#and they just own traditional concepts like they are experts

[jisungshotfirst]

as usual oneus have the best stage

#context I just watched all the kbs gayo stages and oneus is the best #they just Know What Works #they know how to fill a stage !!! they know how to work with props ! #and they fucking know how to make a new good arrangement of a song #empty stages are the worst thing I feel when it comes to gayos and stuff like if u can't fill it it's not as impressive #but oneus ... they sure filled it #they used every inch of it #and the fans .... so beautiful #like they're perfect always when oneus uses them as probs but also as a way of hiding parts of the stage?? #like when there was a wall of cloth and the members would just pop out when it's their line .. like that's how u draw focus #they made the stage smaller like that and ur looking at Them not any empty space #ugh oneus just kill it #and they just own traditional concepts like they are experts #I'm so happy we got dongjus hair back for a bit 🥲 #oneus

[mugentakeda]

i saw fanart for this age old unfinished fic and was so interested by the premise that i simply HAD to give the concept my own spin.... Ill put my notes under the cut cus it got kinda long lol

-FIRST OF ALL. i headcanon lu ten as a powerful firebender (like, lightning bending powerful. not an expert at it yet, but can generate it at will. only recently picked it up before the siege.) that can Also use a weapon. he picked it up for funsies and ended up taking it seriously and then excelling. he learned under piandao and in turn later introduced him to zuko. His weapon that he made with piandao was a more traditional jogekama yari, which he had on him when he was captured. long feng destroyed it and had a new jogekama yari made for lu ten in a more sleek earth kingdom style, with longer and more savage blades. **ALSO: lu tens jogekama yari is based on saras yari from samurai champloo!!!! i just made the side blades curved in opposite directions (which made it a jogekama instead of saras type of yari) -lu ten does not interact with the other agents. whether brainwashed or amnesic in this, hes not even one of the secret police that go around arresting people. hes a lone agent that works Directly under long feng and is more of an assassin and spy thats permitted in and out of ba sing se for the missions and jobs long feng sends him on, unlike the rest of the agents. as a gift for his (made up) birthday, long feng gave him a hand carved stone earring. Yes, its a tracker. yes, lu ten knows that. No, he doesn't care and wears it anyway. his boss can do what he wants, and he trusts his boss with his life (lol). the other dai li agents know of lu tens existence, less have seen him with their own eyes, none are permitted to speak to him if they do. they dont know hes a "nonbender". -i havent decided on whether or not i want lu ten brainwashed in this or simply amnesic?? it would be neat if he was the brainwash soft launch since the ba sing se conspiracy brainwashing only started After the siege. lu ten is a firebender, has that fn royalty brand iron willpower, so youd think thats hard to brainwash especially if he was the soft launch, but if long feng kept up the sessions regularly over the course of 6-ish years (and as their brainwashing techniques improved), id doubt it would rub off. its a seven layer salad of brainwashing. and even if he was amnesic rather than brainwashed, theyd still need to do some adjustments in lu tens head to TOTALLY wipe out any idea of firebending, on top of regular chi blocking. -as for the amnesic part, i read a theory that introduced the idea that lu ten being killed was an inside job orchestrated by ozai. which i dont think would be canon, but it would be pretty cool?? like especially considering how FAST he jumped on azulon about heirs. very suspicious indeed. and all too convenient: have a group of moles set in irohs army, once lu ten moves out away from iroh then corner him, kill him, make it look like the earth army did it, sneak back to the fire nation, ozai gets the crown. easy as pie. -and to combine one of MY OWN aus with the above, aka the one where zhao and lu ten were both taught together under jeong jeong, the first time that zhao REALLY made a big move into ozais pocket was offering to be the head mole in irohs army. it made perfect sense to ozai, and he gladly sent zhao on his way- him being close rivals with him will catch him off guard and make the job far easier. and if zhao succeeds, and KEEPS succeeding, when ozai undoubtedly snatches the crown, he will grant zhao all the rewards and titles he could ever want until the cows come home. snazzy deal.

so whichever one of those you guys find cooler will be the one i go with because frankly both of them have the same amount of fun angst and drama idk......................

-as for lu tens face and arm, i base that off how i think lu ten died, not even gna lie. in the case where he is dead i think half his skull got crushed open and his arm was blown right off from the bicep. the stitches are just for aesthetic purposes. i was inspired by how scars are drawn in one piece, and because they give a "frankensteins monster" type look, which i found fitting, since this is a 'came back wrong' trope/winter soldier-esque au. the bandages covering his face was a suggestion from an anxious long feng to hide his face in public, while the ba sing se conspiracy was still fresh and the citizens might recognize the spawn of the dragon of the west if they looked long enough.

-as for lu ten and long fengs relationship, i havent thought about it enough, but im definitely imagining smthn along the lines of "you were always working for me, i picked you up and trained you when you had nothing, you owe me your life and loyalty", mixed with some gentle stockholm syndrome. like, a combination of "the king and his most loyal guard dog", a very strange psuedo father-son relationship??? (which was honestly accidental on long fengs part. but he kept it up because he found the irony amusing. yes he will try and rub that in irohs face. yes iroh will beat his skull in for it. its chill)

-this has nothing to do with the au but please see iroh and zukos body language in the third panel of the comic... i love to portray them as protective of each other... zukos blade placed before iroh, irohs arm switching from shoulder to shoulder as zuko turns, always placed between him and whatever is approaching... Heurghhh (GRIPS HEAD

#BUT YEAH I HOPE U GUYS LIKE TJIS ... if that ends up being the case maybe ill talk abt it more and expand a bit further... #BUT ONLY IF U GUYS LIKE IT I PROMISE. #yes this woudl probably change the outcome of book 2 thats a whole other can of beans #lu ten #iroh #zuko #long feng #atla #avatar the last airbender #alicias art

[granulesofsand]

If this ask is too upsetting then you can leave it alone for a while. Bodily we are an adult. We do not want to intrude in the space of RAMCOA survivors but this has been on our mind for a few months. TWS: Sexual, physical and emotional abuse, BDSM, lots of kinks. We've been abused by two different people in our life, both were minors around our age at the time. The first one was coercive for sure but we don't think he had any sort of complex plan. He would hit and insult us in front of friends, and flashed us a few times when we were alone. Second abuser was our ex, had more access to us due to us dating. They didn't know we have DID and we didn't know at the time either. This is where we suspect possible programming happened; even though they weren't aware of our condition there was a lot of focus on control and different roles. Even before we were officially together they "introduced" us to a lot of BDSM concepts, mainly through writing smut with us. When we started dating, they started actually acting on those concepts though. Almost always they were the "dom/top" while we were the "sub/bottom". Some of us tried to fight back and were punished while others gave in entirely. Which led to us developing a lot of alters dedicated to specific sexual "tasks", so many that I believe we've just barely scratched the surface on member count. The list of stuff they made us do (aside from "traditional" lesbian sex) included breath play, pet play, impact play, and watersports. Just to maintain some privacy I won't say how long this went on for, but we were both (older) minor teens and it lasted long enough to be a clearly established pattern. The persecutors will randomly re-enact trauma, both inwardly and outwardly. Even if we try to resist at first there is NO way out of it. The reenactments will happen and we just have to weather the storm. tldr; Abusive ex used BDSM as a means on control, questioning if we were programmed or mind controlled somehow.

Thanks. -🐊

Bare-Bones Programming

Always important to say that we are not experts on your experience, and the information we provide is ultimately for your decision.

🗝️🏷️ RAMCOA, SA, programming and deprogramming

Programming has two basic requirements:

The perpetrator(s) intend to control you

By creating self-states or conditioning self-states to cues

The second situation you described sounds like it aligns pretty neatly with that. It’s not as extensive as what a group or a practiced programmer might produce, but there are bits of advice aimed towards survivors that might help you.

Members who have ‘jobs’ or ‘tasks’ or similar are a fair indication of Mind Control, and it might serve to ask who assigned them this task, even if you already have an inkling. Their responses will determine whether they feel the obligation to the perp or themselves.

What to Do

The first step towards decreasing reenactment is guidelines. Establish for every member a set of standards, most negotiable and some required. Maybe y’all agree to clean up your own messes (negotiated and with exceptions) and understand that no member engages sexually before discussion (required).

This sets a clear precedent for what is expected and what members agree to when they interact with one another and the world. Sometimes it’s a matter of not knowing, and with practice the issue is no longer. It’s not likely everything is solved like this, but better to start early.

Next is demonstrating healthy interactions. Many collectives prefer to start outside, to gain experience they don’t already have. A friend is a good goal, someone y’all trust or a few people certain members confide in.

If it’s not too big a trigger, look into consensual BDSM. Start with reading, maybe novels or SFW explanatory websites to avoid too much resemblance to trauma.

Not every collective feels secure enough with each other to do this, but consider having two members with matching preferences to try a safer encounter. One member could also practice on their own if that’s preferable, or with a predetermined safe outside person.

Experiencing more non-abusive (or less abusive, but file that away until you’ve failed with other methods) BDSM— and plain sexuality— provides more data to work off of in the future. A truly healthy scenario may take time, but even lots of breaks and slow-going is better than remaining where you are.

None of these are required, but sexual reenactment is not fun. You could always start with something like sharing (or not sharing) food or belongings to get in some basis of consent without including relationships or sex.

With that or as an alternative, work on shame and disgust. Shame is what you feel for yourself, disgust is what you feel towards another. This could look like positive affirmations, telling or writing down stories you haven’t yet, getting to know members without judgement.

I don’t remember who said it, but there’s a phrase: “Hating having others doesn’t have to mean hating the others”. Not every collective has the phobia of other members, but it is well-documented and a necessity to overcome for teamwork.

Later

There are methods of working through memories and integrating them, maybe to remove barriers between members or fuse them. It helps take steam out of flashbacks and urges, putting a memory together.

It takes trust, though, and a willingness to work with and support other members. Once you make progress with those, you can decide together how to proceed.

You can find resources on the Legion System’s TikTok LinkTree, no account required to get there on a web browser.

Some are pushy for fusion or integration, and there is a theme of brokenness. We found Safe Passage to Healing and Becoming Yourself helpful. They do have good information, but take breaks and skip what you have to.

I hope that helped, even if it was maybe one paragraph of the question you actually asked.

#ramcoa #tw ramcoa #tw cocsa #tw sa #ramcoa programming #did osdd #osddid #adaptive system

[cabinofimagines]

OKAY hear me out Grover introduces the concept of "Satyr Claus," a nature-inspired version of Santa Claus hehe

A/N: I have been summoned -Danny

Words: 615

Warnings: Mentions of drunk!Chiron

Satyr Claus —(Platonic!Grover xGN!Reader)

"There you are!" Grover approaches you with a big smile. "Been looking for you..."

"What's up?" You take a break from training and sit near the dummies making some room for Grover to sit with you.

"Thalia said you were looking to create some new traditions," he sits and pulls his satchel forward. "I've got an idea..."

"Oh, yeah but it was just for the Grace siblings..." your voice dies down when you see Grover pull out a whole notebook and a pen. He really has prepared a whole list for you.

"Okay, so I've been thinking," he starts excitedly. "Some of the traditions that humans have right now surrounding Christmas are so dangerous to the environment, I mean, the wasted food, the extra use of electricity, paper—don't even get me started on pine trees!"

"I won't," you mutter, supporting your chin on one hand. "So what do you have in mind?"

"Behold!" He turns a page and shows you a very well-made sketch, probably drawn by Annabeth. "Satyr Claus!"

You take a look at it and reply matter-of-factly. "That's Krampus."

Grover frowns. "No, it's not. 'Cause Satyr Claus isn't a bad guy."

"Okay, but they definitely look like Krampus."

"No, they don't!" He grabs the notebook and points at different parts of the drawing. "The horns are smaller, there is no ugly cape in sight, no whip, and this guy smells like pine tree!"

"Well, Krampus could smell that way too, you don't know that," you tease him.

"Y/N," he scowls. "I'm trying to do something good here, raise awareness so people stop being so careless about the waste."

You feel a little guilty now, so you grab the notebook again and change your tone to one of real interest.

"But what is the appeal here? I mean, is he going to give out presents if we look after the earth, or candy?"

"Haven't thought that far ahead, that's why I came to you," he pouts.

You're flattered that he's seeing you as an expert, but you sigh. "Honestly I'm completely blank here. You should ask Klaus, bet he's got thousands of lore that people have long forgotten about him."

"For the last time, I'm not Santa!" The boy jumps out of the tree in front of you fuming.

"Oh, there you are!" You smile. "What were you doing there? Is that a secret portal that takes you to the North Pole?"

He shows you the object in his hand and scowls. "I was hanging mistletoe."

Grover squints to try and spot the plant. "You're not actually going to let it sit there for too long, right? Mistletoe is bad for the trees."

"I know that," Klaus huffs, dusting off his jeans. "And no, I'm taking it down after Christmas, since y'all decided to be party poopers this year..."

"Hey, don't get frisky, Santa," you tease him. "Are you still upset about the trivia night?"

Klaus's eyes cloud with resentment. "That was a mean use of my skills and you know it."

Grover is still focused on the mistletoe, staring at it with his mouth slightly open. "Klaus, I don't think anyone's gonna be able to see that, you placed it too high."

"Then you fix it, Satyr Claus," the boy glares at him, his ears turning red with annoyance. "I need a drink..."

"We ran out of eggnog the other night," you inform him as he walks past you. "After Chiron got overexcited, drank his whole cabinet of special drinks, and started to give us his own version of drunk history."

"Dang it!" Klaus kicks a few dry leaves that fell when he jumped off the tree. "I hate it here."

#danny's writing #the christmas special #holidays 2023 #pjo fanfic #percy jackson #heroes of olympus

[max1461]

In the nineteenth century the going Orientalist wisdom was that unlike Europe, Asia could never industrialize because of either some inherent race-character or because their culture was simply too bound up in Tradition or something. Well, then, guess what, Asia did industrialize, Asian economies are some of the biggest in the world, China is a manufacturing hub that would put nineteenth century Britain to shame, Japan is a largely post-industrial consumer economy bigger than any in Europe and South Korea isn't far behind, not to mention the fact that SK went from impoverished military dictatorship to high income consumer economy in basically a single generation.

