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the-fae-folk · 1 year

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Hello. I'm writing a story and I'd like to base my magic system on that of the fae's magic? Do you know how their magic works? The rules of their magic? I've heard of things like prices and contracts, but I'd love to know more. Thank you for helping. I love your blog.

In a desperate attempt to prevent this answer from getting far out of hand, I'll try to limit myself to something more practical you can use. However it is important that you understand that many magical abilities, events, and things had their roots in various ancient cultural practices, beliefs, and cultural needs or desires. As these tales were passed down orally they were changed with each successive generation, adapted for the huge cultural changes such as the rise of Christianity or for war and famine or political exploitation. The transition from Folktales (mostly oral storytelling) to the later Fairy Tales (largely dominated by literary storytelling) is an important factor in which kinds of stories are still remembered and can be studied today.

So depending on what historical period, country or locale, and cultural group you're looking at, you could have entirely different sets of faeries who had vastly different kinds of powers and rules. And those abilities and limitations were often the remains of older cultures from whom the stories had been passed down from or who had influenced it along the way, or they were a kind of wish fulfillment of basic needs and desires for a generally non-literate agrarian people, as well as an expression of their values and beliefs.

Let's look at your question. Okay, you want to know how the magic itself works, the rules. Well first let's see if we can get a very brief idea of what magic is. While it would be the work of several books to try and define an etymology and history of magic in all the different cultures connected to Faerie Folklore over the centuries, we can pick out some ideas that were of particular influence.

There are several types of magic anthropology suggests for us. These being: Sympathetic Magic, Divination, and Contagious Magic.

Sympathetic Magic is based on the principle of "Like produces like". For instance if something is to happen to an image of someone, it shall also happen to the actual person.

Contagious Magic is based on the principle that if a thing was once connected to or in contact with something else it can still influence it even when they are apart. Believers would hide their fallen teeth, nails, hair trimmings, clothes, or feces from what they believed were malevolent supernatural forces or practitioners of magic.

Divination, which you may be more familiar with, is the procedures and ways in which knowledge of a certain event or of some future event are determined.

But these terms don't really offer us a very clear idea of what's going on with this idea of magic. Alternatively we can think about the different methods in which people would practice magic. Spoken words, writing, or symbols of power were thought to have magic in a number of different cultures. While in animistic beliefs even ordinary items could take on magical attributes as well as a spirit.

The sources of power for this magic were varied. Anything from nature, deceased humans reincarnated and willing to intercede, and sacred or secret knowledge of the world and realities it hides from common knowledge.

In medieval France and Britain there was an idea where women were magical because they could create new life and give birth to it, the act of creating something itself being the magical ability they possessed. So too were other acts of creative work such as cooking, mathematics, and various types of craftsmanship viewed as a kind of magic. It's unlikely that these women, scholars, and craftsmen were viewed as magical practitioners, but the idea of the work itself being a kind of hidden magical knowledge made it into the oral and later literary storytelling and remains there to this day.

Even in contemporary fantasy there are remnants of this idea that crafting itself is a kind of magical knowledge. Think of all the items in literature that are magical. Cloaks, wands, food, weapons. Even everyday items such as a looking glass can become a magic mirror, or a pair of shoes the enchanted seven league boots.

A great deal of Faerie magic in folklore seems to have been a mixed kind, with different types of magic for different situations or peoples. For instance the story of Rumpelstiltskin shows a heavy emphasis on the magic supposed to be inherent in finding the True Name of a thing and the apparent delight in deals and agreements, especially exploitative ones. Other stories present us with Faeries and magical beings who rely on rituals of certain words or events that must take place for a magic to be effective, items combined or crafted in a specific way with specific ingredients or words of power to make charms, and a large variety of abilities that suspiciously have a great deal in common with medicinal practices.

There is, of course, the question of Glamour. Initially a kind of illusion magic, such as in the Ballad of Tam Lin where the titular Tam Lin was "transformed" into a number of frightening shapes in order to try and get his lover, Janet, to let go. It can also be used to disguise the faerie themself, or make a cave appear to be a beautiful palace, or a pile of leaves into a grand feast.

Strangely, there are also many folktales that describe Faeries as having actual powers of transformation, being able to shift their size and form, and the limitations differed from tale to tale. Several variants deal with the contradiction of Faeries who are somehow both intangible and tangible at the same time, or only tangible in certain conditions.

Wings are common in Victorian Art of faeries, but in older stories there are many depictions of Faerie beings who can simply fly without them.

Folklore studies doesn't really make it clear what abilities the Faeries were supposed to have or how those powers worked, and this problem is only muddled further by the lack of surviving materials on these cultures, and the slow influence of changing generations and storytelling that time has upon our existing texts and materials. What you mention, however, is the prices and contracts. The idea of tricksters who will wheedle and bargain and use clever words to get what they want is as old as myth itself, and throughout the history of folklore and fairy tale there are countless trickster characters. Though the Faerie are drawn from multiple different sources they are known in more than one place as having a penchant for trickery or malicious behavior to go with their supernatural abilities and powers. Despite looking, I haven't been able to pin down any particular point in which they began to be associated with deliberately ill intended contracts, it's certainly easy to see that throughout the medieval period and onward the Fae definitely had a strong connection to the idea of bargains and deals, often being incredibly upset (not to mention exceedingly dangerous to all around them) should that contract be broken by the human party usually involved. In many stories the human's ill fortune is caused by them agreeing to things they thought they wanted, but turned out not to be happy with when they got it, or found that they weren't prepared for the true scope of the price they agreed to when they made the deal. Since the Fae do not care whether the human likes the deal as long as it is upheld as agreed, they can understandably be very annoyed when a human breaks the agreement and still thinks themself entitled to the treasures and pleasures they got from said deal.

In contemporary fantasy we might be able to guess that the connection between Faeries and their supposed interest in the true names of things, as well as their often mischievous or maleficent nature, somehow was combined with this tendency in fairy tales to make deals and bargains with mortals. It's conjecture on my part, but it would definitely explain some of the trends in the depictions of faeries in modern literature. It's not a huge stretch to imagine that over time magic in literature came to be directly involved in those deals as well, not just enforced by a deal-loving being with magic, but being enforced by the nature of the magic itself.

#fae #faerie #otherfolk #magic #folklore #faerie folklore #fairy tales

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open-hearth-rpg · 7 months

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Defining Characters: Great RPG Mechanics #RPGMechanics: Week Four

The Veil offers several rpg innovations; I mentioned on an earlier list how it uses States to reflect the emotions and motives of an actions. But another new trick appears early, during character creation. The Veil’s a PbtA game of cyberpunk life. Other PbtA games, including Apocalypse World, contain world-building elements in their playbooks. How you describe your Battle Babe, Brainer, or Maestro D’ tells us something about the world.

But The Veil goes further– with questions in each playbook which giving players authority over a slice of the world.

To go back a little further, the first time I remember seeing something like this was in Questlandia by Hannah Shaffer. That GMless game begins with a strong phase of world-building, establishing elements for the setting. But during that process authority gets assigned to different players. So if the group decides on Elves as a major thing in the setting, someone becomes the expert on them. If there’s a question about canon or what Elvish society, players can turn to that person to establish those facts.

The Veil provides players with narrative authority based on the playbook chosen. So if you play The Architect, a hacker-like manipulator of augmented reality, you get to answer questions about what that looks like, how it works, and how much the constant Veil hanging over reality impacts things. If you play the Oathbound, you define how debts function in society– are they personal and implied, or something concrete and tracked? Other playbooks tell us about artificial life, psychic powers, corporate control, the interaction of the natural & constructed, and so on.

This approach blends the process of character creation and world building tightly. The players really craft the world as they go– giving shape to their own vision. When that comes into dialogue with the elements determined by the rest of the table, it is wild and magical. Every single Veil game I’ve run has been strikingly different– dramatically shaped by those player choices.

This is one of those game play elements which I would love to see in other games. When I started thinking about doing a Fading Suns style game, I imagined making richer questions and pick lists to help define things. You can see my initial swing at that here. In my recent attempt to take Free from the Yoke elements to create a Samurai Fantasy campaign, I built the different clans around this.

So the Mystical Clan gets to say what magic looks like; the Elegant Clan gets to say what arts are valued or disowned; the Inhuman Clan gets to establish the relation of non-humans to the rest of society. I can imagine this in a lot of contexts– though you need to shape playbooks to really focus on a world aspect. You want them to be able to establish interesting elements. Like I’m not sure you could bolt a system like that on to something like Masks: A New Generation wholesale. Some would work.

For example The Legacy gets to define things about superhero history, The Star says what social media and superherodom look like, and The Soldier establishes the place of super-agencies. But if I wanted to do a supers version of this I might do different playbooks: The Vigilante (the place of street level heroes), The Techno (what super tech looks like), The Legacy (again, supers history), The Mutant (defining outsider status for supers), The Alien (setting up non-human peoples). I think you could develop that even further.

#ttrpg #rpg #rpg mechanics

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fieldofblue · 24 days

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Being in love changes you. It opens you up to a world where you need to face all parts of yourself. The parts you’ve been running from and the parts you didn’t know existed. If you truly allow yourself to love and be vulnerable, it opens up your heart and soul to a connection, to change. It feels raw and emotional and painful at times. But it can also feel exhilarating to finally be emotionally free and honest with another.

To embrace them is to embrace yourself and the parts of you that you may not be fond of. It brings about a softness within you and about you, where you look at them with admiration and fierce protection and loyalty. You yearn to know all the pieces of who they are and what makes them tick. You allow yourself to be seen in the same way, with the risk that they may not desire to know you this same way, but you open up despite this.

The reality is that two people may be in the same relationship and be in two different relationships. You may be learning, softening, opening up and growing and you may project that onto them. But that may not be their experience. They may be slowly dying and losing themselves and growing resentful. They may be counting the days till it’s over.

It can be heart breaking when this happens and you realize you aren’t on the same page and you may question if the love was ever real.

Every relationship and dynamic teaches us something different.

My biggest lessons have been to remain soft, remain strong in my own values, but always be open to something new, something different. Different communication style, different views. Different love languages, fight styles. I feel I’ve been tested countless times, and have not passed them all.

There’s also the challenge of giving yourself more love than you ever have before. Being kind to yourself throughout, as connection with another soul, another human will always be confronting and exhausting. You have to know when to love yourself more than the potential of what they may bring to the table.

I now understand myself more. I now know how important softness from a partner is to me. How the feeling of safety is at the top of my list. Protection and kindness. These are traits that are silent and strong. I’ve learned that vulnerability is a superpower and brings you closer to yourself and to your partner. Communication and words are a must for me, but actions speak the loudest. Physical touch provides a safe space and when someone allows you to take care of them this way, they are letting their walls down and connecting with you. You can’t bring someone’s walls down. You can be patient, provide safety so that they can start the journey. But you can’t do it for them and it doesn’t define who you are or your efforts. On the other hand, your energy is strong and radiates well outside of your body- people are constantly picking up on it. Some are more intuitive and sensitive to this than others, so try to remain honest and open if you want to build with them. They will pick up on all the negative energy and shift their actions accordingly to protect themselves. Most important of all, is the friendship that is formed with your partner. The comfort and laughter and bonding. At the end of it all, they will be your best friend, someone who will continue to change along with you. If you have a solid foundation, you can always fall back on your friendship.

My mom told me that 75% of her success she owes to my dad. They’ve been together for 37 years and have picked each other up, challenged each other and been each other’s comfort.

Are they kind during your lowest moments? Are they strong and stoic when you’re falling apart? Do they celebrate who you are daily? Do they remind you of your strengths and nurture your heart? Life will happen and it won’t be pretty. You’ll need someone who can stand by you through the roughest parts of it. It may not always come naturally, but you’ll know if their energy is in the right place. Are their intentions pure? Do they radiate love? Are they kind to their parents? Are they forgiving and understanding? Do they lift you up instead of putting you down? Regardless of their exterior and face they show the world, are they a gentle soul? Do they allow you to see this side of them? Are they emotionally mature and intelligent?

I’m grateful for the time to process the love, the heartbreak, the loss and learn from it in my own time.

There’s so much more to learn and each time I allow myself to be vulnerable and soft, I feel myself getting stronger. I always want to make sure that I am proud of my actions and reactions, knowing I am acting from love and not fear.

#personal

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kinocomix · 3 months

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Metal band story devlog 11: Dealing with productivity as an artist

so here’s an update since last week, the rest of the designs kind of… worked out. I could go ahead and explain the ways that i got there but you’re well familiar with how the process can be volatile and all over the place and this wouldn’t be adding much value to the conversation. and I really don’t want to burn steps here so I think this is an excellent opportunity to talk about something that was going to come up naturally, which is productivity. though It would be rather dickish on my behalf to talk about designs without showing anything (I feel like that could be a good burn to some designers out there) so here you go:

left to right: Rami (lead singer), Jamil (drummer), Rabih (guitarist/bassist) and Leila (manager/other)

if you’re just here for the comic side of the devlog that’s all there is this week. But if you stick around, maybe you’ll read something you’ll find helpful. anyways…

On the 12th of october 2022, I wrote the following in my journal:

I don’t understand the concept of artistic satiation. The idea that, as an artist you could sit back and just go “yeah I’m good” [...] when I share my art, that’s a part of me that I am proclaiming. this thing is about me. [...] it doesn’t need to change the world, it just needs to have been useful to [me]. so when people “have enough art” it really makes me question their priorities. Were you making art for you? or is the art you’re making not good enough to be called your art?”

