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hiddenhearthwitch · 2 months

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📚 Small Intro To Polytheism📚

One of the most frequent asks I receive is how and where to get started when it comes to polytheism. This is a fairly broad subject and I’ll try to be as general as I can for advice but I will include specific references for Norse polytheists as that’s my shit. This information can be used to help you find a pantheon or to help you pick deities to work with it. If you’d like to use it to pick a patron deity that’s super, if you want to worship 20 gods and not have a patron deity that’s cool too. You do you dude. Please keep in mind this is all reflective of my research and personal practice. 🌻

Picking A Pantheon/Deity

This really boils down to personal preference. You’ll read a lot of posts and books that tell you many different ways and it’s entirely up to you because it is your practice. That being said, there’s a couple of different ways to go about it.

Research! This is one of my favorite ways to delve in. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with reading the stories of multiple pantheons and picking on that calls to you. You can also talk to other devotees and see what they have to say about deities and their religions. It is important to keep in mind that some religions are closed so please do proper research!

For example, I wasn’t originally a Norse pagan. I read some stories and thought the Hellenic pantheon would best suit me. I reached out to Eros for a while but after feeling no real connection to the pantheon I continued my research! After reading up on the Norse pantheon I decided to reach out to them out. Obviously, I fucking loved it because here I am. Point being, you can pick a pantheon based on research and not some divine message or whatever. You are also more than welcome to try out a religion, decide it doesn’t suit you, and move on.

Divination! You can use runes, a pendulum, tarot, etc.This can go a few different ways. You can write pantheon/deity names on separate pieces of paper, mix them up, and place them face down then ask the pendulum to pick. You can assign a deity/pantheon to each suit of cards or major arcana card or even do the same thing with runes.

For example, this is how I found a devotion to Frigg and Hel. I asked if there were any deities who were interested in working with me and pulled the runes Hagalaz and Berkana which read as Hel and Frigg to me. I followed up with tarot cards and pulled Death(Hel) plus the Queen of Pentacles(Frigg).

Asking/waiting for a sign. This isn’t something I’ve personally done so I don’t have much to say on the subject. You can go about meditating, praying, doing a ritual, or whatever and essentially wait for a sign after. It can come via a dream, something you experience, symbols you see in your daily life, it’s pretty much up to your intuition to decipher it. If anyone has information they’d like me to add in here please let me know!

If there’s a god you’re curious about and don’t want to do any of the above it’s totally cool to just reach out and ask if they want to work with you.

Idk How To Research

Same, tbh my keyword search game is weak. Anyways, good portion of us are looking up dead religions with little reliable resources. To give those curious about the Norse an easy head start here’s a compiled list of books by yours truly(click me!!) . It’s important to take everything with a grain a salt of salt when doing research. In my experience a lot of the retold Norse sagas have been Christianized or written under heavy Wiccan influences. It’s a good idea to do research on the author before reading one of their books.

Other blogs! There are tons of great witches and pagans on tumblr that have information waiting for you. 💗 You can search their blog/tags for good references for books, websites, podcasts, etc. Plus lots of blogs are open to answer asks. If you don’t know where to start for searching it’s best to try things based around your interest like: “norse polytheist”, “hellenic witch”, “gaelic polytheism”, etc.

Media! How lucky are we that we live in the age of technology? Knowledge is right at our fingertips! There are countless documentaries, podcasts, and audiobooks on youtube full of information for different cultures and religions. I’d personally recommend almost anything by BBC, Myths & Legends, and World Mythology!

Books! I love starting on goodreads to find good books and trust worthy authors. They’ve had almost every book I looked up with bunches of different reviews so you can get varying perspectives. Check out your local library as well! A lot of city libraries have online databases now of all of their books so you can “check it out” online and read the PDF(personal fave).

Feeling Lost Still?

That’s completely reasonable and your feelings are more than valid. It can be overwhelming and lot of information to soak up. Just do your best and take it at your own pace, there’s no rush to find a deity or pantheon. 💞 Below are a few other general concerns I hear a lot that I was hoping to address.

“I’m leaving a monotheistic(Christian, Catholic, Jewish, etc) religion and it’s giving me anxiety.” This is entirely common and almost expected in my opinion. I was raised Roman Catholic and my first year to two looking into polytheism riddled me with anxiety. I was constantly concerned that god would smite me down or I’d face an eternity in hell for worshiping false gods. While I can’t speak for everyone that fear was entirely erased for me when I found my gods. I’ve never felt so safe and strong and hopefully with time you can find the same in your gods!

It’s okay to want to learn more or to seek something more. I can’t tell you how to handle your anxiety but please know you’re not alone in that fear. There’s whole communities out there willing to support you and help you find your safe space(including me)!

“What’s UPG?” You’ll see a lot of posts, mine included, that mention UPG - UPG is Unverified Personal Gnosis. This is essentially someone’s personal thoughts and beliefs about a deity. For example, I associate Sif with hazelnuts. There’s nothing in the lore or any book that says that she likes hazelnuts; that’s just a personal opinion(aka a UPG).

“How do I reach out to the gods?” I have a lot of information on my blog about this topic although a lot of it is Norse specific. You can check out my beginner polytheist tag here and my beginner norse post/ask here.

Altar! This is my go to typically. Altars aren’t limited to the cookie cutter image that comes to mind(no hate though I have a few); one thing you can make a side blog dedicated to your pantheon/deity, make a small one in a tin can, or even make one in a video game like Minecraft or some shit. You can be as creative or as to the book as you want. It’s up to you.

Prayer! You can totally just sit down and be like, “Hey man wanna work on some shit together?”. While I’m not 100% that all gods would be down with you being that casual it’s still something you can try.😂 You can reach out to them by sitting down in a quiet space and meditating into prayer, praying in the car or in the shower, or just pray at the altar you set up if you did. Again, I can not reiterate this enough, it’s your practice, reach out to them as you please.

Do something personal! This is more like devotional work in my opinion. Let’s say you knit and you want to reach out to a creative or domestic deity, you can knit something as a devotional act to them and as a way to reach out. For example I pick up litter in honor of the Vanir and Jörð, or I play Skyrim for Thor and Týr.

Most importantly just be honest and up front with the god that you’re reaching out too. Considering that statement be honest with yourself as well. There’s no point going into a relationship with a god if you can’t be upfront, it’ll end up in nothing but grief.

“Can deities reach out through gods/signs?” They totally can. However, it is up to you and your intuition if a deity has and it’s not likely another witch will decipher that for you. Sounds, experiences, images, all have different meanings to each of us - they may show you something that’s very personal to you but would be mundane to someone else. Trust your instincts. However, please remember that not everything is magical, sometimes a raven is just a raven and not Odin.

✨Take everything you learn with a grain of salt. Including this post.✨

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#my posts #witchblr #beginner witch #witch community #pagan tips #norse paganism #norse pagan #beginner pagan #paganism #heathenry #witch tips

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leptonyx-constellate · 9 days

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this is really only a small point in the end, but like... the first thing that made us solidly go "nope!" about the idea of a school for plurals was the mention of everyone having a badge connected to simplyplural that would show the current fronter.

like, not even going into the personal part, our first point is: who would manage the simplyplural account, first of all? taking us, for example, doing shit on our phone is incredibly difficult and overwhelming. there's a reason why we don't answer 90% of asks we get (on this blog, on the plurillean-confessions blog, etc) on our phone, and as far as we can tell, simplyplural is primarily a mobile app (actually, we're trying to register on the web, and it just straight up is not working--either it tells us that our password isn't valid even though it is, or it gets stuck in a loading loop). and there's probably folks who would struggle to manage a simplyplural themselves in general, regardless of where it was.

okay, so, then who would manage the account if the person it's for can't? we sure as hell wouldn't trust someone else to manage something that's so personal, let alone someone who is meant to be an authority figure, so that puts staff entirely out of the picture if you're trying to make this a safe and comfortable place. and of course, there's every chance that whoever is chosen to manage the simplyplural just... won't listen to the system in question. won't add new members the system says are there for whatever reason, won't change pronouns or apeparances, etc.

alright. alrightalrightalright. put managing it to the side. let's talk about the display of who's fronting, right? two problems i can immediately foresee:

(1a) privacy. this is immediately a huge concern for privacy, say for headmates who want to log themselves fronting, but don't want other people to know they're there. for a while, one of our headmates (Mimic) used a completely different pk proxy while talking in certain servers because it was worried that, if people knew who it was, they would immediately run it out of the place.