Turns out things don't happen instantly; industrial manufacture was born in Britain and began spreading to the rest of the world, and it takes a little while for massive society-upending economic revolutions to fully play out. Did you think that it wouldn't? If you expected the entire world to be industrialized the next morning, and when that wasn't the case took this as a sign of the inherent inferiority of everyone else on earth to the West, I think you were making a straightforwardly silly inference—and indeed one that looks a lot like motivated reasoning, a lot like being so high on the concept of your own superiority that you forget to ask if what you are saying makes any sense.

So there are people who say that Africa will never industrialize, that Africans just aren't capable of it. Obviously these people are racist, but that's not an objection that will mean anything to them. Better to say: just like the nineteenth century Orientalists, I think they're making a prediction that's ill thought out in a really straightforward way. There's nothing about the trajectory of economic development in countries like Nigeria that looks really different to me in any obvious sense from the trajectories of early industrial economic growth elsewhere. I mean, I'm not an economist or an expert on industry or on Nigerian politics or whatever, but then neither are most of the people who say this kind of thing. So, like, from the epistemological position of a layman that both me and the people I'm speaking to share, why even come to this conclusion? I mean, I know why they come to this conclusion. It's a rhetorical question.

Anyway, you know. Probably neither of us will be around to collect, but if anyone wants to bet me a large sum of money that in 100 years Africa will be at least as industrialized as Asia is today, and Asia (which presently has some very poor parts, e.g. India) will be as industrialized as Europe, I'll take that bet in a heartbeat.

Disclaimer that this post sort of conflates industrialization with wealth and takes industrialization as an unexamined positive; I'd rather be more nuanced about this, but I'm making a point here that's orthogonal to these things so I've opted to leave any discussion of this out.

#society #oh the absolute most unpleasant people are going to get on this one and be unpleasant to me now #well #ya know

[straydaddy]

Glimpses into arctic Pandora (all artwork is by me, and the signatures are my more used online nickname)

Tauk lives with a lot of lakes. She's a skilled maker of fishing nets and other fish traps. She also makes dyed fabrics. Her grandmother is an expert of local natural pigments, fungi and berries alike, and she's a keen student. She's strong, outspoken and adventurous. An energetic powerhouse with her feet in the ground. While she has her heart in the right place for the most part, she does not always understand those who have less social skills, and might appear judgemental/intimidating to such cases. This is because she grew up being quite secure in herself, and doesn't seem to understand that not everyone can take such for granted.

Mokri'ena is bit of a daydreamer and an introvert. She loves to learn about stories from across Pandora. She has heard of the Sky People, Toruk Makto and the legendary warrior Neytiri. Many say she kind of exists outside of the moment she's in, outside of her body. She's interested in news and history. She always feels intimately aware of how frail safety and peace are. She can't stop thinking about the Sky People, or the Omaticaya and the Metkayina she has never met. She grew up being a little weird, - or well, just not really understanding other kids' concept of fun. She was a little artist who preferred her imagination over her loud and more sociable peers. As an adult she's keen to help those in need, as she has known the pain of being forgotten.

Tulìm is from a coastal settlement, from a terrain broken into many islands.

He was always an adventurer, - as he was born in a mainland tribe. The coastal islands always made him curious because he wanted to see more of his world, so he moved there and joined a trader ship crew.

For most of his life he was simply a trader ship navigator, and later a the captain.

He commands one of the biggest trader ships of the region. He has seen many lands outside of his own, and is known for his skills with diplomacy and leadership. He doesn't lead to benefit himself, but to serve his people and especially his crew.

His nemesis for life is an ice na'vi pirate. He spends his old, last days in a bitter hunt of his nemesis, until his worn-out body succumbs into the ocean for the last time.

Keyuk is the Olo'Eyktan of one of the many ice na'vi tribes. The era of his leadership has been a stable and quiet one. While a part of his humour is making a serious face to trick people, he's actually more known for his easygoing and humble personality. He knows his responsibilities, but has a pretty egalitarian approach to his social life. He breaks some of the traditions of his people by dressing like an average member of his society. He's never been a fan of trying to act like more than you are, - he's all bite and with none of the bark! This makes him well-respected and liked among his people.

The two main types of arctic na'vi:

(Left) Those of the land, - descenants of forest na'vi similiar to the Omaticaya, but with adaptations to cold, long winters. Most of their body is covered in fur.

(Right) Those of the waters, - arctic cousins to reef na'vi like Tau'nui and Metkayina. These 'ice na'vi' are even more extremely adapted to spending time in water than reef na'vi are, having even more powerful swimming tails and upwards-facing nostrils for easily getting air between their long dives. They don't have fur, but regulate their body heat by the layers of fat under their skin, much like cetaceans on Earth. Like reef na'vi, ice na'vi also have a symbiotic relationship with a tulkun-like sapient species.

This is an arctic viperwolf. Fur grows between their armor plates and most of the plateless regions of rheir bodies. Their shape is rounder and stubbier than that of the tropical viperwolves, for trapping more heat in their bodies.

Arctic ikran relatives also exist, and are popular flying steeds to many snow na'vi tribes. They're covered in filamentous structures resembling little hair fans.

#pandora #avatar #james cameron's avatar #na'vi #na'vi clan #na'vi oc #reef na'vi #arctic na'vi #snow na'vi #ice na'vi #avatar 2009 #avatar the way of water #atwow #avatar oc #my art

[superthatguy62]

Overthinking Final Fantasy III Royalty Part 1: Symbols

Between the original, the Pixel Remaster and the remake, Final Fantasy III has undergone various aesthetical changes. Some of the more intriguing ones relate to the three kingdoms across the game.

Here's some thoughts about them! Starting with the emblems all around:

When it comes to royal iconography, there is a sort of science behind it known as heraldry. There is a surprising amount of thought that goes into the various symbols and creatures depicted on, say, a coat of arms. It's not specific to royalty: Stuff like governments, academies, religions etc all use it. It's something to keep in mind also keep in mind that I'm not at all an expert in this stuff, I just think it's neat.

Famicom FF3

Final Fantasy III was the first game in the series to give the nations emblems with charges on them. It would be far from the last, as later games would toy around with the concept, such as Final Fantasy 4 giving each of the regions their own emblem (with the 3D remake redesigning them).

As that last sentence implies, the nations of Final Fantasy III all shared the same emblem: That of a bird (possibly an eagle, one of the two most common charges) in the Displayed attitude (although it lacks legs).

The practical answer would be something such as time constraints, or simplicity for the sprite artists.

But what if we overthink it?

That brings us to two possibilities:

There is a mythological creature that all three kingdoms based their sigils on. This is possible, although we don't have much to go off of in III itself

The Ancients, between their airships and the Floating Continent, seemed to be interested in living in the sky. Thus, the emblems are remnants of the Ancients' era.

But, those are just theories.

GAME THEO-

Remake FF3

In the 3D remake of Final Fantasy III, a lot of elements were retooled or reinterpreted. When it came to the kingdoms' sigils, an interesting thing happened: Sasune and Argus kept the original "bird" charge (now with gold for Sasune and bronze for Argus)

But Saronia got a new lion charge.

The beast is in a tradition "rampant" attitude, with the front legs up and the tail pointed upwards.

Lions are not new to charges in Final Fantasy. Most notably, Final Fantasy Tactics had the War of the Lions, with both the Northern and Southern sky Orders having lions of their own (it's implied via Gafgarion's description that each of the cardinal directions have their own order, as a Western Sky order is mentioned). As Wikipedia explains:

It traditionally symbolises courage, nobility, royalty, strength, stateliness and valour, because historically the lion has been regarded as the "king of beasts".

The 3D remake alludes to Saronia's history as a military power a bit more than the Famicom version via quotes.

(This was back when SE broke the text of the Steam version, my apologies)

So it's not too surprising that they went that route for the 3D remake.

Another change of interest are the carpets around the kingdoms. In the original FFIII, Castle Argus has a table with a unique sun-like pattern on it.

In the remake (as you're probably already noticed) the patterns can be seen on the carpets on each castle as well.

The remake places heightened emphasis on the sun compared to the original: Xande's flood of darkness is said to have severed the link between the earth and the sun, Desch says that the continent would be flung away from the sun if the reactor fails, in unused text Doga states that the sun used to revolve around the earth but now the earth revolves around the sun...

(Does this mean that castles in the World of Darkness would have either the Moon or the Earth for their logos)?

Pixel Remaster FF3

While the Pixel Remaster borrows from the remake in some places, it sticks to the original in others.

However, sometimes, it diverges even against the original. In the castle of the three kingdoms, the big change is to their charges: All of them now use the bird charge, but they are now differentiated in different ways:

Saronia keeps the traditional Displayed attitude, in both the original colors and white thanks to the new red banners all about (matching the colors of the Red Mage)

However Argus now has the Bird in the Volant attitude, as it is now flying sideways. There are also banners that seemingly depict a crown and a moon.

Meanwhile, Saronia has a variant similar to the Sasune one, but with some differences. You can just make out the bird's feet underneath the body and the wings, rather than being spread out to the sides, are now pointed upward. This appears to be more of an Issuant attitude. I don't remember think Saronia has banners like Sasune and Argus do.

And that's all for this segment. Next time, I think I'll discuss the legendary arms of each kingdom: The Wightslayer, the Royal Sword and... Gungir? The other lances Saronia has?

#final fantasy 3 #Final Fantasy III #FF3 #FFIII #Sasune #Argus #Saronia #Heraldry #world building #(Kinda) #Kingdoms #Castles

[cookinguptales]

travel rambling!! under the cut!! because I do intend to ramble!! a lot!!

like if you thought that wwdits was a hyperfixation of mine, you've never heard me talk about some of the religious traditions I've studied. lmao

SO first of all, religious syncretism is when elements of two or more religions/traditions are incorporated into religious practice. A crossover episode, if you will, and I am obsessed with it. When I was in college studying religions and folklore, it quickly became a driving force in my intellectual curiosity.

I've always been really interested in how people pick and choose from different traditions to create their own personal belief systems, and syncretic religions can be this on a micro or macro level. We could be talking about something as individualized as a self-identified pagan assembling a collection of beliefs and rituals from various world mythologies and written/online sources, or we could be talking about something as established as Louisiana Voodoo, which is a syncretic religion with strong influences from Roman Catholicism, various West African religions, and Haitian Vodou.

Syncretic religions form in a lot of ways... immigration, colonialism, natural spread of tradition, purposeful assemblage of disparate ideas, etc. Sometimes there's a history of blood, sometimes a history of love, sometimes a little bit of both. And man, I feel like there's just something so human about it.

The thing I love best about stories is the way they grow and change within us. When you hear a story, you resonate with certain parts of it. You remember some parts best. And when you retell that story, you can't help but imbue it with a little bit of your own self. The parts you loved and the parts you hated and the parts you want to emphasize or deemphasize or embellish. You can't hear a story without taking it into yourself, and you can't tell one without making it your own -- even if you retell it word for word.

And I guess religious syncretism is the final form of that, a little bit? Taking ingredients from every part of your life, real and imagined and studied and genetic, and mixing them together into the precise stew that nourishes you best, either on an individualized or communal level.

I digress.

I started out with Egyptology in school, abandoned that for several reasons, and realized what I really loved learning about was religion, especially on a practical and/or vernacular level. (i.e. what people actually do rather than the ur version of whatever philosophy we're talking about.) Then Some Stuff Happened and I added on East Asian Languages and Civilizations and really started leaning into learning about Japanese folklore and religions, especially once I started studying in Kyoto.

When I was studying in Japan, I really wanted to learn a lot about Shinto. The concepts behind it had been kind of ill-defined for me, and I wanted to really nail down what people were even talking about when they talked about Shinto. But... to my surprise, even the Japanese people I talked to were really vague on the subject. Which made sense, I guess, as I learned more about it.

I was really, really lucky, actually, because a professor who knew quite a lot about Shinto came to teach at my (American) school shortly before I graduated. It's not easy to find good classes on that subject in the US, especially outside of the west coast and Hawaii. But we had a whole symposium where experts from all over the world came and discussed various research projects on the subject and I was So Happy. lmao

I'm not... gonna get too into Shinto right now. My final assignment for that class, IIRC, was to write a 15 (20?) page paper on the topic "what is Shinto?" so that... might give you an idea of how complicated the question is. lmao.

Suffice it to say, for now, that Shinto is a name that we've retroactively applied to a series of disparate practices and belief systems in what would eventually become Japan. So... in that respect, it's an indigenous religion of Japan, or at least a modern understanding of many of them.

(People think of Japan as one cohesive country because it is now, but maybe think of that period as being more like Ancient Greece? Lots of small little villages and towns (think city-states) that were separated by topographical features and therefore had their own cultures before they were unified into the country we know of as Japan much later.)

Shinto, as a modern concept... ugh, it's still super complicated. There are deities or spirits called kami, and there are several big, important ones like Amaterasu and Susanoo, but also there's just this thought that almost everything can contain a kami because everything has a spirit. (It's animism, baby.) So there is a spirit of that big boulder, a spirit of that mountain, a spirit of that tree, and they're all kami. There are literally thousands of kinds of kami, and they're everywhere at all times. People can become kami after they die, man-made objects can become kami. (Sort of Velveteen Rabbit style.) And in Shinto shrines, these kami are enshrined and venerated and kept happy. Like any deity, they can help or they can hurt, y'know?

There's... a lot more to it than that, some of it extremely political, but that's the essence of it, I think. Kami veneration. (What that entails is... debatable, too! haha)

God, and that was my short version. That's not even what I wanted to talk about.

All that is to say that that's what I was trying to study my first time in Japan. The second time I was in Japan (a few years ago) I heard about Shugendo, which is a highly syncretic mountain-based religion in Japan that has dwindled quite a bit over the years, but not entirely.

