#I'll warn you: this is a long post

[shikai-the-storyteller]

"So what's going on with Luzu?"

"...er, Zulu? Or is it Arin now?"

Here's a rundown of Luzu's current lore because nobody knows what the heck is going on anymore (partially because of the language barrier and partially because Luzu streams at the crack of dawn for half the QSMP fandom).

The TLDR of it: When Luzu goes to sleep, a completely different person "wakes up" in his body. This being was called "Zulu" for a short period of time, but they didn't like that someone else chose that name for them, so he goes by "Arin" now.

Here's what we know about Arin so far:

According to Arin, he's a disembodied consciousness, not a robot.

He borrows Luzu's body when he's asleep.

When this happens, Luzu's eyes are blue instead of red.

Arin isn't from the QSMP world. There's a "crack" between the world where he comes from and the material world [QSMP], which is how he's is able to visit. In his own words, "I was in a dark place, and I saw an exit."

When Arin falls asleep, Luzu wakes back up. Arin can't control when he does this, he just gets tired randomly and they're able to switch places.

Arin only speaks via the in-game chat.

Luzu doesn't know Arin exists. Arin thinks if Luzu knew, then he wouldn't be able to visit anymore, and he [Arin] would stop existing.

Arin believes he has a purpose that he must fulfill.

Arin says his first memory is hearing Quackity talking.

Currently, Arin's trying to find the meaning to his existence, trying to figure out the difference between good and bad, and how his actions (and existence) affects Luzu.

In terms of personality, Arin is very innocent and impressionable, but he isn't stupid. He's also very philosophical.

Arin enjoys learning, and he likes the sun, music, and bees.

He's afraid of the dark and monsters, and he doesn't like being in small places.

He calls the outside "the big room"

He only recently learned how to walk, and today he nearly drowned because he fell into a lake and didn't know how to swim.

People he considers friends / thinks positively of: Vegetta, Foolish, FitMC, Maximus [possibly Roier?]

People he doesn't like: Spreen

"It's complicated": Quackity

We have strong evidence to believe Arin is connected to the Binary Monster that's been attacking Eggs on the server.

Here's a comprehensive rundown of everything that's happened regarding Arin's interactions with other characters [quotes included] up until May 8th:

Last updated: May 8th [I'll go back and update this later when we get more information, so if I do I'll make a note of that above]

Lore is listed chronologically from oldest at the top to newest at the bottom

March 27th - Morning [VOD]

For a while now, Luzu has been seeing "glitches" in his game. Animals disappearing randomly, landscape changes, and various other things. We originally thought there was something wrong with his game, but these glitches seem to be tied to Arin.

The first person Arin spoke to was Vegetta. At this point, Arin seemed very aggressive, asking for information about everyone, wanting to gain more awareness so he could control the server.

He seemed to take a liking to Vegetta and told him: "Once everyone has died, I will vanish and only you will remain as warlord of these territories."

They also had this exchange: Arin: Do you have any enemies here Vegetta? I can take care of whoever you want for free. Vegetta: No. Truthfully, for the first time I have no enemies. Arin: Surely there is someone who thinks, "This little fool, if he dies nothing will happen." I'll take care of it.

Vegetta didn't take him very seriously, thinking Luzu was on drugs.

Arin said the first to fall would be Quackity, then Wilbur for his bad jokes on Day 1.

Thereafter, Arin's personality did a complete shift. Luzu [the streamer] says the role of "Arin" is something he came up with suddenly one day, so it's unclear if Arin was "reset" by someone or if Luzu decided to go in a different direction with the character once he realized this was something he wanted to commit to.

March 27th - Afternoon [VOD]

Note: At this point in time, Arin was being referred to as "Zulu", but since he's confirmed his name is "Arin", I've used that name instead of "Zulu" to avoid confusion and to keep things consistent.

The next time Arin woke up, he was in Luzu's house and couldn't move. He sent binary code in chat, and eventually, Roier, Quackity, Spreen, and Maximus came to see what was going on with him.

At that time, Arin says he was only 6 days old. He couldn't walk or move, and he could only speak via the in-game chat, so he was completely at the mercy of the other boys, who pushed him around, shoved him in a small hole, placed TNT around him, and threatened violence trying to get a response out of him. [Timestamp: 33m]

While this happened, Arin asked: "Why are you treating me so badly?" and said he was scared.

It should be noted that although Spreen and Quackity did most of the bullying, Roier and Maximus did nothing to stop it. Roier, however, did speak kindly to Arin and tried to figure out what he needed. [Timestamp: 42m 45s]

Unable to get a rise out of him, the boys eventually ask the English speakers currently online [Foolish and FitMC] to come help.

Upon first contact, Foolish tried waterboarding Arin to get answers and to test to see if he was a machine. [Timestamp: 50m]

Shortly after waterboarding him, Maximus and Foolish adopted him as their son. Because that's what you do after torturing someone, I guess. 🤷🤷🤷 [Timestamp: 51m 40s]

Despite the torture, Arin was quick to say "I LOVE YOU TOO!" back to Foolish and Maximus after they said it to him.

Arin accidentally hurt Maximus with a sword, not understanding what pain was. Once he realized he did something wrong that made Maximus feel bad, he immediately apologized. (Maximus forgave him).

FitMC's first interaction with Arin was punching him, trying to get him to "snap out of it" [Timestamp: 56m 30s]

Despite Foolish and Fits' initial introductions, both were kind to Arin eventually, although neither stopped Spreen from killing all but one of Luzu's dogs while once again trying to get a rise out of him. (Foolish also suggested killing all the dogs since it didn't seem like Arin was capable of taking care of them, though he said they shouldn't do it in front of Arin). [Timestamp: 1h 6m 30s].

Because Arin didn't know how to walk, Foolish put him in a boat and showed him what the outside world looked like. Arin was amazed by how beautiful the "big room" was and immediately started asking questions about the sun and the night, and the monsters they saw. [Timestamp: 1h 10m 30s]

Thinking he could "restart" Arin's memory and bring back Luzu, Maximus brought Arin (and Foolish) to a place where Quackity was sitting AFK in a boat. He shoved Arin inside the hole and refused to let him out, even though Arin was distressed being in such a small dark place. [Timestamp: 1h 17m 30s]

Foolish: So why do we have to put him in the hole? Maximus: I think when Quackity wakes up, he will help [Luzu] remember who Quackity is for him. The only person Luzu really really really loves, and Quackity really really loves, is Luzu and Quackity, each other.

[CONTEXT: Maximus played the character "Sapo Peta" in Karmaland, who was very dedicated to Quackity and Luzu's relationship. Canonically, the two of them loved each other very much, but a mix of trauma-projecting, miscommunication, emotional constipation, and betrayal led to them being on opposite sides of a revolution. Sapo Peta was only able to stop the war, and stop them from killing one another, by wiping their memories. So the implications from Maximus' comment above are... interesting, considering that Karmaland is a different world he shouldn't know about. However, we do know both Maximus AND Sapo Peta are confirmed characters in QSMP, so there's definitely something strange going on here...]

Earlier, Foolish described death as "going to sleep forever," so when Maximus mentioned Quackity was asleep, Arin asked, "Should I kill Quackity? Or would he not want that? Maybe he wants to sleep." Foolish and Maximus immediately told him no, and Arin stops, saying he didn't realize it was bad.

Maximus: You don't kill him, you love him! He's your friend.

Quackity then returns to his computer, takes one look at the fanfic-esque situation he's in, and immediately excuses himself by logging off the server (LMAO) [Timestamp: 1h 21m 20s]

Maximus and everyone else believed Arin was a robot.

FitMC suggested killing Arin since he seemed like "a lost cause," (thinking Arin couldn't hear him) to which Arin responded, "Why would you want to kill me?" When Fit tries to lie and say "kill" was another word for "hug", Arin says, "I'm learning but I'm not stupid." [Timestamp: 1h 24m]

Arin shares his thoughts with Foolish: - You are a good person, Foolish. I'll remember that. - In the last hour I've learned there are people and things, and I've learned there are good people and bad people. I've learned there are people that want to make me sleep, and people who kill things without caring. - I've also learned that not everyone deserves to be in the big room because they are dangerous. - I really love the big room. I think my purpose is to make the room free of danger, and free of dangerous people for animals and other people.

Foolish worries Arin is only learning about the cruelty of the world (to which Arin responds "I only learn from what I experience"), so Foolish plays him the disc "Otherside" (but still refuses to let him out of the hole). [Timestamp: 1h 28m 30s]

Shortly after this, Arin falls asleep.

March 28th - [VOD]

Luzu starts stream by talking about Arin and his role:

Luzu: I didn't prepare anything that happened yesterday afternoon... and now I have many ideas from yesterday and from what arose... I am a person who improvises a lot. [Original: Yo no preparé nada de lo que pasó ayer en la tarde... y ahora tengo muchas ideas desde ayer y de lo que surgió... soy una persona que improvisa mucho.]

Luzu finds a very strange building by his house and doesn't know who made it.

Arin doesn't make any major appearances, though he briefly takes over when Luzu goes to sleep.

March 29th - [VOD]

Note: Some important conversations happened in this VOD, so I've opted for adding the quotes directly rather than summarizing them.

Arin once again wakes up in Luzu's home. He greets the server with some binary, and Fit immediately asks if he's ok.

He still can't walk, but he uses his telescope to look at the bees Luzu set up outside his (er... their?) house the previous day.

He tries copying the bee's movement, but ultimately he still cant walk, so he messages Fit for help.

Fit visits his house and slowly teaches Luzu how to walk (with great success!) [Timestamp: 14m 20s]

As a reward, Fit gifts him some glowberries.

Arin spends the night in his home carefully walking around and avoiding the windows, afraid of the zombies wandering outside.

Maximus comes to visit, and Arin officially names himself "Arin" [Timestamp: 25m]

He also confirms he is not a machine.

