, the alligator swims backstroke (brazil): protect your weaknesses * Accusation always follows the cat (iraqi): it's easy to blame someone who can't defend themselves The honey only sticks to the mustache of he who licked it (arabic): he who smelt it, dealt it * A hungry bear does not dance (greek): the reward must be worth the cost (or at least exist) * The crayfish sides with the crab (korean): people who have a lot in common stay friends * If you can't live longer, live deeper (italian): get the most of your time * A spoon does not know the taste of soup (welsh): intelligence is not wisdom Examine what is said, not who speaks (arab): don't take things at face value * Turn your face to the sun and the shadows will fall behind you (new zealand): have a positive outlook He who does not travel, does not know the value of men (moorish): wide experience is gr8 Do good and throw it in the sea (arab): don't expect anything back from kindness * Shared joy is a double joy; shared sorrow is halved (swedish): friends make things better If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together (african): strength in numbers, speed on your own.

#xellart #dungeons and dragons #original characters #zmija yilan

6 notes · View notes

olivedoesmagic · 3 years

Text

Journal 28: Painted Smile ||| Madame Macabre

Here’s a confession. The world is ending. It just...is. But myself and several other magicians were chosen to stop it. The gods are keeping it a secret. They even persuade their followers into not believing it. But it is ending and while I’m not the one meant to stop it, I am helping stop the end of the world. I’m sure you’re wondering what the fuck this has to do with pop culture magick, fiction and glitchcraft. Realityshifting is meant for me but we’re steering away from it at least for now.

There is a god I am working with from the Africa pantheon. He is a god of fiction. He and several other spirits are literally given old prophecies, I’m taking native, egyption, all of that bullshit bringing this shit fiction is very important. Stories are fuking powerful. I’m sorry but the truth is popculture magick is fukingreal. The world will be saved. It just will be saved.

All of my spirits told me to strike a deal with Bill Cipher. God, Lucifer, Satan. All of them. These days I don’t strike deals with demons. I don’t do that. It’s just something I don’t do anymore. I’m not even on the left handed path anymore. If wasn’t for Hermes instructing me I wouldn't tell you any of this. I’m terrified of people not believing me. But this book and blog are basically dead, so I may as well. Nobody will ever be able to track down Olive Brimstone. That’s all I care about. It’s my chosen alias.

So I met BIll Cipher in shower. He’s a demon who’s very evil from the tv show Gravity falls. If you’ve seen it you know why people are terrified to strike deals with BIll. Google him you will save himself some time. Bill and I met in the shower. He told me everything.

He was a real spirit on an alien planet a long time ago. He was supposed to given everything. “Play the chess board” but he made some “bad deals”. He fucked some shit up.

He soon lost all of his power. He turned to everyone he could, every soldier, every magician every god. Nobody would help him except that axolotl on the show who gave him the chant. She sealed him as fiction in this dimension. That’s where he was brought to life. Bill made me the deal that he will make the god of this world, his world and all worlds but in exchange I have to give him power and make him a god worshipped in this reality. For reasons I can’t get into I can do this. I debated if I should be the one to do it to him. But, I checked with my spirits they all said I should do it and I shook his hand for a few seconds it glowed red and blue and felt like divine fire. He was satisfied with me. He told me he was a cruel and unjust god and while he will fuck some things up for me, he is always that way with his deals, he will never be that way with me.

I asked him about Gravity Falls. He told me for reasons he can’t get into, he was told to terrorize a town and he chose Gravity Falls for it’s great mysteries and powers. He says he toyed it with it because it was his plaything. He doesn’t feel about it. But he wanted to be a villain. He knows I do to. But let’s not get into me here. He recognized me as someone named Bae, Bae, but didn’t divulge further. Soon followers of Bill’s entered the room. They were lobster like entities, he told me there his planet was kind of racist and that humans are pets with tails and slaves.

They started insulting me calling me a monkey and making derogatory comments. Saying humans have black skin, messy hair fangs, and are sentient but speak broken and are plaything and pets. They were derogatory. They were wondering why Bill was talking to a smart monkey. Bill said not to worry about it, they don’t know my power. They don’t need to know.

Lastly we talked about the apocalypse. That was the end of all of this. I met Dexter in my computer room. I made a list of fictional characters who needed to save the world when I was delusional. Dexter was on the list. He said he’d do it but I need to learn to kill with a knife. In “the real world” he said it’s not actually this reality but he would teach me. He asked me about several different characters, he told me I had good taste. He told me I needed to learn to kill. He told me if I saw him as a good person. I told him I did and I was rooting for him. He said he knows killers in the real world don’t work this way, but that he has a physiological, a compulsion a need to kill, and that he has to. He says he will train me, and that I need to learn to turn my empathy off. The gods say I needed a killing instructor because of the end of the world and the Dexter Morgan is a very excellent choice. They are wondering why I chose a serial killer and not a death god or a mayan entity but a god I know Ah Puch it’s not just the god of fiction pulling string or the native god of creation I call Azzy tormenting me here, there’s a very good reason I chose a fictional character and for Dexter Morgan he coudn’t be more proud. Of Dexter not me. That weirded Dexter out but um I should probably end this entry here.

-Olive Brimstone

4:56 PM

3/25/2021

#end times #gravity falls #pop culture magick #magick #paganism #dexter

2 notes · View notes

afewmarvelousthoughts · 5 years

Text

Fated (Prologue)

Master List: @afewmarvelousthoughtsadmin

Pairing: Hades!Bucky x Persephone!Reader

Summary: Humanity has broken the world. How they did it doesn’t matter. What does is that in doing so they quickened the old gods once more. A century later things are settling into a new order but all is not as it seems. As Fate draws two gods together the cracks begin to show in this new age. Will their bond tip the delicate balance or restore order to a broken world?

Warnings: Blood, death (background character)

A/N: I started thinking about a Hades!Bucky character after I saw that @invisibleanonymousmonsters wanted to see a fic centered around a Hades!Bucky and Persephone!Reader relationship. I’ve never done anything like this but I have been dabbling in a Greek pantheon novel for literal years. So I’m sort of using this as an exercise to break out of the rut with that work and to see if I can work with building a “new” character out of the bones of Bucky. It’s an interesting challenge and idk how I feel about it yet but here’s kind of a prologue thing.

Feedback would be AMAZING because I feel very out of my depth with this.

Tags are open!

@mywinterwolf @disagreetoagree @breezy1415 @peachthatdrinkslemonade @wonderlandmind4 @piensa-bonito @handplucked @katecolleen

He runs his fingers through his long dark hair. Maybe he should cut it. That seemed to be the style men preferred these days. Short on the sides, almost to the scalp, length on top. No, he liked it long. The preferences of men never did interest him as it did his brothers.