Productivity is a surprisingly sensitive topic to talk about with any form of objectivity because if you boil things down, human beings were not created to measure anything: circadian rhythms are a thing because we’re not meant to all go to bed at the same time, there might be a big scary thing and someone needs to be awake at any given time to warn the others. The time of day is never the exact same in two places because you’re not intended to measure it. I’ll stop before it starts to sound like I just drank a bottle of cough syrup and got bored of alphabetising my vegetables. The point I’m putting across is that one of the defining traits of humans is that we construct things around our reality. We add measurements to it that let us do great things, we make GMOs and structures and telescopes and planes and come up with fun stories about things. But if there’s something we can learn from any table top role playing game is that a system is great until it’s not: at that point the solution is to add, change or ignore the system entirely. Productivity is the idea that you can measure the effectiveness of something, even potentially optimize it to make it better – however you may define better. This is where my personal experience comes in, so bare with me for a moment.

earlier that same year, I had this conversation with my therapist, you’ll notice some parallels to that journal entry I mentioned earlier:

If you pay close attention, you can calculate just how long it really takes someone to internalize the concept of self respect and love. The understanding that a person’s life and worth is unrelated to what it is that they’re doing. Today I am Charbel who goes online by Kinoko and likes to draw himself as a round sheep. Tomorrow I might be Charbel, the man who's passionate about theoretical economics and skydiving, and that’s just as good. Does this mean I have plans to stop art? I don’t think so. I’ve seen first hand that I’m capable of making nice things that help even a single digit amount of people go through a tough time, and I think that’s something great that I want to keep doing. But if something were to happen that permanently stopped my ability to draw and write and talk, I think I’d pick the cello back up again.

When an artist makes something you like and finishes it, sometimes you wonder why they never seem the same after that. they appear infrequently and seem to close in on themselves. Maybe a large shift will happen in their style and way of doing things that seems unexpected to you. I get it, and I’ll try to explain it, having been through a miniature version of that myself after finishing my first comic. it should come as no surprise that Almost home means the world to me, even less so that finishing something that big leaves an impact on you. What do you do after you save the world? Will you save it again? save another? Sometimes, the answer is easy. you just do something else. It can be daunting and uncomfortable realizing you have to go through all those feelings again, learning to understand and appreciate your new different characters, seeing them grow and then reaching a point where they, for a lack of a more delicate way of saying it, have served their purpose. Do you just… make more? It feels weird. they’re like your kids.

but you kind of have to. There’s a lot more to say about art block, not having the time for your art and such but I don’t think I’m personally qualified to talk about that since, honestly, it’s not my experience. What I do know is that I have these 4 characters so far, and I’m looking forward to getting to know them better.

now with that out of the way I’d like to discuss some exciting things that aren’t quite ready to share yet that I am doing for the comic. First off, since canonically at some point the band would have a fashion designer, I have spoken to one who seems to be onboard and looking forward to working with me. Second, I’ll be visiting a dog shelter to get references to make the fifth member of the band sometime soon. lastly, I need to learn how to use musecore because… reasons. making a comic is hard okay?

we also need to work on the branding for the band and make concept art and like a billion things but WE’RE GETTING THERE

devlog updates on tuesdays.

#comic #webcomic #webcomics #kinocomix #devlog #metal #graphic novel #writing #productivitytips #art

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anthraxplus · 9 months

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the cultural phenomenon of barbenheimer has taken over my mind

i did barbenheimer with a friend yesterday and it really got me thinking.

first off - it was so weird having my local theatre be so busy. it's usually the theatre you can bet on being able to sneak anything into, and while we still definitely did sneak in a buttload of snacks, they had people actively waiting in the wings as ticket checkers. so it kinda sucked that we couldn't just do the whole thing for free. but that's a bit beside the point. the theatre was the busiest ive seen it in nearly 10 years. and i'm not gonna lie, seeing a "cultural event" happen in front of me was more jarring for that reason. and as the day went on, that image in my head stuck with me. the image that all these people showed up to watch barbie and oppenheimer.

we saw oppenheimer first, in a nearly empty theatre. we sorta did this by design - we started at 10am and picked oppenheimer first because less people would choose to be that insane. i was high and trying to get myself into an impartial mindset (even though i didn't think i would end up liking it). and i think all i should really say about oppenheimer is that it's 3 nearly endless hours that doesnt give anyone any time to breathe and ends up saying a bunch of confusing, disappointing, and outright false things. seriously, the amount of times the movie brushes off the fucking truth of the situation is absolutely disgusting. obligatory linking of shaun's video on hiroshima and nagasaki. i think everyone in the movie should be forced to answer why theyre proud of making 3 hour bland ass shit boring nuclear bomb apologia. this isn't even getting into how the famous oppenheimer quote is introduced by a manic pixie dream girl (who in reality was a stanford graduate and psychiatrist, neither of which i believe are ever touched on or expanded in the film) who hops off his dick mid-fuck, walks over to a bookshelf, picks the bhagavad gita off the shelf, opens it to the exact page and verse of the famous quote, asks him to read, and slides back on his dick between "now i am become death" and "destroyer of worlds." this movie released to critical acclaim. some are calling it a masterpiece.

after some burritos for lunch, my friend and i went to barbie. this was a packed theatre and mostly everyone was wearing pink. the red in my hair has faded to a pink, so i felt like i was part of something. kinda. anyway. some little kids were loud in the front but it wasnt much of an issue. i kept thinking of them whenever the movie would say something about the struggle to find identity in a world that hates you no matter what you do. did those little children listen to margot robbie say that she doesnt have a vagina? did they parse that? it was a great movie, if a bit scattershot. it shouldve been longer, if only to fully flesh out a couple ideas and help the movie feel a little less cramped. but they would never make a 2.5 (let alone 3) hour barbie movie that talks about not just what it means to be a woman, but what it means to be human in a world that is so often contradictory hostile and praising of you. what happens when the Other we defined ourselves by isn't static? do we become different as well in relation to them? do we stay the same? do we do both? what are women supposed to do in the world when everything they do is wrong but they're never allowed to stop doing anything? how do men develop their own identity when they are so often raised into mindsets where their individuality is replaced by similarly contradictory standards and a definition that only exists in relation to women? what did ken mean when he said he had "all the genitals?" barbie is far from perfect, but it manages to ask more honest and thought provoking questions (and offers its own interesting answers) about the nature of reality than oppenheimer does.

i'm struck by the dichotomy on display here. barbie may be the more financially successful of the two films, but it is not treated the same critically. for all barbie says, it seems to get overlooked for its (still impressive) design and acting. its metacommentary is mentioned but never discussed. its "witty meta humor" is listed as a huge selling point. oppenheimer, in contrast, is a vain and shallow film that says nothing and looks somewhat cool doing it. i wonder if there are any parallels here.

i worry for what this means for movies. a nearly empty theatre for a self-important movie that lists itself as its reason for existing is treated as if it says anything at all, and a packed theatre for a movie with a script similarly packed with commentary on our very state of being gets boiled down to "cute sets and witty banter." what did the audience members take from their barbenheimer experience? my area is not very progressive, and in my experience not very invested in growth of any kind. when america ferrera delivers one of the many theses of barbie in a tear-inducing frustrated monologue on how she's never seen as good enough no matter what she does, did the audience members feel seen? did they feel understood? or did they want her to stop talking so they could go back to looking at the cool barbie dream houses? when oppenheimer breezes through the discussion of which innocent cities to burn in an unholy fire with all the tact and deliberation a group of friends has when deciding where to have lunch, did the audience feel slighted? disgusted? or did they just want to see einstein on screen again like he's an iron man cameo?

i dont know where we go from here. it feels like a tipping point for what we want from movies, and i'm not sure audiences learned anything from the past 10 to 15 years of set-ups, tie-ins, and spin-offs. i want to believe something will come of the fact that so many people are seeing barbie. maybe, hopefully, something in it sticks with people and inspires some sort of change. just the smallest amount of evolution. right now i too feel like barbie when she sits in a park and looks around at everything the human experience has to offer, and starts crying from both joy and sorrow. a woman who is so often seen as disposable and empty understands the human condition in a way she cant express, and is overwhelmed by the crushing beauty and fragility it all rests upon. she is a human before she knows she is. she doesnt know who she is, but she knows she still Is. existence is confusing and no one knows what to do about it, and the least we could do is support each other as we figure out who we've always been. i hope this is what sticks with people instead of some half-audible dialogue about how hiroshima and nagasaki were justified. time will tell, though.

#more like 'i am beCUM death' am i right?

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cryingoflot49 · 11 months

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Book Review

Ratner’s Star by Don DeLillo

Somebody once told me that Don DeLillo’s Ratner’s Star is an inscrutable novel, impossible to interpret and impossible to understand. I took this as a challenge. After all, I’ve read supposedly impossible books like Ulysses, Finnegans Wake, and Gravity’s Rainbow. I’ve plowed through The White Goddess by Robert Graves and managed to make some sense out of Heidegger’s Being and Time and Sartre’s Being and Nothingness. The trick to understanding these books is knowing what to read for, where to look for it, and how to separate the main ideas from the noise and irrelevant details. And especially be careful when listening to others who have read these books and obviously didn’t understand them, but felt a need to explain them anyways. Whether I am guilty of this or not will be left to others to decide. My take on Ratner’s Star is that it is a picaresque-style novel and that Billy Twillig is one of the least important characters in the narrative.

Billy Twillig is a prodigal scholar. At the age of fourteen, he wins the Nobel Prize for mathematics due to his work with zorgs, a branch that only six people in the world are able to understand. Billy gets taken to a secretly-located institution to work on an assignment to decode a message received from aliens in outer space. Billy, unsurprisingly, acts like a teenager despite his advanced skills, an aspect of him that never gets fully explored by DeLillo in the narrative. He is equal parts cheeky and horny, taking every chance he can get to ask questions of the adults that deprecate them but never himself. The institute itself seems, at times, more like a lunatic asylum than it does a research facility. DeLillo says that this first half of the book was modeled on Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. I didn’t pick up on that by myself, but after having learned that, it fits more or less.

The other scientists are eccentric, to say the least. After arriving, Billy encounters some of them in an artificial, man-made Elysian field. One of the first he meets is Cyril, a scholar working with a team of linguists to define the word “science”. This task is harder than first imagined as they can not agree to where the parameters of the definition lie. Some of them argue that primitive magic, as described by Frazer in The Golden Bough, should be considered part of the definition because those folk magic and customs were devised for the same reasons that science was invented; the purpose was to understand nature and the universe and to exert some sort of control over it for the benefit of humanity. Modern science is nothing more than a precise and more finely tuned form of magic.

Throughout the course of the discussion, Billy is introduced to some female scientists who study the natural elements and he think of them as nothing less than Pagan deities. After assigning one of them the characteristics of a water goddess, he spies on her while she is bathing only to be chastised by her when she catches him. This scene alludes to Artemis, the Greek goddess of chastity, who caught Actaeon spying on her in the woods. This Paganism is all significant because it introduces a theme that pervades throughout the entire book, the primitivism of science as it encounters the frontiers of human knowledge and also the disconnection between language and reality. Since thought, science, and mathematics are all products of language, all of which are tools used to comprehend what we encounter as real, nothing can ever be known in full. The signifier can never be equal to the signified. In the context of comparing Pagan magic and its transition into science, the same questions are foundations for both endeavors with science introducing higher levels of accuracy but also increasing levels of complexity to the point where finding defnite answers may be impossible. Where magic and religion have finality, closure, and the illusion of certainty, science offers only open ended questions that never stop expanding.

Billy Twillig proceeds to meet other strange, eccentric scientists in a similar vein. One is an Indian woman from the untouchable class who studies animal communication and how they are able to think without language. Again, this is another commentary on language and the nature of thought. How can we even use language to comprehend thought that manifests without language? Considering the woman is untouchable, Billy wants to know what would happen if he touches her leg. “Nothing, obviously,” is the woman’s answer, rendering the concept of “untouchable” an empty set. There are also two sleazy gangster types who speak an odd mishmash of languages and left me wondering if they were actually space aliens. They represent the Honduran Syndicate and wish to recruit Billy to manipulate international financial markets. Yet another doctor, claiming to be a lapsed Gypsy, whatever that means, and wants to get rich by turning Billy into a super-computer by inserting brain-accelerating electrodes into his head. Also in a secret ceremony, Billy meets the old scientist Ratner who lent his name to Ratner’s Star, the part of the galaxy where the coded message came from. Ratner was an astronomer who abandoned science as a career and embraced the mysticism of Hasidic Judaism when he realized that science can not answer the question of what happens when we die. On his deathbed during the ceremony, Ratner tells Billy his life story and then whispers the ultimate secret of life into Billy’s ear, but the secret is the most mundane statement you could possibly imagine. But the symbolism of the old passing traditional knowledge down to the young is what is most important here. It also exemplifies how mysticism is a closed system of information whereas science is, by contrast, an open system.

Those are some of the minor characters from the first half. One of the more important characters is Billy’s father who doesn’t contribute too much to the overall narrative, but does introduce one important theme. He takes Billy down into the subways of New York City, where it is dark and there is a danger of getting hit by a train, to teach him that the basis of life is fear. In this instance Billy directly experiences the fear of death since getting hit by a train in the dark would inevitably result in death. Indirectly, DeLillo is pointing out how the fear of death leads to magic, mysticism, and religious thought. Through Billy’s father, DeLillo also points out that fear can lead people to live lives of absurdity since the father owns a guard dog that no one is scared of except for young Billy, develops a neurosis over a pile of dirty dishes in the sink, walks the streets prepared for brawls that never happen, and almost assaults an elderly and frail Chinese man who he mistakes for a mugger. The father also makes the mistake of admiring a tall and talented basketball player for being the kind of son he wishes he had even though the athlete makes a dumb decision that ruins his career while Billy goes on to be a success. The father even considers murdering Billy out of fear of how the boy, unusually small for his age and full of unusual ideas, will make the family look. The father’s fear of death does not lead him to make wise or sensible decisions about life which may be DeLillo’s critique of religion and the possibility of science as an alternative.