(2a) multiple fronters at once. unless this badge is huge or the text or whatever else is on there is tiny, how are you going to manage multiple fronters? multiple badges? okay, how many badges is the maximum? because, for example, when Wolf fronts, all of us are always there. so that's immediately 6 people. and usually, there's more than just Wolf. often, other folks such as Arratay, Parrot, and Lewis are around. that's 9 people all fronting at once. how are you going to deal with that?

and (2b) hey, the whole point of showing who's fronting is to show who is talking, right? what about in cases where someone blips in for a few seconds to add in a random comment before leaving? what if this regularly happens to the point where it could get confusing about who said what unless someone shows up on the badge (like with us, where mentioning a certain headmate or something they're interested in will get their attention, and they'll often send in a quick "hi" or a short (or long) infodump about whatever we're talking about before promptly leaving)?

oh, and not to mention (2c + 1b) what about headmates who front a lot because of something, but don't talk? if they're fronting, they'd supposedly show on the badge, but it wouldn't be them talking. some months ago, we joined a server for a game that was a special interest of Guppy's, and ze would pretty much be in front every time we were playing the game or engaging with the server. note: ze never said a single word, ze always had someone else talking for hir because ze was too anxious to talk to people and let people know ze was there.

and then, of course (2d) what about systems who are almost constantly blurry? who often have multiple headmates fronting at once, but when they're fronting, it's basically just thoughts-and-feelings soup that can't easily be separated into "headmate 1" and "headmate 2"? or systems that struggle to figure out who specifically is fronting for one reason or another? what then?

i don't know. maybe it's just us, but that comment was the very first thing that really put us off. (and then, of course, followed by the whole "ooo it's an experiment!" thing.) that was the thing that immediately put a sour taste in our mouth. it's small potatoes compared to... everything else, but we were really put off by it (and we're honestly surprised nobody else has said anything about it).

#original posts #we're not main tagging this one just because this is mostly just a thought spill (and we don't want to risk getting into any arguments)#but it's perfectly fine to reblog if you want

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jakowskis · 7 months

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torchwood fanfic resources

so i'm a chronic livejournal archaeologist, and fixating on 2000s media is particularly fun for me because it means i get to go digging on lj / dw / old fanfic forums. below you'll find some of the excavations from my torchwood fixation (give it up for month 6!) it's pretty much got every comm i've ever stumbled upon and found useful, or thought others would find useful. it's largely fanfic-oriented, though there's some more generalized comms, too. i hope you guys enjoy!

i was originally going to include a link to my reclist on this post as well, but it's still a wip, so i'll just post that separately in the future.

general disclaimer: most of the content here is from 2006-2013 or so. period-typical attitudes may pop up in places. i'm not sure if most modern tw fans have witnessed the original fandom at all, but i felt a need to say this anyway, because i've seen some icky stuff. i've warned for anything notable. gwen bashing in particular may unfortunately pop up in some of these comms, especially in the comments, so tread carefully.

if you're new to probing through old lj comms, remember to always have the wayback machine on hand, because you're going to run into a lot of purged accounts and seemingly lost fics, but sometimes you get lucky and something's been archived :)

as of the date i'm posting this, all of these comms are still accessible, but if you're from the future and some have been deleted, again, go ahead and give the wayback machine a try. additionally, livejournal has a system that includes 'cross-posting' in which, if authors choose to (and the majority of them do, to get their fics more visibility), fics get posted to multiple comms at once. so chances are, even if one comm gets deleted, the contents will survive through other comms. kind of like how reblogs continue to exist even when the original blog is deleted.

finally, ctrl + f is your best friend if you have a specific ship/character/trope you're invested in, especially in comms with less than ideal tagging systems. if a comm does have a substantial tagging system, you can find all of its tags by adding '/tags' the end of the urls i've provided.

ok... let's begin :-)

assorted livejournal communities

✎ torch-wood: this is essentially a torchwood subreddit. it started before the show even aired, and one of the highlights of it is episode reaction posts (easily accessible on the right side of the lj) that document how everyone immediately reacted to the eps, which is pretty damn cool, fandom-history wise. only thing i should mention is there's quite a lot of gwen and owen bashing in the comments of some of those reaction posts, so just be wary of that if you love those two like i do, 'cuz it's a bit of a bummer.

✎ torchwood-three: this comm is an extremely cool then-daily newsletter (that still updates sometimes?!) that compiled as much fan-content as it could find into cleanly organized lists. the posts made immediately after new episodes aired contain reactions, discussions, meta, theories, new fic, fanmixes, just about everything. very very cool to go back and see the way the fandom was thinking as the show was airing and as they were getting to know the characters. here's a direct link to all posts made in late 2006, during the airing of s1.

✎ torchwood-fic: exactly what it says on the tin. desktop layout is easy to navigate, tags are all there!

✎ torchwood-fic's profile page also features a list of affiliated accounts that's pretty handy. it's worth taking a peek at, in case i've excluded anything in this post that you might be interested in.

✎ twgenrefinders: handy dandy comm where people would ask for fics of a certain variety & be treated with reclists, or hyper-specific fics... pretty cool stuff, ive got several threads bookmarked to sort through the links later. ofc, please note that some of the things people asked for might be stinky. particularly i've seen a lot of ppl requesting gwen bashing fics :/

✎ twstoryfinder: cousin to the above comm; here, people would ask for a very specific fic they'd lost. it's kind of fun to find fics through because you get someone describing memorable scenes + hyping it up, so it's different than just a standard summary. this one still gets posted on, too, which is crazyyy.

✎ tw-unpaired: for gen fics! no romance allowed! there's some good character studies + friendship fics in there. stuff's tagged by character + authors are even tagged, in case you find one whose writing you particularly enjoy. this is v useful for when someone's main journal has been deleted.

✎ torchwood-decaf: a comm where janto is BANNED. nah i'm kidding, it's not anti-janto, it was just made because janto is so huge that it overshadows everything else. pretty smart, tbh; wading through the sheer mass of janto content can be tiresome.

✎ jack-in-cuffs: for dark tw fic, or uber smutty tw fic. as a fan of dark!fic, there's some goodies in here, but of course it's not everyone's cup of tea. most of the writers included warnings, but if you go a little further back, some people weren't as courteous; navigate with caution.

✎ jack-owen: for fic featuring our captain and his (second favorite) doctor. i know this pairing's kinda divisive nowadays, but i enjoy it a lot. the comm's got a dismal tagging system and, ngl, i don't truly like any of the fics there (i'm very intrigued by jack and owen's relationship but i've never found fic that really does them justice, and i still haven't figured out how to write them myself) - but i'll include it anyway.

✎ odetojoi: for fic featuring owen in the middle of a janto sandwich, for those of us who are allergic to women (/sarcasm). there's an oddly impressive supply of fics of the three of them, and a good chunk of them can be found in this comm. (everytime i see this comm i think of a certain abbreviation found in p/rnogr/phy... but i digress)

✎ halfwee-and-tea: for ianto x owen fic. haven't gone through this one much, truthfully. i hate when comms have no tagging systems agh.

✎ owenharper-fans: a comm for the saddest undeadest bisexualest doctor around. also features a few burn appreciation posts, which is nice to see pre-pac rim era. mostly just features a shit ton of owen fic, particularly owen x ianto fic. mostly sufficiently tagged. if you need me once i post this, btw, i will be balls deep in this comm.

✎ the pro-owen alliance: another owen-focused comm - i think this one was made directly in response to owen bashing. haven't combed through this one much but it's got a fair amount of fics.

✎ house-of-cooper: a gwen comm! made in response to gwen bashing. haven't gone through it, but i'm glad it exists.

✎ torchwoodcoffee: ianto comm! this one's hugeee. the majority of it's janto, but the pairings aren't tagged, which is really frustrating. about 6k fics on there, though! just untagged. fff.

✎ tw-femficfest: a comm for fic about any and all of the torchwood ladies. tagging's cleanly done & there's some handy fic round ups, too.

✎ tw-femslash: yuri!!! wahoo!!! a comm for f/f tw ships. there's quite a lot of fic on here, but unfortunately there's no tagging whatsoever. sigh.

✎ tw-classic: a comm for 'all things series one and two of torchwood'. was made after s3 and was popular around s4 out of nostalgia for the golden age <3 good amount of fic, discussions, etc.

✎ torchwood-house: this comm is, like, letterboxd, but for torchwood fanfic. basically a group of individuals who thought of themselves as having Good Taste would read Good Fic and then go in this comm and write a post about why they recommend it. it's well-made, easy to scroll through, and sells the fics v well, and it kinda gets you more excited to read them when you get to see someone hype them up with Fancy Words. it's like a little torchwood yaoi bookclub. we're eating quiche

✎ tw100: a drabble challenge; this thing's full of 100 word drabbles. ngl i hate drabbles but i'm throwing it in here anyway

✎ touchyerwood: i love kink memes... i love kink memes less when my favorite character/pairing is unpopular. the pac rim kink meme's been a blessing bc i'm a basic ass newmann - the torchwood kink meme? not so much. it's got a fair amount of shit, though, so maybe someone else will appreciate it. this one isn't the original, that one's been wiped off the internet, to my chagrin. keep in mind before digging that people in kink memes are horny & gross. that's your warning.

✎ reel-torchwood: for any and all movie aus... ok i have a bone to pick with this comm. i'm a big movie nerd, i love film, i've seen dozens of films i've thought would make good aus - i combed through this and there is not a SINGLE fic in there that piqued my interest. NOTHING. needless to say my disappointment is immeasurable and my day is ruined. i'm sure my experiences aren't universal though.

✎ torchwoodslash: ah, remember when we called it slash? gee whiz. i'm not big on this comm, it's not very user friendly + there's like no tags whatsoever so it's extremely hard to navigate. enter at your own risk & good luck, lol.

✎ rounds-of-kink: this isn't a torchwood-exclusive comm, but it's got a sizeable torchwood tag, which can be found here. pretty organized tagging system; makes me happy.