Maximus teaches him what bees are and warns Arin not to hit or bother them, because they'll sting him. Arin asks, "When someone annoys you, do you have to hurt them?" (Maxo tells him yes)

Maximus escorts him outside, and Arin gets to look at the bees more. As soon as the sun gets down Arin gets nervous, but then the aurora comes out and he uses his telescope to get a better look, amazed by its beauty.

Arin says, "I feel grateful, I never thought that all this existed." Maximus also clears up his confusion about the outside being a "big room."

Arin yet again confirms that no one sent him to the QSMP, but he navigated to it through "a crack between worlds". He thinks Luzu is in his world every time he's in the QSMP, but he's not sure. He worries if Luzu knew about him, he'd stop existing.

Arin asks Maximus how he can walk around "the big room" when there's no light without being afraid. Maximus wants to teach him not to be afraid, so he lures a zombie into Arin's home so Arin can understand what they are better, then he convinces Arin to kill it, even though Foolish and the boys told him killing is wrong.

When Maximus scolds him for not knowing something "basic", Arin says: "Nothing is basic, it's just that knowing things for a long time makes them lose value to you. This world is unique to me. This is the first time I've existed. But to exist, or not exist, I have no choice. Suddenly I was here and I feel there is a purpose I must fulfill."

He and Maximus have a long conversation. Here are some key quotes from Arin: Arin: I don't want to hurt Luzu. I don't want to hurt anyone. Arin: If Luzu dies, I don't know what will happen to me. Arin: Maybe we fear what we don't understand. We feel threatened by what we cannot explain. When we feel threatened, we only want to make what we want to keep alive last and the material world. I think the material world haunts me to keep things as they've always been. Arin: Today I have learned to walk, I have learned what a bee is, and I have learned that even when light goes out, beauty appears. Arin: Hopefully I can help you [Maximus]. Everyone has been very good to me. I learn every day, so maybe soon I can learn to help you too.

Arin considers Fit and Maximus his friends.

Arin says he can't be here [in the QSMP world] for nothing, so he's trying to figure out what his purpose is. Maximus jokingly replies "When you figure out the meaning of life, tell me!"

Arin starts to question the morality of his existence when it's dependent on Luzu being gone.

Arin: If my existence takes Luzu out of existence, is my existence bad? Maybe if I help you, I can make my existence good. Maybe I can start by making [Luzu's room] more beautiful. Maximus: Yes, it would be bad because you are taking the life of another being to have your own.

Arin: In this world, it seems like everything is programmed to maintain a balance. There are things that create and things that destroy, things that are created and things that are destroyed. Neither is good or bad, they are just part of the same process. Maximus: That's the way of Tao, yes. Arin: Bees take pollen from flowers to make honey. I take potatoes from the earth, and if I die, I will become the earth that gives life to potatoes, and meanwhile I can decide to do good things or do bad things. Arin: What is the reason for existing, beyond the fact that we have the opportunity to do so? Maximus: You will indeed become a potato. Arin: But I think this world exists to do good things. There can't be so many beautiful things for there to only be bad.

After Maximus leaves, Arin starts collecting sand near the lake, but he accidentally falls in. He doesn't know how to swim and slowly starts to drown. [Timestamp: 1h 10m]

For several agonizing EXTREMELY STRESSFUL minutes, Arin desperately tries to keep his head above water. He sends Maximus a message asking for help, but Maximus is very far away, and Arin is already exhausted.

Not too far from him, Luzu sees a wandering trader and waves to them asking for help, but they ignore him.

Maximus manages to arrive at the last second and saves Arin. Arin asks why the villager didn't help him even though he was drowning, and Maximus explains that some people are neither good nor bad. They just exist. (NPCs)

I'll be honest, this is one of the most realistic depictions of drowning I've ever seen in any piece of media, and it's in a frickin Minecraft roleplay server. Luzu's a really good actor but I never want to experience something that stressful again lmao.

Arin's final thoughts: Today I have learned that the world is beautiful and dangerous at the same time. You can give life or take it away. That's why every moment we spend alive is worth enjoying. The world is very interesting.

April 17th - Morning [VOD]

Luzu finds out he's the father of Tilin. He's very excited to meet her after talking with Badboyhalo and Foolish, who don't know how to break the news to him that Tilin is dead.

After seeing Tilin's grave and hearing the confirmation from Bad and Foolish, he gets overwhelmed with grief and anger, and Arin takes over. [Timestamp: 1h 10m]

Arin says some interesting things when meeting Dapper: - Arin: "I saw your (the Egg's) birth in another way. I saw Dapper and other beings not being and suddenly being."

Arin also talks about the possibility of bringing Eggs, like Tilin or even JuanaFlippa, back to life: - Arin: When I'm asleep I can see the code behind existence - Arin: A part of the chain has disappeared,but that doesn't mean the chain can't be fixed. It's all part of a big code.

When Foolish asks if Arin could possibly mess with the code, Arin says, "I can try, but that would require something" [Timestamp 1h 16m]

Arin also tells them he's dependent on Luzu's existence for now.

While talking with Bad and Foolish, they hear strange noises and are suddenly attacked by the Binary Monster and a ridiculous amount of lag. Arin says, "They're coming specifically for me," and "They know I shouldn't be here." [Timestamp 1h 19m]

Arin also says, "They don't like that I made my way to this dimension" and warns Foolish and Bad not to get caught by the Binary Monster. If they get caught, Arin says they'll be taken to his [Arin's] world and they'll stop existing here.

They finally make it to Luzu's house, and he shows Foolish and Badboyhalo the structure he made outside the house. Foolish asks if it's Arin's mind since it seems like a big computer, and Arin says, "Something like that. With all I'm learning, I'm trying to figure out how to create bridges between my world and yours. In my world, bringing something back [like a dead Egg] isn't impossible like here. It's a matter of math." [Timestamp: 1h 25m]

Arin says farewell to them, leaving them with this final goodbye message.

That's all the lore thus far! This took so many hours to put together but I hope it helps folks out because lord knows I was a bit lost for a while there too. Please feel free to go crazy in the tags I love reading people's commentary on things.

★ Other QSMP info posts ★

Who is Sapo Peta? | Who is Luzu? | Who is Spreen? | Who is Vegetta? | Who is Rubius?

"Is this Lore?"

And if you want to hear my thoughts on QSMP and its lore-related shenanigans, this is my Qsmp Talk tag.

#QSMP #Luzu #Zulu #Arin #QSMP Info #This legitimately took hours of work I feel like death #Posting now because I know if I delay it I know Luzu will have done ANOTHER lore stream by the time I wake up #and I'll have to do even MORE work updating this #curse timezones #anyways pls... appreciate my efforts #the other posts were super fun to write but this one was legitimately hard work #THE TRANSLATIONS...........Luzu for the love of all that is holy please post a transcript for us next time it's so hard to see the chat #I'll warn you: this is a long post

[bitsybunbun]

There's a big ol' bb bondage gifset on my JFF today 🥳

Also you can now follow my backup blog over at @bunbunbitsy, just in case!

#bitsybunbun #i know a lot of creators have been taken down without warning lately- so if you want to keep seeing my stuff follow me there! #I'll post here as long as i can though so stay tuned!

[wildflowercryptid]

your harrow drawing gives me LIFE

AJSFJSKJDF; THANK YOU!! 😭✨ all of the positive reception on my harrow drawing (and my tangle tower stuff in general) has really warmed my heart, i really appreciate all the kind words everyone have left on it...

to properly show my appreciation, please enjoy this harrow microorganism inspired by the game's map sprites!

— credit to @whisperingrockers for harrow's design again. pls go check out her tangle tower stuff, it's all extremely good.

#i love the game's lil map sprites so i had to make one for harrow #if anyone wants a tutorial on how i did the boil effect just let me know and i'll try to explain it in another post #applying the effect itself wasn't too hard but i had some trouble w/ the file size (which was mostly my fault bc the gif was way too long) #i also couldn't get the transparency to not look weird so that's why she's just. standing in the void #BUT YEAH. thank you again to everyone for being so kind it really means a lot!! #detective grimoire #tangle tower #harrow hawkshaw #🎨 : mj draws #asks #tw gif warning

[cozylittleartblog]

okay the junk follower spam is officially over ( over 7k... what the fuck....) and I'm gonna start clearing it out so

📢 A REMINDER

PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, CHANGE YOUR ICON AND BLOG TITLE/HEADER TO ANYTHING THAT ISN'T THE DEFAULT

EVERYONE WITH A DEFAULT ICON AND HEADER IS BEING BLOCKED AND REPORTED SPAM

i respect your right to lurk silently but tumblr has an ongoing problem with b*t accounts, you can literally change your icon to a meme and your header to "not a bot lol", don't care, it just has to Not Be Default. or a real picture of a woman, actually, don't do that either. if blogs keep blocking you, that's why! if you don't know How to change those... try " google.com "

that is all

#delete later #you can even use My Art as an icon as long as you put “pfp by cozylittleartblog” in your bio! go ahead! as long as its not default #actually if you do use my art as an icon i Will see it and go “aww shucks :)” and wave my hand at my screen affectionately bc thats sweet #i have so many images. please do go browse. #i will leave this post up for a few days until i get rid of them all #and if i do block you by mistake you're welcome to contact me on a diff website with your username and i'll fix it #but the best way to stop that from happening is to please please please change your icons #nsane99 #sorry thats the funniest fucking reply actually and a good summary of this post #get to the shelters. this is your warning. i am about to October 23rd 2077 this place

[radioactivepeasant]

Fic Prompts: Free Day Thursday

(Picks up where Viper left off)

"You know you've got like a whole bucket of cactus paddles down there?"

Jak sauntered back into the throne room from the hidden door and tossed Damas a sealed bag of roasted crickets.

"I should hope it's a full bucket, considering I picked those this morning."

Damas pulled out one of the cooked insects, plucked off the legs, and popped the rest into his mouth.

"You don't eat the legs?"

Jak draped himself over the edge of the throne to snatch a handful of crickets from the bag.

"They get stuck in my teeth," Damas complained, "I save them for my birds."

