#Cosmic the warlord

[writeshite]

can we have cosmic god!reader w/ other characters???? any character you chose cuz my brain iz rotting

“You’re back earlier than usual,” you quip, turning to kiss Thor’s cheek; his armor is less bloody than it was the last time he’d gone down to Earth. “How is humanity? You haven't wiped them all out have you?”

“Of course not, my heart,” Thor chuckles, “they were more receptive this time and delivered most of their treacherous members far quicker.”

“You did flood a few of the cities last month,” you remind him, “is it worth expending so much effort to conquering Earth? I could just use their host star to make an example of one of the nearby planets.”

Thor chuckles; your hair had sparked into flames for a moment at the thought of it, “As much I love watching you roast our enemies, Earth isn't that advanced; playing with the humans is more fun.”

You huff, rolling your eyes fondly, “Well, try not to have too much fun, I'd feel neglected if you turned all your attention elsewhere.” You pout playfully, leaning back against Thor, giggling when he kisses your shoulder.

“I’d never neglect you, my love,” Thor promises.

[szkin-art]

Had the privilege to make the cover art for COSMIC WARLORD KIN-BRIGHT! Giant robot yuri space opera. In verse. Go read it on Itch.io!!

[adornesibley]

I just finished paying myself for Into the Odd from my writing work! It is such a work of art~ I was just enjoying myself as I read through when I saw this example creature:

I see you!

[leahsfiction]

i urgently need everyone to know about this mech space-opera (with girls kissing) in the form of epic poetry!!!

[adventism-atheism-orthodoxy-me]

I sat on the idea that I thought Penal Substitution was a theological dead end for years before I said anything to anyone. And then, the question was always, "Don't you think there has to be a better way to understand God and his saving work through Christ that works better with the God of the Bible then Penal Substitution?"

The answer was always unequivocally, "NO."

And yet so many scriptures talk about God in a way different than the preachers talk of him.

I gave up.

I determined that the views my fellow American Christians had of God was decidedly wrong, but I didn't have anything better, so I just kept my mouth shut - giving a mild protest here or there. But knowing in my heart that the God of American Protestantism was not the God of the 1st Century Martyrs.

We had lost our way. Of that I was certain.

As an Adventist, I grew up thinking about end time events, I knew that the tools my particular form of Protestantism gave me were weak, relatively useless if my comfort or life were seriously threatened. I determined to myself that the best thing I could do would be to not deny God as best I could - Beyond that, he would do with me what he would. I have no crystal ball. I can't pretend I'm perfect. But there are so many Protestant Americans that argue that they can do anything they wanted to through God's Grace - again, that seemed overly indulgent, and not quite how life works. Who makes up the rules? Not the ten commandments - but the denominational midrash. Which denomination even had the correct divine midrash?

Eastern Orthodox Christianity has given me that alternative vision.

The Soli Deo Gloria is not found in the person of an inscrutable Cosmic Warlord.

Glory to God for his tender mercies.

[alparlaboratories]

Update on me reading Cosmic Warlord Kin-Bright: One of the story's biggest influences is very clearly the Aeneid and the whole trojan war, and I think it's been pretty nicely homaged (is that a verb? whatever, it is now) and reimagined in a future where mechs and intergalactic travel exist.

But then the giant wooden horse is, actually, just a giant wooden horse, and it's great. Oldest trick in a book that's been lost to this civilization, so of course it would work again. It got a pretty big giggle out of me, at least before the pillaging and burning started.

[dailyadventureprompts]

So one of my favourite things to listen to in my off time is debunked conspiracy theories, mainly because it mixes several of my interests: politics, history, and being pedantically right about stuff with objective fact to back it up.

Part of me wishes I could draw more inspiration from this particular well, but doing so risks propagating the same brainworms that create conspiracy theorists in the first place. The grand canyon is a lichtenberg figure carved by a colossal space lightning bolt/energy weapon hitting the earth, which consumed the world in a pyroclasm that caused stone structures melt which we can see across ancient cultures Is a FASCINATING bit of worldbuilding by someone being in denial about the concept of erosion. I don't want to use it however because then my story becomes a transmission point for this bad idea, a psychic parasite that might take root in someone's subconscious and warp their worldview to the point of nonsense.

Take one I heard a few years ago: The word planet comes from the greek word planan, which means wanderer. This is the same word used by the original bible to refer to fallen angels. NASA is lying to us, there are no planets, the non-star lights we see moving in the night sky are fallen angels fixed there by god as punishment for their crimes of coming to earth and beggetting the nephilim, the giants that we can see evidence of in X,Y,Z mythologies.