Then there is Endor, the mathematician who was assigned to crack the code from Ratner’s Star before Billy came along. Endor lost his patience, moved to a remote location, and spent the rest of his life living in a hole, eating grubs, and digging a tunnel. This latter project parallels the scientific task in that research involves digging oneself deeper and deeper into a hole that eventually will lead to some truth. Endor, as we learn later in the book, actually solved the code before seemingly going crazy. After doing so, he realized that the tunnel digging involved in solving the puzzle created a tunnel leading nowhere as the answer to the original problem ultimately led to more questions rather than one answer. So Endor quit and began digging a tunnel that literally had no purpose and led nowhere. But it did mean something symbolically. The entire book is full of tunnels and hallways all joining up with enclosed rooms, caverns, cells, and enclosures. These may or may not allude to the kabbalah diagram that Ratner describes to Billy as he dies.

In fact, there is one astrophysicist who explains to Billy that black holes are entrances to tunnels and anything that enters them re-emerges in another part of the galaxy. Every star corresponds to a black hole. I am not atronomically literate enough to know if this is true, but it serves a purpose in the book. The man who explains this to Billy is Orang Mohole, the man who discovered moholes, or pockets of hidden space that permeate the cosmos. This character is significant because his moholes play a major part in explaining where the message from Ratner’s Star came from and why they took so long to reach Earth. Mohole is also a pervert and a bipolar psychotic who enjoys inventing sex toys as if he is preoccupied with penetrating into the secret spaces of women’s bodies. He also sometimes goes crazy and shoots people at random. It is possible that he is the man having a firefight with the police when the riddle of the coded message is solved. As if he entered a narrative black hole and re-emerged in another part of the book, kind of like the Aboriginal shaman with white hair and one eye.

If the first half of the book is meant to portray the different aspects of science, two things are certain: one is that teamwork is necessary for scientific research; none of these people are working on their own, but rather they are each deeply involved in one complex part of a larger scientific problem. The other deduction, and the other side of that teamwork, is that individual scientists are lonely, eccentric, and socially isolated people who often risk their sanity for the cause of discovering higher truths. The fact that science, as an open system of information, can never be complete, drives some practitioners into mental territories that suggest locations on the autism spectrum. And all these characters in the first half do represent aspects of science. Ratner represents its mystical element. The Honduran Syndicate represent the exploitation of science for technocratic power, the lapsed Gypsy is the commercialization of science, and Cyril shows how science, in its inability to finally and completely explain the nature of existence, is always at the frontier of human knowledge, while Endor portrays the problematic side of science in that it can never fully explain nature the way religion can.

By the start of the second half of the book, one thing becomes clear; Billy Twillig’s purpose is to provide a structure to the novel and a thread that holds the whole mess together. He is like Virgil leading Dante through Hell in The Divine Comedy, only we, the readers, are Dante and Billy does not tell the stories of the lost souls we encounter, rather he lets them speak for themselves.

In this second half, Billy continues to serve his narrative function as the main character but not the most important character since that role gets filled by Softly, a drug and sex addicted dwarf with a deformed and asymmetrical body. He takes Billy into some underground tunnels to a cavern compound below the institute where they have been working. Softly has assembled a team of scientists to construct a language based purely on logic and mathematics that will be utilizable as a tool so that any intelligent living being on Earth or in outer space can communicate with perfect efficiency, without any ambiguities or misunderstandings. Wasn’t Esperanto meant to do something similar? Softly explains to Billy that he originally brought him to the institute for this secret project. When Billy asks why he had to spend so much time working on deciphering the message from Ratner’s Star even though no one actually cared about it, Softly explains that that project was nothing but preparation for this more important task. In terms of structure, this is the author’s way of telling us that the first half of the novel introduces all the themes of the book and the second half puts them into play. The metanarrative is actually encapsulated in the narrative. Is this Chomsky’s recursion at a semantic level? Remember how most of Moby Dick was descriptions of whales and the esoteric language associated with the practice of whaling? The layman needs to learn all of that so they don’t get lost in technical descriptiveness when the action of the novel begins. Well, that worked for Herman Melville, but not so much for Don DeLillo. Ratner’s Star reaches a narrative plateau rather than a narrative peak. While Billy isolates himself, refusing to do any work, the others set about the task of creating the language and, by God, they create it. Oh yeah, and Billy cracks the code of Ratner’s Star too. No big surprises or conventional conflict resolutions.

But like the first half of the book, the second half is really all about the characters. Where previously characters were meant to represent different aspects of the scientific endeavor, now the characters in the project are brought into three-dimensionality for an exploration of their individual motives. One man works on this project to advance his career and status in the scientific community, one woman uses it as a means of fueling her own philosophical theories about language. A third is engaged in the project to reconcile his identity as a Chinese-American man, being unable to fit completely into either category of “Chinese” or “American”; He latter concludes that language barriers prevent him from being wholly one or the other. The most poignant portrayals of the inner lives of the characters come from Softly and Jean Venable, an author he hires to write a book about the project. Jean is actually a talentless writer with a turbulent psyche and an unfulfilling social life, possibly even suffering from mental illness. Softly chose her because he wants the story to be told to the general public by someone who doesn’t understand science; in other words, he seeks fame through mass popularity while also seeking prominence in intellectual circles through his real work. Actually, though, he is more preoccupied with using Jean for sex to overcompensate for his physical malformations. As we get to know Softly more, we learn that he is motivated by insecurity and self-loathing. He refuses to look into mirrors out of disgust and tries to conquer the world to make up for his inadequacy.

Otherwise, the scientific themes in the second half are really just expansions on the themes introduced in the first half. One theme that deserves some attention here is that of mathematics. A lot of readers are put off to this book because of it, but you don’t actually need to do any math to follow what is going on since DeLillo limits his exploration to theoretical mathematics rather than applied mathematics. What I get from this book is the need for math to remain an open system of communication so that mathematics can expand eternally and adapt to scientific changes as more knowledge accumulates. The paradox is that while pure mathematics deal in absolute truths, applied math needs to be constantly readjusted to function since science is a process of never-ending self-correction. Pure mathematics can only be self-referential thereby posing the question of whether they are pure or not when we utilize them to explain scientific objectivity. Or do we, in reverse, adjust our perceptions of objectivity to correspond with the ultimate truths of pure mathematics? Of course, this is postmodernism so there can ultimately be no solution to these problems. Is postmodernism meant to be an admission that there are limitations to our intellectual abilities or is it merely just a cop out? When reading Wittgenstein I think it’s the former, when reading Derrida I think it’s the latter.

In the end, Ratner’s Star certainly has its flaws. The anecdotes about Billy’s childhood don’t lend a whole lot to the overall story and I think some of them should have been written to completion or else left out entirely. I guess in postmodern novels, not everything makes sense because the world is just that way. Pynchon can get away with this, but here DeLillo appears to have made some poor editorial choices. Billy could have been developed as a character more too. I know he is more of a narrative device than a real character, but this still leaves a huge void in the center of the novel that makes it underwritten which is strange considering how overwritten everything else in this book is. Speaking of Pynchon, DeLillo intended this to be an homage to him. But instead of reading like an homage, it comes off as derivative and unoriginal. There are secret plots, paranoia, underground tunnels, secret societies, communications theory, arcane technological jargon, loose plot threads, sexual perversion, non sequiturs, narrative derailments, and even a couple songs stuck in at random places. It’s as if DeLillo took every element from Pynchon’s first three novels and repurposed them for his own novel. It is often too close to Pynchon to be good, but isn’t that also postmodernism? There is never anything new, only copies of copies of copies? In DeLillo’s case it doesn’t quite work. But this novel is far from being a failure. The well-drawn characters are unforgettable and full of depth, so much so that within a sentence or two they feel complete and fully realized. This is a trick few authors can master.

Would Ratner’s Star stand on its own for a reader who had never heard of Pynchon? I think it would. There is enough brilliance here to be independently evaluated without the overbearing shadow of the great and mysterious Ruggles. DeLillo is full of his own ideas and this is a unique exploration of language, logic, science, and mathematics that could never be recreated by anyone else. DeLillo’s later novels were definitely better, and Ratner’s Star is not for the casual reader, but for those who make the effort, and especially those who have an eagle’s eye for fine details, reading this book is a rich and rewarding experience.

#book reviews #don delillo #postmodernism #books #sciencefiction #scifi #novels #fiction #ratners star

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meaninglessgaythoughts · 2 years

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On the Self

I find personality tests intriguing. From the scientific-based approaches like the Myers-Briggs test to Buzzfeed quizzes telling you what kind of cupcake you are, there is something that draws us to something that promises to tell us what we are. Whether they’re right or wrong, it’s always fun and interesting to see what a program can extrapolate about you based on basic behaviors or how you would plan a dinner date.

I think they’re always wrong. Sure, they might be right about some things, but I am against the idea that any set of questions could thoroughly categorize a person, or for that matter, than any person could be thoroughly categorized at all. No amount of questioning, surveys, observation, or data can ever encompass the entirety of a human being, for we are all infinitely complex and infinitely nuanced.

There have been so many attempts to find a number of basic categories, into which every person can fit. Myers-Briggs, Multiple Intelligence Theory, Type 1/Type 2, even the creation of “lifestyles” in the late 80′s all aspire to the same purpose: to create boxes. Boxes exist all around us, and they’re not always bad. It feels good to fit in to a tangible group of people. It feels good to identify with them. It is easy to communicate yourself through predefined areas of existence. Consider the LGBTQ+ community and its endless labels, with more being created every day. Or the set list of majors all higher education institutes offer, from which students must choose. Like cats, boxes feel safe to us. They are real, tangible, and the people in them are as well.

However, no person can fit solidly into one box. Whatever category I identify with, others have qualities I also feel are representative of me. I hesitate to define myself under one word, because that one word inherently is not me. I can call myself gay, but that label does not encompass my entire sexual or gender identity, nor can it anyone’s. I can call myself a sociology major, but I do not only study sociology. Herein, I believe, lies the problem. When we identify with these labels, we limit ourselves to them. Like the cat in the box, there’s no way to reach into any other boxes that lay parallel to ours. We become confined to a single set of rules, of stereotypes, of people, of personality.

When we create a set of terms to describe the myriad of sexual and gender identities people can exhibit, we make it easier to communicate larger concepts but also gloss over the nuances of those concepts. I think it ignores the reality of sexuality and gender as fluid, constantly changing, and often intangible identities. Especially among young people embarking on their journeys of self-discovery, many spend days, months, years, lifetimes agonizing over what to call themself. However many new labels we create in the name of inclusivity, they will never be enough.

Similarly, while the organization of human knowledge into broad categories such as mathematics, natural science, history, etc., and then into further subcategories allows us to identify and sort different types of knowledge as well as develop specialties in a field, they also sort knowledge into boxes. In reality, every discipline is intrinsically connected. I wish I could spent a lifetime getting every major offered, just so I could draw lines between them like spiderwebs. I wish I could pursue knowledge for the sake of having it, but that is a problem I will not go into. Society and education systems tell me to pick one field, maybe a second one just for fun, and ignore all the other ones, which is to say, ignore highly relevant knowledge that we just don’t have time to teach you. Interdisciplinary study is incredibly valuable, not only to the individual but to society at large (If you haven’t read David Epstein’s Range, I highly recommend it). But again, we create boxes, put ourselves in them, and close them, shutting out the expanse of infinite other boxes.

I find personality tests intriguing. What is it about ourselves that we don’t know but this online quiz does? I think it comes from a desire to discover ourselves, but that discovery is like the vanishing horizon, always out of reach. Most spend their entire lives searching for, not only who they are, but also how to live. Part of the appeal of these tests, I think, is what they tell you about your life and how to live it: habits to develop, careers to go into, which people to love and which to avoid. There is too much uncertainty in the self and the world it’s placed in, and such instructions offer an escape from that.

Religion runs on the same principles. It answers the three questions that haunt our species: where we come from, where we go, and what the hell we’re supposed to do in between. There’s always a set of rules, of do’s and don’t’s, that add that structure we so desperately seek. Freedom is incredible, but it’s also scary. Add it into a tumultuous and intangible reality, it can become unbearable. It’s from this we seek asylum, and religion is one way we do that.

This is also the appeal of lifestyle boxes. Each have their own inscribed identities, but also their own rules, taboos, rewards, structures. They each offer a mode of being so that we don’t have to find our own. They offer a self that is beyond our own, perfect, attainable, and acceptable. The irony of being able to choose which boxes to place yourself in is that that freedom is diminished within them.

Basically, searching for ourselves is scary. Very scary. It requires incredible introspection, a lifetime of failures, to try on masks until you find one that feels right; all the other ones we look back on with regret or embarrassment.

Today is one of unprecedented options. I can stand up and see infinite boxes, and I can make the choice to not plant myself firmly within any of them. I can visit each and every one, and leave a bit of myself in each. I will take some of them with me, and some I will leave behind, but they’re all part of my journey. I will find friends, and loves, and things I do not care for. I will have the embarrassing moments, and look back on them with fondness, for they were steps on the path. I will never settle, and one day, I will create my own box, one that only I can fit in. Its walls will have countless holes through which I can reach to every other box I’ve identified with, for they are all parts of me. I will exist in the center of it all, removed and yet connected, alone and not.

This will be my self. This will be me.