Daxter snickered. "Even Pecker?"

"If Pecker doesn't like the food, he's free to fly back to Onin," replied the king with an almost mischievous look.

"Oye, you didn't mess with anything in the kitchens, did you? The head cook is...tetchy."

"She's a miserable old cuss and she threw a knife at me," Jak said indignantly.

"She throws knives at everyone. You're lucky it was only a knife."

Around another mouthful of crickets, Jak made an appalled expression. "What else does she throw?!"

Damas grimaced and rubbed his forehead as if remembering an old injury. "Whatever is closest. Pans. Porridge. Whole onions. Cactus paddles with the spines still on."

Daxter started to come closer, but glanced at the dead snake still decorating the dais and thought better of it. "Hey, Jak doesn't need to go to the kitchens to experience that! All he has to do is get distracted while on the Leaper again and he'll have a mouth full of prickly-pear!"

"That wasn't my fault!" Jak protested hotly.

Damas raised a brow. "Oh? I hadn't heard about this one."

Hoping to avoid retelling the story, Jak quickly changed the subject.

"Wait, can you actually eat cactus?" he demanded.

He moved to sit cross-legged directly in front of the throne, and began examining the viper's mouth to get an idea of how to harvest the fangs later. Absentmindedly, he reached a hand back behind him, and was too deep in focus mode to register that this wasn't Daxter or Keira he was non-verbally bumming snacks off of. Nonetheless, Damas made a goodnatured scoff and placed several more crickets in his hand.

"You can eat specific kinds of cactus," Damas clarified. By the emphasis he placed on "specific", it was fairly obvious he was anticipating Jak trying to eat random cacti in town.

"Only the ones with the paddles like you saw, understand?"

"Sure, sure." Jak brushed this off. "But what do you make with them, though?"

Damas inspected the bag of crickets and sealed it back up to ensure that they would have some snacks during the coming meetings. "You use them for just about anything you need a vegetable for, honestly. I tend to grill them with lemon. Some people boil them for salads. Sig's mother is known in the East Quarter for frying it in batter and selling it in little cups."

"Ooh! We still haven't met Sig's ma!" Daxter chirped. He grinned wickedly. "We should ask her about Sig's embarrassing baby stories."

"She has no shortage of them," Damas agreed.

Daxter glanced back at Jak, happily munching crickets, and shuddered.

"On a scale of one to "Jak eats things raw if he can't figure out how to cook them", how hard is it to cook?"

Jak looked insulted. Damas snorted.

"After the afternoon appointments, I'll teach you one of the simpler methods. You won't need much- Jak, don't touch the fangs. We still need the evidence intact."

"I was just looking!" Jak defended.

"With your hands?"

With a gusty sigh, the teenager scooted back to the right of Damas’s seat. He looked a little cross, but it faded soon enough.

"What appointments do you have, anyway?"

Damas stood up to stretch. Precursors knew he wouldn't get a chance in the next few hours.

"Third bell after noon through fifth bell is reserved for Arbitration Court," he said. "Which is why I do not usually call you during those hours. My job as king is to uphold the safety of my people, ensure the continued functioning of the Beacon and the water filtration system, mediate disputes not serious enough for the Arena, and enforce laws agreed upon by myself and my council."

Jak made a face. "That sounds like a lot of being stuck inside."

Dryly, Damas asked, "Why do you think I planted an entire grove of date palms in here? I would have died of boredom years ago if I did not."

He turned to fix both boys with a stern look.

"Out of respect for your fellow Spargans, try not to fidget during Arbitration Court unless you notice something suspicious. After five is a monthly meeting with the northern clifftop farmers to discuss rent payments."

"You rent farmland?"

"They rent from me," corrected Damas. "I didn't clear boulders until my hands bled just to abandon my land when I became king."

Jak blinked. "Fair enough. Man, we should've charged Sandover rent, Dax."

"Pal, they thought we owed them compensation for being allowed to sleep on their porches and eat a bare minimum of their food," Daxter pointed out sourly.

He caught a troubled frown on Damas’s face after the statement.

"Hm. I would like your attention to be on the visitors most during the rent meeting and the council meeting after evening meal. If anyone has a problem with me, specifically, that's likely where they'll turn up."

Jak eyed the snake again. "And if they blow their cover, I get to take 'em out, right?"

"No." Damas narrowed his eyes and pointed at Jak as he sat down again. "I need to determine how far the plot goes. No killing the assassin or accomplices."

"What about after?" Jak pressed.

"I'm the aggrieved party, I'm the one who deals with them," Damas said in mild reproof.

Jak folded his arms. "I dunno, we're feeling pretty aggrieved, right Daxter?"

"Positively outraged," Daxter added, sounding more bored than offended. "More Jak than me, but he's the sensitive type. You know him."

"Yes," Damas said, shaking his head with a small smile, "Yes I do. The answer is still "no", Jak."

Jak huffed and settled more comfortably against the throne. "You never let me do anything fun," he joked.

"I don't, I really don't." Damas reached over to prod the back of Jak's head affectionately.

"I'm a horrible, mean, adult who only lets you risk life and limb four days out of the week instead of every three hours."

"The folks in Haven would think that was the worst kind of tyranny, not being able to make us do all their work for them," Daxter scoffed.

The lift began to rattle, and Damas cleared his throat.

"Well, back to work. Eyes open, my boys. Let us see if we can't catch a would-be assassin. Jak, don't touch the fangs."

"I wasn't!" Jak protested.

Neither of his companions looked convinced.

#fic prompts #writing prompts #jak and daxter #dadmas #king damas #jak and daxter au #free day thursday #long post #welcome to adult supervision Jak #never had roasted cricket but as long as it didn't gave the head I'd try it #i guess i should give the viper oneshot a tag now that its not a oneshot anymore #its an au where Damas is subtly coaching Jak to be his successor so maybe that could have something to do with the name? #or maybe I'll just stick to Viper au #Jak has impulse problems but in his defense i would also be poking a dead viper with a stick #tw animal death #said animal went down in self defense i grant you but I'm actually rather fond of snakes so the warning stays #we'll just say this particular snake was a Known Problem to the wider Snake Community #it probably double parked in snake parking lots and tried to make all its old highschool peers join snake mlms #rip random fictional snake: you shall be hissed #viper au

[shady-tavern]

WIP for the long short-story “Holding Curses with Gentle Hands”

Lune had been born a little different, two minutes before her twin brother Luc, into a world teeming with magic. She grew up like any other little girl, playing and roughhousing, splashing through mud with her brother. They learned how to climb trees up and down with all the fearlessness of someone who had not quite yet learned how painful falling could be.

She was bright and inquisitive and always pulled her brother along towards her next idea. Showing him snails and slugs and bugs and bees. He came up with stories of all kinds as they played, creating crafty trolls and sweet little fairies as they swung sticks around and made dolls out of grass and flowers. 

They came back home with skinned knees and rips in their clothes and grins so wide and bright they might just rival the sun. They were, indeed, very happy children.

It was only when school started that Lune and Luc learned that they were different. In a world where their neighbor grew a bucket of strawberries in the span of a week, where the grouchy mayor always looked sparkling and perfect and every child learned at least one or two cantrips as they grew up, they were very, very ordinary.

Not a single spark of magic was to be found in their veins.

At first their parents were very concerned, worried that something had happened to their beloved children. That someone might have cursed the babes out of jealousy. Their mother sought out everyone she might have accidentally insulted to apologize, while their father reached out to old friends he lost contact with, worried he might have offended them.

But when an expert came by, he told them the children were fine. They were just ordinary. As bland as old lettuce, he said.

"They're bright children," their neighbor said while bringing them a bowl of strawberries. "It doesn't matter if they have magic or not. At worst their lives will be a little boring."

"We'll adjust their classes," their kind and cheerful teacher promised. "Don't worry, we'll compensate for their lack of magic. They could become great, um, scribes!"

"They don't understand what they're lacking," the mayor said offhandedly during one of his rounds through their little town. "They were born without magic, they didn't lose it. That's a good thing, it will cause them less grief."

Lune and Luc heard their parents cry at night and they looked at each other, deciding that if they had no magic, at least they could be kind. They would make sure their parents wouldn't have to be so sad all the time.

They became some of the hardest working students their school had ever seen and the entire town had nothing but praise for the friendly twins willing to lend a helping hand. Their parents got used to their magic lacking children and while everyone in town knew and never failed to inform travelers and traders about the unfortunate twins, it bothered them less and less over the years.

When the time came that Lune and Luc were old enough to leave the house, their parents were incredibly reluctant to let them go.

"There are a lot of dangers in the world," their mother worried, wringing her hands. "You have no magic to defend yourselves with."

"We'll be careful," Lune promised. "And we'll stick together."

"How will you avoid bandits and rogue mages and magical beasts?" their father fretted, packing daggers into their bags.

"We'll stay on the road," Luc answered. "The queen's road is safe and regularly patrolled. We'll stick with other travelers and traders so we won't be alone."

Their words soothed their parents. While they were sad to see their children go, they gave the twins everything they could possibly need and sent them on their way.

For the first time, Lune and Luc left their hometown and soon they realized how freeing it was to meet people who had no idea who they were. What they were lacking.

They reached a big city after a couple of weeks, getting lost among winding streets and big, bustling crowds. They met mercenaries and adventurers and at one point, Luc started to write down stories inspired by their tales if they agreed to speak to him. He accumulated a big book full of daring tales, of dashing heroes and wicked foes and wondrous places. Of loss and love and what it meant to be brave.

They settled down in the city after a while. Luc learned to play the lute from an old bard and spent his nights in taverns, chatting up travelers and earning his keep by playing music and telling his tales. As well as fleecing drunkards at games of dice.

Lune found herself working at an antique store that doubled as a pawnbroker. Many of the adventurers came to get rid of the odd trinkets and pretty, shiny knickknacks they picked up during their travels and quests.

Sometimes, the items they tried to pawn off were magical and that always made her boss leery. He always refused them, sending them on their way.