Looking down at the dark navy and gold workings of his metal left hand he’s once again impressed by his nephew’s skill. Not a single hair snagged in the delicate joints. It brings a smile to his face knowing the care that was put into it. More care than Heph’s parent’s ever showed the boy. Well… he wasn’t a boy anymore, was he? Hadn’t been for millennia.

He sighs and looks in the mirror. Striking blue eyes flash under strong dark brows, a hard mouth, dark thick stubble not quite enough to be called a beard covering a sharp jaw. It had been almost a century since the gods awoke, the cold Ichor being brought back to blazing light by the hubris of men. Yet even after all these years, he was still settling into the feelings of once again being flesh. Still trying to see himself in the glass.

“James,” he intones. Would it ever feel quite right on his tongue? It was as good a name as any and certainly was more palatable to modern tongues than other names he had worn throughout his long existence like Aidoneus, Pluton (which had always been his least favorite), and of course Hades. James, was unremarkable, just like he liked it.

Heavily he sighs running the fingers of his right hand over the scars that connected metal and flesh. Like the name, it was a good body. Though battle-scarred and broken even in such a short amount of time. There were always battles to be fought. They would always call on him to fight them. After all… shouldn’t a god of Death herself be thrilled to be in the midst of a battlefield…

He sneers at his own reflection. No. He never wanted to be Death’s agent among the celestial beings of the earth. He took the title because his brothers would have rent the heaven’s and made the cosmos bleed in order to avoid the yoke of responsibility being Death’s consort gave one.

What did it matter? Choice, was never a boon he was granted.

Sensing their master’s distress Cerberus paws at the door. The low whine from each dog perfectly in tune making it sound like one. He can’t help the smile that rises to his face. If nothing else at least fate had seen fit to give him his companion.

He opens the door and kneels down to the three massive black hounds, “I’m ok, boy.” Happily, they lap at his face. Though by all appearances they were three separate beings it was nothing but a clever glamour. Humans had adapted faster than expected to gods among them but a three-headed hell hound was rightfully unnerving to most.

With his signature perfect timing his brother’s obnoxious voice chimes in from the ether. “How’s my perpetually gloomy older brother today?” A wavering image hovers over the obsidian scrying disk revealing that fucking smug smile.

“Not in the mood for whatever bullshit you have in mind Zeu-“

“Anthony, remember. We are doing the whole use modern names thing aren’t we? I get yours right every time Jimmy. It hurts that yo-”

James’ skin crawls. “It’s James.”

“Ever the ray of sunshine.”

“Hey, Brother!” Pos- er Steven’s golden head pops up from behind Anthony. He always had a soft spot for this one. Even if he was inarguably the moodier of the three no matter what Anthony said about James.

“If the two of you are calling it can’t be good,” he groans and falls onto the bed, the image of his brothers switching to the ceiling to stay in his line of sight.

“Just thought we’d check in on you bruv!” Anthony had a thing for human slang. It was obnoxious.

“Yeah. Sure you are.”

“Just tell him,” Steven hisses at Anthony.

“Well… there is something. A bit of a skirmish is kicking up in the midwest, some factions and a demi-god, not one of mine,” his brother was known for his messy children so the distinction was warranted.

“And you want good ol’ Hades to put the fear of Death in them?” They both smile like idiots. He groans again, louder. All he wanted was to be left alone. Was it too much to ask?

“If you could,” Steven pipes up. “If you’re not too busy. I’ve got a lot on my plate and Anthony-“

“I’ve been whipping together some new toys. Speaking of how’s the new arm?”

“Your kid did a great job, almost as good of a job as you did blowing it off.” James wanted to be sure his brother never forgot.

“It was almost a century ago. Let it go.” Anthony’s voice is wheedling. It’s all the more annoying because his brother was notoriously terrible at letting anything go… ever.

“I’ll take care of it,” not like he had a choice.

“Thanks,” they call out, almost as in tune as Cerberus.

“Yeah.” He doesn’t let them say anything else, swiping his hand in the air to break the connection.

Sighing he sits up and flexes his arm, looking at how the light reflects on the surface. The humans used to depict death with a scythe. How long would it take for them to change the image to a dark man with a deadly arm instead? Not long he figured. Fear was a powerful thing.

And everyone feared Death.

You stare at your hands, bloody and shaking. The child shrieks behind you as Mother and Calli tend to its tiny form. It would live. Another orphan among thousands… millions on this broken world but the mother… Desperately her right-hand reaches weaker my the second still longing to feel her child in her arms.

“Kore,” your mother hisses. “Come away. She’s lost.”

But you can’t. Wiping your hands on your clothes you kneel beside the woman and take her reaching hand in your own. Her mouth hangs open as if her words have been stolen from her.

“She is Death’s now,” Calli says softly from the baby’s side. “Leave her be. There is no room for the dead here, child.” You glare at the two women.

They won’t even deign to look behind them at you and the woman. A soft sob comes from her, so faint you almost wonder if you imagined it and your attention returns to her.

“Shh,” you whisper in her ear. “You did your best. Your son will live.” Reaching into your pocket you pull out one of the old smooth coins you always keep. “Here,” you slip it into her hand, “for the ferryman.” Her eyes look like that of a frightened rabbit and your heart hurts. “I’m sorry.”

“That is enough, Kore!” Mother bellows with the force only a goddess can muster. It makes your hair stand on end. She still won’t spare you or the woman a glance. Quickly you kiss the woman’s forehead and rise. “Come tend this new life and stop wasting your time on one that is over.”

“She can hear you still, Mother,” the woman’s small heartbeat still tings in your ears.

“What does it matter?” She’s slipping tiny socks onto the baby boy’s feet. “Humans die every second. We are shepherdesses of life daughter. We don’t sully our hands with death.”

Calli nods in agreement and offers you a warm smile. You don’t return it. Instead, you focus on the child, now quieted by being given a bit of milk with the smallest drop of Ichor to fortify the small thing. Life pulses around him, hot white strands of light, so bright it almost hurts your eyes.

They always thought about life, her mother and Calli. Preserve life. Nurture life. Make things grow, make them thrive, heal this broken earth. They never wanted to talk about from where life came. Never wanted to acknowledge that even a plant must destroy its seed in order to grow. As far as you could tell all life sprung from the death of something else. Even this life you were all living, similar as it was to a distant past, was built on the ashes of humanities fall.

The old unsettling thought rises to your mind. The other gods spoke of ages past but you remembered nothing of those times. Mother said it was simply your youth- the woman makes a small sound, throwing off your train of thought and you know she’s gone.