#writing #self #personality #identity #LGBTQ

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svenssonortiz8 · 2 years

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The Innocent Man Drafted By John Grisham

Have pdf anti copy pro crack heard make certain about the Zen Master who gets thrown off a high cliff? On the way down, he notices some strawberries growing in a little crag. He calmly picks one and eats it the actual rest of his reliable. John: The narrator of my novel is Jahanara, who was the daughter of the emperor (Shah Jahan) along with the favorite wife (Arjumand). By all accounts, Shah Jahan and Arjumand were profoundly in real love. Within "Beneath a Marble Sky", Jahanara recounts her parent's love story, the tragic death of her mother, and her father's need to honor Arjumand by creating the Taj Mahal. Shah Jahan and Arjumand also had two sons (Dara and Aurangzeb), and these sons ultimately fought to achieve control with the throne of India. Jahanara decided to side with Dara, rrncluding a good involving "Beneath a Marble Sky" is centered on Jahanara's efforts to help Dara win the civil war that erupted within India. If you might have ever what is Shack, the you might see how this story exudes a strong sense of God's sovereignty. That "all things work through for the best" (Rom 8:28) which today's suffering is "not worthy to be compared more than glory is be revealed in us" some day (Rom 8:18). sidify music converter crack doesn't say as much as possible are good, but as much as possible will work toward quite in states. The attractive young woman speaks no English, behaves very strangely and has some unique abilities. Paul brings her back on the hospital supper . want with a name they call her Urchin. Because becomes searching for obsessed is not girl his life changes and he questions his sanity. But is Urchin a foreigner, an alien or a unit of Paul's psyche? The Shack, I believe, is the author's make an attempt to clarify the connection between humans and the triune Goodness. It describes the relationship between mankind and the Trinity, cohabitating inside of your believer. I really believe in very first review on the Shack, I've been unduly influenced by the criticism of a number of people. I believe it is my responsibility to correct and concede that my own personal view about this book in earlier review left out some critical issues. Basically, I am saying that i could n't have been more mistaken about the idea. But I had a huge number of others who I had company offering. automatic email processor ultimate crack is credited to Roger Olson inside the book Finding God in the Shack. We're all so busy these days that everything needs for you to become scheduled. Schedule the twenty minutes you'll work on your find crackback . It can be any time at all; even your lunch hour at position. Just schedule it, down into the minute, so when that time of day arrives, start writing. The author, John Brunner, was a science fiction writer who died in 1995. His books might be more about people than technology while in Quicksand he's created different very complex characters. For the protagonist he addresses the nature of reality and his view of the universe against a convincing backdrop of mental illness. Craze is somewhat slow moving, but Brunner sets the scene perfectly and makes his setting very believable. In the meantime, seeking still want more evidence for how each of them books defines the four faces in Ezekiel's vision, I encourage you, study the four Gospels of Jesus' life and ministry. If you do, plus it really can never emerge as same.

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cerebrumrott · 3 years

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Obey Me! Shall we Date?

Brothers x MC

Synopsis: Demon Form Head Canons

Lucifer

Is not shy about sharing his demon form in the slightest.

More than happy to show off his wings for you and every compliment and awed look you give him just strokes his pride.

He gets taller in his demon form, not by more than a few inches but its enough to have you craning your neck to look him in the eyes.

His horns are not nearly as sensitive as some of his brothers but he still quite enjoys when you pet them.

Specifically likes it when the base of his horns are scratched, he could just melt into your hands.

His wings are prone to molting when he is stressed and seeing as he is stressed almost all the time. It's fairly common to find black feathers around the house.

When Lucifer later finds out that you had been collecting his discarded feathers in a small vase in your room he can’t help the blush on his cheeks having forgotten the entire reason he went into your room in the first place.

Seeing as you are so entranced by his feathers you might as well help him preen when he is molting.

It is totally cause he wants you to just have a nice collection, not because its a massive boost to his ego to have you doting over him.

Straighten his tie and flatten out his collar. Even if it doesn't need it. These little gestures will leave him flustered and blushing.

Mammon

His horns, due to their peculiar shape, are extremely sensitive. To the point where just blowing on them sends a tremble racing down his spine.

Pressing a finger between the grooves or into the center of the horn's spiral will have him practically howling from the sensation or more accurately leave him a stuttering and flustered mess.

Despite being essentially shirtless in his demon form. Mammon is like a walking heater. Just standing next to him for too long can cause you to break into a sweat.

If you were to ever trace the white lines that cover his torso he would just stop functioning entirely.

He would of course vehemently deny any such claims stating that, he was simply… thinking… about things… shut up.

Mammon is also extremely ticklish and with so much exposed skin from his questionable choice in a shirt. Do with that what you will ;)

His wings are restless, always flickering, fluttering or some variation of the two.

The only time they had ever truly stilled was when Mammon had agreed to let you touch them for the first time. In that moment as you ever so carefully ran your hands over the thin membrane of the wings, they didn't so much as twitch under the touch.

While his wings aren't necessarily sensitive to touch they are slightly delicate, being as they are made from a thin leathery membrane.

Leviathan

He also gets taller in his demon form by a few inches. Though due to his terrible posture you are likely to not notice.

He regularly sheds his antlers each year and grows back new ones.

He used to be extremely self conscious while his antlers regrew due to teasing from his brothers but after hearing how much you liked them they were now a point of pride for him.

I can also totally see an MC who collects his shed antlers like, it's 2 am and Levi texts them like ""Hey normie you want my old antlers I know you asked about them before so...""

Leviathan would get such an ego boost from it though. His face growing reed each time he walks into your room to see his old antlers nestled about the shelves like decor.

His tail also sheds its skin every so often (like a reptile would) another reason as to why he is always showering or taking a bath.

On that same thought, Levi has to take daily soaks in either the shower or tub to keep his skin from drying out or getting irritated. Being in the sun for too long can also irritate his skin.

Uses this as an excuse to not go outside despite there being no sun in the Devildom.

Both his horns and his tail are rather sensitive to touch. Though he loves the idea of you petting them his self consciousness prevents him from ever initiating such a thing.

The markings on the side of his neck are also highly sensitive. Running a hand or dragging your nails over them sends shivers down his spine every time.

Satan

Not only does he get taller but he also physically bulks up in his demon form. Its hardly noticeable under the sweater and boa he wears but on close inspection you can see the defined lines of his muscles straining under the fabric.

Similar to Lucifer, his horns are not all that sensitive. Though the area where they connect to his head are very mush so.

Satan is not shy in the slightest about asking MC to pet his head when he is in a bad mood and needs someone to stop him from doing something potentially stupid.

Satan often subconsciously purrs when he is happy or content.

This habit may have stemmed from his obsession with cats

His tail for the most part is hard and senseless, though the green end is softer and more pliable like cartilage. It is also extremely sensitive to both touch and temperature.

This is why he keeps his tail wrapped around his leg to protect it from being accidentally trampled on or whacked.

Since his tail extends from his lower back rather than the base of his spine the exposed skin surrounding the base of his tail is extremely sensitive and ticklish.

Asmodeus

Asmo of course loves any kind of affection, especially if it is coming from you of all people.

The tips of his horns that are pink in hue are extremely sensitive to touch. He is not shy about asking you to touch him obviously but you would note that he does get extremely flustered when you do so without having to be asked.

Asmo will just melt into your touch if you walk up to him and just randomly cup his face or pet his horns.

When he is especially flustered the pink hue of his horns will even darken

His wings are velvety and soft to the touch. He loves to have kisses pressed to the soft membrane of the wings.

The easiest way to turn him to putty in your hands is to go straight for his wings. They are his weak spot.

It's really little affectionate things that get him going. Adjusting the metal chain of his scorpion brooch, pushing a stray piece of his bangs back into place, even something as simple as picking a piece of lint off of his jacket has him beaming with affection.

I don't see Asmo as getting to experience these little things as often as the more prominent things that come with his sin. So when you go out of your way to make sure he does get to experience these little things he falls hard and fast.

Beelzebub

He physically bulks up when he transforms. If you thought he was shredded normally wait till you see him in demon form.

His horns are extremely sensitive, almost like little antennas. Turns into the biggest puppy when you rubs his horns. Just all smiles and happiness from him.

Sometimes he will even rub your cheeks together so his horns brush against your hair.

He is a bit hesitant when it comes to his wings being touched just because of their nature. It's not that he doesn't trust you it’s just when he gets excited he unconsciously buzzes his wings.

If he were to catch his wing on your hand and rip it he would feel bad for making you think you hurt him. In reality it does not hurt him all that much, akin to like a paper cut or bad scratch.

Beel is really just a big push over for you, scratch him behind the horns and he will just become the biggest lap dog.

Belphegor

His horns and tail are not sensitive but that doesn't mean he doesn't want you to pet him.

After he falls asleep to you petting his horns one afternoon he now demands that you do this at least once a week. If you don't he will bother you until you cave to his wishes.

Also loves to have the fluff of his tail brushed / petted, although he would never admit it outright. His brothers already think he is spoiled so how would they react to knowing he has you pampering him each week? Braiding his tail hair and brushing out the tangles while he snoozes.

On the rare occasions he can’t sleep or when he is awakened from a nightmare he will seek you out and ask you to pet him so he can get to sleep. There are many mornings you will wake up and just find Belphie in bed next to you curled around his pillow with his face buried in your shoulder.

He promises to pay you back later though. Totally...

The cow spots on his neck are extremely ticklish, to the point he borderline passes out from wheezing so hard when Beel tickles him there.

Bonus:

Diavolo

He is much, much larger in his demon form than he is when he appears as human. He is normally tall but like this he is borderline massive.

He tends to keep his wings folded into his sides due to their large span. Though is more than happy to show them off to you when prompted.

They are thick and velvety to the touch, the metallic jewelry that covers the tops of them a cold contrast to the warm skin.

He adores any kind of attention from you, more than content to sit and chatter about whatever comes to his mind as you sit beside him or stop him petting his wings.

He bent down once so you could see his horns and as a joke lifted you off the ground while you were holding onto them. He laughed so hard you thought he was going to drop you on your ass.

His horns are not sensitive in the slightest, hence why he has no problems with decorating them with tight metal pieces akin to a piercing on a person.

Diavolo is a super loving guy normally and this holds true to when he is in his demon form. So whenever he gives you a hug you end up smothered in his pecs. Not that your complaining.

Barbatos

Barbatos would never say it aloud but he very much enjoys when you spend time just running your fingers ever so softly over his horns. Their unique shape and varied textures can leave you entertained for what feels like hours but in reality you love the soft expressions you can pull out of the normally stoic butler.

Loves having soft kisses pressed to the joints of his horns.

His tail is his one weak spot as once one learns what certain movements mean. You can always tell how he is feeling.

The unbridled joy you feel well in your heart when his tail begins to curl up upon seeing you letting you know he is feeling the same way has you biting your lip to hold yourself back from running into his arms.

#obey me shall we date #obey me #obey me headcanons #obey me lucifer #obey me mammon #obey me leviathan #obey me satan #obey me asmodeus #obey me beelzebub #obey me belphegor #obey me x mc #obey me demon brothers

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dameronology · 3 years

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one hell of a mandalorian {din djarin}

summary: actions speak louder than words - which is good for din djarin, because he's not very good at words. (this was a commission for an anon! i hope you enjoy).

warnings: language

enjoy!! if you're interested in commissions, you can find out more here :)

- jazz xx

Din Djarin was a man of few words.

That had become clear not long after you'd met.

It wasn't that he didn't like talking, or that he was rude - he'd just never had the need for it. The Mandalorian could spend days and days in hyperspace, on his own with nothing but a frozen bounty to keep him company. And they were hardly chatty, even before they were thrown away into the trawling depths of carbonite animation. There were a few select geniuses who tried to make conversation with him in a last-ditch attempt to appeal to his humanity and beg for mercy, but so far, they'd had a zero-for-zero success rate. It wasn't that he didn't have any humanity to appeal to it - because he did, and his weird, green surrogate kid was an absolute testament to that - but it just took a little bit for it to come out.

The beskar made him seem a little...robotic. Like a droid, which was ironic, because he wouldn't have gone near the things with a ten-foot-barge pole. Din had just become so used to people seeing his mask and his intimidating posture before him that having human traits, like feelings and thoughts and opinions, had never been any use. Having defining traits and a personality was all well and good, but nothing helped you through the galaxy quite like the ability to put the fear of God in people.

The Mandalorian was something, but Din Djarin was somebody. He was good; not necessarily pure and golden-hearted like a typical comic book hero, but he had a strong moral compass. Sometimes, it pointed in opposite directions, but he helped those who needed it and he paid his dues. That was probably a lot more than anyone in the galaxy could have said for themselves. In the fight of good and bad, in a world that existed entirely and black and white, there was nothing more grey than an honest man. Somebody who refused to pick a side held the power of both. For that, Din could have either been extremely smart, or extremely dumb.

Sometimes, he was extremely dumb. Made the wrong moves in combat, or got too cocky, however out of character it was for him. It was the losing fights that truly brought out the human side of Din, and it took a very, very specific eye to see it, sometimes to the point where even he missed it. It never went over your head, though.

You'd joined the crew on the Razor Crest as a mechanic - then you became a baby sitter, and his partner-in-crime, and the closest thing he'd ever had to a friend. His non-verbal nature meant that most of his emotional cues came in the physical form. It went over the heads of everybody else, but between your intuition, and the time spent in such a cramped space, it quickly became like a second language to you. Helmet tilts when he was confused, and little nods when he was pleased; tensed shoulders when the Mandalorian was nervous and balled fists when he was about to absolutely lose his shit.

Today was one of those days. Even though you were both in one piece and the baby was - by some absolute fucking miracle - asleep, it almost hadn't been that way. Nevarro had been quieter than usual, and Din had let his guard down; finally convinced himself to relax a tiny bit and ever-so-slightly loosen the stick that was firmly up his backside. His sudden lack of awareness for your surroundings had meant that someone managed to track the Crest, however briefly. The kid had barely noticed, and you weren't phased by what had been a simple, human mistake. Din, true to nature, was already beating himself up for it.