You can see the narrative potential there right? The questhook about the scholar who invents a better sort of telescope and manages to peer deep enough into space to discover that one of the cosmic bodies is actually a being, only to become possessed by the fallen celestial and driven to free it, just like the extinct linage of giant warlords who rampaged across the region millennia ago. It's such a juicy hook because it plays on the same "aha" moments that the conspiracy theory uses to take root: Oh yeah there IS a linguistic connection between the world planet and the greek word for wandering because they were stars that wandered across the sky oh yeah there ARE a lot of ancient cultures that have myths about giants because it's really easy to imagine people that are big, wonder if there are any internet rabitholes that could teach me more about these thigns?

It's the Dan Brown DaVinci Code problem; It can be entertaining to play around with historical conspirasism as the background for a story but part of your audience are going to be in a vulnerable place and slip all the way down to Qanon levels. It's even worth with the Alex Jones types who can't seperate fiction from reality and take their inability to analyze iconography as a sign on NWO "preprogaming". I don't want to use conspiracy theories/bad archaeology as inspiration only for my work to be pinned up on the red-string board as evidence that everything's connected.

[thefloatingstone]

Puff please tell me about Grunt I just saw a Tumblr post you reblogged that vaguely went into detail and I read a small bit of his wiki page but I want to hear it in your own words because it's like 10x more interesting with that filter. Fill my dash with grunt lore

GRUNT IS SHEPARD'S VERY LARGE SON

I don't know whether the designers originally created him with this thought in mind or not but it's really funny because by the time the DLC came out for ME2 you can see the games just fully embracing what was originally just a joke in the Mass Effect fandom.

I used to not be fully into it as a concept but as I'm busy replaying ME3 and having just played ME2 again... nah people were right. He's our son.

He was created in a lab to be an "ultimate krogan warrior" or whatever, but when Shepard cracked how out of his tube, he had did not have that "burning desire of revenge in the name of his species" the scientist who made him was obsessed by. Physically he was perfect, but psychologically, he just didn't understand why he should care about being a krogan. in ME2 when he's introduced, his story arc is helping him connect with what it means to be a krogan, and to help him find purpose as an individual. You essentially help raise this adolescent fully formed person out of apathy and teach him how to care about things, concepts and people, almost completely through actions and not so much through words.

As ME2 goes on, it becomes clear Grunt very much wants Shepard's approval about things, which is funny because at first he comes across as a cold, uncaring fully formed adult, but as you help him learn how to connect with being a member of his species, he'll sometimes want to talk to Shepard JUST to be like "Hey Shepard!! I thought about something to do with being Krogan I thought you'd approve of! listen to this!!"

In the DLC for ME2, you can read up on his internet search history as well as his online purchase history and I just.... think a lot of it explains SO MUCH about him as a character. So I'm just copy and pasting those here

SEARCH: krogan history SEARCH: great wars SEARCH: genofage / ERASED / krogan victories SEARCH: okeer/ ERASED / great generals SEARCH: toochanka/ ERASED / tuchanka SEARCH: urnot wrex SEARCH: battlemaster shepard/ MODIFIED/ commander shepard/MODIFIED/commander shepard normandy SEARCH: animal fights / MODIFIED / large predators SEARCH: tryrannsauros wrex/ ERASED / earth lizard wrex SEARCH: dinosaurs

SEARCH: battlemaster humans/ ERASED / earth humans SEARCH: human history SEARCH: earth wars // DOWNLOAD 6.1T NEWS FOOTAGE - HUMAN GENERAL HISTORICAL - CONFLICT // SEARCH: warrior humans // DOWNLOAD 2.1T DOCUMENTARY FOOTAGE - HUMAN GENERAL HISTORICAL- MAJOR MILITARY FIGURES // SEARCH: great humans/ MODIFIED / honored humans // DOWNLOAD 0.7T NEWSFOOTAGE [sic] - HUMAN ACHIEVEMENT- AWARDS // SEARCH: great storytellers human SEARCH: war stories // DOWNLOAD 0.67T LITERATURE - HUMAN WRITERS CONFLICT// SEARCH: human homer kipling hemmingway // DOWNLOAD 0.13T LITERATURE - HUMAN WRITERS – EARNEST HEMMINGWAY // // DOWNLOAD 0.06T AUDIO BOOKS // // THE SUN ALSO RISES // 14% COMPLETED // FOR WHOM THE BELL TOLLS // 100% COMPLETED // A FAREWELL TO ARMS // DELETED // THE OLD MAN AND THE SEA // 100% COMPLETED SEARCH: sharks

CATALOG ORDER: Ultra Black Ops Mega Catalog PURCHASE 2823- UG-652: Case Premium 54/ER Engine Oil VIDEO DOWNLOAD: The Madness of Sacrifice: The Unauthorized Biography of Warlord Okeer PURCHASE 2856- UG-122: Economy Box, Fishdog Food Factory "Tastee Bites" VIDEO DOWNLOAD: When Fauna Attacks! Volumes 1-10 PURCHASE 3254-UG-975: Batax's Hot Fish Spice VIDEO DOWNLOAD: Vaenia (this is a movie) VIDEO DOWNLOAD: Asari Confessions 26: True Blue (this is porn) PURCHASE 9683- UG-662: Fornax Special Spotlight: Krogan Edition (this is a human magazine focusing on interspecies sexual relations) PURCHASE 8856- UG-972: Captain Cosmic Action Figures: "Garr the Krogan Battlemaster" with real smash your enemies action!