✎ tw-declassified: this comm was mainly used for running a 'torchwood bingo', which, i've been in other fandoms that do episode bingos and it's usually cute... this one confused me a little so i didn't bother peeking around too much, but still a cool little bit of fandom history.

✎ writerinadrawer: this was an annual torchwood writer's challenge that ran for four years... it's kinda hard to navigate but it does have some fic in it so i'm putting it here.

✎ dmarley-recs: a recs journal someone ran for compiling torchwood fic; it's got a l o t of recs on there, largely jack/ianto.

ok and straying from lj briefly for two other places to find fic...

✎ kink_bingo: this is a dreamwidth comm, and it's not torchwood-exclusive, so i've linked straight to the torchwood tag. this comm has a livejournal equivalent, but for some reason the tw tag is pretty barren on that one? not sure why. but on dw it's got a fair amount. the tagging system is rough, it tags fandom and kink but not pairing, which is irritating, and every post is hidden under a cut AND makes you go through a discretion barrier every single time (but probably only if you don't have an account? i'm not logged in) which makes navigation a pain. but i dunno, more smut, if you want it.

✎ whofic.com: this site is for doctor who fic, but it's got a very substantial amount of torchwood fic. i do not, however, like the formatting at all. i'm being overly nice; i HATE the formatting. it's very reminiscent of fanfic dot net but, like, worse. it reminds me of adultfanfiction dot org which was a NIGHTMARE to use. but! there is torchwood fic there so it's going in here.

aaaand there we go! that's all i have. i hope these prove handy! enjoy :D

#torchwood #torchwood posting #mine #txt

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khaire-traveler · 7 months

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So, I saw that you had a Norse Pagan side-blog, and I was actually curious about how you worshipped your deities? Like, do you have one altar or do you use multiple?

Also, would you have any advice for people who worship/work with deities who seem different? (For context, I worship Odin, Fenrir, Hermes, Apollo, and Dionysus) Is there a way you’ve found to make sure you’re honoring all deities?

- 🎲

Hey, 🎲! Thank you for the interesting ask! I don't think anyone has actually asked me this before lol.

First and foremost, I consider myself an Omnist, meaning that I believe there is some truth to most religions, and I personally believe that most deities do exist, in their own right. I do tend to focus largely on the Hellenic pantheon, but I like to honor gods from several pantheons every now and again, be it through altar spaces or just by saying a grateful comment aloud. I feel this is an important clarification as it may explain my more open approach to worshipping multiple pantheons.

I do worship multiple pantheons but have been less involved with the Norse than I used to be. In the past, when I was more actively worshipping deities from both pantheons (now I feel that I mostly honor Norse deities; for me, honoring a deity is like a step below worship but still revering them, if that makes sense), I would specifically keep altars from separate pantheons at a distance from each other as a way to respect that they stem from separate cultures and backgrounds. I have the luxury of being able to keep separate altars for all of my deities, not just ones from different pantheons, so usually, I would keep Loki and Sigyn's shared altar in a different location than the other Hellenic altars, as an example. Personally, I believe that if you're unable to separate them due to your living circumstances, the gods - from any pantheon - will likely understand and not be upset about it. Sometimes we just can't find a way to keep them separated or individual, and that's honestly ok. Hell, they were syncretized all the time in the past, so they honestly have probably shared altars with other pantheons before, if I had to guess.

When it comes to worshipping/working with deities who seem different, I suppose it depends on what you mean by "seem different". Is it that they're from different pantheons and cultural backgrounds, or do you mean a stark contrast in their personalities?

If you mean the first question, I would say the best thing you can do is research the deities you're worshipping in a historical context first then try and see how modern worshippers might go about honoring them. I would especially do this with the Norse deities because it tends to be difficult to find information on some of them, unfortunately. The Hellenic deities are much easier to find information on, especially when it comes to historical worship. If you don't want to get too in-depth or it's difficult for you to find good resources or whatever your reason may be, I suggest starting with the basic myths of the deities you're involved with then just doing some very basic research on the ancient cultures these deities came from. What were some strong values of the Norse people? What were some strong values of the Greek people? How did the Norse view XYZ issue? How did the Greeks view XYZ issue? That sort of thing. It will help you IMMENSELY in understanding the mythology of these deities as well as their roots. The biggest thing that you need to understand and acknowledge is that these deities come from very different cultures, and with that, their pantheons may view certain things differently from each other. Take the knowledge that you obtain, and apply it to your worship however you see fit; mostly, I would use this knowledge to strengthen your understanding of the gods and their cultures, especially the differences between their cultures.

For an example of how the Norse and Hellenic cultures differed, within the Norse pantheon, oaths are an extremely sacred thing. Being an oath-breaker is genuinely one of the worst possible things you could ever be - or at least, that's how the Norse people viewed the issue. Within the Hellenic pantheon, the closest comparison would be when the Hellenic gods, in myths, would "swear on the River Styx". If they broke a promise after doing so, it would come with massive consequences for them, however, within the Hellenic culture, there wasn't much emphasis on being a "promise-breaker". Swearing on the Styx was a sacred thing to do, yes, but in general, it wasn't held to the same standard as the Norse. There may be similarities between the two cultures, but they are still different, and what this information alone tells you is that the Norse gods will most likely take an oath VERY seriously, whereas the Hellenic gods might prefer more of a promise ("swearing on the Styx" was mostly used in the context of promising to do or give something for or to someone) of something than an explicit oath.

If you mean the second question, you would treat them as you would treat anyone you value in your life that have very different personalities: with respect and care. Dionysus may be extremely different from Fenrir, but that doesn't mean you have to become a completely different person with Fenrir than you are with Dionysus. You will have different relationships with them, sure, but above all, you should always feel comfortable being yourself with any deity. If you don't, then there's something wrong with that relationship, in some way. How you treat your deities and how you choose to interact with them is ultimately up to you; I can't - and won't - tell you what is and isn't right for you. I will say that I tend to be very casual with my deities, so oftentimes, I am the most comfortable when I am just myself with them. Some people prefer to be very formal, even getting dressed nicely in order to communicate with them, but honestly, that's not a style of worship I personally enjoy. Do whatever works best for you; there is no right or wrong answer.

I hope that this answers your questions well! If you need clarification on anything or have more questions, please feel free to send another ask. I'm happy to help however I can. Take care, and have a good night/day! 🧡☺️

#anon asks #paganblr #polytheist #answered asks #helpol #hellenic polytheism #norse paganism #heathenry #gods i hope this makes sense; i got back from my first day of work so i might revise this tomorrow

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nonbinary-niki-bog · 3 months

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An Appreciation Post :)

hmm...would it be easier if i ask separate asks? probably.

but i'm going to do it this way since that way i know it won't be eaten by Tumblr's asks.

(none of you need to read this if you don't want to, of course, but i just want to say this here instead :D, and i hope that i manage to tag the correct person here because that'll be really weird if i didn't, haha)

(also 'keep reading' because it feels too long for a normal post :p)

Potato

@im-a-chunky-potato - i know i have said this multiple times (it's because i can't say this enough) but thank you for welcoming me into this community. i am not joking when i say that you are the one who got me started on this :D.

Blue

@hopelessbluebird - thank you for also can't wait for something new to happen in askryuu (come on guys we can make askryuu reach it's milestone. i know we can)

(note: this took me so long that i wrote this before you got 200 followers on askryuu, so please don't come at me for that T^T)

and i can't forget C, now can i? nope i can't. wherever Blue is, C will soon to follow (i have no clue if that's even true, but it sounds poetic). i'm sorry if you don't want to get roped into this, C.

C, you and Blue are both very nice and (insert some cool and appreciative words here since my brain refuses to work right now, so sorry T^T).

to be completely honest, i don't know that much (since whenever you (C) are on it seems like i'm off), but you are doing great, so keep doing what you're doing :D.

Sunni

@sunnikos - Sunni!!! you are a nice person who is also very fun, and i like our interactions in the server :D (even if we don't really interact on here).

Soda

@caffeiiine - Soda! i absolutely your art style. it is so pretty. and you are just a nice person in general.

Rouge

@rogues-stuff-bc-yes - Rouge! we don't really talk like at all here, but i would like to thank you for being an inspiration for my anon :D. you are generally a cool person and i really like Kaito <3.

Rainy

@rainythealias - Rainy!!! you get appreciated too. you're nice and it's nice interacting with you whenever we do.

Lemon

@circuslemon - i know we don't really interact that much on here, Lemon, but you're fun in the server and your ideas are so cool to read :D

Teddy

@teddymochi - Teddy! thank you for giving me enough courage to continue sharing my AU. and your drawing and art are really nice as well.

CreatorBiaze

(sorry i don't really remember your name on here. please forgive me T^T)

@creatorbiaze - your OCs are cool. you are cool. you and @teddymochi are cool. both of you are cool.

...

is that everyone? i hope so and i hope that it's not too much? i don't know anymore.

and thank you to those of you who have to deal with my little precious characters (you know who you are...i mean, i hope you do) and i do hope that they are not giving you guys trouble.

and to those who run ask blogs, no one will be able to do what you do for the community that you are a part of and that your characterization are the best characterization.

and also, thank you everyone who is interested in my silly little AU :D.

remember that you are all an amazing human being and i appreciate every single one of you for who you are <3.