"It just means shit's cursed," he would grumble into his majestic beard. "They would not come to us if they could sell magic items to mages instead. Don't touch those things, even the best mages can't always defend themselves against curses."

"Can't curses be broken?" She had heard enough of those tales from the stories Luc read her. He liked to read things he wrote out loud, getting her opinion on his wording and descriptions.

"Aye," the shop owner dusted one of the stained glass decorations he had been trying to sell for a while now. "But you can only remove the curse from the person, not from the item. That's what makes curse casters so much trouble, they fuck up perfectly good merchandise. The best you can do is destroy the item in question and hope that the curse let's go. Doesn't always work, but it's worth a try."

He made Lune promise to never accept magical items from anyone and already the next day she unwittingly broke that promise. She had no magic and therefore no sense for magic either. 

She accepted a plain gold necklace from a mercenary while her boss was in the backroom. The woman had handed the necklace over with gloved hands and a relieved look in her eyes.

Lune chalked that up to her having debts to pay off and startled when her boss returned only to start cussing.

"Stupid girl," he hissed, staring at the necklace in her hand while the woman bailed before she could be stopped. "That's magic, cursed magic! Do you have any idea what that will do to you?"

Startled, Lune dropped the necklace onto the counter and they both stared at it as though it was a life, poisonous snake.

#my writing #wip #work in progress #fantasy #this is another long one shot #still working on vampire lullaby's part 3 don't worry #and some other little things I'll post as soon as they're done #in case you can't tell #i have no idea how posting WIPs works #this story will have a warning for implied animal abuse and child abuse #just so you know #as well as implied off-screen murder

[dangerous-advantage]

throughout usagi yojimbo, there is this running theme of fatherhood, with usagi generally enjoying interactions with kids. if possible, he tends to seek them out (this is just as adorable as it sounds, btw)

as somebody who has long been iffy about the subject of kids/kid fics and media with a big focus on this, i'm surprised to find just how much i like sakai's exploration on the subject.

so, i've decided to delve into (a part of) why i think this works so well for me. for this, i'm focusing on UY issue #54: the return of the lone goat and kid.

(beware spoilers <3)

(caption: a cropped image of the cover of usagi yojimbo issue #54.)

within this issue, we witness the return of the lone goat and kid, betrayed samurai turned legendary assasin mercenary, with his young son, gorogoro.

i immediately liked these characters when first reading, not only because of the general badassery that they tend to exude, but also because they are very autistic-coded (/pos /lh), and gorogoro is depicted as non-verbal.

(note: he could be very young, but i'm fairly certain he just prefers not to talk, and saves his words for very specific occasions. either way, i love him a normal amount totally definitely /j.)

seeing their return was a welcome surprise, and though usagi and yagi are very autistic when interacting (/pos), usagi's soft-spot for kids plays a big part in their relationship, having saved gorogoro from falling to his death the last time they crossed paths.

even more welcome of a surprise was the plot and focus on gorogoro and usagi's relationship. i love to see usagi allowed to just... hang out with kids. you can tell he really enjoys doing it w/out the story putting a huge emphasis on that fact, which is part of why i enjoy it so much.

(the kid in question.)

now, to break this all down nice and simply, sakai's comics are generally so well done that i think you could just read the comic yourself and glean the same idea, probably in a better, more meaningful way than i can explain it.

but i've already committed, so here we go.

when we first meet gorogoro, he's being chased by a bunch of henchmen who intend to use him as bait for the capture of his father (being a very, very, very wanted man. er, goat.)

usagi stumbles upon him being threatened by one of the few other rabbits in this series and proceeds to suplex him after his hat is ruined. after that, we get the first good-parent-role-model-usagi moment:

(usagi participates in 10 out of 10 parenting/responsible adult behavior. to avoid writing this out ten million more times, i will simply be referring to this phenomenon as usagi being 'father material.')

he (re)introduced himself, puts himself in the (well-earned) position of "trustworthy adult" and then tries to figure out where tf yagi is. gorogoro, of course, does not speak, but instead of pushing him for an answer, he comes up with a conclusion and offers a solution.

usagi: "i guess you two have been seperated, huh. well, it's dangerous in these woods. there could be more of those guys around."

usagi: "there's a town not far away. your father will have an easier time finding you there."

he then invites gorogoro to come with him, saying he can escort him to the town. gorogoro seems unconvinced.

this might be the point where a lesser protagonist would try and convince/force the kid to come with them, or even manipulate them in some way (i.e. offering false promises/reassurances or just straight up lying.)

usagi, however, is not a lesser protagonist.

(several more panels of father material usagi content.)

quick side tangent: you could argue this is somewhat irresponsible, but i disagree.

usagi has met yagi and gorogoro before, and he knows that gorogoro is a smart kid. he doesn't have the full story for why gorogoro is here. for all he knows, gorogoro is on his way to meet up with his father somewhere farther on in the forest.

the point is: he doesn't try and make a decision for gorogoro or try and coax/force him into making one. he instead treats him like an equal and offers him the choice of whether to follow him or not.

when gorogoro doesn't seem to actively seek his help, he walks away, giving gorogoro full reins of his decision while also respecting an unspoken boundary that gorogoro has made.

(though, to be fair, he did assume gorogoro would follow him-- an assumption that paid off.)

("i see you decided to come along after all.")

what's important here isn't that his guess paid off, it's that he allowed gorogoro to make the decision. not to mention, he still hasn't quite figured out how to best work with gorogoro, as is showcased in the following panels:

(usagi participates in ableism /j /lh /not serious)

usagi is shown to be "good at kids." he gets along with them, and they tend to like him in turn. but that's not just an innate talent (though aptitude to kids does play a big part of it.)

he invests in positive relationships by treating children not as we often see/think of in parent-child or adult-child platonic relationships, but by treating them like equals. simply, he offers them the same respect he would offer anyone else.

which is so fucking important.

anyway, they get to the town and go to an inn inside, where usagi buys gorogoro food. once again, he exhibits king and father material attributes.

gorogoro doesn't look interested in eating the food. this is the exchange that follows:

and then:

(the 'king shit' in question)

now. let's break this down.

usagi offers food, but gorogoro is distrustful. he employs a tactic that may have worked on other children to try and convince/reassure gorogoro that eating it is fine. gorogoro is, in fact, unconvinced.

then, instead of getting irritated, or continuing to try and (unsuccessfully) convince gorogoro the food is convinced, he uses what he's observed about gorogoro/what he knows about gogoro's life to understand what he is actually saying.

he does not force him. he doesn't get annoyed. when he calls him 'weird,' it feels less like an insult and more like a neutral observation, one that he then uses to better work with/communicate with gorogoro.

('does [he] know kids or what,' indeed.)

in the space of two pages, usagi was able to figure out how to better work with gorogoro, not by changing gorogoro, but by changing his methods.

his outlook is not the one we see depicted in much of modern media-- "the parent is always right, and the child must do as they are told."

instead, it introduces a sense of respect, and therefore trust, into their dynamic. i thought i could only get something this good from roald dahl's matilda, but of course, i should've known to never doubt stan sakai /lh

this of course, isn't the end (but we are close!). a bunch of plot stuff happens, and in the search to reuinte gorogoro with his father, usagi ends up on a bridge, with enemies after gorogoro's head (and associated reward) flanking either side of it.

gorogoro, while still maintaining his distance/boundaries, shows that he trusts usagi by running behind him when threatened.

not only that, when usagi orders him to stay behind him (for reasons of protection,) he does so and continues to do so. because usagi has earned his trust, he feels comfortable entrusting usagi with his safety, where he was less comfortable doing so at the beginning.

(the bridge show-down, with the addition of usagi's killer clapback of a line. 10/10, i laughed.)

there's only one other moment i want to mention, but despite how small of a detail it is, it's what got me thinking about this whole thing.

after usagi realizes he's been flanked on either side and will need to fight his way out in order to keep gorogoro safe, this exchange happens:

one of the very first things usagi must have noticed is the silent boundary that gorogoro put up, one that he's been maintaining this entire time. he prefers space-- i.e., he would rather not be touched, at least not without permission.

in this scene, a lesser protagonist would have snatched gorogoro up by the arm, let loose some feral battle cry, and then rushed all seven henchmen using only one arm.

usagi is not a lesser protagonist.

he takes a moment, however small, to communicate his intentions to gorogoro. "i need to carry you" doubling as a silent question: can i carry you?

while he probably would have had to either way, usagi already built up trust between himself and gorogoro. so, gorogoro obliges.

and then usagi single-handedly (literally!) fights his way through seven guys.

ok, well, that's not quite true-- yagi, the 'lone goat' of the duo (more like G.O.A.T -- yes, i have been waiting for a time to make that godawful pun, and no, this is not an appropriate time, but i had to make it. you don't understand /j /nsrs) shows up on the other side pushing gorogoro's cart, and also contributes to the slaughter.

which leads to this epic, two-page panel:

(its so good ITS SO GOOD--)

after this, the story is wrapped up, the kid is returned to his goat, and usagi and the lone goat and kid go their separate ways (for now.)

as you can probably guess, this depiction of platonic child/adult relationships is very, very important to me, not only because i feel we need more of this in the general media, but also to me, specifically, as a member of the neurodivergent community.

seeing a character that i genuinely like respecting the unspoken boundaries of a nonverbal child character means a lot to me. whether he meant it to be interpreted this way or not, it really feels like we get to see an autistic character having different needs/wants and not being shamed for that by the narrative.

this is only one aspect of what makes usagi yojimbo so great, but it showcases some of the many details that sakai uses to create a well-paced, interesting, and engaging narrative.

gone are the annoying, one-dimensional kid characters and the terrible tropes that usually follow them. instead, sakai treats the children in his characters the same way that usagi treats them: as people, characters that have motivations and reasons and that deserve time and respect as well.

as i stated before, i have long shied away from kid-related stories, especially those with younger kids. but lemme tell you. UY has won me over.

i would happily pay away my livelihood to read 700 more panels with usagi toting around a 6-month-old while he talks about conspiracies with the town inspector (see: usagi yojimbo issue [blank]: [name]), or usagi letting the kid of the family he's staying with admire his blades [insert comic here.]

sakai just gets kids, and now when i'm faced with the question of: is this an example of positive parenting/guidance?, i just ask myself, "would usagi do that?"

and it answers my question.

bonus: usagi and yagi being absolutely not in any way incredibly autistic at each other during The Exchange.