By the time ME3 comes around, most of the rest of the squad is referring to Grunt in terms poking fun at the fact that Shepard is his mom. I think it's Joker who at one point comments "Our baby boy's all grown up" or something to that effect. I can't remember the exact dialogue. I think at one point Garrus also jokes about how "they grow up so fast" or something along those lines.

He also loves spicy ramen.

Grunt is a good boy.

[tobiasdrake]

Okay, so I finally got around to watching Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero the other day, brought to you by the same people who came up with the name Super Saiyan God Super Saiyan.

Bulma's shameless, confident vanity continues to reinforce why she's the best character in Dragon Ball.

I need everyone to understand that this might actually be the funniest moment in the whole franchise. It's silly on its surface, but it's also steeped in Dragon Ball history. You can feel Piccolo dying inside, and there's a reason for that that goes much deeper than third-party embarrassment over Bulma's shallownness.

Bulma's cosmic butt-lift is a continuation of a gag from Broly (the good version). In that film, it was established that Bulma routinely uses the Dragon Balls to knock a few years off her age, for the sake of vanity. This was contrasted against Frieza's desire to use the Dragon Balls to add a couple inches to his height, for the sake of vanity.

Both of which are resurrections of the gag from the Red Ribbon Army arc, where Commander Red brought militant warlord violence to all corners of the world to claim the Dragon Balls for himself... so he could make himself taller. Using limitless cosmic power for petty and shallow reasons is a funny joke that Toriyama's fond of.

But this isn't just about the shallowness. It's about Piccolo. Or, more specifically, the other half of Piccolo that is Kami-sama. Dragon Ball is steeped in religious and mythological imagery, primarily Buddhist. A fantasy spin on it with a lot of fictional elements added, but there is a lot of genuine Japanese spirituality in there. Which is why God Almighty is now walking around as one half of Piccolo, with a substitute God ruling from his Temple in Heaven in his place.

During his reign, God gifted the Dragon Balls to mankind so that they would have a cosmic miracle they could turn to in times of great need. Shenron was meant as a great gesture of benevolence; The difficulty in summoning him is to serve as a particularly grueling trial, one that only the most determined and most worthy could fulfill.

However, that didn't exactly go to plan. Rather than a source of hope for the world, the Dragon Balls became objects of lust for its greediest and most corrupt. Near-limitless reality-shaping power to grant any miracle one could ask for, wasted on petty ambitions and selfish desires. God regretted ever making this cursed things.

When Piccolo killed Shenron and destroyed the Dragon Balls, God's response was basically, "Good riddance." The Dragon Balls were a mistake he could now take back. He had no intention of ever remaking them.

But then Goku defeated Piccolo. Goku ascended into Heaven to implore God to return the Dragon Balls to earth. Goku's pure innocence, his kindness, and his strength of character convinced God that there was good in the Dragon Balls. That they were worth remaking and returning to the mortal world below.

And now. Here he stands.

With this woman. The woman who utterly trivialized his great heavenly trial by inventing a handheld radar that beep-beeps all of the Dragon Balls' locations for you, allowing them to be easily collected in the span of a weekend excursion.

Watching her call upon his great reality-shaping miracle, so that she can get a butt-lift and slightly longer eyelashes.

While strongly insinuating that she does this every time the Dragon Balls regenerate. This is the legacy of his cosmic miracle.

Bulma is the greatest heretic in the history of fiction. That is why Piccolo is dying inside. This joke killed me. Almost as hard as Piccolo visibly wants to kill Bulma right now.

[lizzieraindrops]

Destiny is a story about shapes and grief.

I think I may have figured out Destiny. I don't think the primary conflict between the Light and the Darkness is the philosophical issue we thought it was.

I got thinking about it after all this talking, with many others but especially @jazzhandsmcleg, about the way all of The Witch Queen DLC and its 4 seasons have had overarching narratives surrounding trauma and cycles of violence and grief, and the way the Darkness and the Light are characterized by their different approaches to it.

In TWQ, Savathûn is given a true second chance for her species in the Light. But as Ikora points out, she struggles to break free of the learned patterns of the Darkness, continuing the pattern of deception and violence.

Same with Season of the Risen - it’s the Warlords and Dark Ages all over again, but this time it’s the Hive. It forces once again to ask: what does it mean to be given a second chance if this is what you do with it? Temper this with Saladin’s story about the girl from the Dark Ages who he protected, but who became a cruel mortal Warlord in her own right. Crow objects to the mental torture of the Hive Lightbearers and he tries to break from the cycle of interspecies violence, but unintentionally ends up continuing it by killing the Psion and heightening tensions between humans and the Uluran.