#i hope that's good and that i didn't leave anyone without any compliments?#and i hope that these aren't stale or repeated too much times.#and before anyone says anything i am not leaving even if it does kind of sort of read like a 'i'm leaving' post (at least when i read it)#trust me when i say that this will be even more sadder and sapper if i were to make a short comic of this :D #again sorry for the tags guys T^T but i feel like it might brighten up your day if you manage to see them? i hope so.#niki rambles ☔️#niki sappy hour?#niki sappy hour

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crownmemes · 8 days

Text

I've been running this blog for a year now, with 400+ memes posted, so I thought I'd just share my meme making process for anyone that may be interested!

I watch a lot of media. My current job works with television, so it pays to familiarise myself with as much content as possible. Plus, I'm a sucker for detective shows, especially older ones. So, I watch a lot of media, and while I watch, I note down any interesting sentences that I think could work well as a rp meme. Everything goes into a google sheets tracker I made.

My requirements for taking lines from sources are that they must be lines I can imagine starting and interesting thread, and they mustn't be overly genetic (e.g. "Hi, how are you?"). Generic is fine as long as it provides some kind of direction still (e.g. "This isn't a game" could be an argument, a warning, concern, etc). Sometimes I'll also tweak lines to work better for rp - e.g. "He's going to need to rest for a few days" -> "You're going to need to rest for a few days."

Once I've got a lot of lines, I go through them all again to double check for ones that don't work, then I move them to my theme tracker.

I tick boxes for what themes the lines can work for. For less common themes (e.g. aliens), I have a section at the end of the tracker where I can manually add extra themes, then a count of them on another page.

Every few months, I go through and make memes out of anything with ~30+ lines. I aim to keep them all ~30 in length, ideally no shorter than 25, no longer than ~40. The only exception is the Questioning memes, which are made from any lines that are question, thus fill up quickly. I go up to 50 for those.

I then use a formula to add speech marks to the lines I'm using, throw them into a list randomiser, and then separate them out into multiple memes if needed. Back in my tracker, I change their ticks to grey so they aren't included in the active count anymore, but I can still find them if I need to see what I've used in the past.

Shows with 25+ lines get their own meme too, and if it needs to be split into multiple memes, they also get a Condensed version at the end. This is where I've pulled out the best/most relevant lines for the show into one, shorter meme.

If they don't have 25+ lines, they get ticked as Assorted, and they go to an Assorted Media meme.

Originals are ticked as Original. I only add them to the theme tracker if they can be used for other themes too.

As of writing this, there are 6.4k lines in my tracker, and 185 waiting to be added.

It isn't a short process, but it's not the worse either. I spend about two evenings every other month caterogrising lines and creating memes. This usually results in 40-60 posts for the queue.

Things I wish I'd done differently:

Adding more robust tracking for smaller themes (currently I don't have a way of tracking which I've historically used once their meme is made)

Things I would like to do, but would take too much effort for the amount they'd be used:

A fliterable list of every show/film with a specific meme

A meme randomiser where you can tick which themes/genres you want memes from, and then it shows you a random one

A meme randomiser where it has all my theme tracking data, and then makes you a unique meme. E.g. you ask for an angry meme, so it randomly gives you 30 lines from the 700+ angry ones I have in my tracker

If you read all this, I hope it was interesting! 😅

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junk-heart · 1 year

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do you have any creepypasta headcanons for some of them? And are there any ideas for them or versions of the characters around the fandom that you like?

I have so many headcanons, it's not even funny:''')

Had so much time to get attached to these characters ( 10 years to be precise ಥ_ಥ ) , so I like multiple interpretations of them

Mainly 3 universes: found family of weirdos, "realistic" version and something in between

In this post I'll be talking about the headcanons connected to the versions I drew on this blog

I'll separate them by characters, and I won't talk about all of them or this post is gonna be so long:'''')

ALSO: feel free to comment your headcanons, I love hearing other people talk about these bozos

Jtk

he's emo for sure

has attempted giving himself piercings on multiple occasions, most of them failed and got infected

og story is an urban legend in his universe, the incident went down differently

his current look came about during a manic episode, he regrets what he has done to his body

he also regrets what he did to his family, although he doesn't remember much from that night

homeless, currently on the run, has been living like this since he was a teen

among other things, he's on the run because of the Operator, doesn't want to be under it's control again

16 during the case, currently 23

(I mean, I already have a post going in depth about my headcanons for him)

ex med student that got possessed by a Slavic deity (Chernobog)

he sees things in a way different way than us, something between echolocation or the way Toph sees in atla

is forced to eat people cause the deity he's possessed by finds his reaction amusing (it also prefers human flesh cause it sees people as most of us see farm animals whose products are meat and fear)

that's the reason why he lives away from any human contact, deep in the woods

when Chernobog takes control of their body, Jack is either forced to look at what happens, or he blacks out

he used to like cats, now is too scared to have any pets

after some time they start getting along (as much as a human and an eldritch horror can)

he isn't having a fun time in this version, sorry:'''/

21 during the incident, currently 25

Toby

mostly the same as in his original story personality wise

he was sheltered while growing up (homescooled until high school) and for the time he wasn't he was bullied, so he doesn't know how to interact with other people normally

malicious twards most people upon meeting them, took a long time to even start talking to Tim and Brian

once he warms up to someone, he's willing to die for them

often gets too close when talking, even when he isn't trying to intimidate people

second tallest proxy (I do count Tim and Brian in this story, yes I know they're from mh, but I grew up with them as crp so ssssh)

scrawny, built for running

big mood swings

has tics from time to time, they're more intense when he's exited, but they stop completely when he's under the Operator's influence

doesn't remember anything from his life prior to the giant fire "thanks" to the Operator

works in the interest of it cause that's all he knows, but he would disobey it if that meant helping people close to him

is interested in internet, but since he doesn't have a phone/computer he learns about it via stolen phones from people who have passed

arsonist

17 during the incident, currently 21 give or take

Brian/Hoody

Brian died in entry #86 of mh, but got revived (??) as a puppet to the Operator cause it likes tormenting Tim (idk how to explain, unlike characters who experience being influenced by it during the arg, he ends up being completely tied to it after death, even though he wasn't under it's control while alive)

so he's basically a zombie, but not really

the brains of the group

also the tallest

doesn't remember what happened during the duration of Marble Hornets, but does remember he was close friends with Tim

still, he feels uneasy around Tim, like he (Tim) has done something that can't be forgiven, but tries to brush it off

can cook, but doesn't

under his winning smile he's plotting everyone's demise

if you looked at him, you'd probably think that he's the one who's got everything under control, but that's not the case, he's just a tad bit fake

I'm basically trying to say that he's mostly a persona, and that he has no idea of who he really is or what his goals should be

very good at any ranged attacks and scouting (more like stalking)

the one who tied Toby down to a chair for a week until his brainscrambles got a bit more bearable

has a computer at one of their hideouts, doesn't let anyone near it

idk how old he is tbh, I guess his mid to late twenties

Tim/Masky

please give this man a rest already aksdhadklaj

watched all his friends die, and now works for the thing that caused that + tremendous amount of mental strain and horror

why you may ask? well it's very complicated, let's just say it promised to bring someone else back if he did what it wanted

shortest U_U

common sense of the group, and the leader

he's the only one that kept most of his memories (cause it's easier for the Operator to control him like that)

when Toby joined them as the new hire, he was the one to insist that they try and deal with him, cause he saw himself in Toby

has a hard time getting out of bed

only drinks coffee, has no idea what water is

very much old man energy

grumpy for most of the time

can(?) cook canned food (that's what they eat anyways, so it doesn't really matter)

wants to have a normal life so bad it's not even funny

really hates what he's stuck doing

again, no idea what age he is, but I'm guessing he's a year or so older than Brian

monochromatic clown who's trying to find his passion again

I don't like how the whole Isaac thing went down in the original, I think it could have been more scary, not just gore:///

he isn't connected to the whole Operator plotline so idk how to put him in the same place and time as other crp

to me he's off to the side with Candy Pop, Jason and other imaginary friends/fiends

who knows how old he is???