Suddenly, the room feels too tight. You bolt, ignoring Mother’s call. Your feet echo in the hall as you run, desperate to be outside, to feel the earth beneath your still bloody hands, to breathe air that didn’t smell of birth and death.

Bursting from the doors you stumble into the courtyard, surging with plant life. It’s here too though, you can smell it. The decay from which the life springs. It overwhelms you. Every rose suddenly seems sinister in its beauty, every apple inherently vile.

Something that has been brewing inside you is reaching its peak. This was the fifth maternal death in the last week. And you’d lost count how many you had seen die in such a way over the decades you worked by Calli and your Mother’s side here at Eleusis House. Too many. Some girls you had brought into the world only to see them die years later in the same place they took their first breath.

You stare up at the steeple of the building, once a holy place for some now silent god. Something like a memory tickles at the edges of your mind, songs, a dry cracker being placed on your tongue. Shaking your head you look away. These echoes always came when you were upset. Mother said you were just being dramatic as young goddesses are wont to be from time to time. She’d then tumble into some tale about Hera you didn’t care about hearing.

“Kore?” Abigail stands at the door of the main hall staring at you, concern on her face. It takes a moment to understand why. You’re covered in the gore of a messy birth still and… when you look at your hands you notice the sheen of magic surrounds you. “Are you ok?”

Abigail was a kind person, one of the women who pledged to serve Eleusis House. She and her sisters helped find women who were with child and without resources. They would be safe and cared for here, better than anywhere else. Mother had made this place a haven, clearing a whole block of the city surrounding the compound that was already there to make a small piece of paradise.

The humans thought it was a kindness. Overwhelmed how these new gods cared for their fragile lives so much. You know that without the humans the balance of the world would tip and everyone would die. It wasn’t kindness to protect the humans. It was survival. Still, she liked helping them, and Abigail was something like a friend.

“Yeah. I just… needed some air.”

Abigail looks at your bloody clothing, “Danielle didn’t make it… did she?” Danielle. You hadn’t even known the woman’s name. You just shake your head. Abigail stares into the distance, her gauzy head covering marking her a servant of Demeter blowing in the breeze.

“Her son lives though,” you hope it’s a comfort.

“Small victories are still victories,” she sighs out. Thought creases her brow, “Who will he go to?”

It was March 21st. “He’ll be sent to a house of Ares.” The system had been worked out almost a century before. A crude but effective way to ensure the orphans had a place to belong by sorting them based on birthdate.

Abigail snorts, “And to Hades before 30.” She likely wasn’t wrong. Children of Ares died young, fighting some battle or other. It was the way of things. “I… I’ll tell the others and send someone for the body.”

“Thank you,” Abigail just nods and heads silently back to the main hall.

Your eyes wander to the rise of the skyline peeking over the barrier wall, covered in lush night-blooming vines. To your memory, you had never left this enclave nestled in the city once known as New York. Existence began and ended here for you, though you knew that couldn’t be right. Like all the gods you had lived before only to sleep away centuries… You shudder.

Regardless, it wasn’t a bad life. There was so much work to do. Plants to help heal the scorched earth as well as medicinal herbs for the blights threatening humanity needed to be cultivated and sent out. The women who came here needed shelter, healing, and someone to watch them tear themselves open… For decades you took comfort in this. Now… it wasn’t enough.

This growing awareness of death was bringing everything Mother told you was worth paying attention to in this world into question. Causing a restlessness within you nothing could quell. You begin to pace this section of garden, stopping before a small apple tree.

The golden ones were just about ready to pick and you run your fingers over the thin skin of the fruit. You can feel the glowing tendrils of light within it, connecting it to the tree, to the roots, to the earth herself. Life bright and beautiful pulsing there.

Your mind goes foggy for a moment. It’s as though something else takes hold of you then and you begin to pluck at those strands of light with an invisible hand. One by one they snap. Little rivulets of light like blood drip from the withering fruit down your palm.

When you fully realize what you’ve done you gasp and pull away. The apple hangs there swaying a bit, shriveled though not necessarily rotten before it falls, devoid of the light it held a moment before, to splatter on the ground below. An instant later, it’s dust.

What had you done…?

#bucky x reader #Hades!bucky #Persephone!reader #greek gods #hades x persephone #mcu au

363 notes · View notes

paladin-andric · 5 years

Text

Jotober, Day 5: Build

Another short one, this time about the construction of a great statue. You’ll get to dip your toes into the culture, history, religion and personalities of the free-hearted koutu, just a little bit...

As a bit of a bonus, I’ll you in on a little secret; the koutu’s culture is a mixture of real world ones! They’re what I call ‘Greco-Celtic’, a mix of Irish, Scottish and Welsh names, lands and history combined with old Greek pasttimes and faith! Pantheons mixed with monotheism, love of sport and philosophy melding with the wild and untamed nature of the gaelic people...they’re a contender for my favorite race in my world setting, and this story’s just a little treat in honor of them.

“Fergus?!”

The sun was shining bright, set against the backdrop of a sky filled with clouds that, while numerous, didn’t block out the sun. Below, in a bright and happy little town, a koutu stood perched atop the arm of a great statue of marble.

He was chipping away at the head of the statue, that of a koutu warrior in armor from the bronze age. She bore a helmet with slits for the eyes and and a large plume made of horsehair. She held a round shield and a spear that was pointing up at the sky in a heroic pose. Her visage was one of unshakable resolve.

The koutu working on the statue was standing on its arm. Considering the lack of supports, it seemed he simply flew up there to work. He turned and smiled at the other man.

“Oh, Cailean?! Is that you?!”

“Well...yes. It is.”

The koutu lowered his hammer and chisel. “Oh, by the Shining Lord!” The birdman leapt off of the statue, coming to a slow landing as he flapped his arm-wings about. Hitting the soft grass, he stuffed his tools onto his belt as he wrapped his arms around the other koutu in a hug.

“He-ACK!”

“Cailean! How are ya, pal?!”

“O-oh, you know…” the koutu chuckled as he forced his way out of the hug. “Err, how’s it going?”

“Great, great!” Fergus assured him, “I had no idea you’d be visiting! I would have been all dressed up for a night on the town if I’d known!”

“Err...yeah. I was passing through the area and...thought I’d say hello. Now what’s all THIS about?!” he demanded, pointing at the statue, “How’d you get something that huge done in under a year?!”

“Magic,” Fergus said with a wink. Upon the other man’s groan, his tone became more serious. “No, really, magic. Ioannes worked his magic in a quite literal sense. Made the whole thing real quick and smooth. We’re almost done, but I stayed behind today to smooth out the last bits of imperfections.”