Season of the Haunted!!! Literally, the entire thing is about confronting your traumas and greatest fears and the worst parts about yourself and beginning to heal them, making something better from them. Completely changing the game by turning Nightmares that torment into Memories that guide you. Crow with the memory of Uldren, Zavala with that of Safiyah, Caiatl that of Ghaul - and most importantly, resolution focuses on how they, specifically have been held back from healing by their self-incriminating Nightmares. It challenges the cycle of continuing violence on a very personal level. Eris even has patrol dialogue describing the a Nightmare as a thing of pain craving only more pain: "Such is the cycle."

Season of Plunder brings up the very same questions on a much higher organizational level. It gives us Eido and Eramis taking very different jaded vs. new-hope approaches to the legacy of the Whirlwind, asking: can we change? Are we defined by generational trauma forever? Can we continue to grow and change for the better even though it can never be undone? Though Eido is clearly young and naïve, we're clearly given the opportunity and narrative nudge to sympathize with her desire and hope for growth and redemption, both for the Eliksni overall, and for Eramis in particular.

And we're not even done with Season of the Seraph, but it already goes incredibly hard asking the same questions, again from a more personal angle. How far, and through how many generations is trauma transmitted? From the Bray family to Rasputin, to Felwinter to Osiris to Ikora – how do we fix this? How do we fix this? How do you defeat an enemy who IS war itself? What can you do to end an endless cosmic cycle of violence?

Go back and back and back in Destiny's lore even back to D1, and the majority of conflicts seem driven by this cycle of grief and revenge and violence. The entire line of humanity's war with the Hive goes back through Oryx's grief for Crota and the First Crota Fireteam and Eriana-3's grief for her wife Wei Ning. Even the Hive siblings' pact with the Worm Gods, though manipulated by Rhulk, was driven by the pain and grief they endured for themselves and their people, and wanting to escape that cruel pattern. The entire predicament of the Eliksni and their conflict with humans is driven by the trauma and grief and loss of the Whirlwind. Even Caiatl's empire, a conquering force that would be highly regarded by the sword logic, now must reckon with the same kind of loss in the Fall of Torobatl.

How do you escape this cycle and stay free of it?

I think, this year, we are finally seeing the beginnings of an answer.

I can't highly enough recommend the TWQ Collector's Edition lorebook (page scans & transcript) and The Hidden Dossier (page scans & transcript) that immediately follows it. What I've been calling Ikora's theory of "memory and grace" that she develops through the course of these two lore books is a balanced philosophy of memory/Darkness and grace/Light (which honestly deserves an entire post of its own). I think it clearly points toward the final resolution the story of the conflict between the Darkness and the Light.

In light of this, something in the Calus part of the new Lightfall CE lorebook (images, transcript) really jumped out at me.

“The doomed and the damned left the record of their downfall in the OXA. Your star got its name from the oldest myths in that archive. And when your mother told your father that story…the star became your name. A prayer that all will go as it must…and the way it must go is struggle.” “Aiat.” Not a word in Ulurant or any other Cabal tongue. “But Caiatl means something else..” “Yes. ‘It may not always go as it needs to go.’ A good name for a soldier." "A strange name for a daughter," I say. "Your father chose it for your mother's sake. Out of love."

And because the parallel is so overwhelmingly striking, I am once again going to reference philosophy/worldbuilding from the Young Wizards universe, which has great resonance with Destiny lore and which Bungie has been long aware of and has even been referenced in Forsaken-era canon lore.

“all the fair things skewed, all the beauty twisted by the dark Lone Power watching on his steed. If only there were some way he could be otherwise if he wanted to! For here was his name, a long splendid flow of syllables in the Speech, wild and courageous in its own way—and it said that he had not always been so hostile; that he got tired sometimes of being wicked, but his pride and his fear of being ridiculed would never let him stop. Never, forever, said the symbol at the very end of his name, the closed circle that binds spells into an unbreakable cycle and indicates lives bound the same way.” [...] “Nita bent quickly over the Book and, with the pen, in lines of light, drew from that final circle an arrow pointing upward, the way out, the symbol that said change could happen—if, only if—and together they finished the Starsnuffer’s name in the Speech, said the new last syllable, made it real.” Excerpt From: Diane Duane. “So You Want to Be a Wizard, New Millennium Edition.”

CAIATL’S NAME IS LITERALLY THE UP-AND-OUT SYMBOL.

I know I'm probably only talking to the handful of Destiny players from the (very small) Young Wizards fandom, but what you need to know is that this moment is pivotal and sets up the series-long theme of hope for an eventual exit from the cycle. It's the incredibly small, overwhelmingly improbable possibility of a second chance, a new start for the Lone Power, the source of all strife and suffering, who itself is driven by loss and pain. A concept of extended grace that is inherently tied to the philosophy of the Light.