Shugendo, to my understanding, is a syncretic religious tradition comprised of elements from Shinto, Buddhism (especially Esoteric Buddhism), and local traditions about local deities. It's extremely mountain-centric, and most important places in Shugendo are on top of mountains. (Which... make them very difficult for my disabled ass to get to.)

The point, though, is the climb. It's a highly ascetic tradition, so practitioners, or yamabushi, would often push themselves to their physical and mental limits. They'd live out in the wilderness, often alone for long periods of time, and make do with what they found out there. One of the places we're going has a very distinct food tradition just because it's largely born out of the increasingly creative scavenging yamabushi would do while out on the mountain. They figured out how to eat a lot of things that most people would not eat. lmao

The important part here, though, is near-constant meditation and going to a sacred place (the mountain) and becoming one with that sacrality. It's trying to find enlightenment through nature and the divine. It feels similar to the Romantic concept of the sublime to me, y'know? And there's stuff about gaining superhuman spiritual powers through all this, too, though I don't know as much about that. (YET.)

One of the reasons why it's kind of hard to learn about is that there are very few practitioners these days. This is partially due to a generally dwindling number of people who identify as religious in Japan, partially because there were never that many practitioners to start with, and partially because... it was illegal for a while! (More on that later.)

Man, though, I wanna learn about it.

Shugendo has kind of become my white whale over the last few years, and there's a lot more information now on the internet than there was when I first started learning about it, but it's still often frustratingly vague!

This time, though, my dad was like "well, we're going to be there for quite a while and you already showed me most of the important tourist spots last time, so is there anywhere off the beaten path you really want to go?"

Now. This was a very brave thing to say to me, considering some of the weird-ass places I dragged him to last time. This man turned and looked me in the eye, the same woman who made him go to the moss temple and the cricket temple in the same goddamn day that we wandered through the bamboo forest in Arashiyama at night after I cheerfully told him that the shrine there was most famous for a ghost story. He said it was one of the creepiest experiences of his life!

haha. memories.

anyway. He looked me in the eye and asked me if there was anywhere unusual I wanted to go. And I slapped open a map of Wakayama and was like I WANNA DO THE KUMANO KODO.

Now... I was not going to hike the entirety of an ancient pilgrimage route. Like I said before, my dumb (but highly excitable) ass is disabled. I cannot physically do that. But I wanted to see the main shrines and temples on the route (shrines=Shinto, temples=Buddhist!) and hike a very small portion of the 1000-year-old route, some of which STILL EXISTS AS A ROAD. *_*

And I wanted to go because... Shugendo!!!! The Kumano Kodo is a popular pilgrimage route for yamabushi!!! That whole Kumano region is sacred for practitioners of Shugendo, and I was like! Heck yeah! I can learn a thing!

But... Dad got injured. ;; And I'm used to pain, but he is not. So I'm not going to make the poor man hike. I want him to heal and get better and not strain his torn abdomen too much.

So I kind of abandoned that idea.

(Side note: I was asking Dad what he thought his physical limits were going to be so I didn't overplan and he was like "well, you can't do that much either, so I don't think we'll do too much" and I was like "what do you mean?" And he said "well, there's nothing that'll hurt me that won't hurt you, too, and you're not going to want to hurt yourself to see things." and I was like "hmm" and I realized that my father does not really understand my existence at all. lmao)

Then I was thinking, though, and I remembered reading about sokushinbutsu awhile ago. I wasn't actually thinking about going to see them initially; Dad and I were just driving up the coast and it's a long drive so I was cheerfully rambling. So I was explaining the basic concept to him and I was like "yes, and I heard that one of the temples is so sacred that you have to go barefoot throughout the grounds, even in winter" and I googled where it was, exactly, because I couldn't remember and

YAMAGATA.

I looked at it and I thought about the Dewa Sanzan and I googled how much climbing those mountains actually require and then I was like

hey dad wanna go to some extremely sacred mountains in northern Japan? they let you drive to the shrines.

And he was like "...why those mountains specifically?"

And then I had to tell him about Shugendo, because yessss that's another very important place for it. I'd always sort of associated the idea of sokushinbutsu with Shingon (esoteric) Buddhism and Kukai, the founder of which, because I knew that it was said that he still rests at Koyasan in eternal meditation.

(YEAH, WE'RE GOING TO KOYASAN TOO! *HIGH KICK*)

But! It turns out that it's actually more of a Shugendo tradition, especially in the Yamagata region, though legend does go that Kukai brought the concept to Japan.

So... what is sokushinbutsu?

(CONTENT WARNING uhhh corpses, religious self-harm, starvation, general morbidity, if you google this know that there WILL be pictures.)

Sokushinbutsu are often referred to as living Buddhas or living mummies. The long and short of it is that highly ascetic monks would be mummified, and they would start this process while they were still alive. It's... a pretty difficult process to read about, so I won't go into a ton of detail here, but if you google "sokushinbutsu" you can find way more information.

I will say that it involves slowly reducing food and water intake and increasing the intake of... well, poison, honestly. Both tea made from the Japanese lacquer tree, which has the side effect of sort of lacquering the organs, and local spring water -- which in the case of Yamagata, involves pretty large amounts of arsenic. People all over Japan attempted this process, but by far the highest number of known successful cases are in Yamagata. This is partially because of the popularity of Shugendo there, and partially, people think, because their water had such a high amount of arsenic, which when combined with the loss of adipose tissue and hydration, as well as the lacquer, sort of mummified the organs while the person was still alive.

This process would eventually kill the practitioner, but... I mean, it takes about a decade. This is not something undertaken on a whim. It is an absolutely grueling practice that is considered incredibly sacred. It's a way to ascend past your mortal body and achieve enlightenment, but only for the most devout and devoted practitioners.

(There's a whole lot about ascending past mortal bodies in Buddhism, but I think that and corpse meditation are a different discussion.)

I say that the practitioner "dies", but... I mean, in a scientific sense, yes. These people would die. Shortly before death, they would be placed in a pit underground and essentially buried alive with only a bamboo tube to allow air and sound in and out. They would be given a bell and would periodically ring it to let others know they were still alive. When they stopped ringing the bell, the tube would be removed. They'd come back and check on the body in a few years, and if it had decayed, it was considered a failed attempt and reburied. If it had mummified, it was considered a successful sokushinbutsu and taken out so it could be displayed for veneration.

This is the important part, though. If the process was successful, these are not considered dead bodies. This is a person who achieved Buddhahood while still alive, and they are considered to be in a sort of eternal repose. You go to them to pray and meditate, and often amulets are made from their robes (which are changed every 6-12 years) so people who come to pray can take some of their power home with them.

So... I want to go to learn about Shugendo, but I knew that seeing the sokushinbutsu would be a selling point for Dad... You just have to know how to sell things, I guess.

(You might know from my other posts that I have extremely mixed feelings when it comes to the display of human remains in museums, but I genuinely can't think of a more vociferous consent than the act of sokushinbutsu. Going to see them feels like honoring their wishes, and I do feel that some of them are very beautiful, in a way. So I am looking forward to the experience, though I'll admit to feeling a little trepidation.)

So we will be visiting the Dewa Sanzan, Hagurosan, Gassan, and Yudonosan!

(-san means the same as Mt. in Japanese! so Fujisan is Mt. Fuji. I usually still use -san with mountains out of habit, and Gassan is... incredibly hard to pronounce without doing that, to the point where it is often translated as "Mt. Gassan." lmao. Japanese double consonants are fun.)

The part of this I am most excited about is... Hagurosan has a museum about Shugendo! IN ENGLISH. I cry!!! Apparently one of the yamabushi currently living on Hagurosan is a westerner! Who really wants to teach other westerners about Shugendo! So the Dewa Sanzan website is excellent and I'm so fucking excited to go there and learn.

(They also had yamabushi training programs if you want hands-on knowledge but again. My disabled ass cannot clamber up and down a mountain, unfortunately. ;;)

Yamagata's a large prefecture, though, so the plan is to drive around a bit. We'll be driving between the mountains (but not up Gassan because it'll be too snowy that time of year and I think that one might be hiking-only access...?) and seeing a bunch of shrines and temples. We're also going to spend a night at Hijiori Onsen, a hot spring town in the caldera of an ancient volcano, and a night at *drum roll* a shukubo!

This is Dad indulging me again. Shukubo is a type of shrine or temple lodging. (Usually temple. But this one is a shrine! For reasons I'll get into in a minute!) Essentially, you stay overnight in a religious lodging. You might be invited to attend morning prayers with the monks, specific rituals (Koyasan's are famous for the goma fire rituals), sutra-copying, guided meditation, etc. Traditionally speaking, these were usually stayed at by religious pilgrims, and some were reserved solely for monks, priests, yamabushi, etc. These days anyone can stay at them!

We'll be staying in two during our trip! One at Koyasan, which I hear has tragically become a bit uhhh influencer-y, and this one at Hagurosan.

Now. Why is this a shrine, even though the building was clearly designed to be a temple? Why was Shugendo illegal for a while? Well... I won't get into all the details, but suffice it to say that during different points during Japan's history, either Buddhism or Shinto have been prioritized by the government, and during those periods, the other tended to suffer.

When Buddhism first arrived in Japan in the sixth century CE, it was introduced from China and Korea and had... some settling to do, I guess? Shinto was largely what was accepted in Japan at the time, and people kind of struggled to reconcile the two concepts with each other. Enter the concept of honji suijaku, which is where this baby gets really syncretic.

It's... complicated, like most of this is, but the basic idea is that kami came to be seen as manifestations, or alternate forms, of Buddhist deities. (Buddhas, bodhisattvas, etc.) The Buddhist deity was appearing in the form of kami to better help people in Japan. So the kami and the Buddhist deities were one and the same, just in different guises. These syncretic deities were called "gongen" in Shugendo, which has elements of both religions in it, and were highly venerated.

But... when politics changed and Shinto was again elevated, there was a forcible separation between Buddhist and Shinto spaces. Like... as in an often violent, state-enforced separation. Shugendo, as a syncretic religion of both, was outlawed. At Dewa Sanzan, most Shugendo and/or Buddhist temples converted to Shinto, and they remain that way to this day. (And RIP to many of the Buddhist statues in the area, which have been sadly beheaded.)

So! There are a lot of buildings around there that are clearly Buddhist in origin but have nevertheless become Shinto. The shukubo we're staying at is one of these.

We're gonna see so many temples! So many shrines! We're gonna go to an onsen! We're gonna learn! Some stuff! See! Some things! Some of which are too sacred to even talk about because it's forbidden!

I am excited.

This is only like three days out of a much longer trip but I am like

every time I think about it.

(Okay, I'm actually a little worried about the shrine I'll have to go barefoot for because it's going to be cold as shit and my joints are... bad. But I can manage!)

okay now this is the longest post on earth so I'm gonna stop here, but we're gonna do SO MUCH and we're gonna see SO MUCH and we're gonna learn SO MUCH and my nerdy little heart is on FIRE.

#long post #very very long post #but I put it under a cut because I love you #the travel bug

[warmth-and-wonder]

A BRIEF INTRODUCTION TO ARTHURIAN PAGANISM

Do you like digging through rarely translated Welsh manuscripts and crusty PDF’s searching for a little known truth that cannot be found? Do you enjoy wild goose chases but religious this time? Do you want a spiritual practice focused on digging in and coming to your own conclusions? Do the legends of King Arthur and his knights inspire a spiritual admiration? Then, you’ve stumbled upon the right tumblr post.

This is meant to be a base level introduction to Arthurian Paganism, an open path anyone from anywhere can follow. I am not an expert, and and do not wish to be treated as such. However, I do think I have enough information to springboard someone else’s journey.

Let’s gets started!

WHAT IT IS

Many religions have a concept of hero worship or hero cults. Worshipped in the terms of divinity or pseudo divinity, sometimes compared to the concepts of local gods and Catholic saints, but not exactly. It could be said this concept dates back to heroes like Gilgamesh and Enkidu, all the way back in 2900 bce! Such, Arthurian Paganism is the tradition of revering Arthur and other Arthurian figures just as one would revere other ancient heroes.

The historicity of Arthur has been subject to lengthy debate. Evidence can point to him being a Briton chief who fought back an Anglo-Saxon invasion shortly after the fall of Rome, or point to him not existing at all. That mystery is a piece of what makes Arthur unique to practitioners who revere him. We will never know the real truth of who he was until his messianic return. (If that even occurs as well!)

It is also worth noting the Christianization of Arthur’s story. The Anglo-Saxons won the war, and with them brought ancient Christianity. Fairies became demons and queens became virgins, and those virgins bore pentacles on their shields. This strange melding of Pagan and Christian symbolism merged into a story that could survive. Christian authors contributed to and thus preserved Arthur’s story through centuries of distance. This merging of legends and religions is an important part of this path. Practitioners wishing to stray further from Christian symbolism must do a bit more digging to access the Pagan meanings underneath.

Because of the lack of a solid ground line, historical or spiritual, this is a branch of worship filled with personal findings and UPG more so than any other form of Paganism. Arthur expects you to quest for what the truth is, who he is,who you are and what you believe. It’s up to you in the end regarding the heroes, villains, and relationships wound up in this tale. We quest just like the knights who scoured for the Grail and the Questing Beast, and we come up short like them as well.

“So many scholars have spent so much time trying to establish whether Arthur existed at all that they have lost track of the single truth that he exists over and over.”

-John Steinbeck

WHAT TO DO

Interacting with heroic figures is done similarly to how we interact with spirits and deities. Create them an altar, leave them offerings, wear devotional jewelry and listen to songs with spiritual significance! Invite them to reveal the unseen to you, and to work with you in spells and rituals. These figures, Arthur, Guinevere, Merlin, Morgana, Mordred and more, they can interact with you as any other spiritual being would. Invite them in, and develop a personal and unique relationship as you progress on your never ending quest.

As is good advice with any unseen being, start with a tarot reading or a prayer. Sit with them, introduce yourself, state your curiosity and intentions. Doing a tarot reading is how I got started!

There are also several ways to include these figures in your craft. Biblomancy using Arthurian literature, calling upon them in spells, and keeping a chivalrous code of honor in your magick. Also use Arthurian symbols such as red dragons, grails and goblets, circles or spirals of stones, triskelions, celestial bodies, fairies/faeries, and the general aesthetics of the knights of yore.