Cailean crossed his arms and stared up at the enormous statue. “Huh, and that’s…”

“Sila, yeah,” the local admitted, “Our patron. We’re raising this as a monument, in honor of her.”

“The Shining Lord’s finest warrior…” Cailean muttered.

“Mhm! Perhaps she and he will lend a bit of protection our way now, eh?!” Fergus emphasized his words with an elbow nudge and a deep, hearty laugh.

The pair grew quiet as their gazes fell upon the warrior-saint from an age long gone. Cailean was the first to break the silence.

“...what do you think her life was like?”

“Hmm? Full of war and adventure, I’d wager!”

“No, I mean, before all that. She was just a common woman before the war, I heard, and before the Shining Lord chose her. What do think she did?”

“Well,” Fergus started, “She was an able warrior in charge of a small band of soldiers at the beginning of the war, so I’d wager she was already an army captain. Probably a lot of rank-and-file stuff to work to be done. Discipline, courage, honor...what made her, well, her.”

Cailean rubbed his beak at that. “Hmm...just an ordinary captain. Seems like anyone can become a legend if they have the heart to do the extraordinary.”

“Such is God’s taste in mortals, it seems!” Fergus said with a laugh, “You know her brother told the Shining Lord to choose her too because he missed his family?! Her courage during the war convinced him to follow through on that!”

“A family, reunited…”

For a moment, nagging thoughts faded away. There were other things to think about, but for a short time this was a reprieve. The pair of koutu gazed at the ancient demigod, their minds on their people’s past, their struggles and hardships, and where their heart and soul had gotten them today. In a short time they reclaimed all, and even befriended their old foes. What were once enemies, they now called brothers.

Such were the ways of the kind and free koutu, explorers and stout companions with golden hearts.

Fergus jolted Cailean out of his thoughts with another harsh elbow. He gave the man a grin and a cocky gaze. “So...wanna hit the arena for old time’s sake?”

Cailean smirked. “I’m a much better wrestler than you remember...you’re on!”

As the pair left for the arena across town, Cailean hesitated, even as Fergus took off flying. His eyes moved to the statue of Sila, the Patron of Protection.

He saluted, slamming a taloned fist against his chest for a moment, before breaking off the salute and flapping his wings, launching into the sky to follow his friend to a competition of body and mind.

Tag list: @thereisnothingwrongwithbeingmad, @lady-redshield-writes, @paper-shield-and-wooden-sword, @sheralynnramsey, @tawnywrites, @writer-on-time, @oceanwriter, @zwergis-spilledink, @fluffpiggy, @elliewritesfantasy, @homesteadchronicles, @laurenwastestimewriting, @elaynab-writing, @the-ichor-of-ruination, @candy687, @fierywords, @shewrites-sometimes, @nerds-and-nebulae, @purpleshadows1989

3 notes · View notes

coeurvrai · 5 years

Text

Nadya loved her country—more than life—but she wanted to do something that mattered. She could bring the gods back to Tranavia if she did this. They would need to fine-tune the details of the plan on the road, but she felt a confidence she had never really known before. There was an element of divine providence—strange as the circumstances appeared—and Nadya wasn’t going to ignore it for the safer option.

Ah yes, Nadya loves her country very much. “She could bring the gods back to Tranavia if she did this”. Where’s the empathising with Tranavia, ED? Where’s Nadya beginning to understand the other side and their way of life? Also what divine providence? Marzenya has stated her displeasure that you haven’t murdered him and the rest of the gods, FOR SOME REASON, haven’t said jack shit about it.

And it’s not like they haven’t spoken in her head directly before. Because they have, in the first chapter when she was fighting Serefin and his soldiers.

He took her by the shoulders. “Can your magic heal?”

Nadya’s eyes widened and she nodded.

“Parijahan was fine,” Anna said.

“She’s decidedly not fine now,” he said, voice tight. The skin on his jaw was starting to purple as blood settled underneath the spot where Anna had punched him.

“Calm down,” Nadya said, touching his arm.

He blinked, his gaze dropping to where her fingers lightly pressed against his scarred forearm, and seemed to realize he still had her by the shoulders. He let go and stepped back.

He’s genuinely worried about her, Nadya thought, shocked. He cares.

Nadya seemingly no longer cares about touching him or be touched by him, and it’s less my acceptance of the ship and it’s more my acceptance of the fact that it is happening and I can’t do anything to stop it that I’m slowly like, whatever, do whatever you fucking want now.

Also I’m laughing at that last sentence. *GASP* He cares about other people like a regular decent person??? What a revolutionary concept! People different than me can care about other people, especially if they are different from them?!

Anyways so Nadya needs incense (and preferably a censer) for Parijahan’s wound, which is only described as “her side is torn up” which is very descriptive, Malachiasz.

Whoever had initially wrapped the wound on Parijahan’s side had done a good job but there was a darkness Nadya could sense in the jagged gash that was making it fester. Anna lit the censer. The scent of spice and holiness flooded the room almost instantly. Nadya relaxed and let her eyes shut. The smell was familiar, it was home. She tucked a slow-burning stick of incense behind her ear, hearing Anna’s breath of a laugh. It was a bad habit of hers and she had singed her hair on multiple occasions, but she liked having it burn nearby. Rashid was pacing and Malachiasz was putting out such a frantic energy that before Nadya could even do anything she sighed.

I... like that little quirk? It’s so fucking dumb but it’s at least SOMETHING, an attempt to make her some sort of character that isn’t constantly flip flopping and moaning about running away. But why does she need the incense? To focus? As a component for her praying? For the healing?

(Also this is just a personal thing but I hate church incense lmao That shit smells and it smells gross.)

Also, there’s nothing in particular that makes me think of it, but this scene reminds me of the one with Inej in SOC, where Nina has to heal her on the ship and Kaz is A Mess over it.

“All right, boys, get out of here. Parijahan will be fine. Her wound got worse, she has a fever, but she’s going to be fine.” She shooed them out.

Pffftt, how reassuring.

She wrapped her necklace around her hand, finding Zbyhneuska’s bead and pressing her fingers against it. Opening her eyes, she scanned Parijahan’s unconscious form. The girl’s breath was shallow and sweat beaded her forehead, her brown skin ashen and pale.

The healing goddess was a mute one, working in feelings and visions. Of the pantheon, she was the gentlest, though soldiers had a tendency to send all their prayers to Veceslav instead of her; something about how a god of war was more likely to shield and heal them during battle than a goddess. A ridiculous superstition. Most would live through battles longer if they burned a candle to Zbyhneuska.

Thanks to Zbyhneuska’s silence, Nadya always felt like she could work through her problems with her.