“Billions of years, it took. All the redemptions there have ever been went toward this; from the greatest to the least. And finally in the fullness of time you came along, and took my role, of your own will, and woke up a race powerful enough to change the whole Universe, and gave them the fire.” She glanced up at the mobiles and smiled. “How could he resist such a bait? He took the gamble: he always does. And losing, he won.” [...] “The Defender reached down and put a hand into the shadow. “And we are going where such matters are transcended… where all his old pains will shift. Not forgotten, but transformed. Life in this universe will never have such a friend. And as for His inventions… look closely at Death, and see what it can become.” The long, prone darkness began to burn, from inside, the way a mountain seems to do with sunset. “Brother,” the Defender said. “Come on. They’re waiting.” Excerpt From: Diane Duane. “High Wizardry New Millennium Edition.”

This is the devil’s second chance, its homecoming. Grace among the memory. How do we heal this? By fixing it. By making and TAKING that opportunity of grace.

Likewise, Destiny is shaping up into its own universe’s story of this Reconfiguration, the remaking of everything that exists through the act of a second chance, both offered and taken, with full awareness of the irreversibility of harm already caused.

Destiny isn’t the story of the light and the darkness fighting each other. That happens, but that’s not what it’s ABOUT.

It’s “And I know exactly what we are. We’re best frenemies with a history of intense mutual hurt and messy reconciliation, leaving a deep tenderness as well as an almost impenetrable knot of scars. What could be simpler?” (Chalco)

It's “For so long, I believed peace was beyond my reach. No more. I have found it in guiding others down the same path that saved me. But… I might allow myself to want more than peace. What, I am not certain. Is joy the word? Might I find that again?” (Eris)

It's “Second chances… hm. Turns out I've been using mine wrong. I thought being a Guardian was my destiny. That wielding the Light for good was the most I had to offer. But it's clear now. This is what the Traveler chose me for. I was reforged in the Light for a purpose. To remake something dead and gone… into something beautiful. To learn how to forge something new from what we were. Everything Uldren did to the Reef, the Scorn… Fikrul. I have a responsibility — no — a calling to make them whole. And… I can't replace Cayde. But I can cover his old patrols — maybe organize the Hunters a bit, if they'll let me. Clean up some of my mess. I don't know if I can fix everything Uldren left broken… but I can try.” (Crow)

We aren’t defeating the Darkness. That’s never what it’s been about. It’s about breaking the cycle of trauma and grief with memory and grace. We're transcending the Final Shape, but we're not here to destroy it or become it. We’re harmonizing the Darkness and the Light into a sustainable balance to create something new from the wounded remains.

We're here to heal the broken relationship between the Winnower and the Gardener.

That's all that it is, in the end. They had a falling out, and now they hurt, and they hurt each other, and everything else, forever. Breaking free from that cycle begins and ends with them.

Is that fair? No, it's not.

But Destiny is – unhingedly, brilliantly, paradoxically – a FPS game about how to stop killing each other, growing ever more into a framework of restorative and reparative justice.

The story says, we are all culpable, we have all done awful shit and have endless potential to do more awful shit – AND, most critically, we all have the potential to do better (grace). AND, the act of making the conscious choice to do so and letting that happen is the only way for things to get better (memory).

The Collapse happened and it was horrible, the Red War happened and it was horrible, the Great Disaster happened and it was horrible, Twilight Gap happened and it was horrible...AND?? HOW ARE YOU GOING TO RESPOND? The Whirlwind happened and it was horrible! The Fall of Torobatl happened and it was horrible! Your species' Choice was stolen and you became the most prolifically violent killers in the universe and it was and is horrible! WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO ABOUT IT?

Are you going to make it more horrible? Or are you going to make it BETTER????

Are you going to fight for the Final Shape, or for the gentle kingdom ringed in spears?

[cypionate60mg]

Does this make me a chaser?

I'm turned on by the idea of having a mlm/bara coded relationship with a woman. I want to see her get turned into a hulking sex-crazed beast and have people think I'm her cute little twink (even if I looked like Dwayne Johnson ppl should think that).

I love scrolling through autoandrophilic content on tumblr even if I know it's not for me, and can't shrug off the feeling that I, as a cishet guy, am being fetishistic towards trans men. But then I see posts about top surgery and all I can think is lying my face on top of a woman's broad, hard and hairy chest and being like "yeah, this feels a lot better," her scars like those of a barbarian warlord. Which I guess is not great, knowing that this is specifically about men who want to be perceived as men.

I've never attempted to be with a trans guy, bc I know that'd be kind of shitty coming from a straight dude (also they might be autogynephilic, and it would be some kind of cosmic joke for me to be playing into forced detrans). But even if I did, whenever I check r/ftm and see posts about dating straight men I can only feel like the reasons why I would are categorically different (not that it wouldn't be problematic for me to do so). Like, these guys are hellbent on feminizing them (many don't even allow them to bind), which besides sounding like they're massive transphobes, it's just impossible for me to see myself doing the same. Even if I saw my partner as a woman, I wouldn't miss out on the chance of having him undergo hrt (all the better, in fact).