If you believe you are being contacted by an Arthurian figure, I encourage you to listen. Merlin sent me hawks, Arthur appeared in the clouds. These signs can be invitations! Don’t be afraid to accept, for the thing awaiting you just might be the holy grail.

INCOMPLETE BEGINNER BLIOGRAPHY

Arthurian Magick: the complete book of meditations, rituals, and visualizations- John and Caitlín Matthews are wonderful sources, but I will only put my favorite books of theirs here for brevity’s sake. This is the big book of Arthurian spells and the perfect place for anyone interested in him to begin.

Arthurian Tarot- also by the Matthews’. This deck is one of the most visionary, insightful, and detailed I’ve ever worked with. Jam packed with Arthurian symbolism and the history to back it up. There is a digital version available as an app that is my favorite digital divination method ever, and is excellent for witches who cannot have physical decks for any reason.

Temples of the Grail: the search for the world’s greatest relic- again, by John Matthews and Gareth Knight. A very detailed history of the Grail and what it could be, a subject of fierce debate and incredible importance!

Histories of the Kings of Britain - a pseudo historical list of kings written in roughly 1136 by Geoffrey of Monmouth. More often considered an epic rather than a historical document, and is considered to be the text that introduces Merlin into Arthurian mythos.

Gwaine and the Green Knight - written by the mysterious Gwaine and/or Pearl poet in the 14th century. Perfect example of the merging religions I touched on earlier.

the Four Ancient Books of Wales - four important 13-15th century texts that contain some of the earliest mentions of Arthur in Welsh.

King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table and Le Morte D’Arthur - both by Sir Thomas Malory in the 1400’s. Both contain important stories and even important prophecies!

SOME EXTRA RESOURCES

Masterpost of Arthurian offerings- a work in progress for ideas and inspiration for items to fill your altar spaces

My devotional playlist- devotional playlists are excellent for meditation, shufflemancy, and spiritual mindfulness. This is the one I use

FINAL NOTES

First, thank you for reading this far! I hope I managed to impart even the slightest semblance of useful information.

Secondly, I wish you luck on this never ending quest. If you have any other resources, tips, or guidance to share please discuss it in the notes! If you have questions, my ask box is open.

All of magick, and perhaps even life, is an eternal search for more knowledge. Arthur himself was placed onto the trail of an unobtainable, impossible quest too. It matters not that his attempts can be described as futile, for the futile is sacred. For each and every aspect of his life and longer reigning mythos was foretold in prophecy. For even today there remains those who seek the same impossible journey to find the king, the grail, the truth, and simply the journey itself.

#wonders spellbook #hero cultus #arthurian paganism #arthurian magick #arthurian mythology #arthurian wicca #witchblr #paganism #beginner witchcraft #witches of tumblr #paganblr #beginner paganism #witchcraft #arthurian legend

[anddreadful]

I'm curious, I really like all your dnd characters, and I was wondering how you come up with them! Do you write all your own backstory and motivations?

thank you!! I adore inflicting my blorbos on people online and i’m always thrilled to hear that they enjoy it. the short answer is yes— I like to leave gaps in my backstory for my DMs to exploit, and obviously those DMs are running the overall story, but my PCs (player characters) are all original characters of mine, and their assorted bullshit is entirely up to me. (in case it’s unclear, that only applies to my PCs, Teddy and Aster being the ones I mostly talk about On Here. Clay, Borakov, Strahd, etc are all created and run by friends who are generous enough to occasionally let me gnaw on their characters like chew toys).

"How I come up with them" varies a lot! One of my PCs, Tailor, is a repurposed side character from an old book I was writing (which was itself inspired by Alice in Wonderland -- he was the Mad Hatter character). With my storm sorcerer Marin, I knew I wanted to do an Ocean Aesthetic, so I gave her a mysterious shipwrecked-with-amnesia backstory and a pirate found family. Teddy's backstory is lightly plagiarized from Alina's in Shadow & Bone, and Aster's antiquities expert background and general archetype is inspired by Evelyn in the Mummy. Like coming up with any character, it's just a game of picking one cool thing and then scaffolding out other elements that interest you and complement the core idea.

And what's great is that character creation is just coming up with a STARTING PLACE. A PC's Whole Deal emerges over time, a combination of discovery and deliberate choice that's really fun to craft.

These days, I try to keep my backstories to a tight 2-3 paragraphs with 1-3 meaningful NPCs. I've done the long convoluted backstory thing with Tailor, and it turned out very cool -- my DM knocked it out of the park incorporating everything -- but I wouldn't do it again. Aster, my most recent character, has probably the most minimal backstory I've ever done. I wanted to do something simple and strong, do it well, and be free from the traditional backstory resolution D&D arc in favor of whatever else the campaign is going to throw at her.

I love that you mention motive! Puzzling out what my characters want and feel as the story progresses is sooooo fun for me. Inbetween sessions I try to look at what's happened in game lately and ask what it changes for my character, logistically or emotionally, and how I can incorporate that moving forward. And this has increasing returns! Over time, asking myself a lot of small questions about how I want them to react, why they might do that or feel that way, and then playing that out -- taking into account all the improv RP decisions that happen along the way!! -- builds up to a strong sense of who they are. And that becomes REALLY helpful when dramatic narrative choices have to be made in-game.

This is a big part of all the fic and meta I write -- it's an exercise in bringing into alignment what's happening in game and my conception of who these characters ARE in a detailed, specific way. Because the better I can reconcile them, the more they'll feed each other and make each other richer and more interesting, and the easier and better my realtime RP will be. Of course, this is an optional thing I do for funsies, and it doesn’t pay to overthink it -- this stuff is organic and always evolving, and we’re here to have fun at the table first and foremost. BUT it’s super rewarding for me and has become a huge part of why I enjoy the game so much.

#LONG ANSWER SORRY #dungeons and dragons #this is so fun to talk about thank you for asking!

[stainlesssteellocust]

One of the other little concepts for this setting fusion was a type of guy who eats part of you as you die, metaphysically exerting dominance over you, using the sympathetic link from eating your flesh and the power surge from your subsequent death to bind and enslave your ghost. This has various uses: Traditionally such a Ghost Eater (they don’t eat ghosts, they eat you to create a ghost) would offload the heavy number-crunching of ritual magic onto their bound spirits, ensuring they suffered the risks instead of him, and replacing them as they collapsed from their own version of K-Syndrome.

But they’d have other uses. Surveillance and infiltration, the master watching through his servant’s eyes. Capturing the shade of an enemy and demanding their secrets, retaining the experiences of your own dying operatives, capturing people with special powers for your own use. And, of course, the sheer psychological warfare aspect: “Okay so I know there’s a raging argument over whether the ghost actually counts as you, metaphysically and continuity-of-consciousness wise. Leading experts say it’s just an imprint of your brain patterns. But that screaming shade over there sure as hell sounds like Carl from Accounting…”

This is one of those things that Bob dismisses as a tool of the bad old days, and he’s mostly right for once. It is a clunky, costly, not to mention batshit fucked-up way of doing business, especially when you can just, uh, use a goddamn smartphone to cast your spells.

Additionally, the geassa used by both the Laundry and the Black Chamber should prevent their members from being Got by this stuff: The former prevents you from being summoned or kept around after death (…mostly) and the latter keeps your spirit ensnared by the BC instead. In this ghastly alt-history, Ghost-Eaters might well be part of the reason why.

But sheer series tradition means I have to pull the “Psyche! Unreliable narrator!” card and bring one out onto the stage at some point. And they are useful for some things. Keeping people in line through fear, for one. Some might be relics of the past who’ve learned to stay alive. A living library of former agents, taken at the brink of death, slumbering until their experiences are of use… more effective than Bob-style memoirs, perhaps. One is providing surveillance services for the city of Haathor, his bound shades searching for demonic outbreaks and tailing outsiders of interest.

But there aren’t any massed formations or vast cabals of them any more.

#the laundry files #charles stross #cw cannibalism #writing #fic

[zephyrwynd]

MAGIC ON TERRA AND HOW IT WORKS 

I have a fictional world with its own magic system! After... four years? I finally got it figured out.

Magic is divided into three main classes 

Elemental (Water, Earth, Fire, Air) 

Celestial (Light and Dark) 

Material (transformation, transfiguration, manipulation, etc.) 

Each class is broken down to individual disciplines, which are the examples listed above. Read more below for the full explanation and other questions.

Elemental magic is the most easily understood because it's the most familiar. The ability to manipulate any of the four elements, produce magic pertaining to the four elements, or have related abilities. Many races are born with the ability to perform elemental magic.  

Celestial magic is a naturally occurring magic that isn't well understood. Actually, Celestial is a misnomer since there is no divinity associated with the magic. A better way to think about it in their behavior. Light magic restores, heals, and purifies while dark magic decays, injures, and corrupts.

This duality might be explained by some using a Yin/Yang dynamic or a Heaven/Hell dichotomy, but it actually stems from the Mesoamerican idea of dualities and the concept of the whole. There isn't a good or bad to anything. It just is. Soy sauce can stain your wedding dress and make your sushi taste amazing. There is no light, no dark, no good, no bad. It's simply two parts of a whole that exist because that is how existence works. 

Celestial magic is naturally occurring in the world, imbuing itself in artifacts and tomes, or simply coalescing in concentrated amounts commonly known as entities which is another misnomer, as these concentrations don't have a morality or motive, they're more akin to viruses, needing hosts to properly "survive", or else they break apart. 

You might be wondering, what's with all the misnomers? Who wrote this all down? The misnomers are there for simplicity and universality. I know, it's not sexy, but it's the best I have. If you'd like an in-universe language, the earliest studies of magic were done by humans, and the names just stuck around.

Finally, we have material magic, which is the best possible name to encompass a category so broad. Perhaps metaphysical magic is the better term to describe what we might call "traditional" magic. Telepathy, telekinetics, teleportation, transformation, transfiguration, material manipulation… "It's the most common kind of magic on Terra, occurring naturally in a number of races and other non-sentient beings. 

Elemental magic is innate but can be learned with the use of artifacts. 

If the being is born into elemental magic, they can branch out and learn other types of elemental magic, but the element directly opposite to one's element will always be the most difficult. If the being is not born into elemental magic, they may learn using artifacts imbued with any one element. They are unable to branch out unless they have corresponding artifacts. It is extremely rare for artifacts to have multiple elements and extraordinarily rare for one to have all of them.

Example: Sirens are born with water magic, but it is extremely difficult for them to learn fire magic. A tome teaching the reader Air magic.

Celestial magic is naturally occurring and can only be learned with an artifact after dedicated study.

It is virtually impossible for someone to become an expert in celestial magic, as it's so primordial, the power it holds is too much for anyone to handle. Outside of the Faefolk, who are the only beings born into Celestial magic, the only way to learn is with dedicated study using a single artifact. There is no documented case of any being able to wield both light and dark magic. Even Faefolk are severely limited in their power capacity.

Example: Clerics and healers often spend most of their lifetime tapping into Celestial magic to even begin healing. 

Material or metaphysical magic is both innate and naturally occurring and can be tapped into without the use of an artifact. 

If you are born into metaphysical abilities, it is a lot harder for one to branch out and learn other practices. Therefore, it's more common to specialize in the ability you're born into. If you are not born into metaphysical abilities, it is a lot easier to learn practices and branch out into others, but it is much harder to reach a high level of mastery.

Example: A being born with transformation magic can learn to transform parts of their body or sustain a form for longer periods of time. Meanwhile a being learning transformation magic might find it harder to transform parts of their body. 

When is it magic, and when is it an evolutionary trait? 

Simply put, a Dragonborn's ability to breathe fire is an evolutionary trait, but his ability to summon flames on his claws and cast fireballs is magic. Magic is an ability one is either born into or learned. A race trait appears on the biological record. You can track its development across their evolutionary history. Magic has no evolutionary history. It's not genetic. It just is. Remember, the oldest, most primordial form of magic is celestial magic, and there is no rhyme or reason to it. It simply is. Oh, you can develop styles and disciplines and schools of thought. You can ascribe a mythology to it. You can try to explain how it came to the world, but it's inexplicable. It exists for the same reason the universe spontaneously burst into existence. It just happened. 

So does this mean there are no races that are universally born into magic?

Yeah. Some races might have a higher prevalence of magic than others, but it's not a universal race trait. The ONLY exception to the rule is, of course, Faefolk. 

Quick aside about the Faefolk, they don't seem to be born into any kind of magic but rather born from Celestial magic. That's probably why they're so… unique. 

Can a being be born into two kinds of magical classes?

Yeah. It is, and I do not put this lightly, extraordinarily rare to the point of it being considered statistically impossible. If that ever happens, one class is always stronger than the other. Multiple disciplines, however, are a possibility when it comes to metaphysical magic. So no Avatars, but you might get a teleporting telekinetic.

