shoggothkisses

[shoggothkisses]

the previous post has been sponsored by the Furball Fortress of Mondstadt, and also this line from Fischl reminding us that a cat is going to show us around Remuria starting tomorrow

#slime mod speaks #i am SO DAMN EXCITED FOR REMURIA

[shoggothkisses]

Lore Bites (& Speculation): Why Venti Hates Cats

is it possible he actually is just allergic?

i mean, yeah. i guess it's possible.

--or he could be avoidant for other reasons.

most people know about the link between cats and the Norse goddess Freyja (two big forest cat companions that pull her cart, etc.), but there are some other pieces of Northern European folklore regarding cats that may be relevant:

cat fur/skins were often worn by Germanic seer-esses (volva) because cats were believed to aid in making connections to spirits and the afterlife--much like Venti's able to do (see: Carmen Dei SQ).

in Celtic mythology, giant fairy-cats known as cat-sith acted as guardians of the Underworld, and were capable of snatching away the souls of the newly deceased if they passed across their grave early enough.

cats also have a (kind of weird?) connection to the World Serpent, the giant snake that's supposed to live at the base of the World Tree and gnaw at its roots). depending on which myths you read, Thor allegedly had a (pre-Ragnarok) run-in with Jormungandr while it assumed the form of a giant cat--and lost.

during the Witch-Panic of the Middle Ages, it was believed not only that witches kept cat familiars, but that witches could shapeshift into cats.

so while Venti might "just be allergic," he might also be

avoiding cats that are connected to dead Mondstadters/friends (out of fear or guilt)

avoiding cats that could be associated with the Dragon Sovereigns (also out of fear or guilt)

avoiding cats that might be Hexenzirkel members in disguise (wondering where the hell he's been for the last 500 years and why he won't take responsibility for his actions/come and visit their tea party)

#genshin impact #genshin lore #genshin impact lore #genshin venti #lore bites

[shoggothkisses]

OMG HI OKAY SO IM SLEEP DEPRIVED AND THOUGHT OF THING SO I SHALL SHARE 3AM BRAINNT BC I REMEMBERED YOUR BLOG AND WENT WOOSH. **brainnt probably has wrong things in memory sorry**

anyways so khanri’ah was like, destroyed for its reasons // goddless nation goes bye-bye

but lowkey the other nations are godless too

like

mond— barbatos is venti who kinda does things for his ppl but like, not, he’s just there for the wine and the vibes yk

liyue— morax is “dead” and is zhongli who is just there for funsies bc liyue is now a people run place

inazuma— beelzebul is ei is in the puppet mostly so the puppet that can only do so much is kinda sorta not reallynt ruling but nah, so thats also kinda just people

sumeru— buer was locked away in baby jail for 500 years and only now is kinda out and about doing god things

fontaine— focalors is dead and was literally a scale for like 500 years

NATLAN ?????????????

SNEZHNAYA ?????????

tis all i go eep now

YEAH NO YOU’RE ABSOLUTELY RIGHT and i’m almost certain that’s deliberate

whether each nation is weirdly self-contained wrt its history, or if there’s a single unified history that we haven’t totally uncovered yet, it’s clear that events in Teyvat are cyclical and repetitive

the “gods” put in charge by Celestia are WILLINGLY giving up their divine authorities for a reason that hasn’t been fully disclosed, but is almost certainly part of a big plan to get back at Celestia. i don’t think they’re trying to BAIT the Sustainer, exactly—Focalors worked her ass off to make sure Celestia WOULDN’T find out she was relinquishing her authority—but they’re definitely encouraging their people to go on like their nations are godless while still…kinda-sorta watching over them?

i don’t know if the same can be said for Natlan or Snezhnaya; people who are really into the prologue manga being canon seem to think the Pyro Archon mention therein is already dead (something something Honkai lore that i won’t disclose for spoilers’ sake), but that doesn’t necessarily mean there isn’t another Archon who’s taken her place.

as far as Snezhnaya is concerned…who knows. we may not find out for a while yet, or we may find out in a couple days. here’s hoping we get a little more lore through Arlecchino’s quest!

#genshin lore #genshin #genshin impact #genshin impact lore #slime mod speaks #anon asks

[shoggothkisses]

Lore Rant: Castor, Pollux, and the Arrogation of the Twins

cw: brief references to sexual assault in the context of mythology; in-game references to cannibalism (sort of)

hi okay so. this came about because i was reading Gods and Myths of Northern Europe (H.R. Ellis Davidson, 1964) and came across a brief section on the worship of god-twins in Germanic/Norse/Old English religions.

according to Davidson, “there is good reason to believe that at one time the heathen Germans worshipped twin deities, two brothers who were the sons of the god of the sky.”

among certain Germanic tribes, these twins were known as the Alci/s. The etymological root for this name appears to be contested (according to Wiki, at least), and may stem from Old English/Germanic as either 1. “elk,” 2. “to protect” or 3. “healing hand” (referencing the Germanic rune algiz.)

another, Old Icelanding name for the Alcis may have been the haddingjar, from the root haddr (woman’s hair. Which, I mean.)