I wish there were (straight) women into the same stuff, but at least within my experience, there are none out there. So I guess I just have whatever I can find on tumblr and melonFF's deviantart (and maybe ao3 accounts none of which post frequently), none of which are directed at me, so I just feel unwelcome enjoying them.

I don't usually answer these sorts of anons, as I get quite a few from cisbi and cishet men. But we're starting to see more cis men in the forcemascsphere, including some with their own blogs, and I think this could be a good opportunity to talk about chasers. For everybody's sake.

Based on this message, here's my read on the situation. You're interacting with the kink through a strictly pornographic lens and are subsequently disappointed that it doesn't translate well to sex. Whether you see your hypothetical partner as a man or not doesn't really matter, because you don't even seem to be thinking about them as a human with their own needs and desires. You're following a recipe for objectification, don't be surprised. Like any kink performed between two or more parties, it does require consent and discussion. Especially because it has elements of transformation and force.

It's honestly a little funny to me to see you talk about how uncommon forcemasc is, bellyaching that even the existing porn for it doesn't cater to you. Man, how do you think I feel? And whether somebody is into forcemasc or forcefem, we all deserve to be treated with respect by our partners. Even if playing out our kink results in physical changes beyond the bedroom. So, yeah, of course those guys you're talking about are assholes. But that doesn't really mean anything, because we're talking about you and your desires.

If you are heterosexual, then why are you scrolling r/ftm and musing about the ethics of dating a trans guy? I mean that genuinely. What do you get out of it? I ask because I'd like to believe that you understand that not all trans men are autoandrophiles. Even I don't want to be forcemasced, which people seem to have a difficult time grasping. Once you start thinking of a type of person as synonymous with a fetish, you're in chaser territory.

Remember: pornography can be a useful extension of sex. A tool, an accessory. But if you treat it as a cheap substitute for sex, you will lose sight of the other people involved. Then they'll become nothing more than a means for you to accomplish your own satisfaction. Do you see how that's fundamentally different from viewing one's own body as a means of pleasure?

So yeah, you do sound like a chaser.

[rawliverandgoronspice]

TLOZ translations always seem to be a bit shitty. I still see people talk about the weird translation of the Demise monologue at the end of SkSw. I think someone said that Demise was more general with his statement, as in there will always be forces from the demon tribe fighting against the light or smth? Not specifically "us three will always fight". (I've read it a few times, but hard to remember, sorry.) (On the topic of SkSw, I kinda dislike how much it impacted theories within TLOZ, some theories are really cool, don't get me wrong. But now, even games that existed for years before suddenly are being pushed to fit with the lore presented in that game. Ganondorf being the best example: He no longer is his own character who did bad things because of his own will and actions, it's now "He did it all because an evil curse made him do it. He had no choice, he was born as a vessel for the demonic lord." The implications that "the curse of Demise" also would mainly go for the already vilified race of the Gerudo, and make their one male an evil warlord is already kinda... yeah... no. (Not to mention that there are other demon lords throughout the franchise that have nothing to do with Ganon.)

Ohh speaking of this I recently saw this post that did a good translation of that very moment, and pretty much confirms what you are mentioning anon; that it's basically a promise of that cycle coming back moreso than Demise himself coming back (especially since his actual and definitive death is a big deal in that game).

But yeah, I agree it has taken a huge space in the way the series is thought about. I pretty much completely missed that hard turn, as I couldn't play Skyward Sword when it released and wasn't super into Zelda afterward anymore (I had gotten too edgy.... 2011 was the year where I got obsessed with every horror videogame in existence basically except for Resident Evil for some reason I could never get into that series ANYWAY WAY off topic........), so coming back a few years later had me very ???? puzzled about how the theories had reconstructed themselves around Hylia and Demise and endless cycles (it's not that it wasn't a thing before, but I wouldn't say it was as much a Series Trademark as it is now).

But yeah. Ganondorf having his own motivations makes him immediately stronger as an antagonist, especially since his deal is quite complicated all things considered.

I am having a thought about how a lot of Zelda villains' motivation is a sort of rebellion against nature. I have scratched enough digital paper about Ganondorf's situation, but like... Minish Cap Vaati is also very much motivated by his refusal to remain small and whimsical and seize power instead of staying in his lane (and then he gets horny in Four Sword so, maybe let's not go there), Zant is.... Zant, Hilda in A Link Between World has been cosmically punished for trying to reject the Goddesses and create a world on its own terms --like SERIOUSLY this is HORRIFYING I feel like we don't talk enough about how utterly nightmarish of a reality that paints for Hyrule as a whole-- Girahim is devoted but fights for the side more or less destined to lose... It's interesting how Hyrule is hostile to change and anything that threatens the statut quo.