And that's all I really have to say regarding magic on Terra. Well, no, I have like a million other things I'd like to say, but this is long enough, and I've said so much at this point. Thanks for reading this hahaha

#terraverse #original world #zephyr worldbuilds #worldbuilding #magic system #original writing #dungeons and dragons #dnd #fantasy #fantasy world #fantasy writing #fan character

[thoughtfulfoxllama]

Ok, I've been thinking through my Assassin's Creed: BoM concept

Instead of the Gold Plates being the medium for the Animus, the Sword of Laban is a Sword of Eden, made specifically for Training (so, it has Animus-like ability to allow access to the memories of the people who use it)

The Sword was found by Joseph of Egypt, and was passed down to Joshua, and from Joshua to Laban (an idea from "The Lost 116 Pages" by Don Bradley)

Nephi doesn't want to be the leader of the Nephites, but he uses the sword's ability to increase charisma (as seen in "Odyssey") in order to help them stay safe from the Lamenites. I think Nephi would be a good Prologue, but I think a mission where he has to use the Sword on his brother would be meaningful (which isn't even implied in the Book of Mormon, but would be my own addition)

After Nephi, it'll skip to King Benjamin, with him taking our key Lamanite figures, but (in traditional AC style), he'll learn more about compassion, not wanting to kill them, regretting it at times even, but refusing to make himself dull to the suffering he is causing (even for the greater good of his people). This will be a part of explaining his views in his great speech

After Benjamin, it'll skip ahead to Ammon. Obviously, Sheep Raiders, arms, all that. But Lamanite Territory is dangerous, so he'll have a fight on his way to the Lamoni, and more missions after the sheep, and a sequence for saving his brother from Lamoni's dad

The War Chapter with Captain Moroni. Enough said

There needs to be at least one sequence about the Gaddiantons. Lachoneus is my choice, but Nephi is also a choice

And it ends with Mormon. He's a General of an army, and a historian. How does his appreciation for history begin: the Sword of Laban

It needs a good Modern Plot too. Maybe Basim is their resident Isu Expert (because he's a Sage), and he's leading Shaun & Rebecca to stuff from the memories he's living through

And then he betrays them to Abstergo. His Alethia, so when he learns about the Phoenix Project, he gets in touch with Abstergo, and they make a deal. He works with them if they resurrect her. But, I still like Basim as a character. He's not a monster, and he is devoted to the Assassins, so he regrets his choice, and has to choose between Alethia or the Creed

And that's it. It cuts back to the Gray. Layla & the Reader are freaking out. The odds are 50/50, and they can't definitely read any more futures. But the choice is between saving or destroying the Assassins

Now, it'll be mixed in style. Nephi, Benjamin, and Teancum will be more Stealth Based, but Captain Moroni, Ammon, and Mormon will be Combat Based. I love the stealth of earlier games (and Mirage), but it'd be hard to do a full stealth game

And I enjoy a well done Modern Plot. But it needs to be well done, add something to the world, and not just be cutscenes. I liked the Modern Missions in AC:3

But, what are your thoughts

#mormon #lds #lds church #ldschurch #mormon au #assassin's creed #ac: bom

[inbarfink]

Shadow Witch

Sometimes they are wicked-looking figures hiding in the darkness of the woods - helping or hurting passers-by based on what seems like an ineffable capricious whim, sometimes they are wise noble advisors dispensing both wise advice and magical help until the moment their liege is at their weakest, sometimes they are masterful assassins whose skills in espionage and murder are practically supernatural. Whoever they are, Shadow Witches are mysterious and sneaky spellcasters. At best they are adaptable and quick-witted, and at their worst they’re opportunistic and untrustworthy.

Shadow Witches' Emotional Focus is the emotion of Betrayal. They are most known as some of the best and most dangerous rogues and assassins of the magical world. Like the shadows themselves they are ethereal, tricky and ever-present. And they are experts not just at catching you off-guard, but in really twisting the knife of a trust broken. And the more their Betrayal hurts your heart, the more their power grows. However, although this is the most famous manifestation of their focus on Betrayal, it is far from the only way this Emotional Focus manifests. And perhaps not even the most important one.

For Shadow Witches themselves also carry a scar of Betrayal. One cannot master the traditions of Shadow Witchcraft if they have not tasted Betrayal themselves. Some Witches have experienced a violation of trust so massive it still reverbs through their life to this day, while others are bleeding over the smallest and pettiest of deceptions. But it must be something that legitimately still casts its shadow over the Witch’s soul on some level.

While they are fully capable of taking down most of their targets on their own, they often much prefer sowing seeds of mistrust and letting the target’s loved ones hold the blade for them. Outside of simple cruelty, and efficient feeding from potent Betrayal - it can actually be a matter of morality for the more principled Witches. For a Witch who’s taking down a true wicked man, convincing that target’s friends and allies of his wickedness and recruiting them to take him down - the Shadow Witches see this not as corruption but as redemption.

Shadow Witches have a more complicated relationship with the concept of loyalty than most realise. They rarely disregard it outright, but rather believe true loyalty must be chosen wisely. Loyalties often come into conflict with each other, and the Shadow Witches believe one must decide definitively and decisively what is the thing you are so loyal to that you are willing to Betray everything else. Despite their reputation as treacherous and unreliable - every Smoke Witch has one person or value or concept they are truly loyal to, to the point that they will Betray everything and everyone else in the world for the sake of it. For some it is truly just their own selfish ambitions, but many Shadow Witches have a deep loyalty for a higher ideal - and encourage others to betray wicked causes for the greater good.

Shadow Witches’ Betrayal-focused magic is especially useful for casting Illusion spells. They also tend to train in Transportation, Curse and Utility Magic that aids them in their roguish pursuits. These abilities enhance their mundane non-magical abilities of infiltration and spywork. Some of them also dabble in Mind-Control Magic, but mostly the more subtle stuff. Although they are not very known for Combat Elemental Magic, they tend to have a strong affinity to the element of Dark.

#Shadow #witch #Betrayal #shadows #witch art #witch aesthetic #witches #fantasy art #fantasy #character illustration #character art #character concept #character design #art #my artwork #my art #digital artist #artists on tumblr #digital illustration #digital art #rogue #assassin #darkness #dark

[sonicrainicorn]

No Way Home

Words: 10,093 Desc.: Daniel messes up a spell (Kevin is shocked -- aghast, even) and pulls in four different Daniels from across the multiverse into his living room. Now the issue is putting them all back. TW: minor panic/anxiety attacks

(lmao two of these Dans are from fics I haven’t published yet so there’s some massive spoilers in here. I just found this concept too entertaining to leave it waiting)

///

“What is it that you’re planning to do exactly?”

Daniel lifted his eyes from the page to look at Kevin’s quizzical expression. He did have to admit his ingredients were... unorthodox. A piece of a mushroom from a fairy ring Sean collected, water from a very specific lake in California bottled under the full moon, a raw cut of azurite, and a lot of other seemingly random crap.

“I’m trying to look into my timeline,” he answered.

“Divination? I can do that for you without all this junk.” He waved his hand in the general direction of the coffee table.

“I’m aware.” He turned back to the spell book. “But I’m trying to do something a little more complicated.”

“More complicated than that one time?”

“A bit more, yeah.”

Kevin leaned over the back of the couch. “Don’t leave me in suspense -- what is it?”

“I want to look through possible timelines. What sort of choices I could have made that could have led to something different. Things like that.”

Kevin frowned, his eyes scanning Daniel’s face for some hidden answer. He opened his mouth, then closed it. He gave a small smile. “Yeah, that does sound pretty complicated.” He pushed himself away. “Well have fun. Don’t forget to call your local divination expert for help if you need it. That’s me, by the way.”

Daniel scoffed. “Yeah, I know. You bring it up as often as you can.” He shooed Kevin away with his hand. “Now, come on, I gotta focus.”

Kevin said nothing, leaving Daniel alone.

Daniel studied the words and steps carefully. Not only was this a branch of magic he didn’t often use, but it was also a style he was unfamiliar with. Traditional French, according to the book. Traditional magic styles were always fascinating to study, but putting them into practice was a bit more complex. And Daniel knew firsthand that one wrong step could lead to unforeseen consequences. So he had to get it right. He didn’t want to find out what could happen if he fucked up a timeline spell.

He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. No time like the present.

Moving to sit cross-legged on the floor, he propped up the book on the coffee table so he could still refer to it. To start, he filled a small plastic tub with the lake water and set a wooden bowl on top. Next, he reached up and pulled out a strand of hair. He couldn’t help but flinch a little, but he dropped it in the bowl without issue. And then he made his first mistake.

As he grabbed the mushroom piece, it slipped out of his fingers and rolled onto the floor. Cursing under his breath, he leaned over to search for it. He picked it up, noticing it had who-knew-what sticking to it from falling under the couch. He dusted it off and blew on it. But he had no way of knowing he did anything wrong. The true nature of fairy ring mushrooms was a secret the fae kept tight. Not even a half-fae like Sean was allowed to know the full details.

Fairy ring mushrooms on their own weren’t magical. They were a conduit like so many witches’ wands. A dormant element of nature to use magic through. But Daniel wasn’t a witch. He had magic at his fingertips -- something rare and dangerous and powerful -- that oftentimes ended up exploding wands doing mundane spells. And as such, the fae didn’t want people like Daniel to understand their mushrooms’ true nature. Because the mushrooms remembered. Something as simple as a breath could trap magic inside. For a witch, this did nothing. But for a sorcerer -- for Daniel -- it meant the mushroom was alive.

He dropped it into the bowl.

Referring back to the book, he followed the next steps with meticulous detail. Yet, he made a second mistake.

He lit a match and dropped it into the bowl. The dried-up plants caught fire in an instant, which meant the last step he had to do was drop in the azurite. But he hesitated. Just for a moment, but it was a moment too long. The spell book warned against stopping during this stage. Once the fire was lit, the spell needed to be completed as fast as possible.

Fearing the consequences of not finishing the ritual at all, he dropped the azurite into the bowl. The bowl crashed to the bottom of the tub and thick white smoke billowed out, engulfing the room. Oddly, it smelled like cinnamon.

As Daniel coughed and waved the smoke away from his face, he heard other people coughing as well. Thinking it was the other lads, he started coming up with the best explanation to justify the mess, but all his words shriveled up and died the moment the smoke cleared.

He saw himself. Well, four of them.

They stood on the other side of the coffee table with similar expressions of shock and confusion. Daniel wasn't sure how to feel about knowing what he looked like when he made that face, so instead he focused on their other aspects.

The first one wore a purple sweater with the sleeves rolled up. His jeans had grass stains on the knees with a hole accompanying the right side. Faint paint stains popped out in random spots. He looked the most tired out of all of them.

The second one mirrored Daniel the most. Thin glasses perched on his nose. He had a light blue hoodie with an embroidered patch over his heart. Headphones sat on top of his head and he had something clutched in his hand. He wasn’t wearing shoes.

The third one held himself like he wanted to fade into the background unnoticed. He also had on a hoodie, but this one was light gray and much too big for him. A colorful scarf wrapped around his neck and a bright red beanie hid his waves. The snow on top of his boots was starting to melt.

The fourth and final one had to be the most bizarre. His hair was the longest of the group and much wilder, but that was tame in comparison to the rest of him. With a cloak draped over his left side, he looked plucked from a completely different time. His face differed the most as well. He had a few fading scars running in different directions along his cheeks and nose. It would have been hard to call him a Daniel if it wasn’t for the wide blue eyes and sharp jawline.

After a long time of no one saying anything, the one in the headphones exclaimed, “what the fuck is happening?”

Uh oh.

“I was in the middle of shopping,” the one in the purple sweater put his hands to his temples like a terrible headache appeared, “and now I’m standing in a living room with four other people that look like me.”

“What sort of magic is this?” The one in the cloak eyed Daniel curiously. His accent was slightly off from the others.

“Magic?” the first two echoed, perplexed.

The one in gray didn’t say anything, but he looked right at Daniel like he knew the answer already. It was a little unnerving.

“Okay!” Daniel stood up. “I have to admit, this is really fucking weird -- even by my standards -- so how ‘bout we all just, just chill for a second.” He could feel his anxiety spiking and for fuck’s sake he didn’t need that right now. If he got too stressed it would make everyone panic more and then he would panic more and it would make a bigger mess of things. Not for the first time, he cursed Kevin for giving him this damn ailment.

Purple Sweater crossed his arms and glared at him, yet his mouth remained shut.

“Chill?!” Headphones waved his hands around manically. Daniel could see he held onto a Switch controller with white knuckles. “How are we supposed to be chill about any of this?”

“I don’t understand what that means,” Cloak said with a furrowed brow.

“It means ‘relax’,” Gray explained softly.

“Ah. Then I agree with that one.” He pointed at Headphones. “I don’t understand how we’re meant to be ‘chill’ about appearing in this... place.” He looked around with a small frown.

Daniel wasn’t sure if he should take that as an offense to his interior decorating.

“Well, he can’t tell us what’s going on if we don’t stop yelling at him,” Purple Sweater said calmly. He gave a pointed look to Headphones, who grumbled and shoved his hands in his hoodie pocket, keeping his mouth shut. Then he looked at Daniel and Daniel felt like he was disappointing his dad all over again. “Why did you bring us here?”

“It was an accident. I only wanted to look into my timeline but I guess I... messed up.” He scrunched his face. Understatement of the century.

“Yeah, no shit,” Headphones griped.

“Language,” Purple Sweater chided. Then seemed confused about why he even bothered. “Sorry, that -- that’s just a habit.”

Headphones looked at him weirdly.

“The magic in this place feels off.” Cloak frowned further as he continued to scrutinize the room. “It’s not... I don’t feel the same presence like at home. How can you have such powerful magic if it isn’t in the world around you?”

“It’s more prominent here,” Gray chimed in. Quiet. As if he didn't want to be heard at all. “Magic in my world is rare but completely mundane.”

“Your world?” Purple Sweater noted curiously.

“Why the hell do you guys keep talking about magic?” Headphones pushed down his headphones and grabbed at his hair.

“It’s how I brought you all here.” Daniel sighed like it was obvious.

“But magic isn’t real!”

“How else would you explain this, then?” He threw his arms out to emphasize their situation.

Headphones shook his head and shut his eyes tight. “I don’t know! This can’t be real! None of this is happening! I’m -- I’m dreaming or something. I fell asleep before I went live and now chat is waiting for me.” He started lightly tugging on his hair. “I just have to wake up and start the stream. This’ll just be a weird crazy thing we talk about.”

Daniel chucked a couch pillow at his face. “Stop it! You’re not dreaming.”

A loud crash startled them all. They turned to see Kevin staring at them with wide eyes, his hand floating mid-air. Pieces of a mug scattered across the ground.

“Kevin!” Four Daniels shouted in surprised relief. One of them muttered it like a guilty confession.

Kevin continued to gape at them until he was snapped out of it by Daniel awkwardly fixing his hair. “Dan, can I, uh, can I talk to you for a second?”

The Daniels glanced at each other.

“My -- My Dan.” He shook his head and pointed at Daniel, giving him one of his rare serious looks. “You. Get over here.”