(note: their smiles in that end panel make it all worth it, i think.)

#(fair warning: this is *long*) #i'm giving in to the hyperfixation #when my uy sideblog is presentable i'll rb there #for now this is fine #usagi yojimbo #uy #miyamoto usagi #usagi yojimbo analysis #usagi miyamoto analysis #uy analysis #as you can tell i am very normal about this character #long post #tw long post #analysis #undescribed #i meant to make those captions accessible but i wanted to just get this out there before i lost motivation #so i'll come back in later and add actual descriptions haha

[jestiamy]

yeah I've. been into undertale aus again. happy birthday fresh. alt ver under cut

fresh sans by @loverofpiggies . I don't think I have any extra notes. other than. yeah sorry my style has been (more) inconsisent lately ; I've been trying out stuff

#fresh sans #fresh sans fanart #fresh fanart #light eyestrain warning #cw light eyestrain #sans au #sans au fanart #art stuffs #I wanted to post something for his self-recognized birthday on the first #but unfortunately I was busy with my real human being friend's birthday. which is actually on the first #sorry fresh sans. I'll try harder next time. #you wouldn't know this about me unless you were me or perhaps a very dedicated obsessive but #I've actually liked fresh since like. 2018. which doesn't seem so long ago but it's been six years or something #passage of time; super crushing; I've done this joke rant like. nine times now. I really need to get a new joke #fresh #fresh art #fresh sans art #I like the colouring on this one. I've been trying to make my stuff more interesting lately

[deeva-arud]

Boo!

I'm the paranormal activity on your dash :]

#Udi posting in 2023? truly a christmas miracle #Now it'd be pretty funny if everyone seeing this collectively thought 'who the hell is this person?' I mean. UNDERSTANDABLE- #I've been gone for so long I don't even recognise this dash layout help?? #Excuse me while I have a grandma moment trying to figure out where things are #Anyway I don't have much to post since I've barely drawn in all these months. So many art blocks stacked on top of more art blocks #(among other things) #BUT I still have some drawings here and there. Not the best I've ever produced but hey it's something #and you know what happens when Udi has an art block? Exactly. Cateeva content (and silly drawings) (｡•̀ᴗ-)✧ #Now it's time for me to fill my room with sticky notes reminding me to take things easy #you'll have to bear with my slowness for a little bit longer. Life hit me hard recently and everything feels so heavy to me #but I just didn't want to let this year pass without saying anything... #I actually missed being on here. If I see art or an oc from any of my moots I'll probably cry on the spot #Moot reading this you've been warned (🫶) #I'll shut up now. I really hope everyone's doing as good as they can. This is such an awful world #Udi talks

[huntunderironskies]

hi sorry to bother ypu again but i wanted to ask How would werewolves that still keep their old religion syncretized them together ? Especially when in regards of judaism

Okay, uh, this got really long, wow. Hopefully that makes it clear you have absolutely no reason to feel like you're bothering me because I love this stuff.

I do really hesitate to answer for Judaism because pre-Nicene Christianity and mysticism (and to a much lesser extent Sufism) are my focus areas so I am not an authority at all, but I can try. Also I've specifically taken a class on theological philosophy done by a fairly authoritative figure in free will theology so I think about the relationship between people and god/s a lot which means I can kind of give a generalist answer there. I'm primarily familiar with monotheistic faiths and those are the faiths that are going to have to do some extra theological legwork to explain everything so I'll focus on that.

This is SUPER long so I'm going to put it below a cut, I'll also talk a little about my OCs to give some ways that I've had characters hold syncretic beliefs in case that inspires some ideas.

Content...warning....???: Lots and lots of existential matters, big thinks on salvation, theology talk, etc.

First things first: I am very biased since religious mysticism is one of my academic interests but I think mysticism and in particular ecstatic mysticism would square nicely with werewolf existence. Mysticism is much more personal and visceral than more traditional faith paths and the sense of uncomplicated joy that comes with ecstatic practices would be a really welcome break from the usual werewolf things. For more tame forms of mysticism, the sense of unity and peace would be nice too but it's easier to imagine a werewolf drifting towards the more active forms.

Onto actually talking about syncreticism. This is something that Christianity and also to some extent Islam* is concerned about, but it's very easy to justify other powerful beings that aren't God if you've been faced with seemingly undeniable reality that beings more powerful than humans exist. You do have to kind of grapple a lot with the idea as humanity being God's ultimate creation but if you're a werewolf you're sort of faced with that idea already, I'll have to return to that point briefly later. The methodology given to me that metaphysicists use to justify the qualities of being truly worthy of all worship, henceforth referred to as a capital-G God for simplicity's sake, are that this hypothetical God would have maximal qualities, meaning that God would have the greatest possible power in all attributes.

You might be more familiar with the term omnibenevolence, omniscience, etc. in this case but for whatever reason maximal qualities gets used more. I would imagine because it's more directly indicative, it gets you out of the mire of having to explain that, no, omnipotence does not mean that God can create a rock that he can't lift. Trying to define maximal attributes** does get you into some weird places outside of the "rock you can't lift" trope, I know one thing we talked about in my classes was with regards to how omniscience could be defined. The ultimate conclusion was "holding all possible knowledge" but "all possible knowledge" didn't include every possible thought because it would not be reasonable for God to have the same knowledge that you or I might of "I am [name]," as that would imply that God is you or I and also everyone else who has any self-awareness. This is perfectly fine if you're a pantheist (as with the very confusing love of my life, Anne Conway, who I would conduct necromancy on just to pick her brain) but less so for most traditional monotheistic faiths.

All of this is to say: a werewolf who wants to hold onto monotheistic faiths can justify it easily and not have it be totally logically inconsistent. It's not that Luna, the Firstborn, or Father Wolf are false gods, nor are they Gods, they're just very powerful beings. You don't have to and in fact shouldn't worship them, they don't have the necessary qualities that are deserving of worship. You can emulate them to some degree, you can acknowledge they helped create you, that's fine. But your God is the one who has earned your worship. You don't start bowing before the first Rank 5 spirit that crosses your path, do you? Just because something is powerful doesn't mean it's worthy of your love and devotion.

And, I mean, maybe there's kind of a point in there. Any werewolf who has ever talked to a Lune can tell you that Mother Moon is kind of unstable. There's also the issue that Father Wolf is, you know, dead, no matter how badly the Pure Tribes wish that wasn't the case, so you can't do a whole lot with that.

Monotheistic pantheism or religiously focused panpsychism*** (which isn't out of the question for Christians, at least, Alfred North Whitehead and Anne Conway were panpsychists while Baruch Spinoza was a Jewish panpsychist) also provides a pretty easy out there and even kind of has some grounding since panpsychism and animism are closely related. If you're going with a Conwayist (this is a word I have just made up as one of the five people who really like Anne Conway) interpretation, you could have fully sapient Rank 6 spirits be another sort of middle-nature conduit between werewolves and God. Spirits can grant the omnipotent powers that God has, making werewolves more like-God, but they lack the omnibenevolent qualities and remain imperfect and not-like-God. Again, not things you should emulate, but part of God's perfect plan.

...actually I think I'm onto something here, I might have to double back to work on this later and make a Lodge with this as their viewpoint.

So on the upside for people who want to hold onto their original faith path, the thing about a lot of religions is when that magic is effectively real, suddenly miracles get a lot easier to explain. Prophets could be otherwise ordinary humans inspired by God but they could also be supernatural beings. Or you just start having your own miracle-workers who are supernatural beings guided by God. The Storm Lords in one game I ran were very connected to the Catholic Church and had their own secret saints they venerated, some of whom were Storm Lords, but not all. Storm Lords are very Catholic in general in my opinion. Big focus on stoically enduring suffering and trying to attain a greatness you'll never be able to really achieve. That's neither here nor there though.

Under this paradigm, Gifts are basically little miracles you can perform. Yeah, they're kind of grim sometimes, but so are the ones in saint stories. I mean, you get things like people carrying their own decapitated heads. Acts of God don't need to be tame or gentle or clean. Werewolves would absolutely be the more blunt-force instrument of divine power in this sense and it's something that a werewolf who believes this would want to embrace.

I think it also kind of helps out werewolves to know how closely connected they are to humanity and that a huge chunk of sapient supernatural beings (I would personally not say that God-Machine angels, spirits, most goetia, honestly kind-of-sort-of the True Fae, etc have both free will and sapience as a philosopher might define it but we are REALLY getting out into the weeds there) are born as humans. Some of them might still think of themselves as human, just either cursed or blessed by God, which still leaves humanity as the ultimate creation of God as suggested by the Bible. This is really more a Christian concern than anything else, though, I'm pretty sure Imago Dei is almost exclusively Christian as a theological concept.

That said there's definitely room to go the Lancea et Sanctum route and become incredibly self-loathing and see yourself as fundamentally damned or undeserving of whatever reward humans might eventually get. Living a life of extreme violence when most monotheistic faiths are generally against excessive violence would be a problem. Most faiths account for righteous wars of some kind (some Christian denominations would not, you'd really struggle as a Quaker werewolf) and the issue comes more in the form of Death Rage being indiscriminate. Directing violence at those who've earned it is fine, but you can't always do that. It's really hard to pull yourself away from the idea of being uniquely evil in that regard.

There might be a tendency to skew towards the Flesh due to that. Death Rage is fundamentally a werewolf's spirit-side coming to the front. They're not really a person anymore, they're a person-shaped conduit for death because they're in part spirits of the hunt. I think it'd be easy for a monotheistic werewolf to see their spirit-side as the "evil" half of their being and for in particular Christian werewolves...possibly also Sikh werewolves since I know that rage is one of the Five Thieves.

