#I am very sincere i want to understand peoples point of view | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

saintsenara · 6 days

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THE AUDIENCE CLAMOURS FOR YOUR VOLMIONE TAKE!!!!!!!!! In all seriousness the curiously is piqued tenfold by the fact that you go hard to bat for the other two voldemort/golden trio ships

i've definitely been putting this one off, anon, but it's hermione's birthday, and since the requests have kept coming...

maybe i have to grit my teeth and get through it.

i am, like my good pal @yorickofyore, broadly a tomione/volmione disliker - which is a spoiler for what follows. there are - obviously - huge numbers of people who are not, and they may sit happily in their ecosystem while i flop around photosynthesising in mine.

and the reason why i don't like tomione/volmione is right there in the last three screenshots: it relies - like several other hermione pairings, snamione and sirimione chief among them - on a portrayal of hermione's intellectual expression which bears absolutely no relation to how this is written in canon.

across all seven books in the series, hermione's intellect primarily manifests itself in a sincerely impressive ability to retain and repeat information [very usually verbatim from the source she got it from]. she is able to use this ability to retain information to understand the theoretical components of magic in a way neither harry nor ron ever manage, and she is then able to apply this retention - that is, to repeat the information she has acquired - of knowledge to the performance of magic which is [often considerably] ahead of her expected level both in terms of the hogwarts curriculum and in terms of what would be seen as the median ability of an adult witch or wizard.

but hermione is never shown - at any point in canon - to be a particularly radical, creative, or experimental thinker.

she places an enormous amount of intellectual trust in disciplinary authority - not only in the respect she has for following textbooks and teachers to the letter [hence why she won't attempt any of the modifications in the half-blood prince's textbook, she thinks it's offensive that they contradict the "official" peer-reviewed and sanctioned instructions] but also in her agreement with the gatekeeping imposed by the state and/or its authorities on academic inquiry.

[hence her disliking the invented spells in the half-blood prince's textbook because they're not ministry approved, or her easing her discomfort at having read the books from which voldemort learned to make a horcrux by insisting - undoubtedly correctly - that dumbledore wanted her to do it and she therefore has the permission of an intellectual authority].

she's immediately mistrustful of anything she can't find [something she regards as] an empirical source for - which is why harry's mental connection with voldemort frightens her so much, or why she thinks that harry's lost his mind when he begins to insist the deathly hallows are real and important, or, most famously, why she thinks divination is bullshit.

she's never shown to be able to synthesise her knowledge [she never answers questions in class in her own words, she always goes massively over word limits], or to use it in ways which are considerably removed from its typical application.

[the protean charm on the da coins, for example - the magic she's using is sophisticated, and is being applied in a way which wouldn't necessarily be classroom-sanctioned, since she's using it to defy umbridge, but the evidence of canon is that it's not magic which is being used in a way which is removed from the spell's original purpose. terry boot is impressed because he's looking at a flawless execution of newt-level magic by a sixteen-year-old, rather than because hermione is using that magic in an unusual way. the same is true of the polyjuice potion - it's impressive because she brews it flawlessly aged thirteen.]

this is a very logical, rational, and scientific approach to learning - and one which the series, which tends to take a dim view of anything which deviates too far from the status quo, views extremely positively - and it is intelligence. i know some people think that when i say this about hermione i'm saying that she isn't clever - or that i'm saying she's less clever than the characters [all of whom are male] that the series permits to be "brilliant" - but that's not the case. hermione is clearly extremely clever - and her logical, empirical, careful approach comes in clutch for the trio throughout the series, right from philosopher's stone. her intellectual expression just isn't the only way intelligence can manifest itself - and it isn't an intellectual expression which will automatically mesh with another very clever person's approach.

which is to say... lord voldemort, both as a teen and an adult, is - intellectually - the complete opposite of hermione.

he is someone - as he tells us - who thinks of magic as a creative force he has every right to shape as he sees fit, something whose boundaries he has the inherent right to smash through. he rejects disciplinary authority [his loathing of dumbledore - as an adult, at least - is because he thinks that dumbledore is a petty-minded gatekeeper who attempts to repress the dark arts - magic, snape tells us, which is inherently ever-changing, unfixed, mutating - because he's afraid of them and their refusal to be neatly contained in disciplinary boxes; his appeal to slughorn's authority is purely a manipulation technique]. he is an adaptor and inventor, and he uses magic in ways which radically deviate from its intended purpose.

and so the common "teen tom riddle and hermione are at school together" trope that they'd both get off on being academic rivals is, in my view, impossible to justify while keeping either of them remotely canon-coherent. she's going to think he's a cunt. he's going to think she's irrelevant.

indeed, i genuinely think the most likely scenario if the two are at school together is that the teen voldemort wouldn't be able to pick hermione out of a line-up - not least because she has very little to offer him when it comes to his plans for world domination.

when it comes to those he's "nice" to, the teenage tom riddle targets the socially prominent, rich, and influential, whom he can use parasitically to his own ends.

he's happy, undoubtedly, to have minions who are less useful to him from a social-advancement perspective, but who come in handy as pawns in his schemes - as dumbledore puts it, "the weak seeking protection, the ambitious seeking some shared glory, and the thuggish gravitating toward a leader who could show them more refined forms of cruelty" - but this is the only thing he sees them as. hermione has a capacity for cruelty he would undoubtedly see potential in [even if he would probably be wary of her "run and tell teacher" vibe], but as someone who does his bidding only, rather than anyone for whom he's willing to fake [or, indeed, to actually feel] any degree of mutual affection.

and i do think this - in and of itself - is interesting. hermione is someone - as i've said elsewhere - who has a tendency towards blind loyalty, which often causes her to accept people she likes and/or respects treating her cruelly [something we see in canon particularly in how she reacts to snape's behaviour towards her]. she's also someone who is incredibly deferential to authority, fairly naive, convinced she's always right, convinced she's not irrational, superstitious, or emotionally-driven, and capable of pretty egregious cruelty in pursuit of being rational and correct.

or, in other words, she's very easy for a flesh-and-blood voldemort to manipulate.

[she's not at risk from a horcrux because she's possessed of the empirical fact that they can't hurt you if you don't let them get emotionally close to you, which impacts how she behaves around the locket.]

on the rare occasions when i've enjoyed fics with this pairing, then, they've tended to be ones which actually acknowledge this - and which have hermione completely destroyed by a voldemort [usually in adult form] who has never cared one iota about her, all because she was convinced she'd be far too clever to fall for his tricks.

[my rec: enigma by devdevlin.]

and this is the main way my view of tomione/volmione deviates from my view of tomarrymort or ronmort - i don't think there's any circumstance where it can ever work as something mutual, whereas the entire point of tomarrymort is that the relationship is something voldemort perceives as equal, and ronmort sees the dark lord running headfirst into ron's ability to disarm and confuse him by possessing a crumb of emotional intelligence. i don't think voldemort would hate hermione - or even be particularly irritated by her - but nor do i think he'd find anything about her interesting enough to make him want to keep her around for any longer than she was useful.

but - like so many hermione pairings - the default in tomione/volmione tends to be "omg, hermione is so hot, brilliant, and fascinating that [insert man here] becomes completely obsessed with her". whether the story leads to voldemort becoming a better person or hermione going over to the dark side, the way the pairing is written always assumes that hermione is someone voldemort would consider [often very quickly] important to him [even in circumstances where she is a prisoner]. only very rarely do fics ever explore the much more canon-justifiable - and, in my view, much more interesting - idea that voldemort is somebody hermione could and would consider important, while he wouldn't give a single fuck about her.