Daniel hesitated but complied anyway. He stepped over the ceramic pieces, making a mental note to tell Kevin to clean it up with a broom rather than magic it away.

“The rest of you... Dans... just, uh, just sit wherever.” He grabbed Daniel’s arm and dragged him into the nearest empty room. Unfortunately, that happened to be the bathroom. “Dan, what the fuck --?”

“I know!” Daniel dragged his hands down his face. “I fucked up. I don’t know what I did to bring them all here.”

“What even are they?”

He tapped his bottom lip. “At first I thought they were different me’s from across my timeline, but then there was that weird one with the long hair. And two of them don’t even have magic. So I think... I think they might be from different universes.”

Kevin stared at him like he was crazy, but it was a look that only lasted a moment. He groaned and ran his hands through his hair. “Dude, how do you mess up a spell that bad?”

“I don’t know!” He whined, sounding far too much like a child for his liking. “Please help me fix it. I don’t know what to do and if I tell them that they'll get mad at me and then I'll freak out, and you know what happens when I freak out --"

"Stop." Kevin put his hands on Daniel's shoulders. “I'll help." He frowned. "Jeez, you must be in really deep shit if you’re asking me for help.”

He shrugged. “You are the local divination expert after all.”

“Oh, no. We’re way past divination at this point. And flattery will get you nowhere.” He grinned. “But I wouldn’t mind hearing it anyway.”

Daniel rolled his eyes.

They walked out to see all the Daniels sitting far apart as they avoided looking at one another.

Kevin clapped his hands to get their attention. “Okay, Dans, so here’s the thing -- you don’t want to be here, and we don’t want you here so we’re going to do whatever we can to get you guys back.” Ever since The Incident, he had gotten better at taking charge.

“How long will that take?” Gray asked quietly.

“Uh, what spell did you use, Dan?” He motioned to the book on the table. Kevin scooped it up and skimmed the page. He didn’t look too confident anymore. “Okay, um, maybe a few days?”

"What?!” The four Dans yelled at the same time.

“Days?!” Purple Sweater shot up from his spot on the couch. Up until this point, he had been the most calm and collected of the bunch so it shocked Daniel to see him so livid. “I can’t wait days -- I have a daughter to get back to!”

Headphones’ head snapped to him with wide eyes.

“I was hiking down to meet my friends,” Gray said, for the first time speaking above a murmur. “What’re they gonna do when I never meet up with them?”

“And I was in the middle of rebuilding a library.” Cloak crossed his arms with a scowl. Daniel caught sight of a flash of silver. “Imbuing books with magic isn’t shit you can just stop.” 

 Kevin held up a hand placatingly. “It takes time to deconstruct a spell, and this one is super complicated. We’ve never worked with anything like this before.”

“Then why the fuck did you even attempt it?” Purple Sweater snapped.

Daniel took a deep breath and counted.

Kevin took a step forward so the attention would be on him. “Look, you’re all Dan -- you should know better than me how he thinks. Are you telling me none of you have taken a dumb risk before?” 

 They fell silent.

“We just need to find out what went wrong and go from there.” 

“How do we do that?” Cloak raised a brow. 

Kevin tapped the book cover. “Well... you have magic, too, right? Maybe you can help.” He sat on the armrest of the chair and handed the book over.

Daniel and Gray shuffled closer as well.

As Cloak unfurled his arms to take the book, everyone in the room sucked in a breath. “Huh?” He glanced at them all in confusion before seeming to click the ideas in place. “Oh.” He chuckled, not at all bothered as he held up his left arm. It was pure metal. “I lost it a while ago. Doesn’t bother me much anymore, but I guess it’s probably weird for different me's.”

“How’d you lose it?” Gray asked, voice nothing but a whisper. 

Cloak cleared his throat, eyes firmly on the spell book. “So what’s a France?”

As the three Daniels and Kevin poured over the book, the remaining two Daniels were left to themselves. Magic wasn’t real in their worlds so they wouldn’t be much help. Purple Sweater sat back down on the couch with a sigh. Headphones sat stiffly at the other end of the couch. 

He tried to pay attention to what was being said in case it was important, but every other word flew over his head. Besides, if he was being honest, he was more interested in the other Daniel on the couch.

“So,” he started. The other Daniel cocked his head at him, “you have a daughter?” 

He smiled. “I do.”

He scooted a little closer. “Do you have a picture?”

Instead of bringing out a phone as Headphones expected, he pulled out his wallet. He took out a little photograph and handed it over.

Headphones found himself smiling down at the picture. A little girl with dark hair pulled into pigtails grinned back at him. Her smile was so big he could barely see her bright blue eyes. She was sitting cross-legged in the grass. Green stained her exposed knees and even her socks. She had on overalls shorts with a pink striped shirt underneath. Her hands were stretched out towards him as if she wanted to catch the camera. Or maybe she wanted who was behind it.

“She looks a lot like you,” he said and handed the photo back. He hoped his hand trembling wasn’t too obvious. “What’s her name?”

“Elizabeth.” He stared at the photo in adoration. “But we just call her Cupcake.”

Headphones swallowed down a shaky breath. His fingers brushed the edges of the patch on his chest tentatively. “Who... who’s the mother?”

Purple Sweater scowled as he put the photo away. “Doesn’t matter.” He placed the wallet back in his pocket.

Sensing he struck a nerve, he apologized softly.

Purple Sweater didn’t say anything for a moment. Then he looked at him as if he solved a puzzle. “I’m --” his lips quirked up in a sad smile -- “I’m not your future. We’re from two different worlds. Whatever you’re hoping you’ll get... I’m not it.”

Headphones' eyes darted to the floor and he retreated into his hoodie. He should have known an alternate version of himself would be able to read his true intentions. “This is some real Multiverse of Madness shit,” he grumbled. As if making a shitty joke would make him feel better.

Purple Sweater gave him a confused face.

One of the other Daniels cried out in annoyance. They turned to see Cloak with his hands buried in his face. “I don’t understand your magic,” he whined. “Why does it have so many rules?”

“Well, how does it work in your world?” Daniel crossed his arms and looked at him like an annoyed older brother. 

“You just ask for it!” He threw his hands out in front of him and colorful flower petals exploded from his palms. His irises flashed gold. “It’s a far superior system.”

Daniel scoffed in offense. “Superior --?”

“If your magic works here, why can’t you magic everyone back to their own universes?” Kevin asked before Daniel could get all huffy.

Cloak suddenly became very shy. “I’m strong, but I don’t know if I’m that strong. I don’t know if it’ll reach into universes that don’t have magic at all.”

“Oh, so now whose magic system is superior?” Daniel smirked. 

Cloak glared at him.

“Don’t you guys have internet here?” Headphones asked. “Can’t you look up what to do on some bullshit magic website?”

“That’s not really how this works.” Kevin frowned.

“What’s an intern-net?” Cloak furrowed his brows. 

“No, you know what?” Daniel took out his phone and tossed it to Headphones, who almost didn’t catch it. “Why don’t you try to look something up and see how well that works out for you.”

Headphones scowled. As he looked down at the phone he muttered, “God, am I really this annoying?”

Kevin chuckled. “Now you know what it feels like to be everyone else.”

Purple Sweater peered at the phone curiously. “What is that?”

“A phone?” Headphones glanced at him in confusion. It was a normal Samsung. The exact same model and color as his own. He turned it on and nearly laughed. Of course their lock screens were almost identical things.

“That’s not like any phone I’ve ever seen.” He continued to look at it like its mere existence made no sense. 

“What? What does your phone look like?”

Purple Sweater fished something out of his pocket, revealing an old flip phone.

Headphones stared at it with wide eyes. “Oh my God.” he hadn’t seen one of those since he was a kid. “What year is it for you?”

“Uh, 2005. Why? What year is it for you?” 

 “2022.” 

They looked each other up and down, suddenly way more uncomfortable than they had been before. It was one thing to be pulled into another universe. Having one of your alternate universe selves (one that appeared normal by comparison) be from a different time was another.

“Umm.” Headphones shifted in his seat. He waved the phone at him with an awkward smile. “Wanna know how it works?”

While the two Daniels were distracted by that, the other Daniels and Kevin were still stumped on what to do.

“What about you?” Kevin asked Gray. “Could your magic do it?”

Gray fiddled with his beanie. He had to take it off along with his scarf since it got far too hot for him. He even had to roll up his sleeves. “I don’t really have magic like that. All I can do is See into the future.”

Kevin grinned. “That’s great! You can See how we get out of this and tell us what to do.”

“Not... not really.” He kept his eyes on his beanie. “I’m cursed. No one ever believes what I say.” 

There was an uncomfortable beat where no one said anything. The Daniels on the couch laughed together. It sounded the same.

“Do you believe yourself?” Cloak questioned gently. 

He nodded.

“Well... maybe you could tell us?” He motioned to himself and Daniel. “We’re technically you.” 

He looked hesitant. “I-I don’t know. Would that work?” He messed with his beanie some more. “I don’t really like looking into my own future.”

“That sounds like a good loophole if I ever heard one.” Daniel shrugged. 

“It’s up to you,” Kevin added. 

He looked around at everyone. “I guess there’s no harm in trying.” He took a deep breath and closed his eyes. It didn’t take long for him to wince. He rubbed the center of his forehead with his finger, but it didn’t do anything to dissuade his pinched expression. “Th-there’s --” he gasped sharply, his eyes blowing wide -- “there’s... there’s...” his breathing quickened.

Kevin was at his side in a flash. Apparently, it didn’t matter the Daniel, his mother-hen instincts were ready to go at any sign of distress. “Hey, I’m right here. What happened?”

Gray clutched the front of Kevin’s shirt like a lifeline. It sounded like he was choking. “T-too, too many. There’s too many.” 

“Breathe. It’s okay.” With little deliberation, he placed his hands on Gray’s arms. If these Daniels thought similarly, they probably responded to anxiety similarly as well. And if there was one thing Kevin was quick to learn, it was that Daniel relied on touch to help him feel better. He would have preferred to wrap him in a tight hug, but he didn’t want to make him feel like he couldn’t breathe. “What’s too many? What did you See?”

“Futures. M-my future. His. Ours.” He shut his eyes and gasped for air. “E-every, every Daniel in here. I-I See them all. They’re all -- they’re all mixing together in my head.” 

“Okay. You’re okay. Let’s just focus on something easier. How ‘bout mine? Can you tell me my future?” 

Gray opened his eyes and looked into Kevin’s. His breathing began to slow and his grip loosened little by little. “Once you ask Daniel that thing you want to,” he mumbled. His eyes glanced over to Daniel, “everything will turn out fine.” 

Kevin snorted, a half smile on his face. “I don’t know about that.” then he frowned. “Sorry.”

Gray shook his head. “I’m used to it.” but he sounded sad. He noticed Purple Sweater staring at them. His expression seemed almost pained with longing. He recalled a future -- a brief flash in his mind -- with Kevin, Anna, and a little girl. A tight-knit family with a chance he’d never see them again. He took a step back. “I’m sorry about that.”

“It’s alright. Happens to the best of us.” He gave him a small smile.

Daniel sighed. “Now what do we do?”

“I... may have an idea,” Cloak interjected hesitantly. “I just thought of it. I don’t know if it’ll work.”

“I think at this point anything is worth a shot,” Purple Sweater said. 

Everyone else seemed to be in agreeance. 

Cloak sighed. “Okay.” He scanned the page once more before standing up. He waved a hand over the coffee table and all the ingredients appeared. Purple Sweater and Headphones somehow appeared weary and impressed at the same time. Cloak grabbed the azurite with both hands, clasping it tightly. His eyes shined gold. When he opened his hands, the azurite shimmered with that same gold color. “Do the ritual the same way you did it before.” He handed the azurite to Daniel. “This should be able to reverse the effects. I hope.”

Daniel stared at the gold streaks swirling around the deep blue of the azurite. Then he looked up at Kevin, who gave him an encouraging smile. Then he looked at the Daniels. They were staring at him expectantly. Well, if anything was worth a shot...

He sat on the floor and repeated the steps. It was hard to ignore all the eyes watching his every move. Not that he could blame them for being so intense about it. Their fate rested on his shoulders. No pressure or anything. 

Much like before, when he dropped the azurite in, smoke billowed out of the container, except this time gold glistened within it like flakes of glitter.

“Did it work?” Kevin asked as he waved away the smoke. 