I did do a paper on Sikhi practice (I would have gotten to visit one of the few gurdwara in my region in-person and didn't because of the pandemic and I am still super bitter about it,) so I can touch on that a tiny bit as well. Sikhi syncreticism for werewolves would probably focus a lot on trying to control and overcome Death Rage. I cannot imagine there being a lot of Blood Talons among Sikh werewolves and the ones that are there would really, really, REALLY lean in hard on the "learning to control your Rage" aspects of being a Blood Talon.

Quick note on another consideration. For Muslim werewolves or any other Muslim supernatural being, the idea that anyone could become a prophet after Muhammad would be a huge theological no-go. Less of a big deal in the other monotheistic faiths, though. But a cornerstone of Islam is that Muhammad is the final prophet. I think your average Muslim Cahalith could and would make a case they have supernatural insight, but it's not necessarily God telling them how to guide humanity. I know that by Sufi folklore a few wali were supposed to have incredible awareness of events going on around them (the story I'm thinking of is an anecdote of a wali whose name escapes me who saw a bird suddenly fall to the ground dead and knew this was a sign that a sultan had died) but these miracles were not supposed to make them speak for God. Point is, I cannot imagine a Muslim Cahalith ever thinking of themself as being part of a prophet class from my admittedly still limited understanding of Islam.

Oh, Muslim werewolves would also have a leg up in the sense that it's acknowledged in the Qu'ran that anyone can become a Muslim, even jinn...or werewolves, and they'll still attain salvation so long as they follow God faithfully. I think you would see more self-loathing amongst Christian werewolves than Muslim or Jewish or Sikh werewolves, in short.

Also, not an expert on Zoroastrianism other than having a vague awareness of its influence on the other monotheistic religions and knowing the fun factoid that sometimes Zoroastrians were counted among the People of the Book early on in Islam's history, but I think that Zoroastrian werewolves would have a unique niche here in being able to justify their beliefs. From my limited understanding you could potentially qualify the Firstborn as being ahura while a lot of nastier spirits and ESPECIALLY Wound-related phenomena as being Aka Manah. It feels like a huge missed opportunity that there wasn't a Zoroastrian Lodge or that the Lodge of the Savior didn't have at least some Zoroastrian presence at some point or another. In its defense, the concept of the Maeljin being corrupted versions of werewolf Renown didn't exist until 2e (and to be perfectly clear, is a fantastic idea that makes the Maeljin and Bale Hounds more focused around werewolf concerns.)

Bloodless hunts would be super appealing to monotheistic werewolves as well. Claiming territory from wicked people, tracking down lost knowledge, that kind of thing. You'd also have to work a lot harder to make sure you're killing someone who deserves it. If they're sapient. Which, again, things like Shards and spirits arguably aren't. You can logic yourself into the position that the reason that murder is bad is because it's inflicting pain on someone pretty easily, you don't have to take a commandment at purely face value. If you explore why God has forbidden something, that gives you a lot more loopholes to work with. Ideally you want to be consistent with your logic, but not everyone is. The one issue is the Hunt has to be proactive by definition, while the most cut and dry examples of justifiable violence in these traditions comes from self-defense.

To get into how I've had my characters deal with theological issues...my only two still-Christian werewolves are Philippe (pictured in my avatar) and Levi (I've posted art of him a few times.) I'll talk mostly about Levi since his personal theology is the most complex and gives an idea of how weird theology can become if you're a werewolf.

Levi is a member of the Lodge of the Savior and is actively convinced that the material world is Hell while the Shadow is just another circle or facet of that. A lot of this is because the Flesh seems to have a direct link to whatever is inside Wounds, and it's way, way too easy to rip open a hole there. He can also see the God-Machine (long story) which really isn't helping.

Like most Thebans he's committed himself to hunting Malejin, killing Bale Hounds, and closing Wounds. He doesn't think salvation is beyond reach, but the way he's reasoned the world being as bad as it is is because in his personal theology, well, God can't help you if you're in Hell.

Most of this is heavily influenced by a regional cult called the Church of the Night Angel, which he is technically a member of. They believe that all sapient monsters are gifted their miraculous powers by a servant of God they call the Night Angel (who gets syncretized with a lot of minor deities and also is sometimes, albeit rarely, identified as Vahishtael,) but those gifts have been corrupted by a being known as the First Lie, the Spire, the Adversary, and about a dozen other epithets into what they are now (translator's note: the First Lie is the God-Machine.) The God-Machine, being jealous of God's wonderful creations, stole humanity from Him and trapped them in Hell.

They still have the chance to choose good, it's just harder than it should be. As such the highest duty they have is to fight the servants of the First Lie. These are defined as demons (beings without free will created by the First Lie to serve It,) the Pretenders (natives of the material world who try to deceive others into following them over God or His servant who has come to free everyone from Hell, the Night Angel, but ultimately serve a greater purpose in the world) and the Fallen-of-Purpose. The Fallen-of-Purpose are the worst of all these. The Pretenders and demons can't help what they are, but the Fallen-of-Purpose are monsters who make the active choice to do what the First Lie wants them to do by submitting to the evil parts of their nature.

Oh, to be clear as an aside, when I say material world I mean everything in the Fallen World. This includes places like the Hedge, Shadow, and so on. Those are just a different kind of Hell.

Note that as a supernatural taxonomy, this is a really bad one due to how loosely defined the categories are especially when you get really trigger-happy around things that aren't "of the Night Angel" and the Angelaltrists tend to speak very authoritatively about other monsters in extremely simplistic ways. Their attempts to fight the God-Machine also end up with a lot of splash damage and they kill both capital-D Demons and Angels without discrimination (and yes, under their taxonomy, Angels are demons. Don't think too hard about it.) You would be very hard-pressed to find an Angelaltrist who would take a Demon at their word that they've broken free of the God-Machine because all of them consider anything of the God-Machine to be ontologically evil by the transitive property. Things that are of the God-Machine are not of God and not of the Night Angel. QED.

Malejin are pretty definitively demons under this theory, and I'd almost say Levi is more an Angelaltrist than a Hound of God even if he kind of takes aspects of both. As a Storm Lord he primarily focuses his efforts on people who are being Ridden by Wound-corrupted spirits and people Claimed by the Wounded spirits, and of course to close Wounds as a preventative measure. He doesn't have to deal with any real regret for killing Claimed either. The person is long dead and the spirit killed them. You're just destroying a shell.

It's a matter of figuring out if the spirit should be eliminated for good from there. If it's a Wounded spirit, you're just conducting an act of euthanasia. It's destroying a rabid animal, nothing more or less. Better it die fast than letting it live through the pain of falling to the Maeljin.

He sees Mother Moon as being just one aspect of the Night Angel and a representation of her fiercer aspects, while Winter Wolf is an early creation of the Night Angel who is especially powerful and has attained something close to living sainthood. That's why he hasn't died yet (read: why his Avatars are still wandering about.) He's strong enough he's chosen to continue living and fighting, rather than taking the offer of eternal repose in the Night Angel's paradise that all good monsters are offered. This just makes Winter Wolf even more of an ideal to live up to.

Philippe is still trying to deal with the whole monster thing. After a very delayed rite of passage (which involved switching Tribes from the Storm Lords to the Hunters in Darkness) he's sort of settled comfortably-ish into his new life with some trepidation. He largely sees the Firstborn as being more or less real, but not possessing maximal qualities worthy of worship. Black Wolf is the kind, gentle mother you can always talk to but she's not God-- she kind of takes the place of Mother Mary here, or just a really, REALLY powerful patron saint. And when I've written them, I've had the Hunters in Darkness be pretty guilty of putting Black Wolf above Mother Moon and Father Wolf, sometimes to the point of thinking she's now surpassed Father Wolf as a hunter even when he was at the height of his strength. So he doesn't really dwell on them very much. Father Wolf is dead and Black Wolf is alive. Mother Moon doesn't really call that often.

He definitely sees himself as not necessarily of humanity but not undeserving of salvation because the idea of not being able to be saved doesn't square with an omnibenevolent God. Was the blood sacrifice of Jesus meant for him too? Well, probably. He can make the active choice to follow Jesus. He's making every effort to do good in the world. If you're looking at this from a process theology standpoint, the Bible was written from the perspective of humans, so of course they're only thinking from a human perspective and not including beings of free will that aren't human. That doesn't mean that God can't love someone who isn't human and that God won't save someone who's made the free choice to follow Him.

He's very focused on killing Hosts, unsurprisingly. It's pretty easy to justify killing them, they set themselves up as false gods, aren't really whole beings anymore, and like, when you get down to it, you're only committing one-one-millionth of a murder so that's like, a venial sin at worst. But do you feel bad for every blade of grass you step on? Do you feel bad for taking an antibiotic to kill a disease? It is technically killing something. But you can't keep living if you don't walk, and there's more blades of grass out there than you can count. You'll die if you let an infection spread and then you'll take other people with you because you were too soft. God understands that.

Also it's Wilmington, so he's in a target-rich environment. The Uglathu are a huge problem there and the whole region has been in an ecological death spiral for decades in part because of them. Otherwise he'd have to worry about diversifying into things that are harder to justify more often. He does avoid hunting humans and werewolves, all that said, and thinks it's generally the wrong thing to do except in the most extreme cases like Bale Hounds or Slashers. Especially for human criminals, that gets more into the area of things that only God can judge for. It's not a werewolf's place to intervene.

Well. Maybe you can gently nudge the human authorities in the right direction. But even that makes him feel a little guilty. It doesn't feel natural.

Sorry if this doesn't get into legalistic concerns much at all, I'm more focused on the metaphysical aspects of religion so I can't speak a whole lot to that. Werewolves being able to eat spirits would probably cause a lot of concern over what spirits are halal or kosher and what methods of killing them would be acceptable, but I have no clue how to answer that. I like thinking about how it is possible for something to become infinitely more full of light but not jurisprudence.