That was evidenced by his heavy footsteps, and the way he'd immediately retreated to the cockpit and slammed the door. Common sense would have entailed that he wanted to be left alone, but you'd long surpassed the point of any of that. Common sense didn't exist in a galaxy like this one. Doing the obvious thing was, nine times out of ten, usually the wrong way. Expecting the unexpected was the right way to go.

You'd paced outside the door for the better part of fifteen minutes - to go in, or to not go in, that was the question. You were torn between wanting to give Din space and wanting to be there for him; a cranky Din was often an unbearable one, but you cared deeply for him. Maybe a little too much, but that was a can of worms to open later.

"Din?" You gently called. Nothing. "I know you're brooding, or whatever it is you do under that helmet, but talking is good."

"I'm fine."

You sighed. "The scale goes great, good, bad, awful, world-ending and then fine."

"I've never heard that before in my life."

"Yeah, I just made it up on the spot." You murmured.

Resting your hand against the doorknob, you pondered for a moment. Did you want to risk it by going in? Making him mad when he was literally shutting you out? It was hard to know what to do with Din - it wasn't like he came with an answer key, or even a vague manual that could point you in the right direction. It was all just guess work.

"Is the helmet on?" You softly asked.

"Yeah."

You took that as a sign - with a deep breath, you gently opened the door and stepped inside the cockpit, shutting it quietly behind you. The tense atmosphere inside was almost enough to swallow you whole. The man practically radiated angst.

"Talk to me." You took a seat beside him.

"There's nothing to say."

"Bullshit." You murmured. "You might have a thousand inches of beskar hiding your face but your body language is a dead giveaway."

"I'm meant to protect you and the kid." He replied. It wasn't much, but it was better than silence. "It's my job to catch bad people and outrun them when I need."

"You did outrun them." You reminded him. "I'm safe. You're safe. The kid is safe. Does anything else matter?"

"It shouldn't have happened in the first place." Din said. "I was relaxed-"

"- you allowed to relax." You cut him off. "Despite your best efforts, you're a human being."

Reaching out, you gently placed your hand over Din's ungloved palm. He didn't resist or try to brush you away. His hands were soft and callous in equal measures, which felt like a fitting metaphor for him on the whole. You tangled your fingers in his and held on tightly, perhaps in a sad attempt to remind him that you were there.

But Din knew you were there - he could feel it constantly, and he thought about it just as much. Every day of his life prior to you had been filled with rigidity and angst, then you'd come waltzing in and for the first time in years, he'd untensed his muscles and stopped looking over his shoulder. Learnt to take a breath and enjoy the simple things in life, like Grogu laughing or you accidentally tripping over a tree branch. You'd become so important to him that the prospect of losing you was too much for him to even fathom. He'd come close today - too close - and it had been an eye-opener. The irony was that telling you why he was so fucking scared was more frightening than the entire thing itself.

"Don't be so hard on yourself." The gentle pull of your voice lulled him back to reality. "Please?"

His grip on your hand tightened. "I'm sorry."

"It's okay." You breathily smiled. "You don't have to apologise."

"I never thought I'd have someone like you." Din admitted. "Coming so close to losing you was terrifying, even if it wasn't that close at all."

He'd never been so open about his feeling towards you before. Obviously, you knew that he viewed you in a way he didn't see anybody else, but that knowledge had been based entirely on physical cues and mere guesswork. You'd never expected him to vocalise the way he felt, or even acknowledge them. It wasn't necessarily a bad thing, or even something you considered to be detrimental. The words came as a nice surprise.

"You mean a lot to me, Din." You said. He'd always loved the way his name sounded when you said it; nobody had used it for years, not since he'd lost his parents. It was something to vulnerable and personal. You were the only one he trusted with it.

"I do?"

You didn't mean to laugh at that - you really didn't, but it just came out. A low snort of disbelief; shock at his absolute inability to read the fucking room. Din was as intuitive as they came, with the ability to read criminals like a bedtime story he'd been rehearsing since he was a kid. Then it came to you, and he knew nothing. Absolutely nothing. To call him clueless would be the understatement of the century.

"Maker." You murmured. "Of course you do - more than anyone or anything."

"You're special to me." Din replied. "It scares me sometimes."

Din was straight forward with everything he said - it was just finding the courage to say it. He'd gone into battle with Imps and Republic Rangers alike; fought krayt dragons and droids and fellow Mandalorians and yet this entire thing shook him to his very core more than anything else.

You didn't know it, but you were perfectly holding his gaze. Staring right through it and looking right into his soul. He forgot he had one sometimes. It was probably a little dusty and covered in cobwebs, but it was there, and you were bringing it right out of him and back to reality.

Din used his grip on your hands to pull you a little closer - a moment later, he gently pressed the cold metal of his helmet to his forehead. It was the closest you'd ever been to him, even if it wasn't that close at all. You could hear his soft breathing through the modulator, the sensation acting as a stunning reminder that there was a person underneath there. There were times when you forgot, or felt a little disconnected from the idea entirely. You'd never felt the need to see his face, though - you hadn't a clue what he might look like, but at the same time, you had an image of him in your head. It was as clear as day; as bright as the suns on Tatooine and as persevering as the kid's insistence that he receive all your attention, all the time.

You knew what the action was; a Keldabe kiss. The Mandalorian had recounted its meaning to you not long after you'd met - he'd finally let his barriers down and let you plague him with questions about his culture and the creed, and you'd stumbled on the subject. Initially, you'd been entertained by the fact that it two such vastly different meanings. On one hand, it could be a headbutt. A beskar punch to knock the daylights out of anyone who particularly annoyed you. On the other hand, it was almost a romantic gesture; a way that Mandalorians could show their affection to one another without having to remove their armour.

Din had the latter meaning in mind, but also so much more. He was giving you a piece of his culture - including you in the very thing that defined him as a person.

"It won't happen again." The Mandalorian gently said. "I'll never let you get hurt again. I promise."

"I know." You softly smiled. Your eyes closed, enjoying the feeling of the cool metal against your forehead. "For what it's worth, I have your back too."

He softly chuckled. "Thank you."

You gently pulled back, eyes meeting again (not that you could tell).

"Seriously!" You said. "I can be a bad-ass."

"You can be a lot of things." Din replied. "You're one hell of a girl."

"And you're one hell of a Mandalorian."

#din djarin x reader #din djarin x fem! reader #din djarin x you #din djarin imagine #din djarin imagines #mandalorian x reader #mandalorian x you #mandalorian imagines #mandalorian fluff #din djarin fluff #star wars x reader #star wars characters #star wars x you #star wars imagines

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nyx-aira · 3 years

Text

When two worlds collide

Summary: When Wanda finally snaps and attacks the S.W.O.R.D base, she doesn't expect they would have inhuman support. While the battle rages on Jimmy, Monica and Darcy discover a secret about their colleague that might save the day.

A/N: I've wrote this after episode five came out but in this version S.W.O.R.D threatens Wanda again and she snaps. This isn't canon compliant, at least not 100%. Also I'm not an expert on magic in the MCU, I just took some of the pieces I remembered and put them in there, so it's probably not canon as well.

TW: mind controlled, brief mention of violence, panic attack

You had been in the lab when it happened. Something had breached the barrier. Looking around you saw that nobody was in the lab with you. You knew Monica was in a meeting with Hayward but you didn't know where Jimmy and Darcy went.

Running out of the building you almost fell to the floor, as if you had ran into a barrier. The air was full with magic, it was everywhere, wearing you down, seeping into your bones, lapping at your strength. You tried to regain your breath but it was as if your lungs were full of honey, making it almost impossible to breathe. It was unbearable.

Looking around, trying to find a familiar face, you grabbed the first agent you saw by the arm and asked what was going on.

"Maximoff has breached the barrier, she's turning our own men against us. Stay inside ma'am, we'll handle it."

Wanda. This wasn't Wanda. You knew her magic, it felt different, like a thunderstorm. Crackling with energy, unpredictable and ever-changing. This, whatever this was, wasn't her, not entirely.

You had known Wanda since you were little, you grew up on the same streets and had benn unseparable, Wanda, you and Pietro. Then Ultron had happened, you had lost the twins as the battle continued to rage on but you had felt their powers all over the city. It had been agony to feel the wave of magic when Wanda cried out. You had felt all of it, her pain, the shock and the rage, so much rage.

Wanda probably thought you were dead as well, thinking you had died in Sokovia all these years ago, but you didn't. She wasn't the only one with abilities, with magic. The only difference, you were born with it, she had been nudged in the right direction by Hydra.

That's why you started running again, following the awful feeling of dread and agony. Hurting you every step you took, sapping at your strength, wearing you down but you continued running. For Wanda.

You rounded another corner when you fell to your knees, that sensation growing stronger the closer you got. Trying to regain your breath you realised someone was taking to you.

"...you okay? Can you get up?"

Blinking up you could make out two people, shaking your head to clear your vision the blurred figures became people. Monica and Darcy, allies, friends, your brain supplied.

"Captain, Doctor." you greeted them, groaning while getting up from the floor.

"Are you sure you're okay?" Monica asked while offering you a hand. "Yeah you look like shit." came the remark from Darcy.

You rubbed your head and dusted off your clothes. "I'm good, don't worry." Looking in the disbelieving faces of your colleagues you couldn't blame them, whatever that was, was sapping up all the magic it could get. So it made sense that normal people wouldn't be affected, they probably didn't even feel a difference. You couldn't imagine how Wanda must be feeling.

"I need to get to her." you heard yourself say before you started to run again, ignoring the calls of your name and the torturous sensation that was making your life a living hell right now. You didn't come far though as you felt a hand grab your shoulder and not so gently halt your attempt at saving your best friend. Turning around you looked in the, now, three concerned faces of your friends.

"Listen I know you believe that this was all a mistake somehow..." Jimmy tried to say but you interrupted him. "It's not her, whatever this is, it's not her." Starting to walk again you heard three sets of footsteps follow you. "What do you mean it's not her?" Darcy prodded. "I can feel it, that's something else." came your curt reply, focusing on the task ahead, trying to shield yourself from the other source of magic you pulled your glamour closer to you. Not ready to show them what was really going on.

"What do you mean you can feel it?" came the cautious question from Monica. "And what something else, is that why you're so affected by what's going on?"

"You have powers too, don't you?"

Turning around you looked at them, you knew you could trust them but there was this nagging feeling in your head that you were losing time, but looking at them again you realised, you couldn't do this alone so you took a deep breath and dropped your glamour, preparing yourself for their reaction.

Taking a deep breath you realised that you were feeling different, the suffocating sensation wasn't as strong and painful anymore, your mind cleared up as well, the feeling of haziness still there but not as present as before.

"Your hands are ...broken...gleaming..?" was Jimmy's confused reaction. Looking down you traced the glowing cracks on your arms, closing your eyes as the familiar feeling of your magic surged through your body. It felt good, after all these weeks, not having to suppress your powers. Taking another breath you willed the glow to go away, only the small white cracks staying visible, you continued marching towards the chaos, your friends not far behind.

"It's a long story but the short version: Wanda isn't the only one with powers here and I probably won't stay as the only magical surprise today."

Continuing your way to the barrier you realised that there were no other agents around, it was completely silent, no sound besides your own footsteps. Something was wrong. The others must have realised that as well, as you could see Monica and Jimmy draw their weapons, Darcy readying her taser. You tapped your foot on the ground, a small wave of energy moving through your surroundings, allowing you to see what your eyes couldn't.

"There's nothing. Not a single person." Scanning your surroundings you started to wonder where all the people went when you hear a deafening bang. Looking at your friends you nod as you all started running towards the noise. It's the sound of gunfire you soon realise and Monica pulled you behind some of the buildings where you could have a good look of what was going on.

You were about 200 meters from the barrier, the open area in front of you a deadly battle. It looked like S.W.O.R.D was fighting their own agents, some being mind controlled, some still with a free will but the numbers were dwindling. Charging into the fight would be a suicide mission, looking at the others they seemed to agree with you. Concern was plastered all over their faces, these people were their colleagues, comrades and friends. Letting your gaze glide through the battle you frantically tried to come up with a plan. You needed to get to Wanda, not having spotted her yet, and try to snap her out of whatever that was. Admittedly the plan wasn't the best but it was the only one you had.

"Can you take her?"

The question snapped you out of your thoughts. "Wanda." Jimmy repeated "Could you beat her in a fight if you had to?"

Now you had the attention of everyone, looking at you with a questioning look. You sighed, rubbing your face, absently tracing the marks on your arms, a nervous habit you had picked up over the years.

"I'd like to believe so. Wanda's raw powers a strong, stronger than mine but its mostly just that, raw strength, raw energy. She isn't properly trained, hasn't worked with other magic users, to my knowledge at least. I was born with these powers, having trained with other sorcerers and mages since I was little. I can tap in energy sources she's probably not even aware of. I'm more in control but she has greater potential." You weren't sure on how big their understanding of magic was, going with Darcy as the one with the most knowledge as she had met some Asgardians.

Magic was alive, it wasn't just something that was simply there. It was in nature, in plants, in trees, in animals, even in humans. Magic was everywhere, you just needed to know how to tap into it. Some drew their power from other dimensions, some used the the power of the Yggdrasil, others used powerful objects as their source of energy and other magic users, including yourself, drew their power from the aether. The aether was an ancient energy source, as old as the planet itself, maybe even older. It was a feral energy, not as defined as the power of the Yggdrasil, it was more difficult to handle as it was closest to nature and the planet. For you it was perfect, the rough, brute, untamed nature of it. Like the stormy see, it's unpredictable, brachial, brute nature was alluring, tempting. You couldn't just use it, you had to work with it, convince it that you were worthy of it's powers. Once you had passed that test your understanding of what was possible would change forever.