(Certainly no argument there.)

The Roman historian Tacitus, when researching folk beliefs among Germanic tribes, strongly believed that the Alcis/Haddinjar were the same twin-deities worshipped in the Roman Empire - that is to say, Castor and Pollux.

So here I found myself switching from looking at Norse and Anglo-Saxon mythology to taking a dive into Roman mythology to see where the similarities lie. (Something that I’d somehow never done before? But anyway.)

Castor and Pollux are described as both being ‘blond-haired, large-eyed, fair complexioned, and well-built with trim bodies’ (Dares Phrygius, via Wikipedia).

Much like the Alcis, they’re considered protective gods, and STRONGLY associated with horses. (I can’t explain this bit, but I do think it’s hilarious that we still haven’t seen a horse in Teyvat despite being told they exist, and the iconography that might connect twin-gods to horses is, likewise, nowhere to be found.)

Castor and Pollux are ALSO twins, ALSO brothers, and ALSO sons of the god of the -

actually wait.

that part isn’t the same????

and THAT was where i fell down the rabbit hole that caused the alleged ‘mind-blowing’ that i talked up when i first started doing this post weeks ago.

because while Castor and Pollux are twins - they’re not identical.

Castor and Pollux are a product of a (rare but technically possible!) reproductive phenomenon known as heteropaternal superfecundation: two separate ova, within a single womb, being fertilized around the same time by two separate sets of sperm.

Pollux is a demigod - a result of Zeus (THERE’s the sky god) sexually assaulting Leda, future queen of Sparta, while he disguised himself as a swan.

Castor’s father is human. Making Castor, at the time of his birth, 100% human.

Castor and Pollux, along with their other (non-twin) siblings, are sometimes said to have been born from an egg (presumably due to Zeus’s influence? and because of this, they’re sometimes depicted wearing white caps meant to be bits of their…birth-egg-shell?).

now i simply CANNOT ACCEPT that these things are a coincidence. we have twin siblings with slightly different features (height, sex, hair color) who nevertheless appear to be the same age. and while they don’t have the eggshell hats, it does feel a little on the nose that Aether and Lumine have wings and bird-feather accessories, if they’re meant to have any similarity to a set of twins birthed from an egg.

WHICH, on the topic of the egg itself: this is a CONSISTENT MOTIF that comes up in relation to the twins, but it’s especially important to point out that in Orphic-Greek mythology, the Cosmic Egg from which the primordial deity is born comes from (or is made from) Aether. Not the protoscientific substance aether. The deity Aether.

as far as how BOTH the divine Pollux and human Castor became worshipped as deities: apparently the twins got mixed up in a…cattle-raid? in other words, stealing cattle. from Arcadia.

—which was a piece of info I was just going to skip over, until I did the required searching and was reminded that ARCADIA ACTUALLY EXISTS IN GENSHIN. because it’s brought up aaaaaall the way back in Mondstadt, during Kaeya’s Story Quest. The “lost ruins of Arcadia” are on Galesong Hill in Mondstadt.

it’s also WELL worth mentioning that Arcadia (in Greek myth) was the home of Pan and Hermes (who i am going to talk about SO MUCH MORE. another time).

during said raid, and the ensuing battle, Castor is dealt a fatal wound, and so Pollux gives up half of his own immortality so that he and Castor can stay together. this earns them their place among the constellations, as Gemini.

so if we’re keeping up on the “Castor+Pollux” / “Lumine+Aether” parallels—human twin dies while stealing something from an area known for being the birthplace of gods. (whether that something is cows…let’s not worry about.) godly twin decides to give up part of his godliness to save sibling. sibling is now…ALSO godly.

now let’s just look at Genshin on its own for a second. Celestia does NOT like it when beings color outside the proverbial lines without their permission. they find out a nation is worshipping a different god? NO gods? messing with human evolution (possibly by ingesting dead-god flesh—looking at you, Alberichs)? poking around at forbidden knowledge (also chilling in dead god flesh)? just gotta burn it all down and curse the sinners responsible!

isn’t it just as likely that they’d punish one of their own for committing the same crimes?

and now the Sustainer of Heavenly Principles is on their case, and she is not happy.

imagine: Celestial twin finds out they have a human sibling (our “prince/princess of Khaenriah,” according to the Caribert quest) that doesn’t remember having celestial family. Celestial twin is overjoyed! Celestial twin descends(!), finds human twin, maybe they have some adventures, but then—oop, gotta steal something (maaaaybe the genesis pearl? or maybe just cows! /j) from Mondstadt. Heist goes wrong—human twin hurt in process. Celestial twin surrenders some of their divinity to save human twin from death—but now they’ve broken the laws, not only about tampering with life and death, but also about keeping humans human.

doesn’t it seem possible that her confrontation with the the twins isn’t just because of their involvement with Khaenriah, but because they’ve also committed their own, more personal sin?