Jane

similar to Jeff, her story is mostly an urban legend

although she did suffer major burns and lost her family

she used to be obsessed with finding Jeff and making him suffer, but she's mostly over it now

found out about the Operator stuff and quickly noped out of there

probably attending group therapy with Liu and Nina/j

very much a goth

I think her and Clocky would be a great pair, and if not that, at least best friends

I can see her turning around in a spinning chair while petting a cat and saying something ominous

currently 23

Liu

survived his brother's frenzy

after all Jeff couldn't bring himself to finish him

no nurse, thanks

Sully developed after the event cause of the trauma, but he isn't a demon or whatever, he's just an alter that can't forgive his brother, and who's there in place to protect Liu

he actually saw the Operator that night, and again from the hospital bed, but by having Jeff run far away, it didn't stick to Liu properly

after years in therapy and meeting other people connected to the incident, he decided to try and find his brother, so he's currently following closely behind Jeff

like in the og story he's very kindhearted

he hasn't found Jeff in person yet cause every time Sully is in charge he tries to sabotage his plans

has a sweet tooth, and is always chewing on something

his current worry is that his brother hasn't eaten any fruits in years

14 during the case, currently 21

Nina

oh boy, this character has so much untapped potential

she was probably a true crime obsessed girl, and was very much into the Woods case

she thought he was just like her, and so she started to idolize him, or should I say, the version of him that was sensationalized

as the time went on she got more and more wrapped up in a fictional world she made in her head, to escape her everyday life, so she started plotting how to find and meet him

basically imagine a cyberstalker, but for someone living off grid

made and executed her plan (aka a copycat murder) right after she found his location

Nina is like 2-3 years younger than Jeff, and she was expecting an emo prince charming who will accept her as she is and whisk her away to a manor full of weird kids who live together

she just got an emaciated guy who hates everything he's done (and himself), and has literally 0 interest in her

you can just imagine how that conversation went down...

he was very brutal, laughed at her, told her she was an absolute idiot (was overly harsh cause of all the guilt of what he did in the past)

scene, even on her jtk e-blogs

used to get into heated arguments, cause drama and then block everyone involved

she was 13 when the Woods case happened, 15 when she met Jeff, and she's currently 21(?)

Don't feel like writing any more, sorry:'''')

I mean, this is already too long, and I haven't even explained all the characters in this universe

It's even funnier when I remember I have at least 3x as many different interpretations of these characters in my head, if anyone's interested feel free to ask me about them

Really sorry it took me so long to answer this, I didn't even know where to start

#creepypasta #creepypasta headcanon #jtk #jane the killer #liu woods #jeffery woods #ticcy toby #laughing jack #nina the killer #eyeless jack

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pricechecktranslations · 9 months

Text

the heavenly yard blog infomine, part 1: Discussion of Daughter of Evil et al, Initial plot notes

For a while now I've been meaning to translate mothy's producer blog so that it's another piece of creator commentary and Evillious history that isn't locked behind a language barrier. Frankly though that's way too much to translate (and I don't find a personal blog particularly fun to translate anyway), so instead I am just reading the blog when I have the inclination and then writing quick notes on what's there (mostly when it relates to Evillious).

The purpose behind this is to give the basic information for those who find it interesting, and to give a guide to where the information can be found for those who'd like to examine mothy's words more closely but would rather not dig through years of blog posts to do it.

Click here to visit the blog yourself

Without further ado, here is the first round under the cut:

22 June, 2008 ~ 7th August 2008

----June, 2008---- 22nd

Starts blog to more easily give info about his songs and ideas

23rd Page 1

-mothy talks about 10 Minute Love (took him 2 weeks to make since he wasn't familiar with the programs he used)

-made it thinking a cute, girly song would get popular on NicoNico (it wasn't)

-lot of mistakes were made when making the video

-probably won't make a song like it again but he'd also kind of like to give it another shot sometime

Page 2

-mothy talks a bit about Wordplay (such as being a song he made for himself rather than for an audience)

uses Beethoven's 9th symphony in the climax of the song

drew the image himself

even though it wasn't very popular it's his favorite song so far

Page 3

mothy talks a little about the inspirations behind Clockwork Lullaby (such as following the trends of electronic music being popular on NicoNico at the time)

-suggests that Rin in the song as being the same one from Wordplay, making a song with the words she's discovered (or rather, he seems to think of her as just being Rin the VOCALOID rather than a separate character?).

-Drew a Len version of the song's image which he used as his social media icon

Page 4

-mothy shares the songs that he's made up to this point so people can download them

24th

-hints at his upcoming song (Reticent You, I think)

26th

-mothy talks about the leadup to making Daughter of Evil, how he wanted to improve as a producer and make something that would be seen and appreciated by more people.

-he decided the best way to do that was to make something that would be emotionally impactful

27th

-more discussion of the making of Daughter of Evil

-Riliane's laugh was inspired by Satoko's laugh from Higurashi: When They Cry (the anime), which was actually quite tricky to do because VOCALOID isn't made for talking. Her famous line was to make the laugh flow better into the song.

-basically the opening of the song was written before the rest of it

29th

-mothy expresses a desire to interact more with the broader VOCALOID community, but hasn't been able to just yet (still has his day job)

-also replies to some comments talking about his illustrations, his blog posts, if he's gonna get karaoke for his songs, etc. It seems he's quite busy

30th

-can't reply to people because he's working on a video

---July, 2008--- 2nd

-Might upload video tomorrow

4th

-Uploaded Girl of the Miniature Garden (part of the delays were because this is one of those videos that had multiple artists working on it).

-He tells people they can think of it as unrelated to his "of Evil" series, but hints he might make them connected eventually.

-Apparently this song was inspired by Rozen Maiden, even though he's never read it himself.

5th

-he returns to discussing the making of Daughter of Evil--he started from the main line and worked out from it that he wanted a Doronjo-esque, female villain protagonist who was also an uninhibited, Marie Antoinette-like queen ignorant of the ways of the world (but made her a princess due to Rin's age).

He also thinks Doronjo inspired the style of the song being a Showa-esque ballad as well.

he wanted it to have a solemn, orchestral feel, but also the cheap quality of a young girl performing at a musical festival (which is con-ven-ient because he lacked the skill to make it sound good).

first stanza was an introduction, he gave her a horse named Josephine because he couldn't give her a Road Roller due to time period. He made Len a servant rather than a prince because he didn't want his presence to reduce the feeling of Rin as the song's protagonist (at the time he didn't think much of Len as a program and wasn't planning to ever use him).

8th

-shares Servant and Daughter of Evil's rankings and answers some questions (used to be in a band, has diverse music tastes but likes Western (non-Japanese) music, etc).

-Someone asks if "Len" really killed "Miku" (because some fans seem to interpret him as secretly saving her), mothy hints that he'll be exploring that later but refuses to confirm or deny it.

12th

-more on making Daughter of Evil. Making the lyrics got complicated quickly, so he decided to come up with a basic plot writeup first and base the lyrics on that.

-Because of Len's inclusion he brought in other VOCALOIDS.

-He accidentally made too much plot for just the one song, and wound up creating 8 basic chapters. 1) Princess making a mess of things, 2) Famine, 3) Feud between swordswoman and princess, 4) jealousy makes a war break out, 5)The aftermath of "blue" and "green", 6) the revolution, 7) The ending, 8) the epilouge

-Mothy cut most of it for the song so it wouldn't be too long, but he would like to work with the full story someday. As such, he's going to upload his plot writeup to the blog, though he cautions people to view this as an in-progress plot rather than a final draft.

15th Page 1

-Mothy shares his notes on the song's first "chapter". The backstory for the kingdom is pretty much like his final version (king made country, died, queen took over and was great, died, daughter took over and was terrible, also had servant, etc etc). Most of this was just a bonus, he never intended to put it in the song.

It sounds like Rin's mother was always intended to be Sweet Ann.

Page 2

-muses on when he'll receive RinLen act 2, answers some misc questions.

-Encourages someone making a DoE PV to make the story how they want to rather than strictly adhering to his plot outline.

18th

-RinLen Act 2 came in, discusses how it sounds for a minute

20th

-The second "chapter" of Daughter of Evil. Again pretty much like the original--Rin is a queen in all but name, there was a famine, she was indifferent to her people's suffering, etc.

-mothy admits he made this part solely so he can have her say the "let them eat cake" line. He shares a Wikipedia quote that specifies that the original French for that quote actually says brioche, etc etc. (and of course brioche shows up in Servant of Evil). Also that Marie apparently never actually said that any of that.

-He wanted it to deliberately parallel the war to come later and her reactions to it, showing that she can't learn from her mistakes. In the end, though, all of it, including the famous line, got cut because it didn't fit in the song.

27th

-He's going to rerelease Daughter and Servant of Evil with RinLen act 2

28th

-does the rerelease for Daughter of Evil

31st Page 1

-does rerelease for Servant of Evil

-He got Gackpoid in and is thinking of using it.

-He got Adobe Premier Elements 4

Page 2

-Answers more questions. Apparently some people thought he was a woman, he clarifies he's a man (though not a beefcake or anything).

-another ask about JOYSOUND karaoke, which is still a no-go.

---August 2008---

1st

-discusses the third "chapter" of daughter of evil. Again very like the final story, has the captain of the guard from the previous monarch oppose the princess to relieve the famine (also intended to be Leon even at this early stage, though mothy notes he is nothing like the popular depiction of him). Princess summons him to her chambers at night, heavily implied her servant killed him, he's dead on the river the next morning. The girl in red, his daughter, vows revenge.

-even here mothy has omitted some of the story to preserve some suspense (like how the servant killed the guard). the girl in red is implied to be Meiko.

-Most of this was cut for a variety of reasons, but one that he gives is that it was more about Len than Rin (and also that it was weakened by cutting chapter 2).

2nd

Page 1

-now it's "chapter" 4, again very similar to what comes later. Princess falls in love with the "blue" Prince, she sends a minister to propose (I guess they weren't already engaged in this version of the story), he rejects her because he loves a girl in the "green" country. Princess goes mad with jealousy and, not knowing WHICH green girl was his love, has all of them killed. She isn't bothered at all.