[neither of them give a shit about dead rabbits though. it's the only thing they have in common.]

#asks answered #asenora's opinions on ships #hermione granger #tom riddle #lord voldemort #not tagging the ship for obvious reasons

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novy2sirius · 3 months

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falling too deep into the spirituality rabbit hole

an apology

i am a very spiritual person and became obsessed with spirituality after leaving behind religion because religion was never something that resonated with me but spirituality did a lot. i do think that there is a point in which spirituality can become too much though and we can become very gullible to certain spritual ideas/things others post abt and after thinking a lot abt it i do believe i am someone who is very guilty of that. spirituality tiktok is filled with a lot of awful things i used to believe but do not anymore.

i just wanted to apologize to anyone i hurt with my statements i unfortunately previously made abt the cancer victims saying that “i believed they go through what they go through because of past life karma brought to this life”. even worse i made two posts abt it. i am aware of how immature it was and i don’t resonate with something that horrible anymore.

i have done a lot of thinking abt what i said since multiple of my friends reached out to me calling me out. i feel very lucky to be surrounded by people that aren’t afraid to be blunt with me and help me grow as a person. they all have helped me realize how delusional sprituality tiktok has made me.

i am not blaming this stupidity on spirituality tok though because at the end of the day i was the one dumb enough to believe something so horrible.

if anyone doesn’t want to follow me anymore i completely understand. what i said was inconsiderate and very obviously not true. i acknowledge that. i once again apologize to anyone i hurt and want to say that I absolutely do not align with those views any longer. i will never go back to that horrible way of thinking.

i feel horrible that cancer victims have to suffer every day. every single one of them deserves happiness and i wish they didn’t have to experience the things they do. i think it’s horrible what they go through and i hope in their next life they don’t have to struggle in such horrible ways.

once again, i sincerely apologize for my stupidity.

#my apology

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bloggingboutburgers · 10 days

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Something that really ought to be said more... it's ok not to understand. To never understand even. (In the case of the reblog, understanding sex / peoples' fixation on both it and romance, but it can apply to anything.)

People can give all myriad of reasons they do or like something, but that doesn't have to change your mind about how you personally engage with it.

I think the only case where understanding matters is insofar having a greater understanding helps limit how much people hate something out of ignorance, but that isn't foolproof (people can understand and still double down, which I've seen happen a lot towards every hated group under the sun).

Aspec or not, your cultural upbringing and how you physically perceive intimacy of all kinds is going to affect both if you enjoy it and how you understand it.

For many, sex and romance isn't an important goal but a thing that just happens. The uniquity of it with "life" is worth questioning, especially in cases where people feel pressured to perform and participate in sex and romance. But for many it isn't something they plan for at all. They may include it in fanfiction or fanart (and yeah it absolutely is prevalent in that space the same way edgy ms paint furry art was prevalent in the early 2010s) but that inclusion is not a message to onlookers that they must themselves aspire to a relationship like the one depicted.

Thank you so much for this, it feels sincerely validating and... Yeah, like you said, it ought to be said more.

I gotta admit it's hard sometimes not to want to understand, when (as an aro/ace person, that is) you're pretty much incentivized to do so at every turn. Even if you're lucky enough to not have been treated as a prudish freak for expressing you're aro or ace, and finger-pointed with a "You should try to understand people's point of view better" (sic: very few people try to do the same for you)... Society is portrayed as just working that way, putting romance and sex as #1 priority is portrayed as "the normal thing to do", and in my own experience and a fair amount of aros and aces around me, it seems, it's not just "included" in fanfiction or fanart, it's... Aggressively prevalent. Like, 95% to be generous, possibly more. And it's not just fanwork either. Fiction and art in general are loaded with it. So... Yeah, it's kinda hard sometimes NOT to take all of this as a message that this is what we should aspire to and the way we are isn't valid.

But then even if you're lucky enough, like I am, to FEEL valid despite all that, it's still... Lonely. I wanna understand because some days, a lot of days, it seems it's the only thing people actually connect over, and even if I'll never feel the appeal, I wanna understand the logic behind it, at least that much, so I'm not made to feel like such an alien for wanting to focus on other things. I wanna know the reasons.

Another more personal thing is that when I was growing up as an aro-ace, before I figured myself out, I thought everyone else was blowing things out of proportion to an abnormal degree without realizing I was the "abnormal" one, and that lead me to see breakups with a very "well, duh, that's what people do, they break up" outlook and not understanding the devastation behind it. I've gotten better at it, but there's still a lot I just find myself smiling and nodding to without really getting it, and that hurt too, to a degree. I feel cold to my friends and to other people.

I know I shouldn't, because I am who I am and I don't love them any less or am any more unfeeling than them, and I know I guess I shouldn't feel too guilty for not understanding allo people because allo people in general, exceptions aside, will make little to no effort to understand me back, but... Yeah, it's hard not to, a lot of the time. So being told it's OK is definitely valuable and a relief, even if it won't make that feeling go away in me, it's still a relief. Thank you.

#vilevexedvixen #aroace #asexual #aromantic #aspec

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prettyboykatsuki · 2 months

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pls read me for filth bestie: intj eldest daughter 🤓

ahhh. fellow intj. this one might be mean sorry. once again i am working on assumptions so disclaimer yadda yadda

intjs are usually known for being cold, calculated and intelligent as a result of introverted intution which is shared with your fellow NJ pairs and for the most part this stereotype is true. most intjs are gifted in early childhood and do well academically with good insight for pattern recognition. youve probably one point felt yourself to be better than your peers

the two way consequence of this being true is that you definitely have semi abysmal social skills. intj women(or just generally speaking fem presenting intjs) tend to make-up for this by capitalizing on their physical appearance in their later years if possible. intj men tend to be mildly insufferable because behaving that way is accepted as masculine and tolerable. this lack of understanding in relation to socialization comes two fold from your last function being extroverted sensing and your third function being introverted feeling.

like most introverted feelers you take things incredibly personal which wreaks havoc in your relationships. as you grow older and experience more things (and more trauma) your sense of basic sympathy allows you to overlook the things that you used to bother you day-to-day but you do have to actively realize that not everything that happens to you is a personal matter. in fact most things are not and your paranoia that they are worsens greatly under stress. a lot of shit has genuinely nothing to do with you

intjs are interesting in that they do actually get along with several types of people and tend to fall in the camp of open minded. you have a tendency to make quick judgements about people and you're rarely wrong on your first impressions but you sometimes allow them to cloud your judgement. you don't prefer leadership roles but you will handle them well when they are forced upon you which they often are as a result of you being technically competent and talented at compartmentalizing. how are u dealing with that one haunting impulsive decision you made btw

most often intjs get in relationships they can hide behind in some way. extroverts are ideal for this but it's mostly anyone who can comfortably shield them away from public scrutiny as they pressure of being around others is rather annoying to you though im sure you do fine. you've developed some specific culturally relevant social skills to keep you afloat but you need to recuperate more oftne than you care to admit.