(then you have the occasional Majora and Yuga, whomst I dooon't think really fit the above category --to their full credit! and then you have Bellum, who is..... a blob...... And I don't remember enough from either the Oracles game or about Malladus to put them in either category, I need to replay those games)

Hyrule really has this frightening quality to it when you stare at it for too long: that your two only options are to either graciously submit to your assigned cosmic role, or fight it and become darkness incarnate in some way. A Link Between World showed, quite starkly, that trying to escape that binary choice is *not an option*.

[hoverboards-and-dragons]

What makes a Sin? Do they need to have a certain power level or resonance with a particular ring and Hell’s power just chooses them? Does becoming a Sin have any effect physically and/or mentally?

The way Sins are chosen is an intentional mystery in my verse, Hell is an alien realm with an alien mind even to those living within it

Demons were just crawling directly out of hell like maggots out a corpse in the beginning, some died, some bred and started species and whole ecosystems and shit, Evolution sped run, like if every period of life was happening at the same time - Society was getting it's start at the same time fish were learning to walk on land. The sins were all from of this first wave.

The Sins started out as regular demon warlords fighting for control of the newly created Hell, they eventually emerged as the most powerful at which point they'd have an the inner realization that they are now A Deadly Sin, even without really understanding what that means

Now, they do not know if this is something they become, or discover about themselves, their power could be why they were crowned, or they only have such power because they were born a Sin

It doesn't feel like a transformation, if it is one they aren't aware of it until after its happened. The word 'Envy' or 'Wrath' pops up in their head and it just feels right

They also aren't sure if they take their sin from the ring or if the ring takes from their most prominent trait, (is Mammon greedy because he's king of the greed ring, or is it the Greed Ring because Mammon is greedy)

They're extensions of their Ring, have a similar sense for theirs as Lilith has for hell as a whole. They can feel shift and can communicate with it to a limited degree.

This comes with pretty complete immortality, which is also why they were so quick to seek each other out, find someone who Gets It

You would think Lucifer's appearance would help answer something but he just made everything worse by quietly assuming the Pride sin in a few months and everyone only realizing after the fact

Did it happen when he first arrived(was 'given' to hell)? Well the others didn't recognize him as one then, which Beph explicitly does later, maybe when Lucifer accepted Hell in, but he forged his connection directly with the first ring later, after he had already had the realization that he was Pride - and it had been feeding off his power beforehand, he was just letting it feed him back

Maybe it's planted, grows inside them over time, until it kills them or they survive it and the line where they end and hell begins is too blurred to matter. At least you get cool cosmic powers out of it.

Is a spore a fungus? When does it become one?

@fallentheatre you'll probably like this one too

[alparlaboratories]

only a fourth of the way through, but I'm greatly enjoying Cosmic Warlord Kin-Bright so far. A mecha space opera written in verse was already enough for me to check out on concept alone but I'm glad it's also pretty good on top of that.

[dailyadventureprompts]

At one point you came up with an idea for more “setting neutral” Quori; could you do the same with Daelkyr? I’ve sorta latched onto the idea of using them as a Yuuzhan Vong type threat in Spelljammer but I can’t figure out how to justify them outside Eberron/what they would BE like outside Eberron

Footnotes on Foes Daelkyr/Zern

To give some background for those who might not have delved into a particular d&d setting book, The long and short on the Daelkyr is that they're CR 20 biomancer aberrations that created everything from mindflayers to beholders to gibbering mouthers. They made monsters and had an interest in conquering the world, but they were defeated in the ancient past, cut down till there were about six of them, and then imprisoned in that setting's version of the underdark where they scheme and create until the party hits level 15 and they can start doing end game villain shit.

I never quite liked the Daelkyr as I felt creating a "one size fits all" origin for aberrations robbed them of a lot of their uniqueness. Aberrations were supposed to be weird, I didn't need a simple explanation as to why.

What DID resonate with me was the arsenal of symbiotic items the Daelkyr made, everything from tongue-whips to scarabs that would let you shoot crystallized acid daggers. I frequently ended up using these critters with the Zern, another species of fleshwarpers from the 3.5 days that liked to experiment on creatures and had radically morphable biology ( Exactly the same as the Daelkyr, just cr 6 instead of 20). Throw that together with a few other "endlessly seeking biological perfection" alien type villains and I think I've got something rather usable....

So here's my Rebrand Pitch: The Zern were a species that grew to prominence in wildspace tens of millenia ago, invading worlds to exploit and experiment with their genetic resources while building up their own imperium. Daelkyr how the Zern refered to their leaders, supposed pinnacles of evolution that would lead swarms of living ships to terrorize and subjugate new systems. The Problem with the Zern is that they didn't play well with others: They saw most other organic lifeforms as inherently beneath them and saw other Zern has rivals and stepping stones on their ascent biological perfection/ the status of Daelkyr.