-mothy refuses to elaborate on the "blue" and "green" people, but he does have specifics in mind for them.

-I'm a little confused by this next bit, I think I'm misunderstanding it. He says that he wrote a little side story for the minister who shows up in this chapter that has him as the protagonist while he was gathering illustrations for Servant of Evil after uploading the song on Piapro? I think he's referring to Twiright Prank, maybe?

-The most important part of this chapter is Riliane going "Oh, it's teatime/snacktime" at the end (which was originally supposed to contrast with "then let them eat cake" from earlier).

Page 2

-"chapter" 5 of DoE--again not much different here. green country is destroyed, but the "green girl" is alive because the servant sheltered her in a well (as he too loved her) thinking he could just hand her over to the "blue" man to keep her safe once things had cooled down. princess uses a wish in a bottle to tell him to kill the girl (and it was him who taught her the legend that caused her to start doing that). Later "blue" guy sees his love dead in the well and vows revenge also.

-again mothy keeps things hidden for tension. He suggests that people came make up their own answers if they want to. He also makes a comment about the glass bottle which makes me think it's some kind of obscure reference or in-joke or something.

-Though he cut it, he really liked this part which is why it wound up in the next song after it.

Page 3

-Now it's "chapter" 6. Basically the same again, a rebellion starts led by the "blue" man and "red" swordswoman. They overwhelm the tired army, surround the palace, and capture the princess, who was abandoned by her ministers.

-He cites this as the climax of the story. He makes a veiled reference to the twin switch that happens here.

-He's happy he got to redo the "You isolent thug!" line with RinLen Act2 since it was very poorly delivered with Act1

4th

-on "chapter" 7 of DoE, it's pretty much the same as the end of the song. princess gets executed publicly with bells ringing, gives her "teatime" line rather than any apology or begging, everyone thinks she's dead etc etc

-apparently he struggled a lot with whether to write "her" or "princess" in the lyrics (they're very similar words in Japanese) and what that would imply tonally. during the reprise at the end he also made her reign past tense as well (it's present tense in the first stanza), which he's really chuffed about having done.

7th

-we're finally on "chapter" 8, the epilogue. It seems that originally it was supposed to be a reveal at the end of Daughter of Evil that Rin pulled a twin-switch with Len. It got cut from the song because (in addition to the issues of length that plagued the other chapters), he figured her execution was a better ending for it as a standalone song. Naturally he does end up making it the subject of Servant of Evil.

-mothy discusses the twin switch idea a little, noting it's pretty common and citing Eve and Alexandra from "Master of the Game" by Sidney Sheldon as a particular inspiration.

-Anyway, the plot chapters he's shared are what he used to craft the lyrics for Daughter of Evil.

He has more to tell on the series, but I think that's a good stopping point for this infomine for now.

#()mothy blog posts #forgive me if i've mistyped or anything #even though i find most of these tidbits interesting #this kind of stuff grinds on my focus pretty badly

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webheadedhero · 2 months

Note

Positivity anon here! Could I ask you to shout out to your five fave blogs? Just to make someone smile today and let them know you love their blog! Maybe even say a little about why!

you mean I have to narrow all of these great people down to five? can't do it jfaskl;jfd. okay uh lemme try and there's no way i'm gonna do five so some will be multiple for the same character.

@redhead-reporter & @watsonjackpot are both fantastic mj's, I will never get tired of seeing them on my dash and I love how they've brought mj to life in separate and unique ways. still staying true to their core characteristics, and being diehard petermj enthusiasts doesn't hurt either. they're both so kind and fun to talk to. legit i've talked to each of them about everything from comics to just shooting the shit, shaye and I obvs are both trashy reality show fans. they both have so much love to give when it comes to mj and you're missing out if you aren't following<3

@revenantinflames - jess is someone I've written with for such a long time and you can feel the love she has for johnny pour out in her writing. the way she knows just about everything about him in his comic run is insane, like actual expert in anything fantastic four related and top tier person. she's so sweet and fun to chit chat with, she's always interested in how you're doing and what's going on with you. you don't just feel like following number 326<3

@fightwing - kayla is so freaking kind and fun to plot with and just write with, she's so happy to talk and yell about your favorite characters with you!! also she's so accommodating like will make verses and figure out ways to fit nightwing into different universes simply to try and write with you. very quality writing partner<3

@biitchcakes - the jess-pert on spider-woman fjklasj. no but aurora is so kind and outgoing and so easy to plot and talk to. also so freaking knowledgeable on jess and it's crazy how she'll pull this inspiration from her comics?? and tbh I don't know too much about jess apart from seeing her in some stuff with pete (knowing they're obviously besties) but she's made me a (bigger) jess fan tbh. I didn't know how dorky and cute jess could be so it was so fun jfaslkdjf now gonna have to read more of her earlier stuff.<3

@malka-lisitsa - novi has a huge amount of love for katherine and understanding of her character. and i might be biased cause katherine is my favorite character from tvd but the way that you could pick anything she's written in a reply and ask her "why did she react like that?" and you'll get an explanation. it isn't just something from nothing. she's also a blast to talk to and plot with, very kind and thoughtful person 10/10 would recommend<3

#outofquips ; ooc #long post <3

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thefirstempress · 4 months

Text

Some background on The First Empress

So the following excerpt was going to be my original foreword for The First Empress. Last October, however, I was informed in a rejection letter that the foreword was too long (among other, more homophobic reasons for rejecting it). Then, when I looked up how to write a foreword, I found out that, at least in fiction, it's customary to have someone else write it for you. While Matthew Keville (@matthewkeville) was kind enough to write my new foreword, I kept the original foreword, and at a beta reader's suggestion I think I'm going to use it as an "About" page for my website. Content warning for background and personal history.

I think it was fall semester of 2002 at Boise State University. During one of my literature courses, the professor was highly impressed with my reading responses for Homer’s Iliad, particularly in regards to my observation that the story is in no way a conflict between good and evil. And I liked that about it. I liked that there were noble and ignoble characters as well as likable and unlikable characters on both sides of the conflict. In his notes on one of my responses, Professor Jim recommended that I read Thucydides’s History of the Peloponnesian War, which began my interest in ancient history in general and Classical Greece in particular. One of my college friends owned a lovely little coffeehouse/used bookstore for several years, and I bought many volumes out of her ancient history section.

In the late ‘00s, I developed acute depression/anxiety while working on my Master’s Degree in Literature. Though I somehow managed to complete my degree, my depression became so severe that in 2011 I had to step down from a teaching job I loved beside colleagues I liked, because I couldn’t function well enough to fulfill my duties outside the classroom. I decided it was horribly unfair to my students that they couldn’t count on me to do my part, so I walked away. I made the most painful decision I’ve made in my life and stepped down from a job I’d spent three years studying and training for.

My first successful step toward recovery came when I started writing for myself again. No more thirty-page theses, no more ten-page research papers written over the weekend, no more feedback on forty-to-sixty student papers. I typed up some story concepts and revisited some old stories that I hadn’t looked at in a decade. I started a blog, and then a side-blog, and then a Tumblr page to go with the side-blog. I even started a fan-fiction account that features mostly The Legend of Korra novellas and Star Wars one-shots.

During the summer of 2012, I wrote several chapters of a young-adult fantasy novel in a high- to late-medieval setting, featuring a young, somewhat Mary-Sue heroine whose wizened mentor was named Zahnia, the Chronicler—an immortal historian trapped forever as a nine-year-old girl. As I started to flesh out Zahnia’s character, I decided I wanted to explore her origin story, tying it in with the creation of the Tollesian Empire, where the story takes place. For National Novel Writing Month 2012, I began work on the first draft of The First Empress and spent over ten years tinkering, expanding, and revising in my free time. But the more I worked on the story, the bigger it got. George RR Martin once described a spectrum of writers, ranging from architects who outline and design the structure and foundation of their story before they start writing, to gardeners who plant the seeds of the story, then let it grow, expand, and develop organically. I’m very much the garden-variety writer.

And so the story kept getting bigger, both in my head and on paper. I fell short of the original 50K word goal by over 10K, but felt like I had a pretty solid start. By the end of that first NaNoWriMo, I knew that it was probably going to be multiple books, so I narrowed down what I wanted to include in Book I and started focusing on those story lines. The original story was to be two separate stories that converge at the end of Book I, with the main story focusing on the title protagonist, Queen Viarra, and the first year of her rise to power, while the background story focuses on Zahnia, the curse of her immortality, and her escape from her captors. In the original outline, Book I would end with our characters first meeting.

Even in the early stages, however, it was extremely difficult to reconcile the two stories. Viarra’s story was over twice the size of Zahnia’s and, for the most part, more exciting for my beta-readers. Zahnia’s scenes often felt like unwelcome interruptions, rather than interesting interludes, and were difficult to intersperse side-by-side with scenes happening in Viarra’s story. At some point in the process, I stopped trying to intersperse them and made Zahnia’s scenes separate chapters. While this worked better, there could be as many as four or five Viarra chapters between Zahnia chapters, and some of my readers pointed out that they sometimes had to go back and reread previous Zahnia chapters to understand what was happening in the latest chapter. I occasionally thought about taking Zahnia’s story out altogether and making it its own novel.