That thing about the whole “soldiers pray to god rather than goddess cause Sexism” makes me roll my eyes. A part of me agrees it’s stupid but also, Veceslav is stated to be a god of war AND protection. Sure, being protected is not the same as being healed of your wounds, but it’s not like somehow it’s the most illogical choice. Also forced Sexism is Forced.

Also did the Vultures curse her wound? Or is it just the normal infected? But then Nadya stated that there was a “darkness making it fester” so???

Marzenya is upset I haven’t killed the Tranavian yet, Nadya said. I know we’re at war and Tranavians are heretics, but murder feels needless to me. She felt Zbyhneuska’s chime of scolding, but also understanding. Zbyhneuska thought death was needless too.

WELL TOO BAD YOU DIDN’T FEEL THAT WHEN YOU MURDERED THOSE OTHER SOLDIERS BACK IN THE FOREST.

Also when you kill people, it’s fine, but when it comes to people trying to kill you and the others around you, you’re like “murder feels needless to me”. Also she’s back to calling Tranavians “heretics” so YAY! Guess it was too soon to wish I never see that word again, wasn’t it? Also for some reason Marzenya hasn’t punished you for not killing the Tranavian when you had no good reason to not kill him. And I’m sure to a god, “i’ll kill the king instead and end the war” is not a good alternative when she’s literally like “kill all tranavians”

But Zbyhneuska, goddess of health, was not Nadya’s patron. Marzenya, goddess of death and magic and winter, was. It wasn’t something that usually bothered Nadya. But the way Malachiasz had dug his fingers into hers, the resignation with which he had readied his neck for her blade, had left her off balance.

She didn’t understand it. She didn’t want to kill him until the time came when she did. When she no longer had a choice.

Missed out “sacrifice” there. I mean, if you’re going to list her domains, you might as well list all of them.

Nadya is, of course, like “well he was prepared to die by my hands, so I decided not to kill him because that’s weird even though literally my whole motivation is to kill Tranavians but now it’s not”

If only someone’s whole deal with their goddess wasn’t to kill Tranavians... if only there was consequences for not following through with it... if only there was internal consistency in this book.

#sarah reads ws

2 notes · View notes

airlock · 5 years

Text

airlock grades the Michalis archetype

next in this series, we line up the characters who are spitting on our faces and calling us bitches now, but were petting cute dogs just a moment prior. that’s right, it’s the Camus archetype’s archrival: the Michalis!

(do note: under cut are spoilers for… everything, and also a significant amount of me criticizing or blamming characters that you might like. you’ve been warned! but if you’d still proceed, then I shall brush you aside like the pebble you are in the grand scheme of my plans-)

a foreword

I’m going to need a working definition for this one as well, so here goes: by the reckoning of this listing, a Michalis is a secondary character who is characterized as virtuous, well-liked, or otherwise distasteful to fight against, but who still must be fought against, not due to the tragics that compel a Camus, but because the Michalis bears a severe flaw that overpowers the good qualities and will ultimately choose evil because of it.

here it goes!

you will adress him as king michalis of macedon

(7/10)

the original article delivers pretty well! often better intentioned than he might seem, he’s proud and reckless, and it constantly lands him in lousy situations -- whether he’s fighting his own family or getting straight-up killed because he deadass thought he had a chance against Gharnef. sure, jan.

he’s not the most compelling one in this list, but as that rare character who feels thorougly driven by his own personality and not the demands of the plot on a given day, he’s definitely on the better end of the archetype.

classist michalis

(2/10)

yeah...... this one’s another shot off the hoop for Valentia’s newer villains. when he’s not around, every character around will drop to their knees and beg you to go easy on the poor guy; when he’s around, he’s virulent far beyond what his sob backstory could possibly excuse. he thorougly fails to garner the sympathy the game is convinced you should have for him, and while some of his earlier scenes land with spectacle, he rapidly shrinks into an irrelevant appendage of Berkut’s and meets his end in a pointless, weak death scene.

the DLC maps do a heroic job of making him sound like something other than an annoying tool for once, but you know shit’s not going well if you need DLC just to make your character even a little bit less tasteless.

hungry michalis

(10/10)

sure, he’s hardened, vile, and deserves scarce sympathy for some of the deeds under his belt. but damned if he isn’t the most genuine villain in this list. born to a world that relentlessly spits on him and his, he spits back with all of his power, that the saliva of the world might run out and leave something better for the next ones up.

there’s something unique and incredible about his arc: for all the unforgivable atrocities he commits, he may genuinely have left the world a better place than he’d entered, but still, his end is not a tragedy; rather, his end is the final step needed in order to make things right for good and all. there’s no one else in the franchise who functions so effectively as a self-made villain.

and fuck Veld for encroaching on that perfection-

... I said he was a camus-michalis hybrid, right

(5/10)

but I’m not writing the entire analysis again, just read the Camus post

marqualis

(5.5/10)

this is maybe a little bit of a stretch; Darin is definitely not written as a virtuous or even halfway sympathetic character -- but he’s still given an undeniably human core that’s meant to set him apart from the literally inhuman secondary villains he rubs shoulders with, such as in all of the times he grows hesitant in the face of Nergal’s plans before Ephidel butters him back into compliance. plus, there’s a subtle sympathy to be had in seeing his family tearing itself apart because of manipulative villains, even if the entire family is dicks.

like the original one, he’s not an incrediblly compelling character, but his personality definitely sells his arc of the plot, and it’s hard to deny that taking him down for good and all at the Dragon’s Gate gets to be a moment of some power -- one that feels tragic, but right.

merchalis

(7/10)

hard sell again, but, as amoral and cruel as this fellow is, there’s an underscore of neutrality to him that makes him much more of a balanced character than the usual power-hungry villain; sure, he’ll do anything for the sake of his ambitions -- but that includes ignoring Lyon and potentially screwing him over! he bears with him that refreshing strength of being an antagonist who drives things his way and not just the plot-convenient one, similar to others on the list here. and albeit vague, his alluded-to past is somewhat intriguing, to boot!

darling michalis

(10/10)

undoubtedly up there in the pantheon of Magvel’s most incredible writing moments is the arc of this sick motherfucker. he perfectly disarms you for a few moments before the shoe drops and then it never stops dropping.

there’s any number of villains who are just repugnant, but this guy takes the whole thing to a new level: with the facade he starts off with, and with the positive but incredibly twisted motivations that drive him, he is quite possibly the most terrifying thing in this whole franchise -- above all of the undead monsters.

shiny-pecker michalis

(9/10)

a performer of nefarious, ostensibly shameless deeds, and at the same time, a character who is trusted and loved by many whom he wrongs again and again -- Naesala glides smoothly in the territory where the likes of Fernand have tripped.