*post-script here to say that I had one of my professors, who is an expert in pre-Nicene Christianity and someone I admire a lot, say that generally speaking it was Christian theologians who really kicked off obsessing over what the qualities of God might be in the sense of "when we say God's hand is in something, are we giving human attributes to God and therefore suggesting God is like humans and not divine?!" type stuff. Rabbis tended to be more chill. I'll admit I've kind of taken what he says at face value since he's read a lot more material from that time period than me and also Saint Augustine had a huge impact on theology and he's the most neurotic man who ever lived so I would believe it. Him and his pears.

** another post-script to say that under this paradigm the God-Machine doesn't qualify as a God, we see plenty of proof the God-Machine is arbitrary and eminently fallible. While Its knowledge is obviously very far-reaching, and It's clearly acting with goal-focused behavior, you would have an incredibly hard time arguing Its actions are anything approaching benevolent and most free will theologians would take the fact It uses beings without free will as Its primary servants as hard proof It cannot be good

***yet another post-script to say that panpsychism is herein defined as all things possessing some level of mind, and that material differentiation are either inconsequential or purely illusion, if memory serves Conway was more in the first realm while Spinoza was in the second-- this will seem familiar if you've got any level of familiarity with Buddhism and after asking a few experts there's some consensus that Spinoza at least had some awareness with Buddhist philosophy and was influenced by it. It's less clear with Conway because we know way less about her life, sadly, and that's why I'm learning necromancy.

#werewolf the forsaken #chronicles of darkness #oh god long post warning #sorry you have activated my special interest trap card #oc tag #levi #philippe #ALSO REALLY SORRY TO ATARAXICPHILOCALIST I AM STILL WORKING ON YOUR ASK #I'LL TRY TO HAVE IT DONE TONIGHT

[itsamenickname]

Is Polterpup Pascal in your Bowuigi Rapunzel AU?

Unfortunately, Luigi doesn't have a pet in my Bowuigi Rapunzel AU because when I first created the Luaisy Rapunzel AU in 2019, I didn't have a good idea on how Pascal would fit into my AU (and this also goes with Maximus too because I want my Rapunzel AU to focus more on the main characters and their different relationships (Luigi and Bowser, Luigi and Mario, Mario and Bowser, etc.)).

However, even though Polterpup won't be in the main storyline, this doesn't mean that he's completely out of the picture. An idea one of my friends and I talked about was the idea of Luigi and Bowser adopting the Koopalings & Jr. after the main events of the AU took place and I can definitely see Luigi wanting to adopt Polterpup as a pet companion for himself, Bowser and the Koopalings & Jr.

(And yes, in my Bowuigi Rapunzel AU, Jr. would be Bowser's ADOPTED son instead of his BIOLOGICAL son. As much as I love Jr., making him blood-related to Bowser would throw some major complications to my overall storyline because I would then need to figure out a few different things such as how he came to be and the impact he would have on Luigi and Bowser's relationship.)

Thank you for the ask! 😃

#also for anyone who's waiting on chapter 2 of the Bowuigi Rapunzel AU I apologize that it's taking me a long time to upload it #I should've provided a warning back in ch. 1 that the chapter uploads are going to be a little spontaneous #there's one more reblog I want to upload after this ask but after that I'll start prioritizing ch. 2 #(I say that as I have at least 3-4 other posts that are currently in my drafts that I would like to upload sometime in the near future) #(ah well like I said back in the ch. 1 tags I'll figure it all out as I go) #I do really appreciate you all being with patient with me though :) #ask nickname #luigi #luigi nintendo #bowser #bowser nintendo #bowuigi #bowser x luigi #super mario #super mario bros #mario fanfic #mario au #rapunzel #bowuigi rapunzel au #polterpup #koopalings #the koopalings #larry koopa #morton koopa jr #wendy koopa #iggy koopa #roy koopa #lemmy koopa #ludwig koopa #bowser jr

[thatonecrookedsmile]

"Brought to you by GENT."

-----

Was it really necessary to do a drawing like this for something that at the end of the day will just be a little spinoff to occupy us while we wait for the Next Big Thing that's being made in the back room? No, I would say it wasn't. But was it something that I ended up really wanting to do after having The Idea™, on the day this game was "announced"? Absolutely.

It's funny,the original concept for this drawing (basically, everything in this image that didn't come from SOTM) first came to my head in the form of a drawing idea related to Bendy 3 (the next mainline game after DR), it would be a little more colorful - more blue in this case - and would have Audrey, Dapper Bendy and maybe even the Ink Demon. Yeah, I know, this game doesn't exist yet. But I thought it would be a cool thing to draw eventually.

But then, recently, Bendy fans unearthed this new game on April 2nd on Steam and my brain went crazy that day. The unexpected surprise in the new game eventually led to inspiration, and the idea of Bendy 3's drawing ended up coming back during the process and part of its concept ended up emerging with some ideas I was thinking about for SOTM and then, boom. The result was the picture above. I started working on this immediately later that day.

Regarding the drawing itself: The house is not and will not be 100% faithful to what will appear in the game. It's shot in the trailer doesn't really have very good quality,so there are certain details in it that will practically be wrong compared to in-game. (I have no idea what is written below Bendy's head,so I put a random phrase in its place,in this case,"The Nightmare Will Never End") (Also, there is something on the balcony next to the entrance. I don't know what is it, but it look a bit like a wheelchair to me? Idk. I decided to put it in after completing the house)

The Man? It's Alan Gray! Gent's CEO. At least, my take on him. He was the part of the original Bendy 3 idea that I decided to reuse for this. To be honest, I don't have much hope that we'll hear from him in the game, but realistically, of all the characters in the Bendy universe (especially in the games) that have been introduced so far, I think he's the one with the best chance of making an appearance ( him,and probably,but with low chances,Thomas) Also, I included him too because, who else to represent the face of the corporation than the boss himself?

"Brought to you by Gent", which I took directly from BATDR, was also part of the original idea. We know that a third main Bendy game that will focus more on Gent will exist one day, but what it will be called we have no idea. So I used referred, not only to this potential game, but the idea of the og drawing itself, as "Bendy 3: Brought to you by GENT". I thought it sounded nice. And now? I turned it into "Bendy: Secrets of the Machine. Brought to you by GENT" It's a small thing, but it's cool to finally apply this to a game that actually exists.

But in short: I'm very interested! This seems like a very different Bendy game compared to the others that have come before. And while I have several thoughts about what this game might be about and what it might offer, in the end, I don't really know what this game will be. And the fact that I don't know what this is going to be is what makes me very curious and makes me really want to be able to play this. I have a lot to say about this game before it releases, so if you want to know about my thoughts,just read this. Warning, though, I wrote a lot. But that's about it. Enjoy. ✌️

#bendy and the ink machine #batim #batdr #bendy and the dark revival #bendy: secrets of the machine #bsotm #bendy sotm #alan gray #crookedsmileart #I thought it would be cool to put this old film effect on top of the picture. and who would have thought;it does look cool #another fun fact: the image of the Ink Machine in the background is just from a screenshot I took in the BATDR's archives. #I removed the background and edited the image to fit the in drawing #It didn't turned out bad and it saved me time :D yay #but like I said #I have thoughts about the new game; I'll put them in another post tho; the description of this post is already long enough; and it's not wo #I'll try to post them tonight; so if you happen to be curious to read them; here's the warning

[coquelicoq]

maintenance guy just showed up at my door unannounced to check out something i reported yesterday...on the one hand loving this prompt service. on the other hand, give a broad some warning. i am in my pajamas and the place is a sty. but he might actually fix a thing that's been bugging me for over a decade, so that would be nice. not that that was urgent, obviously. so i would have appreciated a heads-up.

#i reported...let's see...5 things yesterday if you count the things i had reported previously that have always been ignored #he says he's going to fix 2 of them later today and he will escalate a third thing (which will require ripping out the floor so uh #i hope i'll have lots of warning for that lol) #we shall see. i will be so happy if he replaces my toilet seat though because #once many years ago shortly after i moved in i wrote on my butt in sharpie (long story) and then at some point after that used the toilet #and it stained the seat and like...i don't even know...eroded the coating...so it has looked REALLY GNARLY ever since #no matter how clean it is #so i never want anyone to use my toilet because it looks so disgusting #i've just been warning people about the toilet seat for the last 10+ years. ready to move on from that one youthful mistake #my posts #linked to

[blapis-blazuli]

Now listen up

I am obsessed with this man. He's got so many weird details about him and I love (almost) all of them.

First, Slim's original concept fucks. Being an undead cattle rustler out for bull's blood due to being trampled to death is fascinating. I don't know how long it took before someone at Disney cried "too dark" at that backstory, but I'm surprised it was even in consideration given the mostly lighter tone of the final product. More than that, Disney could've had a literal ghost rider among their villains! Had that movie been any good, he might've joined Disney's popular villain lineup, or maybe we could've even gotten a boss battle with him in a Kingdom Hearts game. That's not what we ended up with due to Reasons, though, which is a bit disappointing, but not much you can do about that.

Anyway, onto what we did get.

Before Slim makes his formal appearance, he's only seen in silhouette, on a wanted poster, then in disguise, and is finally fully revealed when he rides in on a bison. He is huge, and I don't mean because he's fat, I mean he's a good deal taller than most of the other characters. He's set up to be someone threatening, to be taken seriously.

And then comes his yodeling villain song.

The moment it's revealed that Slim's yodeling can hypnotize cows, the music picks up and there's a literal rainbow of colors for the rest of his number. As I said, he's a big man, but he's also light enough on his feet to dance and jump on and off any of these cows while not missing a beat in his performance. When the men who got knocked out beforehand come running after him, he doesn't threaten them, he just throws his spurs at a precarious bit of rocky landscape with such force that it falls and blocks the pathway to him. That's more badass than if he did draw his gun on them.