I made my ultimate decision on the matter in July of 2021 when I finally finished the first complete draft of The First Empress. The draft weighed in at over 206K words—which I knew was a lot, but I didn’t grasp the full size until one of my readers pointed out that in paperback format, that’s over eight-hundred pages! I decided almost immediately that the best option was to split them up into three books. Books I and II now deal entirely with the first year of Viarra’s rise to power, meeting Zahnia, her future chronicler, at the end of Book II. Book III is instead mostly about Zahnia’s origins, including her curse of immortality and her daring escape from the madmen who cursed her. This worked out wonderfully as it allowed me to break the revision process into smaller chunks instead of attempting to revise 800 pages in one go.

Though Zahnia isn’t physically present for Book I and only gets a single scene in Book II, I make sure she’s still present in spirit throughout both books. In homage to classic fantasy stories like Frank Herbert’s Dune or Isaac Asimov’s Foundation series, I include epigrams written by Zahnia at the beginning of each chapter. Additionally, all footnotes and appendices are also by her. Despite her unavoidable sidelining in what was supposed to be her origin story, Zahnia became something of an alter-ego for me, and I want readers to understand that she is still a foundational character in the series.

While brainstorming leading up to that first NaNoWriMo, I decided to put my studies of Ancient Greek history to use, basing the setting and culture on the late-Classical, early-Hellenic Aegean Sea and the surrounding regions. The culture, politics, and technology—both in how they begin and how they advance as the series progresses—are intended to feel similar to the cultural, political, and technological changes occurring in the wake of the Peloponnesian War through the rise of Kings Philip II and Alexander the Great and beyond. Indeed, Philip and to a lesser degree Alexander were both inspirations for Queen Viarraluca, my title heroine.

(That being said, I don’t tend to view any of my characters as being an equivalent of X figure from Greek history. I drew inspiration from many historical and fictional characters for my cast, but I don’t have a story-world equivalent of Socrates or Pericles or Leonidas or Sappho or Olympias or whoever.)

The setting, though, is less intended to feel historically accurate and more about feeling historically authentic. I’ll be the first to admit that I’m a hobbyist historian who hasn’t taken a history course since early in my undergrad studies. Thus, all of my reading and research is unguided, and I have no idea how well my understanding and analyses align with contemporary views. Ultimately, The First Empress is an ancient-world period-fantasy that’s inspired by rather than entirely representative of late-Classical Greece.

Throughout the process, I loved playing with the ancient-world world-building and found perverse enjoyment in taking pagan gods’ names in vain, portraying ancient inventions as new and exciting technology, and treating pants as an unusual and barbarian garment. But as a fantasy, I of course included plenty of embellishments. Sometimes world-building is brainstorming how an intelligent warrior queen and her officers would attempt to adapt a hoplite-centered army to fighting in forested terrain, generally considered unfavorable to phalanx warfare. Sometimes world-building is giving a society based on the Ancient Greeks access to tea, despite zero evidence that the Ancient Greeks had anything similar to tea, all because my warrior-queen protagonist seems like a tea-drinker.

I tried as well to include neighboring cultures inspired by those the Classical Greeks had contact with. The Tollesians are inspired by Classical Greece—the Empire Pellastor and its allies being akin to the Attic and Peloponnesian Greeks while the Hegemony of Andivel and their allies are more like the Ionian Greeks. The Illaran League was originally inspired by the Ancient Illyrians but evolved into more of an Illyrian/Macedonian hybrid. The Gan are inspired by the Gauls. The Venarri are Phoenician. The Artilans are Achaemenid-era Persian. The Kossôn are Achaemenid-era Egyptian. The Wattasu are inspired by Classical-era Nasamones. And the Verleki are largely inspired by the Ancient Scythians. I want to emphasize inspired by, as I’m not an expert on any of these ancient cultures. I have no illusions that I didn’t make mistakes or misinterpret things. I also eventually hope to include cultures inspired by the Samnites, Germanic tribes, Kushites, and possibly even cultures as distant as the Han and Mayans.

Experimenting with ancient-world cultures and in particular with ancient-world sexuality has been some of the most fun I’ve had writing. The Classical Greeks were an openly sexual culture, openly bisexual and often polyamorous. Rather than gloss over their sexuality like a coward, I chose to let my characters embrace it in the story. In doing so, I quickly decided that authors who only write monogamous, heterosexual relationships are missing out on all kinds of wonderful and fascinating relationship dynamics. Queen Viarra is a lesbian, and nearly all of the other characters fall somewhere on a pan- or bisexual spectrum. Zahnia, meanwhile, is asexual, as is one of Viarra’s ambassadors. I have a transgender hoplite officer, as well, and I have other characters in mind for future LGBT+ representation. As bisexuality was normal and even expected in Classical Greek culture, I try to treat it as something normal in my stories as well.

Though so far only one person has asked me why I’d include LGBT+ characters when I’m not LGBT myself, my answer to them and anyone else is that positive representation is important. Louie, my therapist, shared an anecdote during one of our sessions back in 2021 and gave me permission to share with readers. He was hosting some friends of his family for a few days, including his childhood friend who is a lesbian. His copy of my manuscript was lying around, and he started telling them about my lesbian title protagonist who’s also a strong ruler and a formidable warrior queen. His friend was very curious and asked smart questions about the character and story-world. Louie told me that she almost teary-eyed asked him to thank me for writing the characters as gay. She apparently was thrilled not only at the gay representation from the leading couple, but also at the bi representation from other characters.

When a gay woman in her late forties gets teary-eyed at the inclusion of a lesbian couple in a period-fantasy novel, I think it’s a sign that this kind of representation is absolutely necessary.

On the other hand, there were other aspects of Classical Greek culture that I wasn’t as keen about attempting to portray. The Greeks at the time were notoriously misogynist, for example. Much of Greek culture viewed women as property. Athens in particular had all kinds of laws restricting women, including a truly heinous law specifying that female slaves’ court testimonies were only valid if they testified under torture. I did away with a lot of that in my story-world. Scythians, Illyrians, Nubians, Sarmatians, Lusitanians, Suebi, Gauls: plenty of ancient cultures had traditions of skilled huntresses, warrior women, women pirates, influential queens and noblewomen, and successful businesswomen. Philip II of Macedon’s first wife was warrior queen, and he allowed their daughter and granddaughter to be trained in the same manner. That the Classical Greeks couldn’t get with the program is frankly their loss.

As this is my story-world and my tale to tell, I saw no particular reason to carry on that tradition. Queen Viarra isn’t the only powerful queen in the story, nor is she the only woman-warrior in hoplite’s panoply. Though a certain level of misogyny exists, it’s on the level of individual characters or communities, rather than a cultural norm.

Why?

Because it doesn’t have to be a norm! It’s fiction! Misogyny and sexism don’t have to be normal! Racism doesn’t have to be normal! Homophobia and transphobia don’t have to be normal! I shouldn’t have to create a hateful story in order to meet some mouth-breathing neoclassicist’s concept of historical accuracy. One of the best things I learned from reading Effie Calvin and Garrett Robinson’s novels is that truly excellent and inclusive stories with engaging characters, world-building, and conflicts can be created without some need to incorporate real-world prejudices. And when these prejudices do show up in The First Empress, I try to set them up as criticisms of ancient society, rather than something I lazily included for some pretense of “historical accuracy.”

At least three of my beta-readers compared The First Empress favorably to George RR Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire series. (To paraphrase one of my Tumblr readers, any fantasy with historical inspiration and more politics than wizards will draw Game of Thrones comparisons.) Even so, not only would I never assume to be in the same league as an award-winning fantasy author whose stories have sold countless millions of copies and gotten their own popular television adaptation, I don’t feel like Martin’s goals as a storyteller are at all similar to mine. His stories seem to place the most emphasis on shocking readers—and he’s unparalleled at it! My goal is to give readers a lot to think about. Hopefully I pull that off well.Plus, if readers can handle A Song of Ice and Fire… I think The First Empress might seem a little mellow by comparison.

Thanks so much for your interest in my book, folks. I hope you find my story and characters entertaining, interesting, thought-provoking, or at the very least enjoyable to read. Thanks for reading and take care!

#my novel #my writing #first empress

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lindwurmkai · 2 years

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[banging pots and pans together] hello I am here to talk to you about Pillowfort again

I started checking PF regularly a few weeks ago and since then I have already had multiple delightful interactions with strangers. Some short (one reply per person) and some longer, none of them unpleasant. Considering I am not very talkative, that's impressive!

Did you know you can now sign up without needing an invite link or paying money? Just enter the waitlist and soon you'll get an email with a sign-up link. Last I heard, the wait was hours rather than days.