the reveal that his overarching motivation stems from a cheap plot device is weakening, but still hardly impacts his stellar characterization; he makes his weight felt on every cutscene where he’s so much as mentioned, and besides, comparably to Travant above, he’s willing to own for himself the villainy that the world thrust upon him, which makes him an incredibly compelling character and powerfully adds to the tragedy of those characters who eagerly await for him to let his better nature shine through while he goes and betrays them once more.

boot camp michalis

(7.5/10)

as downright nasty as he is, Jarod’s sporting, capable villainy is arguably one of the prime strengths of Radiant Dawn’s Part 1. facing off against him feels like one grand competition, which gets to be unique where Tellius’s villains tend to fight from the shadows instead.

his drive for efficiency as a soldier, constantly slammed against his subordinates’ lesser preparation, makes for a consistent, active motivation, even as it frequently drives him into the path of cruelty -- although there’s a criticism to be had in that he sometimes takes the cruelty up to eleven in situation where it makes no sense to (like, say, frequently lancing his subordinates for incompetence; sure, he hatehatehates that and it’s not out of character for him to be violent about it, but murdering one’s own ranks in occupied territory is uncharacteristically stupid for him).

his final stand is a particularly standout moment; where the plot could’ve simply moved on by the time of Sanaki’s intervention, the last hurrah comes about anyway because he personally decided to make it happen -- and for compelling, intriguing reasons, at that!

king michalis... of plegia

(6/10)

the antagonist driving the least weak arc of Awakening is surely one of its better ones, yes? well, kind of -- he’s more than a little pastiche and not enough consistency, but at least, when he’s on the scene, he chews the scenery so hard it bursts into color.

well, then! this time, I don’t even know if I’m directly missing a sample from fates, so that’s a wrap. what do you all think? are you charmed enough to ignore all of the innocents I just slaughtered, or are you having none of it and will put an end to my evil deeds? if the upcoming Three Houses is to have a Michalis, how despicably lovable should they be? well, think what you will -- the truth is, I’ve been onto you this entire time! of course you’ll share your thoughts in a reply or a reblog... right?

#airlock grades the villain archetypes #fire emblem is tagged in this post

11 notes · View notes

elhoimleafar · 5 years

Photo

From booksellers sorcerers and cyber-pagans. #SocialMedia #ModernPagans “Let your closest relationship be with the gods you worship and not with your social media”.

While it is true that I am very regular with social networks, for me it is inevitable because it is part of my job, managing the accounts of other clients for the two agencies with which I work keeps me very focused in the world of social networks, I graduated as a publicist in 2013 and my area is precisely managing profiles and social networks, and although it is difficult for me to keep my academic/professional life in my spiritual/professional life, I do my best to keep it that way and until now I think I have achieved it.

My Twitter account is permanently active, it is my window to the world, it is literally my way of doing catharsis, sharing with my readers, with my friends, with my followers who support me, it is my way of taking ideas from my head, sharing notes and thoughts, funny pictures, great places, etc... But I try to maintain a line and a firm position between both worlds and over time I have achieved a balance.

While my Instagram may be full of photographs of my candles and amulets, these are taken after the rituals, and mostly I do it to share the recipes with those who follow me, but not to show off, much less will they see me performing a ritual in a live Facebook, not by the intervention of the cameras, I really do not think that the device has any negative effect that I can not control, it is rather for two reasons that I think are quite logical, and which I have maintained against any argument that they have thrown me to defend the opposite.

First, for a topic of concentration, in the middle of my rituals, before and after them I like to feel focused on 100%, I do not tolerate any kind of distractions, and you can not give 100% of you, if 36% of your brain is busy focusing on the photo, the video and setting up snapchat filters.

Second, out of respect for my tradition, I'm not a Catholic, but I do not think Catholics go to mass and broadcast it on video, but I do not know much about their religion so I'm not really sure what I write here, and if They do, well, that's wrong.

When you are in the middle of a ceremony or a spiritual session, you are having a private meeting with the creator gods of the universe, they descend to listen to you, look at you, encourage you, motivate you and encourage you to follow, listen to your complaints, your laments, and help you Heal in any aspect of your life that you need.

When you are reunited with the ruling god of your pantheon, you dedicate yourself to him or her, just as they dedicate themselves to you, and I do not think you can dedicate yourself 100% to them if you are focused on finding the correct angle of the camera for your Instagram post.

It is a matter of total respect and consideration, if I admire the American pagan community and its community of witches, it is that although they have all the facilities of the internet (much faster than you can imagine outside the USA) and make use of absolutely all social networks, they always seek to organize all kinds of talks, forums, events and festivals where they can meet face to face, celebrate the celebrations of the wheel of the year, perform all kinds of rituals in groups and long forums, talks and workshops to deal with various topics about the esoteric world and sorcery, and although it is true that we can find a lot of prejudice around, because there will always be those who only see the glass half empty and point out that all this is done only for money, beyond empty criticism, the money involved is not able to stain these events in any way, so far I have only attended the events organized in the state of NY, mostly by an agenda item, among other minor things, but to each of the events that I have attended I have found the same result:

Sorcerers, magician shamans, and sorcerers with real trajectories, mixed with the common sorcerer, the sorcerer of the city, the apprentice who is entering this unknown world.World-renowned authors, many of whom we read in our early years in witchcraft and renowned as Judika Illes and Christopher Penczak, among many others who slip into these events to approach you and hold workshops, in addition, who does not want the opportunity to have signed a book of your favorite author?.

Believers and practitioners of all the diverse pagan and neopagan currents (Asatru, Wicca, Druids, sorcerers, etc ...) Mixed in complete harmony, interrelating, talking, attending together the workshops achieving a peaceful coexistence, thus demonstrating that all this war "who is better than who" and "who has the most beautiful altar" is only a vague idea that exists in the virtual world, but at the moment of truth, we are all part of something bigger than ourselves and that attracts us to these places to realize that if we are part of a huge pagan family that has not stopped growing.

Although I miss those times of going to the esoteric books section of the library, subscribe to the mailing lists of publishers waiting for their extensive catalogs of books to order the newest in the genre, although it was exciting to organize these forums of skype and yahoo where we saw each other's faces, I must admit that now the internet is available to everyone.

The internet makes us realize how big we are as a community, now we can participate in huge virtual forums of conversation, follow our favorite authors (and not to show off but now I'm even friends with several of mine on facebook), and keeps us abreast of the esoteric or spiritual events and organizations that interest us the most.