Some misc. stuff:

the “divine twin” myth isn’t exclusively European in nature, and pops up around the world with lots of similarities: the different fathers (one of which is always a sky deity); associated with stars, horses, and (often) the sea); divine martial protectors (i.e. in battle); providers of magical healing; etc. they’re often also worshipped as fertility deities but I know better than to talk about that here.

and of course whenever the same stories or motifs pop up in different places again and again I feel the need to bring up Jung, since he loved the idea that a “collective unconscious” was responsible for giving human beings the same ideas for myths—the figures within which played archetypal roles that reflected the human psyche. (why he thought that made more sense than having core myths get spread out and retold with the evolution of human civilization…i have no idea.)

the Divine Twins may have been the original drivers of the Solar Chariot (presumably the same one owned by Apollo in Greek myth, which he gives to Phaethon to drive—with disastrous consequences), hence why they became associated with horses. this isn’t really related to the implications of this post but i am most CERTAINLY going to be making another, much bigger post about the Chariot because it’s been driving me crazy. pun absolutely not intended.

other symbols associated with Castor and Pollux are the dokana (a structure of posts and cross-beams that has been associated with everything from gates and doors to grave-markers and mirrors; this article written in 1919(!!) about them was actually super interesting), shields, and snakes. (here’s a dokana with a pair of snakes for reference!) snakes are about as important as eggs in this lore, but I'll save that, too.

as a result of Pollux’s choice to share his divinity with his brother, they (much like other Greco-Roman gods like Persephone and Dionysus) surrendered their full-time residence on Mount Olympus, becoming instead capable of traveling between Olympus and Hades. considering whichever twin we don’t pick at the start of our journey becomes the “Abyss twin,” and both twins appear able to travel freely between Teyvat and the Abyss at will, it feels like a logical stretch to say this part of their myth is also lore-relevant.

cool okay i think that’s it for now, go crazy, go stupid, and SOLAR CHARIOT YOU’RE ON MY SHORT LIST

#genshin impact #genshin lore #genshin #lore rant #mythology and folklore

[shoggothkisses]

okay yes i MIGHT be looking into things but I ran across the interaction with Salsa in Fontaine where she states that "because she's the founder" of her made-up Fontaine Artists' Association, "of course she's number zero."

(stares at Pierro)

#genshin lore #genshin impact #genshin #fontaine exploration #fontaine

[shoggothkisses]

technical issues with the iPad where i kept my notes from the Ellis-Davidson book so it may be a couple more days before i post it 😮‍💨 might fill the space with other post-lets in the meantime

#slime mod speaks

[shoggothkisses]

i DO want to make a disclaimer that if it ever makes anyone uncomfortable that i @ them to reply to their tags, PLEASE send me an ask and let me know!! this is a side blog, so liking/replying to people in the normal way would end up being done on my main. i have no problem removing the @ and/or replying without screencaps ✌️ i'm excited to have discussions about lore and it isn't my intention to make people uncomfortable!

#slime mod speaks #no one has said anything i just wanna make sure i keep the disclaimer on the table!

[shoggothkisses]

ALSO even though I need to do more research on this I feel like i read somewhere that the Hermetic "as above so below" also played a major role in Jung's development of the collective unconscious and archetypes?? which feels VERY relevant here

@sleepless-rants hi!! the 'Pierro as Irmin' theory is old stuff that i thiiink started back in the chasm but may be older than that?? it stems a lot from the myth/s of Irmin (Germanic epithet for Odin) surrendering an eye to Mimir (God of Wisdom) so that he could be allowed to drink from the Fountain of Cosmic Knowledge

all of the statuettes carried by the black knights of Khaenriah are bearded and one-eyed, resembling both Irmin (of myth) and Pierro

of course this isn't to say I'm touting a 100%, "Pierro IS King Irmin" hypothesis around to people

in fact i strongly believe that Teyvat operates under the Hermetic "as above, so below" philosophy, which also continues as "as within, so without."

the reason that I think similar figures and events keep popping up around Teyvat, following similar paths, is because they're deliberately following the dictates of Fate that have already played out on the grandest, macrocosmic-est level.