There's still no app, but I have three hot tips for fellow mobile users:

1) If opening your browser and then navigating to the website feels like too many steps, you can add a shortcut to your homescreen. I'm not sure how because I never do this, and I imagine it depends on which browser you use anyway, so just google how to do it in your browser of choice

2) If your browser takes too long to load because you have 74591 tabs open, consider keeping two separate browsers on your phone - one for opening shortcuts and links from other apps, one for regular browsing. I'm actually at 3 to 5 browsers for different purposes by now depending on whether you count the apps I will mention in the next tip, this is getting out of control, help me

3) There are apps - at least on Android, I'm not sure about iOS - that can turn any website into a "lite app" that is basically the advanced version of simply putting a shortcut on your homescreen. This has pros and cons; I may make a separate post about it at some point. Personally I mostly use Hermit at this time and it has completely cured me of my previous reluctance to visit mobile websites instead of installing apps.

Maybe this will help some of you, too!

My PF dashboard is still very slow at around 3-8 new posts per day. For a while I was following the "active users" community to see more posts, but it was mostly stuff that didn't interest me. I unfollowed it as soon as I was getting some new posts from other sources on my dash every day, but I'm still looking for more people and communities to follow.

There are no communities for many of my interests. I'm thinking about making some of my own! It's probably easier than you think. To those unfamiliar with the concept, a community is like a shared blog but on a larger scale and easier to join; members might make posts catered specifically to the community, ask questions to start discussions, or just reblog content to the community instead of their own blog if it's a niche interest. Reblogging one's own posts to communities for more exposure is also common. Much better than tags!

If you're interested in signing up but don't want to wait, I still have some invite links:

https://pillowfort.social/users/sign_up?invite=aZoqgHb_paKodncwz4r1Cg

https://pillowfort.social/users/sign_up?invite=V-xKycX6CSIMez1K4m8SwA

https://pillowfort.social/users/sign_up?invite=8EM3Dnj55MzVAehgkXNIHQ

(And a few more, don't hesitate to ask)

#i wasn't kidding about becoming a pillowfort pr machine #join usssss #pillowfort #;

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dnfcliparchive · 1 year

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Why are you shipping irl people

idk if this was meant to be rude but I’m not gonna take it that way because it’s a valid question!!!

allow me to explain,

first & most importantly, dream and george do not care that people ship them. they have said so several times in multiple different streams but have clarified that they aren’t actually dating. they don’t mind shipping, fanart, edits, fanfiction, or pretty much anything for that matter. what’s most important is that we don’t shove it in their faces and make their entire lives about it because these are two separate people with real lives and feelings that matter above all of this.

all of that aside (but don’t forget any of that bc it is very important),

dream and george encourage it. like, actually. they make jokes about it all the time.

this is over 2 hours of why I ship them to answer your question

this is a link to my pinterest board of a bunch of dnf fanart that dream has liked just because

if you’re genuinely interested, you can look at the clips and stuff on this blog too. but if you aren’t, that’s ok!

and finally, the most important thing to me is dream, george, & sapnaps friendship above everything. if any of them changed their minds about people shipping them, I would leave it alone. those 3 boys are soulmates in my (and dream’s) opinion and it doesn’t matter if that’s romantic or platonic. their friendship is so special. not many friendships could last everything they’ve gone through to get where they are now (which is home. together. finally, after years of waiting).

thanks for asking politely though, even if u think it’s weird!

#asks #dnf asks #idk why I made this so long #oh well #anna saying stuff

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atrodonna · 1 year

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Hello!! I’ve come across your blog a few times and I really loved your take on Nikolai and some of your opinions on the characters are interesting! Could you tell me your favorite character in BSD? Any thoughts on them?

Hello there,

I appreciate your words very much dear, thank you. I don’t really think any of my opinions are unique as they are conceived, but I do like to look at things through multiple scopes. So, again, thank you!

As for your questions. Well, my favorite character is, you may have noticed, Fyodor! I have sooo many thoughts on him and so many claims and yet I realize that I would not have as much evidence to back them up as I would like. In other words, some of these thoughts are purely based off my gut, and even if I did have evidence, I have not ruled it so. I will try to explain them, however. Anyway, these are my thoughts/theories on him:

Contrary to his outward appearance, he is extremely sensitive and emotional. But that turmoil is not processed so precisely and discernibly as, say, a master scheme. In other words, he has no connection to his feelings and he troubles with it.

The main reason I think so is this panel right here:

I ADORE this panel. Easily the best one in the whole manga. But by Harukawa simply having him look at the boy’s corpse with an empty background behind him, it is that heavy emptiness he feels fighting right against his conscience and how he, likely, felt remorse for the boy

His whole God thing to me is complicated. He mentions God multiple times as a separate being he is almost devout to, but then in Chapter 42 he mentions: “If God does not exist… then I am God.” Existentialist and nihilistic af, all at the same time, but it still confuses me a bit

Perhaps it is that disillusionment he has of the world described here. He is, indeed, following a noble goal, the equivalence of Christ’s sacrifice for humanity, or even the Great Flood. Fyodor is sacrificing himself (his health, his heart, his humanity) in the favor of wiping the world clean of sin and starting a new world for those without abilities. It is God’s work, and I say that with dual meaning.

Yes, he has a God complex. Some people try to argue against that with only a superiority complex but I see no distinction. It is literally the same thing. Both will manifest as heightened egos and both may be responses to a sense of inferiority. Except in this case, with Fyodor, it is merely a title befit of his work.

I know a lot of people explore their friendship, but I actually will say that it is not established at all if Fyodor cares about Nikolai. This whole thing may as well be one-sided. We haven’t seen his response to Nikolai being offered up to die but I imagine he did not object, as both of these idiots are willing to die for their respective causes.

Now, the only thing I have going for a counterclaim is merely a case of induction. He does hold some form of regard because Nikolai is probably the only character who would dare get close to Fyodor and even the only one to call him “friend.” Usually, lonely people will get attached to such an exception in their world so I suppose…

Besides, Nikolai is interesting enough. And he never denied not being his friend when Dazai mentioned “You have a nice friend.”

Doesn’t actually open up a lot to Nikolai, though. Maybe confides in him to share some of his ideas or plans with the clown and then calls it a day. I wonder if Nikolai tries to dig in, though

Probably doesn’t because he understands most things that lie underneath the surface; and besides, Nikolai is pretty egocentric too, he worries a little more about himself and his own convictions

Even so, I don’t think Fyodor is very open with him

Knows there is no such thing as perfection but he will strive for it like there is no tomorrow. Fyodor’s perfectionism is probably the core of his character, it is outstanding. He wants the world to be perfect, he wants his work to be perfect, he wants the results and methods to be perfect. No room for error (emotions).

Just this:

For the record, I agreed completely with Dazai’s refute to this. This man does NOT understand how people work

Not too worried about aesthetics but really does appreciate beauty; it soothes him

Apparently he likes people of good complexion (he would hate me)

Fails to calculate good motives. Like if someone were to go into such and such situation for such and such person, or out of valor, or out of love, or care, he will be like “oh? You’ve come here for that? How foolish…”

He was surprised when he realized Dazai came to meet him in the alley, fully knowing the danger he was in, to gather information to help his allies

Makes himself the villain and knows that he is a terrible person, and yet if he is told this, it will stir something in him. Probably that enneagram 1 is at play here. Also the whole idea of perfection.

“Malice is the best fruit that God bestowed upon mankind.” … Right.

Has a lot of anger he suppresses (like most things) all in the name of perfection and serenity. Anger toward the world, its laws, its people, its destiny, himself

His entire goal makes me think so, and just the glares he gives Dazai when he challenges him and stuff

Good conversation skills when it comes to philosophy, logic, psychology and knowledge in general. Otherwise, he is dry as all hell

Comparing his dialogue in the manga to the omake with Nikolai. He just simply dgaf

But on the bright side he is really chill and pleasant to talk to if you are a rambler. He simply will listen and just hum to most of the things you say

He’s touch starved

… Look at him. No one would even come near him with a 50 yard stick

If one manages to strike up his own little inner world in some conversation (mostly religion and his own values) he.will.not.shut.up.

He has pretty lengthy responses that are always accompanied with a smirk. It’d feel nice for him to actually be able to chit chat so freely though (and somewhat worrisome)

Spaces out a lot in deep thought

Probably when he’s uninterested or just tired

Does not sleep well, does not eat well, at times forgets to shower if he doesn’t do so in the morning. His plans are just his main priority, he doesn’t have time for worldly obligations

Just… look at him.

Oh, and his hair is actually not too greasy. It just looks that way bc it is so straight

Adores his hat more than his own mother

“My hat…”

He feels really lonely at times but, once more, suppresses those feelings to go on. Thinks it would be nice to have a chatting partner though. The poor thing just got Dazai.

“Who would’ve thought I’d be blessed with a chess companion this far underground?”

God forbid he falls in love. The little darling will not realize so until he has months to process and think and analyze and assess. It would be crazy for him. He would probably obsess a little as well and even become quite possessive. Before an establishment of his feelings, however, I’d imagine he becomes a little distant in his realization, only to be brought a little closer by his own longing. If he falls, I think he would fall pretty deep. All internally, for the most part.

He’s actually really sweet once you get to know him. Maybe…

I think that’s all I got, or maybe not enough. Thank you again for the ask. I did not know I had so much to say about him…

#fyodor dostoevsky #bsd #bungou stray dogs #fyodor bsd #nikolai gogol #bsd manga #dazai osamu #bsd season 4 #dazai bsd #bsd gogol #decay of angels #fyolai #fyogol #fyozai #bsd ask

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