you probably similarly had a phase of total hedonism in your late teens and young adulthood in a way that wasn't obvious to everyone else as you discovered your extroverted sensing and the concept of sensuality.

you have inadvertently developed a desire for validation of something you can't actually recognize. intjs are typically well accomplished in some aspect, but the validation you're seeking is actually entirely emotional and you will benefit a lot from realizing this. your ideal relationship is not someone who will simply shield you, but will allow you to be yourself and push you in areas you need pushing while fully understanding who you are and not who you are very good at pretending to be.

its fine to admit some parts of you are sloppy, irritable and irrational. the extremity you treat his part of yourself with is overblown in the first place and being around emotionally in tune people makes you self aware of this.

you date people you assume you'll have emotional control over and years later understand doing that is also exhausting you. the cycle will repeat until you can find someone who can view you with sincerity and all your flaws and acknowledge them without stepping on your toes about them all the type.

you can pretend that happy-go-lucky people exhaust you all you want but having at least SOME to balance you out is literally important to your nervous system. if dating a dumb himbo and the false sense of emotional security he gives you is what fixes you let it happen its fine no one else will be able to tell but them.

despite all of this, ultimately no one is harder on you than yourself which is why many people in your life forgive you for things most others would not. your expectations for your accomplishments as a result of your talents and somewhat your ambition suffocate you but your health is more important and it's fine to put those thoughts to rest eventually. not everything needs to happen at once for you

try not to let your perfectionism completely disconnect you from the one artistic hobby you have and work hard at that - it contributes more to your sanity than u will ever give it credit for and it is that deep. u can't pretend its not lol

it will be fine btw

#return to sender

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hopeful-puffin · 2 months

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Some 168/169 thoughts

Long post is long.

These chapter have consumed my mind for literally weeks now. And, now that they aren't fast-pass exclusives (and I'm no longer on vacation), I wanna talk a bit about them. First and foremost, as with all of my posts, I'm rambling. For another, I've had 3+ weeks of processing, so I'm trying to remember my initial feelings.

With that out of the way, off I go.

Just getting this out of the way first. I absolutely adore how Siren automatically lowers himself to be eye-level with Kappa. It's such a little detail but I love it all the same every time I reread 168.

Siren is understandably in a lot of shock here. But he quickly realizes this is Kappa as a child. It's not an act of prostration as much as it is being on the same level as Kappa physically. Rather than make Kappa literally look up to him, he's choosing to look at this from Kappa’s point-of-view. I'm sure I'm just looking too deeply into this, but I found it both very sweet and conscientious of him. Whether Siren acted intentionally or reflexively is something only he knows though.

I'll be honest; I was mostly okay until this exact moment. At this point I've had to accept that my spirit fictional character may very well be a himbo, shark mermaid. Like, I've felt this, I've just never put it into these words exactly. And, let me tell you, it f*cking hurt reading this part. I'm weird, and reading out-loud helps me solidify and remember lines in a story.

I didn't pick up this series to see the ugly sides of myself being reflected back at me. I thought this was just some silly, cute romp with some LGBTQ+ feesh. Now I'm addicted. Thanks, Obama Ms. Martin.

It took me reading this until I could do so without crying to realize what I think Kappa is trying to get at here. Siren’s biggest fear is failing those he treasures; from his people to his boyfriend. What gave Kappa the courage to share this tragic part of his own personal history with Siren is more than just feeling safe with him or wanting Siren to understand why he hates knives so much.

Kappa has been where Siren fears to go. He's failed and only points the finger of blame at himself. But he survived it. He "failed" and he's still "here." Kappa is trying to show Siren that it's safe for Siren to express his failings with Kappa. That Kappa wants to protect Siren just as Siren wants to protect Kappa. That, even if he perceives himself as failing, Siren is still "here."

Going off of that, Kappa is trying to get Siren to a accept his perceived failings and be open about them. Because it's the only way either of them are going to heal with their past mistakes. Kappa is wonderfully patience and sincere here that it just breaks my heart. He repeatedly reaches out for Siren, being a literal light in Siren's darkness. Darkness that has loomed over his head since the God's Mouth (which he even mentions).

I have to say, I've always been a fan of how Ms. Martin frames these sequences. It's like getting a little window into the souls of these characters and how they are processing their situation. Siren’s going from fighting back against the hand Kappa is extending to him, arguing that he of all people doesn't "deserve" this, to gradually (and painfully) talking himself into making himself vulnerable with Kappa in a way he likely never has with someone else. It's especially obvious in the presentation of Siren’s teeth. He goes from baring them in a clenched grimace to hiding them behind a wobbly, frightened frown. It's hard. You can tell Siren wants to do nearly anything but this. But it's Kappa. And Kappa would never hurt him. Something he argued against Susca way back in episode 35.

He's having to prove just how much he still believes this to be true.

Throwing back to episode 150, we get some hindsight in Kappa’s perspective. Why am I bringing this up now? Because it was all I could think about in this section of 169.

Because I can't help but wonder if that thought is going through Kappa’s head again at this exact moment. Kappa "hates" that Siren feels guilty. No longer "doesn't like," which is how Kappa refers to his scales; hates. So being confronted with Siren admitting to the guilt Kappa suggested has to killing Kappa here. So I'm not surprised at all that this is what finally gets Kappa to start crying alongside Siren.

This isn't even getting into all of the people Siren is apologizing to. Siren feels guilty for not being, "able to end it," because he's still alive. He wants to give up. He wants to feel useful, to "deserve" their love. But he doesn't and he doesn't want to keep fighting this fight. He's tired. He hates himself because Siren feels like all these people he cares about wouldn't have suffered had he just died.

These thoughts, spoken out loud, I think rekindle Kappa’s fear of losing Siren. A fear that I wouldn't be surprised has been at the forefront of Kappa’s mind off and on since Siren’s botched attempt at asking Kappa to fulfill the prophecy should they not have a solution once his time is up.

That last image in particular has been living rent-free in my head for 3 weeks now. And I'm so happy to finally have a screenshot of it. I've been fighting making it one of my phone wallpapers since the chapter was released from fast-pass.

Someone else has already mentioned it, but Siren’s shock likely partially stems from him reeling from his experience within the God's Mouth. Of the fake Kappa holding his face and claiming that he loves him. But I'm gonna go a little deeper in the comparison.

Fake Kappa is also asking Siren to stay with him. But where they are creepy and possessive, the real Kappa is soft and pleading.

The fake blames the others for Siren’s pain. The very same people Siren expresses guilt for not helping. The real Kappa says he doesn't care about any of that. That he loves Siren despite Siren seeing himself as weak or a failure.