This vicious individualism was the weakness upon which the Zern empire shattered, as once the (insert whatever cosmic forces are relevant to your game) fought through to corner an enemy commander, the other Zern would proclaim their defeat as "natural selection" revelling in their own superiority as weakness was purged from their kind. This was even worse when one of the Daelkyr was defeated, as their control over their swarms of fleshwarped cannon fodder and the spawning worlds that produced them was proprietary, a cultural fear of their work being stolen or utilized by "lessers" of their own kind turning the death of individual into a mortal blow for the empire.

The Zern lost, and they lost bad, using engineered plagues and planet destroying bioweapons to scorch the earth as they were forced into ever more desperate situations and eventually into retreat. Already few in number, they were scattered to the far corners of the cosmos when their homeworld was destroyed, and after the last of the Daelkyrs were either destroyed or (in the case of those who'd made themselves immortal or indestructable) imprisoned, they had few oppertunities to rise again.

Today the Zern linger on in the shadows, plying their services as biomancers and doctors to the warlords of backwater worlds, or those disreputable places that astral outlaws congregate, all in hopes of hiding from their ancient enemies. Most of the multiverse has moved on and forgotten the Zern, but with lifespan extension and generations that stretch for thousands of years, the indignity of their defeat is still fresh in these remnants minds, as is the desire to proclaim themselves Daelkyr once again, or free their old overlords from captivity.

Art

[kazeofthemagun]

@hexenjagd asked the summoner:

Tell me about some of Kaze's strongest principles. Why does he hold to them? When is he willing to break them?

[Hello! Thank you for the ask!]

At his core, Kaze is a meshing-together of a mortal and a deity, which means some of his own strongest principles will need to be broken in pursuit of the purpose he embodies as Unlimited.

One of such principles that he adheres to unless it's ontologically impossible in the situation is - never harm children. Even back during his days as a warlord on Windaria, he made sure to spare the children of his enemies along with other concombatants even if it meant they might one day seek revenge. That, however, would be their own choice to make and so, he would simply kill them then. Kaze believes in, above all, personal agency. The ability to do with one's own life as one pleases, and take full responsibility for one's choices - fate is a concept he abhors, for it absolves of that very responsibility. To harm a young soul who has no means to defend itself is to take away that agency, out of nothing else but petty brutality: That, in his eyes, is cowardice.

During his own youth, Kaze was an orphan, a street urchin, fighting tooth and nail to survive under Windaria's scorching sun with hardly a saki (currency unit) to his name. He has seen the indifference and brutal disregard for refugees of war, many of which were children, as they languished away in the few overloaded city temples that agreed to take them. Starvation was a constant companion, both to Kaze and everyone else unfortunate enough to find themselves on the streets. Especially those with Riverfolk background - the neighbouring free nation beyond the great river that the main Windarian power of Lahriktaar was trying to conquer at the time.

Kaze himself was treated very poorly due to the red color of his hair, thought to be an ill omen in Lahriktaarese mythos - an ordeal that seeded in him both spite and compassion. When he was finally accepted into a warrior clan of his own, his ambition pushed him towards making Windaria a better, kinder place, however that in itself required bloodshed. Old systems scarcely went quietly, after all.

His obsession with personal agency evolved into a general obsession with power, because power allowed him to hold the means to finally shape his own life. This very pursuit is (in short) what led to him becoming the host of the Magun, not knowing at the time what cursed fate would await.

The curse of embodying the machine-god Destroyer is the curse to see life itself as a statistic.

Though nowadays the Wind considers himself a horrible person, deserving of the burden that will only make him a greater monster yet, he still makes all the choices that will lead to the fewest amount of lives lost. Especially the lives of children. If he ever has to destroy a whole world just to stop Chaos from feeding and in turn stop it from feeding on a hundred more? He will do so in a heartbeat. Even if he has to live with the blood of countless innocents on his hands. Even if he's constantly breaking the promise made to his sister that he would wage war no longer: But what of it now, that he has become War in the cosmic sense?

What of it now, that the mantle of Destroyer is all but interwoven into his flesh? And he is the only one to wear it. He resigns himself to his own soul being doomed to hell if it means that existence can continue - the garden will grow, but it needs a winnower. That sole fact is enough to override every moral his mortal self may have ever had, because his own boundaries become selfish in the grand scheme of things.

This is why he would rather commit heinous acts such as blackmail Kumo with the lives of their shared companions, than allow him to return to the service of Chaos. The Nine Eyed Beast in him weighs outcomes and previews paths to choose always the most optimal one, regardless of atrocities involved.

Even one's own eyes become a curse when they see so keenly. Because, there is no "I can't have known." Going against his purpose means actively choosing more harm down the line in favor of keeping up the pretense of being a "good person" in the moment.

He does not see himself as a good person. He sees himself as an abominable product of necessity.

"Does a soldier use a wooden horse to kill sleeping Trojans cause he is vile?

Or does he throw away his remorse and save more lives with guile?"

In the end, Kaze will break any and every principle he ever held to ensure Chaos dies, and there is no alternate path for him. How ironic, for one who never believed in fate.