The noise of the battle brought you back to reality. Watching the clash you realised that there weren't many S.W.O.R.D agents left standing. Catching a glimpse of red you looked to the far left end of the barrier to see Wanda blast some agents back into the woods.

The woods. You took note of your surroundings and a plan formed in your head. This could actually work, you just needed to get a little bit closer. Getting up from where you were sitting you realised that this was gonna be more difficult then you thought when you felt Monica tackle you to the ground and a spray of bullets hit where seconds ago would have been your head.

"Are you trying to get yourself killed!" she yelled at you but you just pointed to the trees 30 meters in front of you.

"I have a plan but I need to get there."

"In one piece? That's impossible." Darcy exclaimed, fixing you with an incredulous look, Jimmy just shook his head, agreeing with her statement. "If we don't do anything soon there will be no S.W.O.R.D agents left!" You tried to spot Wanda again but could only see the red flares of her magic, at least she hadn't vanished. Seeing the look in Monica's eyes you knew that she agreed with you, they all did. Realising that you needed to do something fast, you told them your plan. They didn't seem thrilled but it was your only option.

Focusing on the task at hand you closed your eyes, preparing yourself for whatever might happen, trying to shield yourself from the sickening feeling of whatever that thing was.

Taking a final breath you opened your eyes to see Monica, Darcy and Jimmy take cover, the scientist giving you an encouraging thumbs up. Looking to the battlefield you tried to blend out all the noise and screams of agony, focusing on your target, the trees and woods surrounding you.

Kneeling to the ground you felt a surge of power flow through your body, welcoming the feeling of the aether, you poured all of your energy into the ground, the presence of the other thing making it harder than it usually was. You felt the ground react to your magic, adapting to your will. The ancient power cursing through your veins and surroundings, making the world slow down, letting you see the battle through different eyes. The soldiers desperately trying not to hurt their friends but realising there's no other way, the mindcontrolled trying to break free of the spell and crying out in agony when they have to hurt their comrades. It was brutal, brutal and beautiful in it's own horrible way. The ground ached when you jumped over the makeshift barricades, groaning and giving in a little bit when you landed in between the trees.

Your magic creating a shock wave, knocking everything down in a 20 meter radius. Looking up from the ground you could feel all eyes on you, the battle had stopped for a moment, everyone staring at the new arrival. As soon as they got out of their trance they started fighting again, charging towards you and the remaining S.W.O.R.D agents. You didn't hear the gunfire when you got up, you didn't feel the bullets trying to hit you when you started walking. Twisting your hand in the air, a shimmering barrier appeared, blocking them off. As you continued to walk into the battle the ground started shaking, cracks started to appear and the trees you had left behind started moving. Groaning and aching as they turned from lifeless vines to enormous giants. Some as high as a three story building, some smaller, they started walking into your direction, steadily going forwards, pushing enemies out of the way with their branch-like arms and shielding your allies.

There were at least six of them, aiding you in your pursuit as you conjured more creatures, small rock giants, trolls and even a small serpent. Making sure they knew what they were doing you started charging in direction of Wanda's red magic, creating cracks in the ground to stop your enemies, you didn't want kill them, just slow them down.

Conjuring a gust of wind to jump the remaining distance you landed in front of Wanda. Looking her in the eyes for the first time in eight years.

If she was surprised to see you she didn't show it, blasting you with a ball of energy. You caught it fairly easy but she just started blasting energy ball after energy ball towards you. Not being able to withstand her assault you threw up a barrier. You didn't want to hurt her, you really didn't but you could feel your shield cracking so you summon a waterspout to knock her back. You both got slammed away from the brute force of the wave, the ground now being covered in a layer of water you froze Wanda to the ground, knowing it wouldn't stop her for too long.

You saw her struggle to blast off the ice, watching her grow more frustrated when it came back stronger than it was before, your spell working against her magic. Cautious you started walking in her direction, wary of her magic and her current state of mind as she grew more agitated every second she was enclosed in the ice. Something was wrong, she could have gotten out of there if she really wanted to in no time. Why was she struggling so much? Getting closer you realised that she was crying, tearing streaming down her face, getting more desperate every second.

"Wanda..." you asked tentatively.

Whipping her head around at the sound of her name she stared at you, mouth hanging agape, not struggling against her bonds anymore. You two were staring at each other, saying nothing.

Suddenly she started shaking her head, letting out a terrified scream. "You're not real, you're not real, you're not real..."

She started repeating the same phrase over and over again, shaking her head, crying, throwing all of her energy into trying to break the ice. Sensing the danger of her actions you made it dissappear, letting her fall into the shallow water. When you looked at her again she was rocking back and forth, still repeating the same phrase over and over again, silent tears streaming down her face.

You crouched down next to her, still keeping a short distance.

"Wanda, I'm here, this isn't fake, please look at me."

She shook her head and an almost not audible "that's what it always says" was heard. "Says who Wanda?" you tried, wanting to dig deeper.

"It's all in my head, it's all in my head. They said I could live my perfect life but it's not true. They lied!" Tears were streaming down your face as well as you pulled her close to you.

Putting your glowing hand on the ground the water started to float, little droplets dancing around in the sky. The tree giants started to walk back to their original positions, shrinking down, becoming normal trees again. The small rock giants burying themselves in the ground, vanishing into the earth. Cracks in the ground the only indicator they were even there. Starting to shimmer and fade away, the trolls gave one last bow in your direction until they too, disappeared. Now the only thing left were you and Wanda, sitting amidst the battle field. S.W.O.R.D agents regaining their free will, getting escorted away by their comrades, happy that their friends were back.

While you were ridding the scene from the marks of the battle Wanda was staring at you in awe.

"It's really you."

"Of course Wands, I promised you I would always come back."

Sniffling she took your hand in hers, examining the glowing marks on your arms, tracing them like you did before the battle.

"I always had a feeling you were special." she whispered, not really believing that you were alive.

"Well what about being special together?" Offering your hand to her you both got up, walking back to the S.W.O.R.D base hand in hand. The small serpent you summoned before slithering towards you, shrinking down until he was wrapped around your finger, molding back into the ring he was before.

Yes there was gonna be a lot to undo but together you were unstoppable, friends by blood but sisters in heart.

#wandavision #wanda maximoff #darcy lewis #jimmy woo #monica rambeau #wanda maximoff & reader #yes yes im really proud of that one

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bitter-sweet-coffee · 2 years

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believing in nonexistent things isn't culture stop glorifying it

awe, anon! you don't seem to exist because you don't wanna make yourself known, but i'll glorify you anyways because i'm getting a bit tired of the femboy jesus lecture i'm in right now (the bit gets old)

so like, in order to define something as nonexistent, you have to be omniscient— if you know everything then you know what isn't real and can claim it doesn't exist.

to further illustrate this, let's say i ask someone how many prongs are on a fork. most would say four. if i told someone who has never set a table or used a fork in their life but know the vague concept of forks (and that they have four prongs) that there are three-prong forks, they'll claim they don't exist (never seen it, not educated enough on the topic, incapable of claiming something exists or not since they don't know cutlery)

see what i mean? humans aren't omniscient, so making bold claims that something doesn't exist requires total understanding of the universe (you can't logic your way to a conclusion on where spirits exist or not because logic is human-generated and thus just as susceptible to the limitations of our perspective)

this... is where faith comes from! religions, spiritualities, cults, atheists, scientists, philosophers, etc... we're all just trying to find a way to explain the unexplainable. "proving" something is self-admittedly impossible, which is why we keep collecting data and evidence and keep generating conversations and denominations and more questions while changing the scope of our biased limited lenses into something greater and more encompassing of our universe as it expands and all of this is so incredible!!! humans LOVE learning!!!

i think it's quite beautiful that at the root of each person there's a natural curiosity. we say or do things to see what happens and how people react. we make art and study visuals to see the effects it makes. we analyze media and attempt to rationalize universes outside of our own because maybe we can't explain how OUR world works, but figuring out the nuances of sonic retcons and how they fit together MIGHT be doable, so we talk about our blorbos on this gay fuckin site and ultimately create twin worlds and aus and crossovers and expand our fandom-conversational universe akin to our own reality.

even as i write this, i'm genuinely curious about you anon. not just who you are, but what your backstory is, what forms your beliefs, why you're so passionate about this topic, and how come you don't want to be known? if there's nothing shameful or falsified in your submission, i think you should take pride in it and not hide behind an undetectable barrier or burner account.

you mentioned the glorification of the nonexistent, which begs the question: what do you think exists? there must be an objective correct answer that can FINALLY relieve humanity of the itch it needs to scratch with universals. tell us!!! i'm not being sarcastic, i want to see if you can provide a clear-cut, non-debatable model of reality so that this discussion that many people (including myself) are a part of can finally rest. and also to put a few of my shitty ex-philosophy profs out of a job because they're cunts and i want them out of the field 🥴

TLDR: make yourself known and join the discussion! i never claimed to be omniscient so my ideas are thoughts or prompts for further conversation are just another voice, and yet you've picked up the torch to illuminate the truth and provide us all with some catharsis. speak on, anon! but uh, turn anon off i want to actually engage with you on a personal level because these types of conversation staters are fascinating to me :")

#bsc words #bsc‼️#bsc moment

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tothemeadow · 3 years

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Ok, it wasn't me who requested but I would like to know if you are still willing to do a scenario where the reader is helping Douma to take a bath 👀 ((feel free to ignore it))

I can’t find the original post so I can’t remember how I wrote it before, so here we goooooo

‘into the water’ / Douma x Reader

warnings: kinda lewd?

words: 1,314

(a/n): I haven’t written for Douma in a while so hopefully this isn’t too rusty >.>

Lavender.

Sweet. Fresh. Overpowering.

It almost hangs in a cloudy haze, the warmth radiating from the water beckoning you closer; you almost feel delirious, drifting through a luxurious cloud, having just the slightest taste of what the wealthy experience. There’s a slight murmur in the room as servants draw the bath, light sticks of incense, set of the fluffiest towels you’ve ever seen.

You, however, busy yourself with scrubbing your hands raw. Amongst the numerous followers of the Eternal Paradise, you’re the one who gets to lay your hands on the lord. It’s a blessing in itself, really; you’ve heard of stories of others having their hands chopped off for touching the lord without permission. Whether they’re true or not, you don’t know, but the sheer power you’ve been granted is astronomical. You can clearly see it in the others’ eyes, the lingering jealousy that they’re not permitted to touch such a perfect specimen.

The chamber is its own separate world, set in the eastern wing on the manor. Since the stars rise from the east, so shall the Eternal Paradise’s lord. You can’t argue against that logic, especially not when you’ve seen Douma with your own two eyes. A deep, fountain-like bath sits in the middle of room, rimmed by marble and a smooth stone floor. The stone is cool to the touch, bare feet slapping quietly as the servants scurry around, finishing up the preparations. An iron wrought hanger dangles from the ceiling, fat, waxy candles tucked away in the pits, casting a brilliant golden sheen over the room.

The very aura emanating from the room itself is romantic – it reminds you of the scandalous novels your mother had tucked away, the ones your curious eyes have read at a young age. It feels like a lavender-scented dream; you, the awaiting liege, waiting for your knight in shining armor to arrive.

And, as if on cue, the servants fall into a unanimous silence as the heavy wooden doors swing open. Your breath catches in your throat as your eyes land on Douma; standing tall, he appears absolutely regal. Unmarred skin wrapped in a simple white robe, a tantalizing shoulder and sharp collar bone exposed by the fallen silk, it’s just so… perfect. Perhaps it’s the angle of his jaw, the brilliance of his irises, the soft, tussled hair draping down his back…

It’s ridiculous how gorgeous he is. How a simple human can appear so godly is beyond you, yet you’re compelled to throw yourself at his feet and kiss them silly.

He almost seems to drift through the air as he crosses to the bath. All eyes follow his every movement, stuck to his perfect physique and otherworldly features. With a single flick of the wrist, everyone bows before taking their departure, leaving only you and him behind.

“Do you mind giving me a hand, child?” Douma speaks, his voice bouncing off the chamber’s walls. Willing your legs to move, you walk over to where he stands. He towers over you, ivory skin even better up close, the natural musk of his scent instantly flooding your nostrils. You gingerly reach out to him, slipping the knot of his robe loose and pulling it down his defined arms. Your face feels unbelievably warm under the weight of his gaze. You dare not let your eyes drift down the length of his torso – especially not that precious place between his strong legs (though you’re dying to know if he’s as beautiful as you’ve painted in your mind).

The sound of rippling water fills the chamber as he steps into the bath and eases down into the beckoning warmth. Only the top of his chest onwards sticks out, his reflection bobbing with the water’s ripples. You unceremoniously drop to your knees, desperate to run your fingers through his hair, to trace invisible shapes into the expanse of exposed flesh.

“You’re hesitating,” he says, a teasing lilt to his words.

Quickly, you snap away from your reverie. “My apologies, my lord,” you mutter. To the side of the bath sits a sturdy wooden tray, lined with bottles of oils and imported soaps. Snatching up a mug, you dunk it into the warm water and carefully pour its contents over Douma’s head. “Is the water to your liking?”

Douma hums.

The two of you fall into a comfortable silence, then, with you continuing to dampen his hair. It’s only when you’ve began to cleanse it with soap that he finally releases a sound – a deep, rumbling groan, the kind people only let out when they’re fully relaxed. For a moment, you hesitate, your heart thundering in your chest. Perhaps you enjoyed that little noise a bit too much.