The fake heavily implies that Siren should just give up. That his pain will end if he does so. The real Kappa begs Siren to keep trying. Because losing Siren is unthinkable.

I think this is why Siren hesitates before accepting what Kappa is telling him. Because last time the fake placed a hand on his fresh injury, implicating the pain it will undoubtedly further inflict upon him should he stay with it.

The real Kappa, by contrast, has his hand on Siren uninjured cheek while pleading with Siren to stay with him. Kappa wants Siren to heal by staying with him. It's such a wonderful mirroring that I keep finding myself pondering over and over again.

To the point that, once Siren gets over his shock that, despite his aforementioned apologies and feelings of being unworthy, here is someone who truly loves him despite all of that. Which Siren recognizes means this is the real Kappa.

The one who makes Siren:

Which is drastically different from:

I could on and on about this. Maybe I'll make a Part 2 since apparently Tumblr has a 30 image limit per post. I don't know. It will depend on if I feel like this adequately got my feelings off of my chest. Esoecially because I didn't get anywhere near to discussing the whole bonding with the others heart bit.

By the Surface, these two will be the death of me. OTL

#castle swimmer #castleswimmer #castle swimmer siren #siren x kappa #castle swimmer kappa #Stupid fish idiots

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v-anrouge · 7 months

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This is a queued post and it includes talks about transphobia and mentions of self harm and eating disorders

Im here to talk and announce a break, first thing's first j relapsed, in literally like everything sh ed and didn't try to kill myself is because of a few people and the fact my pills ended. For a very long time in this blog u have not been feeling like human, it's like most of you don't even actually like and just come talk to me when im being funny and fun or when i post something rook related that you like, ive really been trying to get rid of that feeling but it keeps on coming back and it's unbearable to be in this blog at this point. this situation with Shiba only really confirmed it for me, I saw about like 4 mutuals referring to this as drama, and complaining about seeing it on dash and while obviously you have all the rights to be displeased with a constant show of negativity in your dash, i beg of you to try and think how i, a trans man, must feel seeing you refer to me and other mutuals calling out transphobia and have to read you refer to this as drama and not as a literal crime. I understand if you got annoyed by me talking about it constantly and to that i ask that you please block me, because i have been literally beaten, bullied, harassed and even doxxed by transphobes, I do not take anything that displays even a bit of prejudice against my trans siblings lightly, hence why i was so "histerical and obsessed" and was being so "stupid and acting like an idiot" as someone people would claim. I do not care what view you have of me i really don't, im used to this shit, ive been trans and alive in the most transphobic country for 20 years, it's no news, but it still hurts. And it hurts even more when I see someone say i was an idiot for blocking someone immediately and calling them out when they side with a transphobe, and it hurts even more when I see a person i thought liked me complain about "drama still going on" rest assured that i won't be "bitching" about it any longer

For soru, who cant possibly process why i have blocked you, your take on that situation and your friend have both brought me terrible flashbacks of my own past as a child dealing with transphobia, of being told people like me are sick and are the seeds of the devil and that we are animals or that there's something wrong with us, like your friend said, their apology is both not genuine and extremely poorly made as they still can't accept the fact that yes, they are transphobic, and you soru, can't imagine how it broke my soul to see your post saying you had given them a chance, but seeing the post you made after, in which you literally agree with your mother you should've stayed away from trans people, that's what broke me the most, and j couldn't even speak about it, because it's "too negative" or im "drama chasing" im sick of this, you can hate and insult me all you want soru rest assured you're not the only one you're not the first nor the last one, maybe this will come off as a surprise to the people that are sure im obsessed with drama and chasing people around but i genuinely did have a lot of respect for you, if the hours ive spent crying over this say anything at all, it's sad that this had to end this way, but not for me, I don't care, this isn't the first or the last time this happens to me, but to my mutuals who i am very sure many are angry that i have made this situation happen, perhaps i should've stayed quiet and keep being funny as people like me best, well it is too late, but i hope that you'll forgive me mutuals, for once again ruining something good.

I don't know how long this break will last or if ill ever even return to this account at all, but i sincerely thank the ones that did treat me like a human, as an equal, that actually saw the person behind v-anrouge. you can't possibly believe how much you mean to me

That's about it, do have a great day

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lynrasa · 2 months

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To Dust You Shall Return: Phantom/Secret

Why is there not more of this? She's basically canonically a halfa.

(I know the answer is because Young Justice is vastly underappreciated. Shh.)

Some notes on Greta Hayes | Secret as a halfa.

Based on her described power set, she is absolutely a halfa and would fit right in to Danny Phantom without any real adjustment.

Given the specific variety and format of her powers, she is a halfa almost exactly as OP as Danny.

The only part of her story that doesn't fit the 'halfa' thing is the simplicity of her death. There doesn't seem to be a portal involved in her death, and Danny doesn't appear to be a psychopomp. That's fairly easy to fix: the tape deck that Billy | Harm used to kill her was chanting a summoning spell / portal opening spell. It's clear that she and / or Billy had some magical ability before their respective deaths, so that might have affected things as well.

Alternatively, Greta was mostly just an extremely powerful ghost until Darkseid (Side note: the fact that Greta called Darkseid Doug Side [and he let her] is not played up nearly enough) returned her to life, at which point she becomes a halfa or maybe some other flavor of undead since she doesn't seem to have access to her powers anymore.

If she is a full halfa and possibly just as a ghost- Greta has a Smoke Core. Also, I like the idea that, like Danny, she has Ancient potential from the beginning. She can literally be the Ancient of Secrets, which would neatly explain both her Core (Smoke and Mirrors) and The Abyss. On the other hand, The Abyss can just be the jacked up version of Danny storing shit in his chest.

Her Obsession would be her greatest weakness because Greta is basically obsessed with Normality / Life. I like the idea that Obsession loss- Secret starting to give up on the idea of Normality helped lead to her insane jealousy over Robin. She briefly fixated on him from an Obsession point of view- the secondary obsession (which could also fit into the larger obsession- CompAllo) helped shore her up. Also, I generally see Tim as a late-bloomer in the whole Romance thing. He does stuff more because it's expected of him not because he actually feels things. I am also heaadcanoning him as on the younger end of the Young Justice group. I don't know if I'll put Secret on the higher end, but even so, girl puberty generally starts before boy puberty.

Also, Tim is very much a product of CompHet 90s masculinity, honestly as bad as Kon. So he did not grow up reading romances, he did not watch romcoms, etc. Greta did. So she takes it as a love declaration, but Tim was thinking more of emotional support / backup. He meant it; he was sincere, but he doesn't really understand overpromising (he never will). It's part of his problem with Spoiler, too and Jack Drake. Tim's emotional priority is Batman Gotham. In the words of Eliot Spencer "You can't make that promise to more than one person."

I really like the idea that Greta is a halfa and the one Secret eluding her is transforming on her own. First, she can't find the secret to being human, then she can't find the secret to being a ghost. Given Doug Side's involvement, I expect her transformation is paradoxical, something like the moment she stops wanting to be alive she can be returned to life or the moment she stops wanting powers she can be a ghost again? No, that doesn't seem to fit.