Likewise, and like the same magic, the internet has its respective pros and cons, is full of trolls, haters, pretty ridiculous memes and fake people with fake names and fake photos with which you must be very careful, in addition the internet unfortunately It supports and promotes piracy in large part, I had to leave several Facebook groups when I noticed that they were uploading files full of books by my favorite authors, at that time I was writing my first book for a small print shop In Venezuela, he was also working for the publishing company Circulo de Lectores de Venezuela, a company that literally sank with the rise of piracy and left a total of 3,500 people unemployed throughout the country.

Who does not miss those long Yahoo mailing lists, where people really wrote, and shared very broad thoughts and reflections, was something made for those who really like to read and study, many times I even print them, because Many of these emails that revolved around a common theme were almost books full of information that went through the filters of many people, and they were gold.

Now in the social networks are saturated with information, much of it information that you do not need, to the point of being overwhelming, and all this without mentioning that in social networks we limit ourselves (because if the post is very broad nobody reads it and nobody shares it) so you have to limit yourself to writing the whole idea in less than 200 characters.

Another problem that brings the internet to the pagan community, is that we find all these bookstore sorcerers, who have read a couple of books and believe they know everything, I have often encountered trolls that harass me on the internet trying to "correct my work" because it does not go with one or two books that they have read.

For example there is a lot with the subject of rituals and spells, you can perform hundreds of spells, and you can do them very well, and have the results you want, but there is always an egocentric to correct you, just to show you "how much they know "in theory, and not so much in practice.

Because to identify an herb, that anyone does based on photos and books, but go to cut the grass personally, dry it in your house and use it for your own spells, that's practice, and in social media times, that practice is worth gold, but not for those who follow you on social networks, but for you.

Yes, it is true that the internet has unfortunately given more power to haters and trolls, and now many people also write in a blog without knowing what they are talking about, so everything we find on the internet must be swallowed with an extra granite of salt, even now it is quite normal to meet people who come to chat with you at 5 am to evangelize and tell you that you worship the devil, understand, "why to bother going to knock on your door on a Saturday morning, being able to just open your chat window to bother you from the comfort of your home?".

Let's not forget that social networks also give us that positive look, that touch of positivism that we study so much in marketing, that "like", that "comment" that tells you that you are doing something right, that makes you believe that you are on the way correct, and that puts you in the same box of those pink characters who do whatever it is for the "like", the problem when people get used to it, when "like", that positive reinforcement you receive, is more important that the content you share, is the problem there, when people get so used to giving everything for that like, and without realizing it, they stop contributing real good material, just because they are focused on the likes, because many times the ego only he asks for more positive reinforcements.

But also the internet has allowed us to form huge discussion groups, these groups where some 5 thousand people are added but only 50 participate, but those fifty people are worth gold, and for those fifty people who are now only a click away, it is worth keeping our presence on the internet, to share the links of our favorite books, to invite others like us to these events of pagan celebrations in our country, and even to chat and share the details and experiences of our spells.

But as I always write, as long as you are light, as long as you know how to shine, no matter how dark the cave you enter, you can be light and illuminate the path to others who come after you.

With Love & Respect

Elhoim Leafar

15 notes · View notes

timeagainreviews · 5 years

Text

5 Moments when Doctor Who SUCKED

Imagine, if you will for a moment, that you are a brand new Doctor Who fan. You don’t even know to call yourself a Whovian yet. You get on a few facebook groups, see a few YouTube videos and discover, much to your dismay, that Doctor Who is, in fact, ruined now. Woe is you who set path down a trail leading toward mediocrity, and eventually utter devastation. I ask you to picture yourself in this manner because I want you to realise that only a person new to Doctor Who would believe such drivel. Everyone else saying this seems to have rose tinted glasses. The rest of us all know that Doctor Who is a show that sometimes requires forgiveness.

Am I saying Doctor Who is a bad show? Not hardly. Much like pizza, Doctor Who is still pretty good, even when it sucks. I would venture to say that one of the things I love most about Doctor Who is how campy and silly it can be at times. Why is it then that so many people are turning their backs on a show that’s filled their lives with so much joy? I’m really trying to avoid the "because sexism," argument. But I can’t help but feel like if you were to switch the Doctor to a male, nobody would be calling the show "ruined." Furthermore, how do you even ruin something that has gone through so many changes throughout the years? Oh right, it’s the Doctor Who fandom. Where the only language allowed is hyperbolic.

Perhaps these fake geeks are mad because making the Doctor a woman takes away their ability to call her a Mary Sue. Especially when you consider the same character once burst out of a golden birdcage and floated to the ground in a wave of Jesus energy. That might mean they’d have to retroactively apply the title to every incarnation. Could the Doctor ever escape the distinction? Unnaturally talented, charismatic, good at everything he does, brilliantly smart. Or is it that these attributes only belong to men? We can believe Tom Baker’s Doctor is capable of walking into a burning furnace to save K9, but hell no, a woman can’t be the Doctor.

You have to face it, Doctor Who has had some terrible moments. Yet we continue to tune in because we forgive it. We forgive when Doctor Who is bad because of the moments when Doctor Who is wonderful. Which I know is how you would describe an abusive partner, but I’m gonna let it slide for a television series. Especially this series. Because unlike that dickhead who never texts you back, Doctor Who can change. If you don’t believe me, please peruse this list of five instances when Doctor Who was terrible.

1. The John Nathan-Turner era

My God, how could I not start with this? While there is no denying there are some wonderful moments in JNT's Doctor Who, it's easily my least favourite era of Doctor Who. And as much as I personally love Colin Baker, his Doctor got the lion's share of poor scripts and erroneous costume choices. Never has a man more game for a role, been dealt such a bad hand.

Introducing a Doctor that was cowardly, and even violent toward his companion, was seen as a bridge too far. While I understand the desire to try something new with the character, this wasn't the way to go about it. While the show begins to pick up around the end of McCoy's tenure, it's evident that this is more the influence of studio notes and the hard work of script editor Andrew Cartmel. I can't think of anyone less suited for the job of showrunner.

It seems that for a good nine years, Doctor Who had a madman at the helm, and not in that cute Matt Smith way. Dressing in flamboyant Hawaiian shirts, Nathan-Turner brought that same brash sensibility to the program. From Six's garish costume, to question mark lapels, to Mel's entire timeline, it's a big fat mess with him sitting in the middle. Add to all of this, the allegations of him being a predatory creep toward young male fans, and it's a surprise the show ever survived. Oh wait, it didn't.

2. Racism

Ok, maybe I should have started with this. While Doctor Who has taken efforts to address its racist past, it still happened. They drop a racist slur in "The Celestial Toymaker." Even the term "celestial," is used to mean "Chinese," in describing the titular character played by the very white Michael Gough, fully clad in Oriental silks. This tradition follows into "The Talons of Weng-Chiang," when Li H'sen Chang was played by John Bennett.