“What are you doing?” Douma drawls, head pushing itself back into your touch. “Keep going.”

Doing as told, you work the soap in his hair into a lather, massaging his scalp all the while. Precious noises continue to spill from your lord’s lips, mixing with the lavender haze clogging the chamber. It can’t feel that good, could it? Still, you want to commit these sounds to memory, let them visit you in the late hours of the night when you can’t sleep.

It’s almost with great pain that you rinse the soap away from his hair, dragging your fingers through the long strands as you do. An abrupt moan bursts from Douma’s throat as your fingers get caught, accidentally tugging on the hair in question – again, you pause, the heat swirling in your lower abdomen making itself more and more present.

Nearly tearing your hands away, you tell yourself to get a grip. Now is not the time to be getting carried away by such silly things, even if you can’t deny the fact that you’re horribly attracted to your lord. This time, as you reach for the tray, you pick up a simple washcloth. Dipping it into the water, you watch as Douma turns to you, his eyes flicking from your hands to your flustered expression. “You should come in here with me,” he says, completely catching you by surprise.

Practically choking on your own shock, your grip on the washcloth loosens. Again, it dips below the surface before bobbing off. “My lord,” you frantically say, trying to get a grasp on reality, “I don’t understand-“ You’re then cut off by a slight whimper as Douma suddenly grabs you by the wrist, a mischievous glint in his otherworldly eyes.

“Join me.”

It’s as though your voice has completely left you at this point. Taking your silence as a yes, Douma pulls you into the bath with him, cradling your body as he eases you into the water. Immediately, your yukata is soaked as the water’s warmth permeates your being.

“That wasn’t so bad, now, was it?” Douma continues, his voice dropping to an even lower pitch. With his mouth right up against your ear, you shiver. An amused huff fans over the side of your face. “Though I do believe I ruined your clothes. Allow me-“ long fingers begin to tug your attire loose, “-to take them off.” A pleased hum meets your ears as you remain completely still, your eyelashes fluttering in disbelief. Never in a million years you would’ve thought something like this would happen to you. Still, his hands feel nice as they skim over your now exposed skin, tapping away one-by-one at your ribs. “That’s better…”

“Douma-sama,” you murmur. Your breath catches in your throat as his lips land on your neck, gently peppering the skin with delicate kisses. “My lord… wait, wait… let me finish washing you-“

“In time, child,” he says, a giggle following his words. The water laps at the side of the bath as he shifts away from his spot, slinking in between your legs instead. “But for now… Let me warm up my meat before I eat it.”

#kny #kimetsu no yaiba #demon slayer #kny x reader #kimetsu no yaiba x reader #demon slayer x reader #douma x reader #kny douma #douma #request

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5lazarus · 3 years

Text

So Much Lore! So Much Information!

Dorian has a wonderful conversation with the Skyhold Librarian about improvements to the library's filing system and the innovations coming out of Minrathous when Vivienne comes by and points out he's just talking to himself. He's been waxing rhapsodic about the Tevinter equivalent of the Dewey decimal system to a spirit--or maybe a demon.

So clearly they must investigate. The first time I played DAI, the Librarian didn't spawn! He was quite a surprise during my second playthrough--so I got to thinking, what if he were a spirit? And what sort of spirit would he be?

The song Dorian hears in the brothel, that Solas sings, is one of the most beautiful love songs I've ever heard-- "Lamma Bada Yatathanna," which was composed in Al-Andalus. Here's my favorite version. The other song he sings to himself as he paints is a poem by Tolkien. I like this arrangement! There's a background story in those songs, if you check out the lyrics. ;) Read on Archive of Our Own here.

Dorian’s having a wonderful conversation with the new librarian in the Skyhold library about proper filing systems, and he’s really starting to have faith in the Inquisition’s ability to pull together an organization actually organized to take on Corypheus and the Tevinter elite. He’s telling him about the latest innovation of folding actual waves of sound into crystals in Minrathous when Vivienne saunters by.

“Darling, shush,” she says as she goes. “We must have quiet in the library, and you’re scaring our guests, talking to yourself.”

Dorian reddens. “I am not monologuing!” he protests. “We’re having a conversation, aren’t we, er—“ He realizes he hasn’t actually asked for the librarian’s name, but he turns to him for back-up anyway. He’ll ignore the misstep, Dorian is so pretty, he can carry this away.

But there is no one there.

Vivienne says very calmly, “Did you think you were speaking to someone?”

Dorian says, “I’m not twelve, it wasn’t a demon. He was just right there!”

She says, “Oh, what do they teach you in Minrathous?”

“I know how to recognize a demon, Madame,” he snaps. “There was no demon. Just a librarian. He was telling me about how Skyhold originally used the old dwarven system of classification and how they were adapting that with the Orlesian système de dépôt to better accommodate all the many superfluous copies we have of Genitivi—“

“Then it was a pride demon,” Vivienne muses, “or envy. With the way it accumulates knowledge and drew you out…”

“Oh come now, Vivienne.” Dorian throws his head back and crosses his arms. He knows a demon when he sees it. While he’s never been particularly interested in blood magic, the magisterium does tend to throw corrupted spirits in his face. He has gotten very good at defining when their reality is importuned by creatures wanted to eat his flesh and ravage his soul. “He was a bit shorter than me, elf, with a long nose but kind-of bulbous at the end. Long hair, he didn’t quite know how to style it. Lank. But everyone here needs a wash. Wore blue enchanter’s robes edged with gold. It was quite garish, really. You’d think a pride demon would have better taste than that.”

Vivienne says, “The rebel mages no longer wear the outfits of the Circle. Haven’t you seen their military uniform? This wasn’t human, Dorian. When was the first time you saw it? There are children who come to this library, and with so few templars about, we cannot risk—“

Dorian puts up his hands. “But I’ve seen other people talking to him,” he protests.

Vivienne narrows her eyes. “That makes it more dangerous, darling. We must track it down to its source.”

He’s getting irritated now. The rotunda is full of mages. Someone would have noticed if a pride demon were running rampant through Skyhold, if not himself, then Fiona, or even Solas, who seems to specialize in weird relationships with spirits. Then he grins. Solas has his work station near the stairs, where he can see all that come and go.

He says, “Let’s ask Solas if he’s seen him. If Solas hasn’t, then I’ll cede the point.”

Vivienne grimaces. She has made no secret of her disdain for the apostate hobo, both of his research methodology and his fashion. Dorian does so love to see them both get catty, so he grins and gestures in an Orlesian curtsey for Vivienne to lead the way down the stairs. She gathers her skirts and descends; he follows.

The lowest level of the rotunda smells of plaster, charcoal, and wet paint. Solas is painting again, moving rapidly to fill in the first layer of background details on his still-wet fresco. He is singing to himself as he moves, his brushstrokes keeping time. Dorian frowns. He recognizes the melody, but from where? Then he pulls at his mustache in his surprise as he remembers: one of the elvhen whores at his favorite brothel in Minrathous got all the boys singing it, it was a love song, an ancient one, that even the slaves still remembered. His gift of the night had translated it for him: “Oh, my destiny, my perplexity! No one can comfort me in my misery….” Then of course the man had taken hold of him and relieved him of said suffering, and it was a quite enjoyable night, even though the song as a come-on was a bit too obvious. Dorian pushes away the memory and wonders how Solas knows an old Tevinter elven song—but of course if confronted, Solas would merely shrug and say he heard it in the Fade, once.

At the end of the song the first level is finished. Solas takes his brushes and his palette and climbs down to the second level. He is humming as he goes.

Vivienne clears her throat. Solas sets down his paints.

“What do you need?” he asks. “This paint dries quickly.”

Dorian says, “Why Solas, I didn’t know you had such a lovely voice. Was that a love song I detected? I think I’ve heard it before—in Tevinter.” He does not add that he heard it in a brothel. Why ruin such a lovely memory?

Solas repeats, “This paint dries quickly, and if I delay much longer I will have to chip away the plaster and begin again. What do you need?”

Vivienne and Dorian exchange a glance. It is definitely a love song, but that is not relevant to their quest, and the paintings in the rotunda are quite impressively monumental. Josephine will be upset if they ruin it.

Vivienne, ever practical, cuts in, “Have you noticed a spirit upstairs, in the library?”

Solas says, “Do you mean the librarian? Yes. He has quite a wonder for filing systems. What about him, Vivienne? Have you drawn him into conversation and found him a demon of Envy?” Dorian, awkward, shifts—he’d spent at least an hour discussing the Minrathous Circle’s new filing system with him, and hadn’t even realized he wasn’t quite real. Solas catches the movement and smiles suddenly at him. “Do not worry, Dorian. He is a very old and precious spirit, and it is a compliment that he was drawn to you beyond your—finery.” He turns to Vivienne. “Well? Is there anything that you need?”

Vivienne says, “We cannot have a spirit roaming unconfined where there are children about. Even Cole demanded a binding. Surely you see the danger of leaving it unsupervised, particularly since we leave the mage children so…undisciplined.”

Solas’ face tightens as he forces away a sneer. Blandly he picks up a brush and dips it into the lead-white paint. He turns his back to Vivienne and says over his shoulder to Dorian, “I can see no harm in it.” Company dismissed, he turns and begins rapidly sketching out two large triangles, pointing down. He begins singing again, a more melancholy thing than the love song, and this time the words are comprehensible: “The road goes ever on and on….”

When they return upstairs Vivienne seethes, “He sees no harm in it because he’s lived his whole life half-mad in the woods, with spirits as his only companions, and due to the accidental of his birth he cannot comprehend the dangers of the Fade to most other mages.”

Dorian pauses. It isn’t an unfair assessment, but the White Divine’s Circles are so much more restrictive in the way they view spirits, and Vivienne, brought up in the proper devotion of the White Spire, is more restrictive than most. He’s worked with incorporeal assistants in Nevarra before, and back in Tevinter, Alexius had several bound to serve in the laboratories, and managed to keep them all from getting corrupted, too. A bit guiltily he thinks about Cole, who is sweet and infernally well-meaning. He doesn’t like the idea of a spirit like him bound up as a servant, but then he would break, wouldn’t he? Compassion is so fragile.

Then he realizes: that is the danger, isn’t it, that this spirit will break? Solas may see no harm in it, but Dorian didn’t even realize the Librarian wasn’t a man. What if the wrong person finds it?

He tells Vivienne, “I see what you mean. But let’s find out what it is, first. Now that we know that it is a spirit and that it’s…friendly, we can question it about its nature.”

Vivienne says, “You sound like you’ve been speaking to a pride demon—why do you think it will answer you truthfully?”

Dorian bows. “That’s why I have you, my dear.”

She smiles, and together they walk into the shelves. The Librarian is there, sitting primly on the cold stone floor. A little girl, an elf, is flipping through the pages of an illustrated edition of one of their many copies of Genitivi, speaking rapidly. Dorian recognizes her as the Inquisitor’s younger daughter—Mirthen? Meerden? It was something unbelievably solemn for a young girl, that’s all he remembers.

“So much lore!” the Librarian marvels. “So much information!”

“And then of course Auntie said that her cousin lied because why would we want them to know when they already call them false? Mamae says that holy things need to be kept silent. When she takes us to pray she keeps silent and only speaks if she thinks the gods want her to. But Auntie said more than that, it’s dangerous for it to be in books we don’t write because that’s setting it down and it’s like how the Fade shapes things, and we shape the Fade? The books take it away, because of the print. Have you ever seen print? Mamae’s a printer.”

This the girl says with pride. The spirit says, “What is—a printer?”

She claps her hands in delight. “Mamae said the dwarves from House Cadash invented it but it’s based off what the Shapers do to the Memories! Have you ever been to Orzammar? I’ve never been. My cousin says it’s true though, the memories are like print. You can take them out and everything. But you take lead and you pour it into a mould like a blacksmith, except you make letters instead of axes and jewelry or whatever, and then press it and you have a stamp! But if you make small ones for all the letters and move them quickly, you can make words and you just have to stamp the page. Put it together, take it apart. So it’s faster than illuminating a book but it’s uglier too, and Babae said it had less personality but Mamae—“

The Librarian says, “So much information!” Its eyes are sparkling. “Can you show me a book with print?”

The girl looks up at the shelves and then sees Dorian and Vivienne watching them. She colors. Very formally, in manners her mother must have drilled in her, she gets up and curtseys.

She mumbles, “Good day, Master Pavus, Madame de Fer.” She studies the floor; the Inquisitor’s children get very quiet around humans, Dorian’s noticed. He’s seen them chatter the ears off Varric, and they love Solas for his stories, who seems to appreciate a willing audience.

Dorian says, “Good day, Mirthen.”

Vivienne says, “Mirwen. Be a good girl and run along to Solas downstairs, won’t you darling? Stay there until he tells you otherwise.”

Mirwen frowns, but turns to the Librarian and says confidingly, “I’ll come back later. Stay here!”

The Librarian says, “I am always there for those who seek wonder.” The girl beams and scurries away, lugging the massive volume of Genitivi with her. It is a charming sight, Dorian must admit. She reminds him a bit of himself at that age, still so full of wonder and eager to share everything he learned with anyone who bothered to listen. Few bothered, of course, but then he learned to make himself a wonder to draw others to him, by his beauty, his wit, his disreputable charm.

Vivienne summons a ward and outlines a binding circle around the Librarian. It continues to sit there in its dowdy robes, but blinks curiously up at them.

Dorian says, “Well, aren’t you a curio. I thought you liked filing systems.”

The spirit says, “I do like filing systems! And I like print now, too.” He beams at them. “I never knew of books that were made of stamps before. So much new information! So much progress! It’s wonderful.”

Dorian sighs. He tells Vivienne, “Look at it, it’s harmless. It’s like a child.”