Something about the Anti-Life equation though. And she is a psychopomp, she is a portal? The anti-life equation incites a death wish in people right? Or a wish to cause death? Harm may have been an early devotee of the Anti-Life equation, which means it could have been involved in Secret's death. Why did Secret make a good sacrifice for Buzz / for the Anti-Life equation? Was she already a paradox? Someone filled to the brim with vitality, but with a dark / death-seeking place inside them? Or was it about potential? The most life converted to death? Something like that.

Regardlesss, I really really want to write something with Greta and Danny. Do I want to write them together? I mean, that feels cutesy and too perfect and Mary Sue-ish, but honestly it would be reasonably true to both their characters. Maybe this could be college shenanigans.

Actually, I really like the idea that Greta's 'secret' nature means that her ectoplasm is completely undetectable if she's not in Ghost form. So Danny has no clue that she was ever Secret, was ever a ghost, and they're dating.

At some point Danny comes clean about he was to Greta and she blows up, something on the order of "NO! NO! NO! I GOT AWAY FROM DEATH. IT CAN'T HOLD ME ANYMORE. I WAS FREE!" I think the key word there is 'was'. Her emotional distress forces her back into her ghost form. At which point, she, somewhat understandably, blames Danny and attacks him, "YOU DID THIS TO ME! TURN ME BACK! LET ME GOOOOOO!"

Danny had absolutely no idea that Greta was a halfa before she transformed, and is confused by her apparently out of nowhere halfa transformation, especially the bit where he couldn't sense her until she transformed. He can sense Dan, Ellie, and Vlad. And even Val and Jazz and Sam and Tucker (high level liminals). Also, she's really strong. Like really strong. Like, if she actually knew how to fight other ghosts at all, she'd probably be the most dangerous person he'd faced since [either Pariah Dark or one of the Ancients]. She's only used to fighting the living though and she's busy having a mental breakdown, oh, and there's the bit where Danny is King. So, he's able to soup her and take her to Frostbite, since he's really worried about her. [Also, ship name is now Dry Ice]. Absolutely going for Ghost Emote Communication, so the entire time, Danny is apologizing to her in Ghost.

Shit. I was thinking about playing this for laughs, but now I've accidentally had Danny repeat one of her major traumas. Fuck. Okay, There will be lots of Greta learning about her biology- not her powers, she knows how to use those, she just needs to figure out how to transform. She will not figure it out immediately, but Danny is able to help her transform back by transforming with her. (Very shoujo, I know, whatever, she's a 90's character and by making her a halfa I gave her a magical girl transformation. Also, ectoplasm follows Green lantern rules, so when she first masters transforming on her own, Greta absolutely has a Sailor Moon style transformation sequence, though she gets to skip the pose at the end, and her halfa outfit is always her Young Justice character design.)

Actually, I really like the idea that- while this is a forced to remain in contact scenario- Danny leaves everything for Greta to choose. Also, while he didn't tell the specifics until the start of this story, she did know he wasn't standard human. He was open about that, just not that he was dead instead of meta. When she first transforms out of anger she goes straight to Secret's outfit. The first time she means to transform from human to ghost, she appears "in the outfit she died in". Greta died in the bath, so she's naked. Danny immediately closes his eyes (despite having seen her naked while they were dating- I don't know that they actually had sex- that might have been skinny dipping or an "almost" or just a changing situation [Anita has no body modesty; I suspect this rubbed off on the rest of YJ after they knew Tim's identity].) and talks her through how to change her outfit as a ghost.

At first, her transformations happen due to extreme emotional distress. She's always furious when she finds Danny to help her transform back. She manages to stay out of sight- she's good at stealth, but she hasn't figured out invisibility. Danny earns back a little bit of goodwill by teaching her to go invisible immediately. Especially because Danny does not treat her as stupid for not knowing. He keeps up a running commentary about all the trouble he had when he first encountered his powers and how shit a teacher he is. (This is actually true.) It also helps that he treats invisibility as a basic safety precaution rather than a 'cool power'. So, for future transforms, if she transforms, she immediately goes invisible.

She also appreciates (once she notices) that Danny stopped assuming she was his girlfriend as soon as the fight happened, but did not stop being available for emotional support. She also appreciates that he's never asked about her death. [She didn't get the cultural stuff any more than he did. She doesn't know that asking is severely taboo in ghost culture.] Danny, for his part, desperately wants to give her the culture stuff he didn't get, particularly the stuff that caused him so much trouble, but has noticed Secret's particular aversion to discussing her powers or ghostliness. Jazz or maybe someone else warns him to let Greta set the pace, and he takes the advice.

Things start to turn around when a Young Justice fight- ooh, no, better. Cissie is taken hostage / kidnapped by a particularly crazed fan. This has happened before. I think her identity is public (need to check), so normally this is solved by Cissie shouting for Kon. Or better, she shouts for Cassie whose identity is also public, but usually Kon shows up. They set this up specifically- lots of people think to shout for Superboy; no one shouts for the Wonders; they're not known to have superhearing.

Except this time: the core four are in space. All of Young Justice is still in a group chat, so Cissie knows shouting won't do her any good and Greta knows that Kon and the rest can't help Cissie when she sees the breaking news alert. She has contact info for the Justice League, but her justified experience as a member of Young Justice is that the Justice League will not listen to them and can not be counted on. She makes a mental note to bug [Red] Robin into giving her the information for the Titans and the Outlaws. Then she hunts Danny down in their human forms so he can switch them to ghost and she can go save Cissie.

She isn't the only Young Justice reservist who shows up. Anita can teleport. Also, Danny follows her, but when he sees Secret and Empress flawlessly fall into fighting together, he wisely decides to stay well out of it, except at one point he turns Cissie intangible to prevent the crazed fan hurting her. Cissie and Anita assume Secret did it (No they don't, but they aren't going to press Greta about it. Headcanon: Young Justice rules of order state that the person gets three strikes or until it reaches WTF level before there's an intervention to demand an explanation. There are levels to acting on a Young Justice league WTF by the way. Level 1) Bart is told. Level 2) Tim is told Level 3) Cassie is told Nuclear option: Tell Kon and ask him to keep it from Tim and Cassie.)

Once Cissie is free, Anita and Cissie's main concern is figuring out if Secret is dead again. They're really upset about that idea which makes her happy. She assures them it's only sorta and tells them she can change back. She ducks out of sight. Danny helps her change back without a word- he can manage invisibility in human form, but mostly just stays hidden. Cissie and Anita are desperately happy Greta's not dead, but also concerned. They know Greta wasn't really interested in her powers. All she wanted was to be normal.