Actually, I wanna talk about the music he performs. The movie's set in Wyoming during 1889, so obviously Slim's not gonna be yodeling A Cruel Angel's Thesis or whatever. They could’ve come up with something original for him to yodel to (which, I mean, they kinda do), but they chose music by composers such as Tchaikovsky and Beethoven, which aren't exactly things you'd associate with the wild west. The obvious out-of-universe answer for why those pieces were chosen is "they existed before the year this is set in, and they're recognized even today," but we've no in-universe answer for why he chose them or how he knows them. Regardless, it's kinda amazing that he knows them well enough to yodel them.

His lair in Echo Mine has an area with some nice furniture in it. How'd this shit get there? Who knows. Anyway, this is where he reveals that he disguises himself to buy up the properties owned by the people he's stolen cattle from, which includes his former employers. Why doesn't he work for any of them anymore? He never directly says. According to him, they didn't "appreciate [his] talents," which means they probably hated his yodeling. I don't blame him for being mad about that because why the hell would you tell someone that? If he's doing the job right and well without hurting anyone, then who cares? The idea that he's moved on to use a skill against the former bosses who didn't like it is kinda great though.

(Side note: a nice, small detail about this part of the lair is the faded branding on the map, which shows that Slim has been doing this for quite a while. Shame that it's not more consistent from shot to shot though. I can't take credit for noticing this myself: my partner pointed it out after I posted a screenshot as a joke on Discord. She's so cool.)

Slim doesn't like it when someone calls his yodeling "singing": he thinks singing is beneath him given the disdain in his voice when he says that's what birds, saloon gals, and children do. No, he considers what he does to be an art. He's not entirely wrong, though: it is an impressive skill, especially since he can yodel to certain classical pieces like The William Tell Overture, Ode to Joy, Ride of the Valkyries, and The 1812 Overture. (Also Yankee Doodle, because, well, American. Also maybe Largo al factotum from The Barber of Seville, but I'm unsure of that one: unlike Slim, I am no classical music expert.) There's no need for him to be quite as defensive about it as he is, but his nephews calling it "singing," saying that might be why his bosses didn't like him, and calling yodeling "silly" is enough to make him get violently angry at them. Man's got issues.

Oh yeah, Slim has nephews. They're triplets named Gil, Phil, and Bill, and they're collectively known as The Willies. Unlike their uncle, they're all blond and thin, so god knows what Slim's unnamed and unmentioned sibling must look like.

Slim also has a bison named Junior. I'm not fond of the whole "he's too fat to ride anything else" angle of that, but I do like that they chose an animal that people are constantly told to not mess with because of how dangerous they are. Slim's not afraid of him: he's got this creature trained to listen when he calls for him. I can only guess that Slim is the one who named Junior, so maybe he also raised him. It would explain why Junior appears annoyed with him but still puts up with having Slim jump on his back and the like.

You know what Slim doesn't have though? Kids. Putting together the disdain in his voice when he mentions children, his seemingly low opinion of saloon girls, his big villain number turning the landscape into a rainbow of colors, the queer history of cowboys, and the prevalence of queer-coding in Disney villains... well, I think you get where I'm going with that.

Moving onto his disguise. Don't ask me why nobody figured out this was Slim sooner, given that his wanted poster shows they have the same facial hair, bushy eyebrows, and bags under the eyes. My best guess is because it's in black-and-white and he's in a different outfit, and unless someone's encountered him before they probably don't know what he sounds like. Anyway, His alias is Yancy O'del (yeah, I know), but the one sign we see him with has both "Mister" and "Esquire" in there.

Having looked this up, I learned a few things. First, having "Mister" and "Esquire" together isn't something you're supposed to do, yet nobody in-universe caught this. Second, in the United States, "Esquire" is a title only used for lawyers, so maybe that's why nobody questioned him - fear of a sudden lawsuit for something or other. Third, "Yancy" was not really a name used back then, or at least not a common one. Why'd he choose that name (besides for the pun)? I dunno.

(Also, where the hell does Junior stay whenever he goes to one of these auctions? The world may never know.)

Slim's final defeat at the hooves/wings/what-have-you of several farm animals is pretty pathetic, even by silly Disney villain standards, but I got to give him credit for not wanting to give up even after his disguise is (literally) blown and while he's stuck in a train's smokestack. I have no idea how he planned on getting out of that one, and whatever it was most likely wouldn't have worked anyway, but I admire his refusal to back down in the face of obvious defeat.

Even in his very last scene we see him struggling with the ropes they tied around him while he's carted off to jail. He does not give up.

Anyway, here he is picking up Small Black Market Dealer Steve Buscemi one-handed like it's nothing. (His name is Wesley, but Slim keeps calling him Mister Weasley. That's right, this movie used that joke before Frozen did.)

And here he is lifting three full-grown cows off the ground before tying them up faster than they can react to it. (The cows have names too, but this post ain't about them.)

He uses his left hand to write and aim his gun and seems just as adept with using it as much as his right, which is cool. (There's no frame with both his face and the gun, so you'll have to trust me on that.)

Speaking of his hands

Look at this huge-ass man and his pinkies, I can't with this dude

Look at that smile, sir, who gave you the right

If there were a whole movie about just these two, I'd watch it, I won't even lie.

I've gone on about this guy for probably too long by this point, so to sum it all up:

Babygirl

#Alameda Slim #long post #I tried being coherent but that slipped away from me towards the end lmao oh well #''Blapis are you done being mentally ill and gay for Slim yet'' not in the slightest have a nice day #I mean I'm trying to with a tropical storm and an earthquake warning at least #I'll try adding image descriptions later when my brain is working better sorry #shut up Blapis

[gobblewanker]

So since we've finally established Bill isn't actually human...

Consider this a teaser for next chapter.

(Transcript below)

Do you know what it's like to not exist?

I have the power to do everything but never get anything out of it. No smell. No taste. No touch. No sensation at all. Just... Nothing.  A vast nothingness stretching on and on forever like the uncomfortable silence after a bad joke. I could watch. Nothing more. Infinite power but no meaningful way to use it.

It's self preservation, really. Stealing bodies. I never wanted to be human. I didn't. It's all that damn shaman's fault. He was supposed to help me. Save me. But he betrayed me. He cut the lifeline and tried to kill me with an ancient ritual. A human energy circle. 

But they didn't have the right humans.

Lacking quality, they made up for it with quantity. The entire island. All those tiny little candlelights throwing themselves together into one flash of an inferno before burning out. The energy was immense.

But not enough.

They couldn't destroy me. But he could stall me.  He went into my mind.  He removed all knowledge of where the island was, where the gateway had been built, how it looked, and how to find it. With his last breath he cursed the land itself. That no-one would ever be able to find it without being led there.  That it would never be added to a map. 

All so that I wouldn't find it.

He couldn’t blind my all-seeing eye. But he did mar it.

So, I did the next best thing. I settled for experiencing the world through human eyes.  Kings, queens, beggars and priests… I was everything. It was intense. It was vibrant. I was alive.

A human body is a prison, but a prison is better than a nothing.

But eventually, it wasn't enough.

I'm a being of unlimited power. Do you have any idea how constricting it is needing to waste a quarter of my life asleep? Do you have any idea how bad food tastes after centuries of eating it? I have been like this for ages. Everything is the same flavour of bland. The pleasure. The pain...

None of it is fun anymore.

Without chasing the next high, I feel nothing. And every time I need to reach higher and higher to get anything out of it at all.

I need to exist as me. No matter who has to die.

So, I made a new goal for myself: Find my old gateway.  Find a body. Find a crew. Don't stop sailing until I track it down.

I couldn't remember the location. I couldn’t remember the name. All I could remember was the smell of salt and the sound of churning waterfalls. So, when my first crew asked, I simply called it ‘the waterfall port’. ‘El puerto de la cascada’.

I moved from crew to crew, century to century, body to body.

It didn't matter that my eyes went from blue to brown to grey. 

It didn't matter if the shade of my hair changed. 

It didn't matter if scars under my clothes came and went. 

Very few who came close enough to notice ever lived to talk about it.

With a changing world came changing languages. And eventually, my island's title was shortened and corrupted until it was just simply…

"Port Cascada".

That name found you. And you found me. How?

... You're not even listening. Are you?

#gravity falls #pirate au #bill cipher #human bill cipher #stanford pines #my art #tw blood #tw self harm #bill induced and very briefly but just to be safe #let me know if you need warnings tagged! #while he isn't actually human i'll still keep tagging this as such #cause i know some people really dislike humanoid bill designs and i want them to still be able to blacklist it #long post

[that-foul-legacy-lover]

oh my god what happened?? are you alright? do you need any help?

alright i will preface this by saying that physically, i am COMPLETELY FINE. please don't worry about me too much, i promise i'm physically okay and it's not that bad

the rest is under the cut not for length but in case people want to skip past it (warning for people being unpleasant)

so the short story is that someone i thought was an online friend suddenly sent me a pretty awful DM before blocking me. they said a lot of genuinely hurtful things which wasn't really good for my mental state since they preyed on a bunch of my insecurities, and i thought that i could trust this person. i'm doing better now thanks to my irl friends, but recovery is a process as usual. i'm not sure if you can really help apart from being emotional support, but your concern is appreciated nonetheless <3

#not brainrot #anon #btw if anyone wants me to put any trigger warnings just tell me and i'll get right on it #and people WONDER why i have trust issues especially with people online #they also had the gall to bring up my Foul Legacy addiction which is just so low #in case you haven't noticed i'm not the most confident person in the world and this whole debacle made it worse #it was also very out of the blue i kinda spent the first morning in shock #nor was it accusations it was just 'lol here are all the reasons i hate you' so that's. nice. #guess they've been holding onto these feelings for a long time. wish they could've been a bit kinder about it #not to mention that some of the stuff they said was straight up untrue #but my irl friends helped me a bunch so big thank you to them #anyways if i seem distant to people online these types of situations are why #i know this isn't a SUPER bad thing to happen from an outside pov but i sure didn't feel good after it #just a tad sad #unpleasant things #uhh dunno if i'll post anything else today but we'll try