He looked around and only saw one Daniel.

~~~

A shiver ran down his spine as his feet connected with the ground. He stumbled forward but managed to keep himself from crashing onto the... hardwood... floor...

Wait a minute.

His apartment had hardwood floors, but it wasn’t this color. He lifted his eyes and horror hovered over his shoulders, threatening to sink its claws into him at any moment. The foyer he stood in was foreign to him. The front door didn’t match his apartment’s at all, and the neighboring key hook had a set of car keys hanging on it. He didn’t know how to drive and he certainly didn’t live with anyone who knew how to.

The horror slashed down his back when he heard the quick padding of feet behind him.

“Daddy!”

His entire body stiffened. Several daunting things became evident all at once. The first, and most prominent, one being this was not his universe. How would he get back without the help of any other Daniels? God, he would much prefer to be back with all of them in that weird place than wherever he was now. He’d rather live there forever than be trapped here with... with...

He slowly turned around. A little girl with dark hair and bright blue eyes smiled up at him.

She launched herself at him. “Where are the snacks?” she peeked up with a mischievous smile.

“I-I, uh --” 

Her smile turned into a curious frown. “When did you start wearing glasses?” she frowned further and reached into his hoodie pocket before he could be affronted by her audacity. “What’s this?” she pulled out the Switch controller, giving it a scrutinizing once over.

He resisted the urge to yank it out of her hands and instead gently pried it away from her. He had a feeling the other Dan wouldn’t be too happy if he upset his daughter. “I-it’s, uh, it’s something for later.” he shoved it back into his pocket with a nervous smile. He hoped that he wasn’t messing up time-space by being here with things that shouldn’t exist yet. If all his years of watching Doctor Who was anything to go by, it wasn’t that big a deal, but he wasn’t too sure about it now.

Her eyes lit up. “Is it a game?”

“It’s -- yes. It’s a game.” Jesus Christ, he had no idea how to talk to children. He couldn’t comprehend how he was a dad in this universe. He thought about being a dad one day, but faced with the reality of it, he was feeling all sorts of anxieties and fears he didn’t know were possible.

“I wanna play!” she bounced on the balls of her feet.

“Uh, not yet.” he stepped around her to start a search for a secluded spot in the house. “It’s... it’s a surprise. For later. Much later.” 

She pouted, dragging her feet as she trailed after him. “Aw, but I wanna play now.”

“J-just, uh, just give it some time, dear.”

This gave her pause. “You don’t call me that,” she said matter-of-factly. “Only Gramma calls me that.”

Oh, shit. He only said it because that’s what his mom called him and his brother. Of course he would let it continue to be her thing. That sounded like something he would do.

She looked him over again. “Why do you look funny?”

“I...” he had half a mind to make a bad joke but realized that would probably be the worst thing he could do. Instead, he panicked about what would be the best thing to do. He couldn’t say he wasn’t her dad; that would lead to more confusion. “I will answer that... in just a second.” he started trailing down the hall to what he hoped was the bathroom. Unfortunately, Cupcake continued to follow him. 

To make matters worse, as soon as he approached the door, it swung open. He yelped in surprise. “Kevin?!”

Kevin stared back at him with wide eyes. “Dan?” he looked him up and down. “When did you get back? Where’s Anna?”

“Anna?” why was he supposed to know where Anna was? 

That appeared to be the worst response he could have made. Kevin frowned. “Are you feeling alright?”

“Ask him why he’s wearing funny things.” Cupcake pointed up at him as she peered around his body to give Kevin a serious pout. 

Kevin looked him up and down again. “Yeah, that was going to be my next question.”

He noticed two doors to his left. He hoped one of them was his bedroom in this universe. “It’s -- this is hard to explain.” he started inching to the closest door. “Just give me a minute.” He shut the door in their faces. He felt a little bad about it.

“Is Daddy okay?” Cupcake whispered.

“I’m sure he’s fine,” Kevin answered, sounding like a plain lie to Dan. “Let’s go call Anna.”

Dan sighed and thumped his head lightly against the door. How the hell was he going to explain this? God, he just wanted to go home. He couldn’t be a dad! He especially couldn’t be Cupcake’s dad. He didn’t know her favorite food or her bedtime routine or what movies she liked to watch.

She wasn’t his daughter.

And her real dad was in some other universe trapped the same way he was. He couldn’t imagine what he was feeling. Thinking he’d see his daughter again only to wind up in another alien place. No one won in this scenario, and he was starting to feel worse about it by the second.

Sighing again, he pushed himself away from the door and looked around the room. It appeared he made the right choice. This room was set up in an eerily similar way to his own bedroom back at home. There were differences here and there, but he could still tell this was his bedroom. If this wasn’t at the bottom of his list of Weird Things That Happened Today, he’d find more care to be creeped out by it.

He noticed some pictures on the dresser across from him and decided to take a closer look. At home, this dresser was smaller and had a lot more random crap stacked on top of it. There was still random crap on this one, but he didn’t care about that as much.

He picked up one of the frames. It was of this universe’s Dan, Anna, and Kevin. They looked young -- still teenagers. It was hard to discern their location, but there was a rocky cliffside in the back, and wispy green plants moved in a captured breeze at their feet. Dan was at the front, leaning against a railing, looking toward the camera with a crooked grin. He had a hand up to stop his hair from flying in his face. Anna sat on top of the railing beside him. She leaned forward so the camera could see her sticking her tongue out. She didn’t seem to mind her hair being in the way. Kevin stood as if he was prepared to jump over the rail, but stopped only to take the picture. He had his typical faux innocent smile.

The next photo was of a baby. This one appeared to be done by a professional. The background was a soft peach color. Fine, dark hair poked around a white floral headband. Her eyes seemed brighter and bluer than they did in person. She gave the camera a wide, toothless smile.

The other photo was also of Cupcake. About toddler age this time, wearing a t-shirt with a cute animal on it. She had her hand out to a sheep eating out of her palm. She watched it with an excited beam.

He set down the frame. Frowning, he took a step back. Then immediately hissed out a curse and jumped away. As he rubbed his foot, he looked down at the floor and saw a lone Lego piece. Near the bed sat a tipped-over tub of Legos. Even with the annoyance of stepping on a damn piece, he couldn’t help but smile. He knelt beside the tub and noticed a lot of things happening at once. 

There were dolls sitting on crudely constructed chairs, and different structures made of mismatched bricks. He noticed a few Lego figures assembled into horrific monsters. That was definitely something he’d do. He frowned.

They were playing together.

He could see it happening. The tub of Legos was kept under the bed -- a secret at first to keep Cupcake out of them and stop her from making a mess. But she figured it out. Then, perhaps today, she dumped them onto the floor and insisted Dan play with her. She brought her dolls to have them interact with their new Lego world. Dan showed her how to make abominations, which she promptly built a jail for.

It seemed like fun. And even despite the horrible reality of being here, he smiled a little at the thought. A father and daughter enjoying each other’s company. As if nothing else in the world mattered besides the havoc they created.

Then he frowned again.

He was hit with the stark realization that the only way he’d get to experience this was if he stole it from someone else. He could only have a sweet, domestic life if he replaced this other Dan. 

And, for a moment, it was tempting. Why wouldn't it be? It all seemed so uncomplicated. So easy. But he knew deep down he couldn’t ever live with that. He would rather have this be an unattainable dream than rob someone else of it.

He had to find a way back. This little girl needed her dad. Her real dad. Not someone who entertained the idea of being one.

He stood up, determined but also lost. He didn’t know how to get back, exactly, but he wouldn’t stop until he found a way. It couldn’t be that hard, could it? Maybe he needed to retrace his steps from before this whole thing happened. Except he noticed a few glaring problems with that almost immediately.

He was in 2005. Twitch wouldn’t be around for at least another six years. And as he looked around, he could see this Dan had no intentions of becoming a streamer. There wasn’t even a computer in here.

Dan thought back to 2005. It was almost twenty years ago by now. Jesus Christ, he was getting old. Gah! That wasn’t the point! Focus, Daniel, focus.

Okay. 2005. If there was a computer, it would be somewhere everyone could access it. However, it would also be where Kevin and Cupcake were. Dan wasn’t sure he was ready to talk to them yet, so leaving this room was a big no-no.

What else could he do? What happened the exact moment he was transported into another universe? He sat at his computer, he started setting up the stream, and then... he was looking at himself in a completely different room.

That wasn’t very helpful. Would he really have to wait six years to retrace his steps the right way? Six years was a long time -- it was an especially long time for a father to be without his daughter. He would miss so much by then.

No, there had to be another way. There had to be. He couldn’t be stuck here! There had to be something he was missing or something he needed to say or do or... or...

He stood there in silence for a moment that felt like an eternity, half expecting -- hoping -- to get dropped into the right universe. But nothing happened.

He heard Cupcake and Kevin whispering right outside the door.

~~~

He took a breath so deep it hurt his chest.

His lungs filled with smoke, but by the time he exhaled, it was already gone. 

He found himself looking into the surprised faces of Daniel and Kevin in a rather familiar living room.

He patted his pockets and found his phone and his Switch controller. He could feel headphones over his ears. He brought up a trembling hand to his chest. There was an embroidered patch beneath his fingertips.

Oh.

Before any of the other Daniels could say anything, the Daniel sitting beside Kevin disappeared in a jarringly cartoonish poof! only to be replaced with a toddler in clothes far too big for him.

Once again, before anyone could react, the toddler screamed, “fuck!” as loud as he could, startling everyone. He buried his face in his little hands.

“Whoops!” Kevin hurried in and scooped him up. “Don’t worry about this -- happens all the time.” He flashed the rest of the Daniels a nervous smile as he began to back out of the room. “Just give us a second.” then he ran down the hall.

A long, heavy silence stifled the room.

“I didn’t think today could get any weirder,” Cloak mumbled under his breath.

Purple Sweater opened his mouth to comment but closed it when he caught Headphones sitting down out of the corner of his eye. He looked way more exhausted than the first time they saw each other. His shoulders were more hunched and a tight frown stayed on his face as his eyes gazed at nothing in particular. “Are you feeling okay?”

His eyes flicked up then immediately turned in another direction. “I’m fine.”

Purple Sweater frowned. Now he understood why Kevin and Anna always tried so hard to help him. He kept quiet for a moment. The other two Daniels started their own conversation. “I’m pretty sure I was in your universe.” Headphones said nothing. “I found myself sitting in front of this crazy-looking computer with a bunch of different things happening. I don’t understand how you can read what all those people say.”

The corner of his mouth twitched up. “You get used to it.”

“I turned it off, I think.” He wasn’t sure which monitor he needed to pay attention to. They all had something on their screens, but he was pretty sure he shut down the stream at least. “I don’t think I’ve ever felt more like a dad than I did fumbling around with your computer.” 

He laughed lightly, but the smile didn’t stay there for long.

That didn’t work. He needed to come up with something else. “I liked your Lego collection. I haven’t seen any of those sets before.”

At last, Headphones looked up at him.

Across the living room, the Daniels there were having a similar conversation. “Are the animals in your house supposed to be there?” Cloak asked with a bit of genuine concern. He had never seen anything like it before. He heard of people keeping cats and canines, though they tended to stay outside. But this man had a whole menagerie in his tiny cabin. He even had a rat. Who willingly kept rats in their house?

Gray smiled, the first time he had done so. “Yeah. They’re my pets.”

“Even the sheep?” 

His smile widened. “She’s spoiled. She gets offended if I leave her outside for too long.” His smile shrunk a bit. “Are they doing okay?”

“I believe so. The cat didn’t seem to like me very much.”

“Yeah, he’s not a big fan of Daniels.” 

 “A big... fan?”

Gray couldn’t help but chuckle at Cloak’s confused expression. “It’s just a saying. He doesn’t like me very much, either.”

“Ah.” These people had such weird words and phrases.

“So I guess I was in your universe,” Gray said after a moment. He returned to his meek posture and tone. “Your friends told me what happened. I’m sorry about your library.” 

The library. Burnt to a crisp and destroyed along with most of The Castle. Even now his heart ached thinking about it. He spent his entire childhood in that library. Against his will, mind you, but that didn’t mean he wanted to see it destroyed. “Oh, it’s alright.” he tried to smile. “Hard for things to stay gone when you have magic.”

Just then, Daniel -- back to an adult -- and Kevin returned to the room. Daniel’s entire face was red down to his neck. He held up a finger to stop anyone from speaking. “We are not going to talk about it. No one is going to ask me any questions about it. We’re just going to ignore it and pretend it didn’t happen.”

The other Daniels acquiesced.

Daniel smoothed out his shirt and sighed. Then the calm was broken. “How the hell did you guys get back here?!”

“I retraced my steps,” all four Daniels answered at the same time. 

“None of us were in the right universe,” Purple Sweater explained. 

“But you were gone for, like, thirty seconds. There’s no way any of you are that fast.”

“What?” Cloak’s brows pinched together. “It was at least twenty minutes.”

“A few days for me,” Gray added. 

“I had to wait until morning.” Purple Sweater frowned. 

Daniel looked at Headphones, expecting him to follow the trend. When their eyes met, it was like looking at a completely different person.

“Six years,” he said, voice hollow. 

“What?” Purple Sweater stared at him with huge eyes. 

“I had to wait until it was 2011,” he didn’t look up at anyone, “once Twitch went live I made my account and wound up back here.” 

“You went back in time?” Kevin asked.

“He’s from 2005.” He motioned vaguely to Purple Sweater who was starting to look like the world was falling apart around him. 

“Does that mean,” he started softly, “if I go back now, I would I have missed six years of my daughter’s life?”

Kevin gave Daniel a worried glance.

Daniel tried not to start panicking. This complicated things. “No, no, it’s fine. I’ll... Okay, uh, I’ll just send you all back to right before you fell into this universe. It might take a little bit of extra time to figure it out but it could work. It’ll be like nothing ever happened.”

Headphones looked up at him. “Like nothing ever happened?” His expression changed to one people rarely saw on any Daniels’ face. Fury. “I spent six years raising a daughter that wasn’t my own, and you expect me to act like it didn’t happen?”

“W-well...” 

“I just lived a life I never thought I could have and... dammit, I liked it!” He tore off his headphones. “I liked teaching little kids how to write. I liked having a daughter. I liked living with my friends and being one big family. And you’re telling me I have to go back to my lonely apartment and -- and just forget about it?” His face was wild and desperate. Like he was fighting a losing battle.

Daniel opened his mouth, but he couldn’t find anything to say. Was there anything even to say? He could promise to fix it, but would any of them believe him? He messed everything up in the first place. And then things went wrong a second time. It didn’t matter what he said. It would sound like an empty promise. He closed his mouth.

Headphones huffed and stood up. He marched toward the front door without a word.

“Hey --” Kevin started, but Daniel put a hand on his arm. 

“He’s not going anywhere.” 

Once the door slammed shut, a tense silence fell over them. Purple Sweater quietly excused himself and followed Headphones.

He found him standing on the front porch, his arms resting on top of the banister. He stared down at the headphones in his hands like they were trying to start a fight.

“Hey,” he greeted softly.

“Hi,” he muttered. 

Purple Sweater propped his arms against the banister and looked out into the front lawn. It was small. Kind of overrun. Tall bushes on either side separated them from the neighbors. They were in their own little world out here.

“When I found out I was going to be stuck there,” Headphones started, “I hid all my stuff in the bottom of a drawer."

“Smart,” was all he could think to say.

Headphones sighed. “I’m sorry. I’m talking like I’m the only one affected here.” he put his headphones around his neck. “I’m just... a little jealous, I guess. Your life was so simple. I appreciate my life don’t get me wrong -- I love that I get to play games for a living and I’m very thankful for what I have -- but seeing your universe...” he sighed again. “It just makes me feel like I missed out.” 