Greta assures Cissie that Cissie's safety is worth more than Greta's normality. Anita's a little tactless about it, but that's Anita. Greta and Cissie get it; Anita loves heroing and wants to get back to it full time. Anita heads home. Greta ducks back into hiding so Danny can help her transform back, then carries Cissie to the police station. Cissie lies and says she was saved by Superboy and Empress, but they had to rush off to some other disaster. Greta and Danny fly back to campus and Greta quietly and more than a little grudgingly- she doesn't want to forgive him yet- thanks him for helping her save Cissie. She also thanks him for staying out of the way. Danny admits a little about his own vigilante past and they fly back in silence.

Sometime after Greta has started to figure out transforming on her own, someone on the campus dies. Greta feels the pull towards her duties as psychopomp. When she gets there, Danny is also there, pulled by something he doesn't know to the spot. Greta starts to do the psychopomp thing, but something about her appearance specifically sets the soul off. She sighs and tells Danny to try. Danny does not know what she's talking about.

Uno Reverse Card. Greta hadn't known they were halfas; Danny hadn't known they were psychopomps. He freaks out- less violently- but otherwise a lot like hers. Danny is surprised he's never had to do it before. Much later, they find out he actually has. Greta is a psychopomp for those who will move on, Danny for those who will remain. She is Mercy and Judgement and the End. He is Compassion and Memory and the Beginning. Some souls, like the one on the campus, are undecided, so they both get pulled to them. They don't meet everybody who dies, just those who need a little help.

Also, like with Kathy, sometimes they can lead the person back to Life instead of to Death and the Afterlife. When Greta does this, the result is no more than a little liminal. When Danny does it, it makes undead of some sort or another, or at the very least, high level liminals. This is due to the excess of ectoplasm in Danny and the difference in their roles as Psychopomps- she's Death / The Abyss, he's Afterlife / The Infinite Realms. Or, in their role as dualities, She's Life or else Death he's Life and Death.

I may end up altering their uniforms so she has a ⊻ and he has a ∧ as part of their costumes (Logic symbols: Either Or for her, And for him). Possibly on capes. Maybe capes which only appear when they're being formal. This amuses me immensely, because I'm a dork. Also, I'm adding notes: On his cape, the shape is basically made out of galaxy- matching the representation of the milky way. On hers, it's curls of smoke and / or whitewater. (Because I will absolutely reference Abhorsen whenever I can. Always. Continuously.)

#phandom #danny phantom #secret dc #greta hayes #young just us #danny fenton #College age #not!fic #ficdump

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meowzilla93 · 8 months

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So I’ve seen so much ragging on Baxter calling himself a rebel or a bad boy, and it hurts me! ( I know most of it is in jest, its okay!) But I wanted to explain how he really IS what he claims to be, even though may just seem like a privileged individual

(I really had to reduce this from an essay to fit tumblrs character limit, I am talking like a 2k word essay, so its condensed but covers my points lol also please keep in mind I have taken canon information and given my interpretation of the information to this)

Lets look at the definition of a Bad Bay archetype – a cultural archetype often defined as a male who behaves badly, especially within societal norms. Qualities associated with this archetype is confidence, independence and/or assertiveness (though there are the negative connotations such as manipulation, dishonesty or a lack of consideration for others, but we are not focusing on those as these do not reflect Baxter)

And what is a rebel? At its core, it is a person who resist any authority, control, or tradition. Rebels like to change up the status quo, refusing to conform to societal pressures and controlling figures.

So lets look at Baxter Alexander Ward’s life:

Brought up in wealth

Was sheltered and raised with certain values

Parents were controlling and dictated a lot of his life

Was never treated like a child, but as an adult his whole life

More than likely taught to think himself above everyone (which he confirms)

Raised with very bigoted, misogynistic, homophobic and just cruel morals and notions

If we look at those specific points, where does the Bad Boy archetype fit first?

By the time he reaches 19 years of age, he wants to be able to make connections outside of the circle of money he was raised in

Though he keeps up appearances for his parents, he tends to thumb his parents way of life, not wanting to become the same type of people they are

Rather than endorse their way of thinking, he becomes more open and accepting

(this boy might have mighty expectations for himself, but for others, he will never expect more than they can provide)

He is the very thing his parents do no approve off; Pansexual, accepting of others, opposite to what they want

By the time he is 19 years old, he is already snubbing his parents and their values, wanting to move outside of their circle of life and live his own life. There is the understanding that he was already sleeping around in high school, and considering his partners would be of all genders, the rumors circulating him would affect the image of the family, which his parents would not approve off. His visual looks, moving heavily into the black/ white monochrome and more alternative fit outside the expectations of what his family would expect of him. He dresses as he pleases, not as someone else would want him to.

These may seem like little actions, little acts of rebelling against his family, but these are MASSIVE in the context of his life. To flip the entire narrative that he learnt from his parents, and continues to do so in every way that he is able to. Sure, he gets a fake ID to just get a car to sight see in and get booze for himself to drink when out for dinner or even at home. But these acts are against what his parents expect or event want of him, what their social circle would expect of him, and as such, he fits the Bad Boy narrative within THAT social circle. And that is what matters in this context.

So, of course, this feeds into the rebel label. Going against everything he was taught, becoming the opposite person his parents expected of him. Resisting the control that his parents try and enforce on him and finding ways to escape the grip of expectation. I repeat myself a lot here but its that constant push back on what his parents expected of him, the morals, the views, the way he should handle himself and what they wanted of him. Baxter's rebellion is deep,y rooted in a sincere desire for authenticity, change and self-discovery, making him a truly compelling character.

Baxter at 19 years old was the Bad Boy Rebel of his families social circle. From the outside he just seems like a typical rich kid that was a bit strange, but from the inside, that’s where the rebelling sat.

Baxter at 24 is the man that continued in that path of rebellion. He further cut himself away from what his parents wanted, stood on his own two feet and tried to become the type of person he could be proud of. He separated himself from their morals, their visions, their actions. His mother who held charities to make connections and get a tax kick back? He does it to actually help people and does it almost pro-bono, no expectation to gain anything further from it. His father who holds a franchise and makes money from others manual labor? He takes the labor from others and takes it on himself to ensure that the day that they have (be it wedding or birthday or another event entirely) goes swimmingly and they have less stress than where they started.

Baxter continues to be a Rebel and Bad Boy as he grows and matures, as he continues to shun the way he grew up and becomes a better person for it.

There are probably other key points I have missed, but these are the ones that stood out to me, cementing the idea that Baxter Alexander Ward is a through and through

Rebellious Bad Boy

Thank you for coming to my (slightly unhinged) TED (tumblr) Talk.

#baxter ward #our life beginnings and always #olba #our life #olba baxter #meow drabbles!

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welcometothejianghu · 5 months

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Welcome to another round of W2 Tells You What You Should See, where W2 (me) tries to sell you (you) on something you should be watching. Today's choice: 有翡/Legend of Fei.

Legend of Fei is a 2020 adaptation of priest's webnovel Bandits that tells the story of a competent yet sheltered young swordswoman, the terrible gremlin boy who decides they're married now, and their various friends as they venture into the jianghu to acquire the legendary MacGuffin that will do ... uh, something, probably.