Vivienne says, “It likes filing systems. It’s dull.”

Dorian huffs. “Nothing I am interested in is dull. Filing systems—now, I grant you that Orlais is better organized than Ferelden or Nevarra, but there is no feeling better than taking a messy archive from some blood-addled magister and cleaning it up. The Minrathous system, unlike the White Spire, organizes by subject rather than mere chronological order, and then within the category organized by date of publication. So you don’t just end up with three shelves of Genitivi, and have to go through each book and hope you can find something about—I don’t know, lyrium memory crystals. In this case, I would simply go the bookcase dedicated to the study of lyrium, and head right to the bottom shelf, for the most recent publication, so I don’t have to wade through outdated work that’s long since been disproven. Or! If I do want to understand the whole study as a discipline, and see the development of the field, I can simply trace it in chronological order—“

The spirit is glowing, delighted. Vivienne herself is smiling. She says, “Darling, you need to go out more.”

“I do go out!” Dorian snaps. “I came out here! Into this miserable mountain backwater. Forgive me if I’m so titillated by the byproducts of civilization.”

Vivienne lifts a single eyebrow. “You could attend one of Lady Montilyet’s tea parties.”

Dorian says, “Do you attend her parties? Not just when she feats the aristocracy, but even when she’s wining and dining, I don’t know, tea merchants, and suchlike?”

Vivienne says, “Of course. I do delight in conversation and repartee. You might try it sometime.” Dorian laughs and mock-clutches his heart—that was a good one. “Even a tea merchant provides needed information for the effects of the Breach on agriculture across the continent. Half of the most interesting gatherings at the Court happen over tea, darling. One must keep up with the fields—who is buying all of what stock, how they are being delivered, how the merchants are devising new ways of it being served. And if there is a drought in the Nevarran tea mountains, then there is less tea for Orlais, and a new form of party must be devised.”

The spirit looks at Vivienne glittering in her finery. “You enjoy people,” it says. “The new games they devise. It fills you with wonder.”

Vivienne sighs. “Simpler than Cole,” she notes. “But more discrete, which perhaps makes it safer to leave alone. With supervision. Dorian, what do you think it is?”

Dorian says, “Wait, let’s ask it—who are you, O spirit of the Skyhold library, who likes everything from Brother Genitivi to print to filing systems to tea parties, apparently?”

The Librarian says, “You brought me here, so you already know.” The spirit smiles and suddenly Dorian sees it, the little girl running her fingers along the rows of indented print, himself breathing out a sigh of satisfaction at a whole shelf, properly organized, and Vivienne at the tea party, cup in hand, as her eyes sparkle over a piece of information that would be useful to a trader friend’s. He sees Josephine marveling over Solas’ frescoes. He sees Solas watching the Inquisitor, and then he hears the singing at that brothel that beautiful little night, the arm thrown around him, the companionship and the pleasure of it.

The spirit steps out of the binding and walks to the railing, craning its head to watch Solas paint below. “I am Wonder,” it says, almost an afterthought. “Don’t you know?”

#dragon age fanfiction #dragon age fanfic #da fic #da fanfic #dai #dorian pavus #vivienne #madame de fer #solas #solavellan #so much lore! so much information!#skyhold librarian #skyhold is its own character after all #spirits #dai background characters

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wisteria-lodge · 3 years

Text

lion primary (bird model) + slightly burnt lion secondary

Hi there! I’m a fan of your sorting posts, and of your kind and insightful way of supporting people in finding out more about themselves. So naturally I’d be very interested in your take about my own sorting, if you’re game! :)

I won’t talk much about my Secondary, because now that I’m starting to unburn my Lion seems very clear to me, even when my explosion-prone Badger model still tries to get in the way of that clarity sometimes. The more interesting riddle is my Primary. So far I’m operating under the working theory that I am a Lion with a very strong Bird model - or is it the other way ‘round?

The supposed dichotomy between “thinking” and “feeling” in many of the more binary personality models has always bugged me, so it’s no wonder this is the area where whenever I feel like I’ve decided on who I am (for now) a new question mark pops up (so much fun!).

If ‘thinking’ and ‘feeling’ doesn’t work for you as terminology, it might help to think of Lion as leading with subconscious reasoning, and Bird as leading with conscious reasoning.

Instead of trying to formulate a cohesive text, which would have gotten even longer, I’m putting together an associative list of thoughts and stories that kept turning up while I was trying to figure out my Primary.

A very Lion primary way to solve a problem, not gonna lie ;)

- I think I got my Bird model from my father, who made quite an effort to teach me to look at things from all angles. As a child, whenever I got in a fight with this friend I had, he would sit me down and ask me to put myself in my friend’s shoes. It was hard, because a lot of the time my friend was being unfair to me and I actually could have used some support, someone to tell me that it was not okay to treat me this way. But I’m still immeasurably grateful for my father’s lessons, through which I’ve learned to understand peoples’ motivations and gained an understanding for the complexities of every conflict. He also taught me to doubt, to look closer, to not just believe the first thing I see, or want to see. To this day I still consider my ability to pin down the relevant factors of a situation before I make judgments one of my strengths.

That definitely sounds like a very strong, beloved Bird model.

- Whenever I had to write an essay at school or uni, I first had to come up with some aspect about the subject that I really cared about, even could be passionate about. (I am passionate about many things, so it was usually possible to find some connection to that.) Then I would use the essay to discuss this aspect in great detail, ending with a polemic flourish. I had the time of my life doing that; meanwhile the text would structure itself magically in relation to the issue I had chosen to focus on. Whenever I tried to write without such a focus, I’d get bored, stressed and the text would be of a much lower quality.

- Something similar happened in oral exams at uni: Only when I got the opportunity to bring a discussion paper (a few pointed statements regarding the exam topic) which I could then debate, I was able to recollect all the important details I needed for that. If I just had to report on the topic or answer questions, I often got confused, to the point of drawing a complete blank.

Linking things to emotion and passion - thinking with emotion and passion, basically - is a Lion primary thing. Especially if doing that makes you feel safe & comfortable & effective & happy.

- Even as a teenager I was very interested in philosophy, ethics and moral decision making.

I love teaching philosophy to teenagers. It’s the perfect time for it, they are so into it, and if it were up to me I would absolutely make it a required class.

I picked up certain philosophical ideas and concepts that I liked and integrated them in my belief system (yes, I know how very Bird that sounds).

I had my mind blown by Genealogy of Morals in high school, and I still won’t shut about Eichmann in Jerusalem. But what was so staggering to me in high school was… here are these ways of thinking that are possible and allowed. The fact that here they are in words in front of me made me a great deal more expansive.

Now that I think about it — I don’t remember adjusting my beliefs as in any way traumatic back then. The shift from a belief in the Christian God to Mother Goddess to my very own brand of agnostic paganism was smooth, natural.

Now that I think about it… I would describe myself as a mythic relativist (which is a term I just made up.) Systems of belief are metaphors, and they’re metaphors trying to describe and say something large and beautiful about what it means to be human, and what it means to live a good life. And since we are all human, they are all attempting to describe the same central, indescribable thing in different ways.

I feel this very deeply, but it took me a long while to be able to articulate it.

I constantly reevaluate, and I adapt.

You stop reevaluating and adapting, might as well be dead.

Still, there are some basics I’ve kept with me that just make too much sense to me to give up, and some that perhaps I keep because I just really like them and I’m kind of attached to them.

… somebody’s thinking with Pathos :)

- I’m a constructivist at heart, so that makes it much easier to tweak the content of my beliefs while staying true to the principle that we (socially) construct our reality, and (my take on this): that I choose what kind of world I want to live in, and according to that I make choices which are the most likely to create that world.

- At uni I attended a seminar about the development of moral judgment and action. What I remember most clearly about it is how much it bugged me that the other students didn’t seem to understand that morality always depends on the perspective. Even though I had definite moral convictions that I was ready to fight for, at the same time it seemed obvious to me that theoretically there could be a justification for every kind of moral guideline; it depended on your principles and the world you wanted to live in.

A human after my own heart.

I wanted to understand these different perspectives, not talk about empty categories like “right and wrong” or “good and evil” that meant nothing to me. I still feel that way.

Absolutely. I don’t use alignments when I DM Dungeons & Dragons. I mean, I can list evil *things* but that’s not the same thing as defining *being evil.* I want to know WHY these people did these evil things.

It just seems so impractical and complicated to base a conversation on those broad categories that don’t have any definition people can agree on instead of referring either to defined principles (in order to explain what good/ bad is *for you*) or consequences of certain actions, and whether you want them/ accept them/ don’t want them.

Oh that’s a fun discussion. Asking a highschooler to define “evil.”

(and then they have to figure out what moral systems Jigsaw, Pinhead, the Joker, and Bane all subscribe to.)

- Between “the Revolutionary” and “the Grail Knight”, I would love to be the former, but I’m clearly the latter. I’m someone who questions, not someone who knows.

Take my archetypes with a grain of salt, they are supposed to describe characters. (Who are different from people - but still useful, because they are attempts to describe us.) I actually want to write more about the differences I see between the way fictional secondaries are written and the way real-life secondaries work.

And just “knowing”... is dangerous. That’s how Exploded Lions happen.

There are a lot of causes I find worthy to fight for, but I haven’t committed to any one, which so far I’ve attributed to my Burned Secondary (How do I do things?).

Sounds about right.

If I’m honest, though, it feels a bit strange to really, really fight for anything. I’d rather contribute to the cause by keeping an eye on whether we stay aligned to our values on every level of the fight, not by storming sightlessly in front of some army. (I got polemic again, didn’t I? ;))

So after all this Bird talk, why do I think that I’m a Lion?

… that was the Bird segment?

- I trust my intuition. It has never steered me wrong, with one exception: My Primary burned for a time when I first understood the concept of privilege and internalized bias, which was coincidentally at a time when I also went through a lot of changes in my personal life. Like many people unaware of their own privilege, I had thought of myself as “one of the good ones”. I learned that even with the best intentions I could cause great harm without even noticing it. This then also happened to me in a relationship, when I was already confused, hurt and more than a bit burned. It seemed like I couldn’t trust my intuition anymore, but I also couldn’t figure out intellectually what to believe, because I felt mentally overwhelmed by all those new concepts, all of which put my previous convictions into question. Which Primary burned then?

Been there, done that, it’s brutal. It sounds to me like a Lion dramatically changing direction - that’s what I mean when I say that it *hurts* when a Lion changes their mind. Birds see their past selves that thought wrong as almost different people. “I wasn’t aware of my privilege then, now I am, and can take steps doing forward.” But if you’re a lion it’s like… I *should* have been aware, and the fact that I wasn’t says something terrible about my moral/emotional calibration, and THAT has to be put right.

- I felt like everything I had learned about the world and myself didn’t count anymore. My concepts and my strategies didn’t serve me anymore. So I started to rebuild everything from scratch, this time with less pride and more practicality.

Yeah. That’s some Lion recalibration. With a Bird Model, to help.

- Anyway, I trust my intuition. It contains my experiences, instinct and all my accumulated unconscious observations of the situation, and it’s very reliable. Usually I use it as an important source of information which I try to back up with data/ understanding, but when push came to shove and the apparent facts would contradict what my intuition told me, I would be unable to set my gut feeling aside. I wouldn’t follow it blindly, of course. But I would never just go against it either. If the voices of my unconscious and conscious mind don’t align, I keep poking at the issue until they do. If I absolutely cannot come to a satisfying conclusion, I go with my gut. Since I know it usually knows what it’s doing, I’ll find out the reasons for my feelings later. (Weird, says my inner bird who is busy compiling these examples.)

I’LL FIND THE REASON FOR MY FEELINGS LATER. What a perfect way of articulating what is perhaps the central experience of being a Lion primary.

- Probably I’m just both, you know. Some interesting lion/bird-chimaera. I like it.

I read you as a pretty clear Lion Primary, Bird primary model. But as always, the decision is very personal.

- I have a weird way of processing information: I read/ hear it, work to understand it, work to connect it to existing knowledge in my mind, then my beliefs, my existing knowledge and my feelings about it all wind around each other, grow into each other, some dissolve together, becoming a swamp which then nourishes the plants of new ideas and connections that grow from it.

You grok it. And that’s not weird.

I often can’t remember where certain knowledge came from. I can’t take it out of a memory shelf and tell you about it. I usually remember that I’ve read a certain book and whether I liked it / it influenced me, but I won’t exactly remember what was in it, even if it was important to me. Because all that information is already processed/ digested/ transformed into something new. It’s much easier to access my memory swamp intuitively than consciously.

and you seriously had like… any doubt that you were a Lion.

In intellectual discussions I tend to get stuck because I just can’t remember enough of the details (for my satisfaction), just my conclusions about the topic and how I feel about it.

I’m inclined to think that not accessing the details is either a secondary thing, or an entirely unrelated processing thing.

What do you make of all this? I’m very curious!

[On an unrelated note, I’d like to specify the compliment I made at the beginning of this post. I’m really impressed with your ability to pick up on what people need, not just what they say they want. As a counselor this is a skill I try to hone, so I know how difficult it is to not get too distracted by the story people tell and miss the more subtle cues. You have a powerful combination of perceptiveness, insight and so much kindness, which you use to effectively support people who have questions, are in distress or confused. You don’t generalize. You don’t judge. You see the people who talk to you. I love that you’re a teacher, because I can see you’re using the influence that gives you in a way that contributes to making the world a better place. Fellow Idealist, I’d like to give you a High Five for that, if I may. :)))]

I’m not sure I’ve ever been given a better compliment. Thank you.

#submission #sortinghatchats #lion primary #lionpri #bird primary vs lion primary #philosophy stuff

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