A breeze rolled past before Purple Sweater decided to say anything. “My life wasn’t always that simple, you know.” his eyes stayed on the silent street as he recalled his messy past. “I tried to get married too young, I had a kid too soon, and my fiancée left me because she got tired of pretending to love me. I barely saw Cupcake for the first four years of her life. I was always working. Then I got my head out of my ass and asked for help. Anna and Kevin started living with me, I went back to school, and that’s where you picked everything up.” 

He smiled at Headphones as best as he could. “Basically, what I’m trying to say is, you can still have that life. Mine only seems so perfect because you didn’t see what I went through to get it.”

“I guess you’re right.” He looked down guiltily. “It was just easier to pretend to be you for a little bit.” 

Purple Sweater recalled the quiet apartment he found himself in. He hadn’t known quiet since before Cupcake was born. It turned out he didn’t miss it as much as he thought he did. “What’s stopping you from having one of your friends move in?”

“They have their own lives. I don’t want to get in the way of that.”

“You never know. One of them might be willing.”

Headphones didn’t respond. He brushed his hair back as another breeze went by. He tilted his head to look at Purple Sweater with new consideration. “Did you ever think about trying to get married again?”

Purple Sweater laughed. The type of shocked chuckle one does at a surprise. “Man, if I had a nickel for every time someone asked me that...” He shook his head. “I never wanted to get married in the first place. I like the way things are now. Why ruin a good thing?”

Wow. Headphones wished he could be this confident and secure about any of his decisions. “Your daughter is really lucky to have you.”

His smile turned small and brittle. “How is she?” 

“She’s doing well. She started playing football and she’s really good at it. Like really good -- that’s not me being biased or anything --” they both chuckled -- “but she’s already decided she wants to be a veterinarian. She started getting into wildlife conservation by the time I was getting ready to leave.” He could have gone on for a while longer -- now he understood why parents talked about their kids so much -- but he saw the look on Purple Sweater’s face. It would have been cruel to keep going. “I, uh, I tried my best to act like you but I think she could always tell there was something off.” 

“She’s too observant for her own good.” it almost sounded like he didn’t believe him.

Just then, a strong sensation raked down their backs, cutting their conversation short. They looked at each other.

“I think I’ve seen Into the Spider-Verse enough times to know that wasn’t a good thing,” Headphones said. 

Purple Sweater stepped away from the banister. “Come on.” He opened the door.

Inside, the other two Daniels appeared to have felt the same thing. Cloak’s metal arm was on the floor.

He bent down cautiously to pick it up. “I’m losing connection to my magic.” He pulled it underneath his cloak and his eyes burned gold.

“Me too,” Gray muttered, his own eyes closed. He started to play with the end of his scarf so hard it looked like he began to unravel it. “I-it’s like something just snapped inside of me.” He opened his eyes. “I can’t See the future.” 

Cloak blinked and the gold vanished from his eyes. He wiggled his metal fingers around experimentally. Rather than the fluid movement they were more than capable of before, they were frigid and clumsy. “Ugh, I can’t believe this is happening to me again.” He dropped his arm with a scowl. “We need to get home.”

“We still don’t know how to do that,” Kevin piped up. 

“It doesn’t seem like we have much time to figure it out.” Headphones crossed his arms.

“What happens to us if we run out of time?” Gray asked.

No one responded right away. All eyes were on Daniel once again. He took a breath and started counting. “I don’t know, but we’re not going to run out of time. We almost had it right -- we just have to figure out what to tweak.”

“How do we figure that out?” Kevin asked. “We just keep sending them away until we find the right combination?” 

“No!” Purple Sweater and Headphones shouted in alarm. 

Daniel held up his hands in defense. “That’s not what I’m suggesting! I’m just saying there must have been something we missed. Something small.” 

“Like... our hair?”

Everyone turned to look at Gray. He flipped the spell book around and pointed to one of the lines of ingredients. “When you did the spell again you only used your hair. But what if you need hair from all of us?”

“It can’t be that easy, can it?” Cloak looked at Daniel with disbelief. He hated this magic system so much. 

“It might be.” Daniel took the book and looked it over again. “Decoding magic is complex. The closer you get to the right answer, the smaller the changes are going to be.”

“We’re technically hacking the system because of you.” Kevin grinned. “There’s usually a lot more failed attempts than this.” 

He didn’t know what that meant, but he’d take it as a compliment.

Headphones groaned and rubbed his eyes. “Please don’t talk about failure right now. I don’t want to think about how much universe hopping I could have done.”

“Well, if things go right, this last hop will be to your homes.” He looked at Cloak. “Do you think you could get us those ingredients again?”

Cloak rubbed his forearm awkwardly. “You don’t have any extras laying around?”

“Believe it or not, we don’t have dirt from a primeval forest collected under a blood moon tucked away in a drawer somewhere.” 

He pouted. “Okay, I get it.” He walked up to the coffee table. He put his hands on it and closed his eyes. “I ask to bring back what was used.” Nothing happened. “I ask for what we need.” Tiny sparks of gold swirled over the table but nothing appeared. He sighed harshly and shook out his hands, glaring down at the emptiness.

“Hey,” Kevin said gently, “it’s okay. We’ll find something else.” 

“No, I can do this.” He placed his hands back on the table. He squeezed his eyes shut. “Phexas, if you can still hear me, please help. I need these things to get back home. I ask you to help me. Please help me.” 

Daniel, starting to feel a little bad, opened his mouth to tell Cloak to stop, but as soon as he did so, everything they needed laid neatly out across the table in a bright flash.

Cloak took a step back, panting as if he ran a marathon. “Holy goddess above, that’s the hardest thing I’ve ever done.” he collapsed into the nearest armchair. “And I’ve fought a giant beast made of pure magic once.”

Purple Sweater blinked at him owlishly. “You did what?” 

“Let’s see if this works.” Daniel sat down in front of the coffee table.

As Daniel prepared to redo the spell once again, Kevin looked at the other Daniels. They seemed nervous. “I would say it’s been fun,” he started, “but I think this was more stressful than having to take care of toddler you.”

“Hey -- watch it. I said we weren’t going to talk about it.” Daniel began to crush the aspen leaves.

“But it’s true. I had to literally fight your fears, I had to rescue you from your crazy boss -- worst of all, I had to act like a parent. Do you know how hard that is?” 

Purple Sweater giggled behind his hand.

“And I would say this was harder than all of that. I never thought I’d live to see the day when you mess up something more than I did.” 

Daniel glared at him as he dropped the mushroom piece into the bowl.

Kevin grinned back. “This can stay between us, though, don’t worry. I won’t tell anyone.” He caught sight of Gray giving him a peculiar look. Upon close inspection, it seemed something close to... adoration? “What?”

Gray smiled. “You don’t change much in any universe, do you?”

He paused for a moment to process that. He looked around at these four different Daniels from four different universes. They looked and talked to him like they knew who he was. Like they knew what to expect. In every universe, Daniel and Kevin knew each other. No matter how much things changed, the thing that stayed the same was their friendship.

“Okay, final step.” Daniel held the matchbox. “Hopefully, this’ll be the last we see of each other.” 

“If it’s not,” Headphones pointed at him, “I know you don’t fear death, and I’m not afraid to kill you.” 

Despite the threat, Daniel smiled. “Noted.” he lit a match. “Here goes nothing.” He completed the spell a third time. And much like the first two times, smoke billowed out of the container. It smelled like fresh, clean air.

Daniel and Kevin waited in taut silence in an empty room. They were afraid to celebrate too early again. A minute passed. And then another. Daniel allowed himself to breathe when five minutes passed and no other Daniel reappeared.

“I think you did it,” Kevin said a little cautiously. 

“I think I did.” He leaned against the couch. God, he wanted to sleep for two days straight again. What a horrible fucking mistake. 

Kevin sat on the couch once it was beyond clear that the chaos was well and truly over. His leg bumped into Daniel’s arm.

Daniel looked at it, then up at him. “So you had something you wanted to ask me?”

Kevin stared at him for a long time. It was probably the most thoughtful and serious Daniel had ever seen him. He took a small breath, his mouth parting to speak --

The door swung open so hard and so fast that it smacked off the wall behind it. Sean shoved his way forward, holding several grocery bags with each arm as he yelled obscenities over his shoulder. Daithi yelled right back at him, holding significantly fewer bags.

“Get up, you lazy assholes,” Brian stuck his head through the doorway, “we share the suffering in this household.” 

Daniel rolled his eyes.

Kevin grinned and stood up. He knew how to make this worse.

~~~

Dan blinked.

Wasn’t he just inside?

He was... what was he doing?

He breathed in the cool, crisp air. Oh, right! He just walked outside. He was supposed to see a movie with everyone today. He pulled his beanie further down his head and continued his trek down the mountain.

“There you are,” Spiff greeted once he got to the bottom. Mango looked up from her phone to give him a smile. “I was starting to think you got lost.”

Dan smiled. “Lost in thought, maybe.”

“Well, come on. If we’re late then Kiwo is never going to trust me to pick you up again.” He motioned with his hand for them to hurry up.

“I’m surprised she even trusted you in the first place,” Mango quipped.

“It’s because I’m responsible.”

Dan snorted. He didn’t believe that for a second, but Kiwo would have both their heads if they stayed here and argued about it. “Yeah, okay, let’s go.”

~~~

Wait, what?

The book in Dan’s hands slowly returned to ash as his concentration broke. He watched it fall between his fingers, where it got lost in all the other mess.

Damn. He must have started drifting off. Combing through ash and charcoal to recreate burnt books was hard. His brain was tired.

Kevin poked his head through the doorway with a large grin. “Hey, how’s --” the grin flopped into a frown. “Are you okay?”

“Huh? Oh, yeah.” He looked around at all the ash he was sitting in. He was able to recreate the science part of the library (which had the most books and shelves intact) but he still had a long way to go. 

“Looks like you need a break.” Kevin’s smile returned. “Come on. Sean made lunch.” 

“Sean made lunch?” Dan’s smile grew at Kevin’s excited nod. “I have to see this.” 

He hopped to his feet and raced Kevin down the hall. 

~~~

“Dan?” 

 A box of mac and cheese slipped out of Dan’s hand and crashed into the cart. “Whoa, shit,” he hissed, startled. When did he pick that up?

“Swear jar,” Anna said without missing a beat. 

Dan tried not to roll his eyes. “We’re not even home.”

“The swear jar must always be honored.” She gently elbowed him in the side. “Are you back on Earth now?”

“Yeah, sorry.” He brushed his hair back and took in the scene around him. They were in the pasta aisle, and the cart was getting fuller than they intended. It was meant to be a short trip to the store, but the longer they spent in there the more stuff they picked out. “I was having a really intense daydream, I guess.” 

“I could tell.” she began to push the cart down the aisle. “But we have to get going. I don’t want your daughter to eat Kevin because we didn’t bring her snacks in time.”

Dan laughed. That didn’t seem like such a bad thing, in his opinion.

~~~

Dan stared down at the controller in his hand. It felt odd for a moment -- like he was meant to be doing something else. Wasn't he doing something else? He shook his head to clear it of all thoughts. No, that didn’t make sense. He must have nodded off or something. How unprofessional.

“Hey, guys, how’s it going? Can everyone hear me okay?”

What a strange, little dream.

#listen #you need a little nonsense sometimes #i was originally going to include daniels that werent mine as well #but 1) #five daniels was already too many #and 2) #there are a lot of rt AUs #like a lot #rtgame #callmekevin #you have no idea how long this stayed in my drafts #sonic writes sometimes

[danydarkly]

Hello! I love your work, I always have ♥️ I know in a previous post from probably forever ago, you mentioned that you were excited to be exploring fairytale concepts within Red & Wolf. The last chapter got me thinking about the traditional roles you find in fairytales! I’m no expert by any means, but usually there’s the “hero”, the “damsel”, and “the evil”, and it’s so fun seeing how you’ve (intentionally or not) coded Leikos as the damsel! He’s cursed by a more powerful entity, he’s lonely, he talks to the forest imps about his crush like he’s a Disney princess, and I love it!!! And by contrast, it is becoming clearer and clearer that Scarlett, who seemed like the damsel in the beginning, is the hero. From a lot of the modern takes on fairytales that I have encountered, it’s usually the darker cursed character who becomes the hero, so it’s really refreshing to see Scarlett, a kind and helpful young women take up that mantle instead. Usually, I find that even today a character with her personality type is written as a damsel, and given the darker themes of the story, it’s interesting to see her sweetly determined personality take lead.

Anyway, this is all a really long (and probably confusing) way of saying I absolutely love how you’re executing and exploring these themes while still maintaining a darker Grimm-like fairytale. I can’t wait to see more 👏👏👏

(sorry if I totally got it wrong tho)

Hello, thank you so much for the kind words! <3 You're pretty spot-on, actually haha. I love subverting tropes and I love it when a man needs saving. One of the main challenges with taking my characters from Wolf Song and bringing them into what would ostensibly be a different kind of narrative than what I was going for in WS, was figuring out why Leikos would feel compelled to do the things he does while making him sympathetic and not the real "villain" of the story. In thinking about that, I came up with the curse, which turned out to be very fitting for the fairytale theme, and then things started to fall into place from there. For Scarlett, I was very determined to not make her passive or a Mary Sue. In Wolf Song she stumbles into the forest and things just happen to her - she's a victim, which is what I needed her to be for that narrative, but for Red & Wolf (especially since it's a romance) I wanted her to actually be more of a character with her own motivations, etc. She's a teenager growing up in a very small, isolated village occupied by very superstitious people, so it made sense in my mind for her to be a little naïve, very curious and have an adventurous spirit. She is very limited with what she can do and I ultimately wanted her to find ways to work within her limitations - her compassion and curiosity being her main motivators and solutions (if that makes sense). All this to say, yeah absolutely Scarlett's the "hero" and Leikos is the "damsel" haha. I can't wait for you to see the other ways Scarlett subverts fairytale expectations and I'm glad these themes are being noticed ^^ Your question inspired me to draw Scarlett as a prince lol so here she is, ready to protect and save her sketchy wolf boi:

#anon #answered #red and wolf #red and wolf comic #wolf song #danyart #sketch