This show is a delight. It is pure goofy, tender-hearted sincerity. It has so many precious baby angels with adorably pinchable cheeks performing so many fetch quests in so many styrofoam dungeons. It is funny on purpose and funny on accident. It is 51 episodes of rollicking, slapdash, green-screened adventure.

I am trying real hard here not to bite on @agendratum's wonderful rec post for the series, which includes the words "discount word of honor with teens," a phrase that lives rent-free in my head. Go look at their work for a more detailed character guide. What I have here are a mere five reasons above and beyond said post that you should watch this darling little show.

1. All the production values of a sixth-grade class play

This show flopped pretty hard, and I can understand why. It was a highly anticipated drama with two big-name headliners. Fans expected a lot from it! And what they got is something that looks and feels like a mid-budget syndicated UPN show from 1993, complete with how all the high-schoolers are played by actors in their thirties.

This show is comically janky and earnest. Stunt people fall down before they're hit. Breakaway furniture abounds. Actors bounce gently off "stone" walls. Damn near everything was filmed on sound stages with greenscreens. (Filming ran from September 2019-January 2020, stopped for pandemic reasons, and finished March-April 2020. While this certainly is not the only cause of the show's jankiness, it definitely contributed.)

This it not a show with no money; this is a show with an appropriate amount of money spent poorly.

The flow and pacing of the story are as smooth as a car crash. So many times, a scene with Characters A and B will be happening, the show will cut (sharply) away to a different storyline, and by the time it jumps back, Character A is in a completely different location and Character B has departed. When did that happen? Why did that happen? Where are we now? No time to ask questions! Establishing shots are for weenies! This director knows filmmakers who maintain narrative continuity, and they're all cowards.

Speaking of the narrative: I've seen Saturday morning cartoons from the '80s with more depth. I would be hard-pressed to explain what exactly is happening that's driving the plot. There's big business with a deposed emperor and a forever war happening on some distant front and disgruntled veterans of the army that's fighting it ... but, like, it doesn't matter? All those machinations are barely relevant to the plot at hand, which can be summed up thus: Bad Guys want Thing, Good Guys go on adventures to stop them from getting Thing.

And I am listing all this messiness as a selling point -- as the show's primary selling point, in fact -- because I think it's all charming as heck. This show is plain, unpretentious fun. It's a downright romp! It's got a very teenager's-eye-view of the inscrutable situation driving the whole plot, which does a good job of drawing attention to how maaaaybe this whole situation is bullshit and the grownups should stop killing themselves and other people because of it.

Here's a good metric: If the Ye Olde Haixing parts of Guardian warmed your heart, you are in exactly the right frame of mind for this.

There's no way to tell how much of this campy, underfunded aesthetic was intentional, and how much was the result of both poor budgeting and way too many cooks in the production and screenwriting kitchens. I'm not going to say this was a labor of love, because it was at best a labor of like. Everybody onscreen is giving it their all, but no one's giving the same all as anyone else. Go into it expecting that and nothing more, and you'll have a great time.

2. Punching the Bechdel Test into next week

Are you someone who loves c-dramas, except for the part where you're like, gee, I sure wish there were some girls in this? Oh, my friend, there are so many girls in this.

I actually kept being stunned while watching it by just how many girls are in it. Old girls! Young girls! Evil girls! Nice girls! Rich girls! Poor girls! Strong girls! Weak girls! Just a whole lot of girls!

Truly, it's not just how many female characters there are, but the sheer variety of them. The main octet includes an awkward tomboy who can kick your ass, a spunky brat who's not above crocodile tears to get what she wants, and a soft femme who's a brave little toaster despite having zero martial arts skills. The show absolutely loves them all and thinks they've all got important things to contribute, no matter how hard they can or can't punch.

And that's before we get into how many female side characters there are, both heroes and villains. I've seen that some people hate on these side characters. Those people are wrong.

Maybe the best part is how much they interact. There are many scenes with multiple female characters in them, sometimes with male characters too, and sometimes just the girls. Because this is a jianghu story with martial artists, several of the female characters have unique skills that they pass on to other, younger female characters. Women are often the honored masters of things who have competent all-ladies support staff. And there's no sense that they wash out after a certain age -- even the grannies can still school you as needs be.

...Of course, the sad thing is, I'm touting all this ladyfolk representation when maybe 20% of the total listed cast is female (doing quick math from the MyDramaList cast page). Pound for pound, the Untamed's listed cast has a (slightly) greater female:male ratio, and nobody would call that a girl-forward show. It just makes a difference when what female characters you have, you push toward the front of the narrative and give them reasons to have relationships with one another, instead of making them occasional props in the background while real (read: male) people get to be people.

The entire reason the Bechdel-Wallace Test exists is not to praise or condemn any individual piece of media, but to comment on larger trends in the depiction of women in fiction. It's not a problem when one thing doesn't pass the test; it's a problem when nothing passes the test, or when the things that do pass skate by on single moments and technicalities. The more things that fail its three criteria, the more that indicates the prevalence of an attitude that regards women only as accessories to men's stories.

Legend of Fei is aware that not only do women have inner lives, but they relate to one another in very specific, culturally informed ways. The female characters in this are not just male characters with incidental she/her pronouns. Zhou Fei not only gets to be the protagonist who goes on the whole hero's journey of growth and change, but along the way she also gets to have some complicated interactions with her own gender and how much expected modes of femininity do and don't suit her. But it's also not because she's Not Like The Other Girls! It doesn't make her better or worse to be that way. It just makes her more like her mom -- and if there's one thing I know that makes a teenage girl break out into a cold sweat, it's the idea that she's anything like her mom.

This little drama is hardly some revolutionary piece of thought-provoking feminist insight, or anything like that. It's just that if you're feeling the lack of ladies in your c-dramas and wish to see girls on film (as it were), Legend of Fei may be what you're looking for!

3. Chaotic bisexual (asexual?) extravaganza!

priest's work is queer as fuck, and while this story itself does not rise to the level of being textually gay, there's still a great big rainbow flag flying over the whole business. You can rest assured that when two dudes or two ladies are giving one another meaningful looks, it is not an accident. We all know who's writing this.

Do you like relationship charts? Because I've got a doozy for you:

How many of these are me making jokes? Way fewer than you think.

There are of course some actual canon couples in there, and the amount of real estate they take up in the narrative means your affection for them will make or break your affection for the show. Fortunately, all the teen pairings are super-cute!

Zhou Fei embodies the bisexual stereotype of liking all the ladies and maybe one dude. Xie Yun falls so hard and fast for this beautiful butch-by-local-standards that his head spins. Together, they are the romantic backbone of the story, and they are just a treat.

I've seen people say these two have no chemistry, and I think that's bullshit, but okay, let's assume that's your read on it. You can still understand why they like one another, beyond your standard, he's a boy, she's a girl, what more do you want? Zhou Fei likes Xie Yun because he's funny, emotionally available, and socially unacceptable. Xie Yun likes Zhou Fei because she's fierce on the outside and warm on the inside. Sure, they're in love, but what's more important is that they're good partners and great friends.