Dottore may not be literally Loki, and Pierro literally Irmin - but they're unconsciously(?) playing those roles on a lesser cosmic level.

#genshin lore #slime mod speaks #SORRY I FORGOR

[shoggothkisses]

@sleepless-rants hi!! the 'Pierro as Irmin' theory is old stuff that i thiiink started back in the chasm but may be older than that?? it stems a lot from the myth/s of Irmin (Germanic epithet for Odin) surrendering an eye to Mimir (God of Wisdom) so that he could be allowed to drink from the Fountain of Cosmic Knowledge

all of the statuettes carried by the black knights of Khaenriah are bearded and one-eyed, resembling both Irmin (of myth) and Pierro

of course this isn't to say I'm touting a 100%, "Pierro IS King Irmin" hypothesis around to people

in fact i strongly believe that Teyvat operates under the Hermetic "as above, so below" philosophy, which also continues as "as within, so without."

the reason that I think similar figures and events keep popping up around Teyvat, following similar paths, is because they're deliberately following the dictates of Fate that have already played out on the grandest, macrocosmic-est level.

Dottore may not be literally Loki, and Pierro literally Irmin - but they're unconsciously(?) playing those roles on a lesser cosmic level.

#genshin #genshin impact lore #genshin lore #slime mod speaks #follow ups

[shoggothkisses]

UGHH I NEED TO WRITE AND EDIT MY "MIND BLOWING" POST ON THE TWINS BUT THE LORE DROPS IN THE 4.6 SPECIAL PROGRAM ARE DISTRACTING ME SO MUCH

I AM SHAKING THE PROVERBIAL SHOULDERS OF THE FANDOM TO NOTICE THE DESHRET/REMUS PARALLELS PLEASE?!!!

#genshin lore #genshin impact #genshin spoilers #genshin 4.6 spoilers #slime mod speaks

[shoggothkisses]

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE

Okay so, firstly, hiiiiiiiiiiii, how are youuuuuuuuuuuuuuu

Secondly, since Scara erased himself does that make Teppei alive now or did the delusion thing still occur as the deaths are a fixed point, only it’s caused by someone else (Signora?? or someone else with power who isn’t a Harbinger???)

hi!! doing pretty okay all things considered. chronic illness sure is chronic

i'm pretty sure the establishment of the Inazuma Delusion factory, and the deaths resulting from it, are fixed points. Scaramouche may have shown up in the Delusion factory, but the creation of the Delusions themselves and the source of their power (in Inazuma's case, Orobashi's curse-infected god-juice) is in no way affected by his presence or absence.

If Teppei hadn't exhausted his life energy fighting Scaramouche, he would have done it fighting someone or something else. (Honestly, I didn't even remember until now that Scaramouche even had a connection to Teppei's death?)

#genshin impact #genshin lore #anon asks #slime mod speaks

[shoggothkisses]

not related to lore I'm working on right now but this video from Ashikai on mushroom and Eucharist lore got me FUCKED up

#genshin lore #genshin impact #genshin #slime mod speaks #i am NOT WATCHING HER OTHER VIDEOS in case there's overlap with what I'm working on #i don't want to have my research influenced too much for now

[shoggothkisses]

accidentally took a detour into greco-roman mythology while reading the Davidson book and may have come across something HUGE like Y'ALL ARE NOT READY FOR WHAT MY NEXT POST IS GONNA IMPLY

#slime mod speaks #genshin lore #genshin impact #genshin

[shoggothkisses]

also as a quick update: i'm picking through chenyu vale VERY slowly but i've also been reading H.R. Ellis Davidson's Gods and Myths of Northern Europe and a lot of the comparitive-religion stuff that the author discusses has got me by the proverbial balls

so y'all will probably get more Mondstadt/Celestia lore discussion here before any deep chenyu posts 🙇

#slime mod speaks #genshin lore #genshin impact #genshin

[shoggothkisses]

@maelkacapsalaki12 I BEG YOUR PARDON!???? I WILL SCREAM

#genshin lore #genshin impact #follow ups #slime mod speaks #SERIOUSLY I WILL LOSE MY MIND

[shoggothkisses]

this flopped on the former bird app but maybe people will be more interested in my take here

#genshin impact #genshin lore #genshin #il dottore #mythology and folklore

[shoggothkisses]

HI HELLO CHENYU VALE WOKE MY BRAIN UP so maybe i will finally be able to get back to lore posting

#slime mod speaks #sorry shit has been PERSONALLY bad lately i feel like i lost all the info we learned in fontaine