It's an uncomfortable miracle that they didn't allow Patrick Troughton to play the role of the Second Doctor in brownface. Not to say his era escaped the odd bit of racism. While Toberman in "Tomb of the Cybermen," gets a few heroic moments, he also gets none of the lines. Cast as mute manservant, we learn nothing about the inner workings of a black man who died so that white people may live.

Later, the show used characters like Ace to talk about racism. She shows disgust with a "No Coloureds," sign hanging in the boarding house she's staying in. When the evil Morgaine had her under mind control, it was calling her friend Ling Tai "yellow," and "slant-eyed," that she was able to snap out of it. Real Ace would never say such things. But even with that groundwork laid, the new series still struggles. From the Doctor being weirdly dismissive toward black people, to it taking nearly 50 years for the first black TV companion, Doctor Who is still grappling with its race issues. Yet you all kept watching.

3. Ace gets molested

This one is a bit of a lesser known infraction as it takes place in the books after the show had already been cancelled. Kicking off the Virgin Media "New Adventures," is 1991's "Timewyrm: Genesys," by John Peel. In it, the Doctor and Ace travel to ancient Mesopotamia, where they meet King Gilgamesh. Gilgamesh wastes no time going full blown creep, groping Ace and pawing at her like he was Joe Biden.

The Doctor's reaction to this is to tell Ace to just go with it, and that it's part of the culture. While I agree that, yes, Gilgamesh may not be the sophisticated modern man that hugs a bro and supports equal pay, the Doctor's reaction is some straight up bullshit. If you're going to go there, maybe try saying something with it other than "Women are men's property." This could have been a great opportunity for the Doctor to puff up and use Gilgamesh's own primitive mindset against him. "How dare you touch my woman!" the very tiny Doctor could say to the very tall man. It would have been a funny visual, mixed with the Doctor utilising male privilege in a way that helps his companion.

This is really an objection I have against most of John Peel's work. He writes women in that "she boobed boobily," manner. Much to my dismay, Peel is one of the sole writers of the Dalek books, so any time you want to enjoy a tale involving our enemies from Skaro, you have to also partake in his brand of women. I'm talking women being described as buxom babes with shoulder length blonde hair, voices like baby goddesses, and legs up to their neck. While on the other hand, we get men described as having a hat and probably some other features. I may be embellishing, but seriously, John Peel, your women suck. Yet it still spawned a rather large book series.

4. Minuet in Hell

Doctor Who has never been known to nail accents. Tegan is vaguely Australian. And Peri must have moved around a lot due to the fact that nothing about her American accent sounds like a regional dialect. That doesn't mean that Robert Jezek's Foghorn Leghorn meets the KFC Colonel performance as " Brigham Elisha Dashwood III," is any less painful. But bad accents aside, the biggest demon in this Big Finish audio is one of Doctor Who's oldest enemies- sexism!

While I understand that Charlotte Pollard may be a fan favourite among many Big Finish listeners, her character will forever be tainted for me, and it's all due to this story. In it, Charlotte, or Charley, gets literally human trafficked. They kidnap her, force her to wear lingerie in a very creepy and misguided attempt to add some sexiness to the story and force her to wait on rich businessmen at a casino.

Now, allow me to clarify, it's not the human trafficking that taints her in my eyes. People who get trafficked are victims, obviously. What bothers me is that neither Gary Russell or Alan W Lear thought to give her a single line of dialogue where she protests. She doesn't even complain a little. Sure, the Doctor often gains intel by getting captured, but this is ridiculous. Add this to the weird disjointed story, and "Minuet in Hell," easily serves as one of the lowest points in not just Big Finish history, but Doctor Who as a whole.

5. Sexism

(Image by Billy Darswed)

It makes the most sense that this is the last one on the list. Because let's be honest, it's a huge problem in the fandom. A lot of early Doctor Who audios and books smack of moments when it feels as though the writers never considered the existence of female fans. Women are often utilised as a means to make the Doctor look better, and for the baddies to look scarier. Mind you, it's not always been a pantheon of swooners and screamers. We got the occasional Sarah Jane, Leela, and Ace.

Even the strong women are long-suffering. Liz Shaw (and her real-life actress Caroline John) left the role of companion over sexism. Beginning her time on Doctor Who as UNIT's top scientific advisor, she was demoted to assistant, holding beakers for the male Doctor who stole her job. The Fourth Doctor acted similarly when telling Romana her qualifications had nothing on real life experience. The same excuse has been used for decades to keep educated women out of the workforce. "Come back when you've got some experience, sweetheart."

While Rose Tyler was a refreshingly real character with a family and life of her own, it doesn't mean that she wasn't horribly mismanaged. In "The Stolen Earth," we see a darker, more serious version of her character. The Rose we used to know is now fully devoted toward one mission and one mission only- getting her man back. It's as though her personality disappears and is fully dependent on having the Doctor in her life. She rises to greatness so that she might bask in his once more. Maybe it's romantic, but maybe it's bad writing.

If you were to ask me who my favourite Doctor Who writers are, I'd have to say Robert Holmes is up there, and he wrote "Talons of Weng-Chiang," a serial full of yellowface. I'd also say Russell T Davies, who wrote the aforementioned "Stolen Earth," and also saw it in his wisdom to turn Shirley Henderson's "Ursula," into a blowjob dispensing garden brick. Or even Steven Moffat who believes the Statue of Liberty could sneak around New York, undetected, and that nobody notices his predilection toward dominatrix women in stiletto heels.

In my review for "The Battle of Ranskoor Av Kolos," I quipped that Chris Chibnall had not yet written a truly great episode of Doctor Who. However, since "Resolution," I can no longer say such a thing. I may even go as far as to say it's one of the best Dalek episodes ever. It would seem then that, given enough time, he could become a great showrunner. And it seems that given enough time, any writer, yourself included, could one day write the latest "worst episode ever."

Every new era has had its stumbles. Not every Doctor gets it correct 100% of the time. Capaldi decided he was the kind of Doctor to exit through the window, a trait we never saw again. The Fifth Doctor decided to sleep his way through his first adventure. The Eighth Doctor was "human on his mother's side." And Ten took so long to regenerate that I'm beginning to think it was old age, and not radiation that did him in. If you can look at all of these stupid, stupid moments and still say you love Doctor Who, then maybe, just maybe, you can get over a bit of spotty writing, like you always have. Or is it still the female Doctor thing? Oh...

#doctor who #tardis #thirteenth doctor #chris chibnall #time and time again #Jodie Whittaker

4 notes · View notes