(I think it helps that even though the characters are supposed to be around the same age, Zhao Yiling is literally a decade older than Yibito is, and he clearly thinks even off-camera that she's dreamy.)

Also, it's great when he helps her sheathe her sword. This is a couple that's going to take about three whole minutes to figure out pegging.

Li Sheng and Wu Chuchu are the normie couple. He is big strong boy-man! She is small helpless lady-girl! ...Except no, this is yet another case of a wife guy who thinks his girlfriend's strengths are awesome; it's just that in this case, her strengths are her brains.

The fact that her attack and defense scores are nearly zero does not keep Chuchu from being the most competent person in any given room. She starts out as the girl who's important because she's got an important dad and an important key item, but she winds up being basically Jianghu GameFAQs. She never stops being soft and pink and feminine and tender, and she never learns to fight worth a damn, and none of that keeps her from being a vital (if unfortunately kidnappable) part of the team!

Meanwhile, Li Sheng is never really a male chauvinist, because he's grown up under his aunt, who kicks so much ass. But he is a bit of a cocky teen-boy turdface who needs to get knocked down a few pegs. It's great, then, that the show pairs him with the kind of helpless femme that he's supposed to want, then has him decide the fact that she's miles smarter than he is is the best.

And then there's these dipshits.

Normally in c-dramas, I'm used to triangles that are a strong canonical line between the main guy and his girlfriend, a strong but unacknowledged line between the main guy and his best friend, and maybe a faint dotty wisp between the girlfriend and best friend. Not so here! Ying Hecong, Li Yang, and Yang Jin (L-R above) are a damn near equilateral triangle. I mean, okay, technically they're set up as a more conventional love triangle, where both boys like the same girl, and she does sort-of choose one of them in the end. But in that arrangement, you'd expect the boys to become rivals -- and they never are. In fact, they become special allies who trust and take care of one another more than they do anyone else.

They're a great weird trio. Ying Hecong is a poorly socialized weirdo whose special interests are poisons and befriending snakes. Yang Jin is the chief of Doctor Village, a position that he got not by being a doctor, but by being a dumb jock who didn't realize fast enough why nobody else wanted the job. And Li Yang is the spoiled little sister of Li Shen and cousin of Zhou Fei, prone to getting what she wants by pitching a damn fit about it, who has decided that both of these boys are hers now and she can do whatever she wants with them.

(Li Yan is actually the most Actually A Teen of all the characters, and is the one who makes me wish so much that more of the cast had been played by actual age-appropriate actors. Some character traits are adorably tolerable when someone's twelve and verge on really fucking annoying by the time that same person is twenty-five.)

If you are into OT3s where two partners have to join in solidarity with one another so they can survive their third, you've found your pot of gold. Each one of them is enough of a catastrophe that they need two whole love interests to manage them. Between the three of them, they almost make one well-functioning human being.

Now: A thing to note about all these relationships, and one thing that may be surprising to you about something adapted from a priest novel, is that this show is negative horny. All of the romance is extremely chaste. At no point does any grownup worry that leaving these teens alone with one another will lead to some hanky-panky. Nobody ever volunteers to chaperone, or seems to need one. The adults aren't particularly horny about one another either! This is the kind of universe where people blush while tenderly embracing, then go to pick their baby up from the local cabbage patch.

Even my jokes about Zhou Fei's fuckable grandpa are just jokes, because nobody actually wants to fuck him. They all want to duel him, or to fuss over his health, or to follow him around and bask in his nobility. He has two kids, but we never meet their mom(s?). He deflects the obvious interest of multiple beautiful women with ease. He is the perfect man, both fuckable and unfuckable at once.

This may be what's having people read the main pair as having no chemistry. They have a lot of chemistry! It's just not a particularly sexual chemistry. It's extremely tender and playful, and there's plenty of physical intimacy. But it's not horny.

And that's not on the two actors. I've seen both of them look at someone else like they wanted to eat that boy alive. That was a choice this show made, to play all the romance about as spicy as when the puppets on Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood hold hands. The only hints of horniness are in the fighting/injured bits, because sex is a big no-no, but nice polite violence is always okay! (Hey, uh, culture? We need to have a talk about this.)

4. The Grownups

As you may have gathered, most of this show is about the younguns. But a great deal of the supporting weight is carried by characters who are supposed to be of their parents' generation (even if most of their actors are only a decade or so older than the "teens").

I cannot fully in this post detail my great affection for every adult character; I wouldn't have room for anything else. So here's my top-three shortlist of the most memorable old folks.

If you like your ladies badass and crazy, Duan Jiuniang is here for you. Her grip on reality is ... well, it's complicated, but it doesn't stop her from being able to roast you from the inside out with her special skill. She's a terrible teacher and an even worse step-grandma who's made a lot of life choices that weren't what she wanted, but were what she needed to do to survive. I have no idea where she got those hideous leggings, but I kind of want a pair. She doesn't stick around past her one arc, so enjoy her while you've got her.

Speaking of crazy, the Phoenix, Mu Xiaoqiao, is a beautiful, tragic, genderqueer, completely insane middle-aged drama queen with a pipa to play and an ax to grind. I would watch an entire hundred-episode drama just about his campy antics. Hands-down my favorite character in the show. I'm not even going to say anything more. This bitch must be experienced. Love you, baby.

This fucking DILF. Holy shit. Shen Tianshu has a chocolatey voice and the world's most inconvenient prosthetic hand. At first his facial hair seems excessive, but then you see him without it in flashbacks and you're like, no! put it back! put it back! Frankly, I'm glad for the tufty brows, because this man does so much eyebrow acting, and you wouldn't want to miss a sinister moment of it.

And he's not the only one! Every single villain is running with full Bad Guy From A Power Rangers Episode vibes. No piece of scenery remains unchewed. They're what make this whole thing feel like you're watching a stage play. Every arched brow, every expansive hand gesture, every maniacal laugh, all of it plays to the nonexistent back row. (In fact, one of them -- Eyepatch Guy -- was so over the top that we had to look up his whole deal. Shockers, he's got an opera background.) If you have affection for the points I discussed in selling point #1, you will have love extra for the adult antagonists.

If you've ever watched a show made for a young audience starring young actors, you know exactly the grownup vibe I'm talking about. No, real adults don't act like this. But these are not real adults -- they are adults seen through the lens of a YA narrative, where everyone has big emotions and ultimately pretty simple motivations. Violence is acceptable but sex is not, and sexualized violence is especially not. You can threaten the kids but you (mostly) can't kill them. Parents should be removed from the main storyline, by death if necessary (offscreen preferred). By the end of the story, all adults must defer to the wisdom and battle strategies of the kids or be ready to be taken down by them. The lessons of age and experience are ultimately only useful once handed to the next generation.

Which is fine! ...provided it's the vibe you're expecting. I'd put this as another item in the list of probable reasons that this show did not go over as well as it should have.

5. We use every part of the Wang Yibo

Okay, so if you're like me, your introduction to this beautiful man was the Untamed, where 95% of his job is to keep every one of his facial muscles from doing anything -- and, if you're like me, you then watched some Untamed behind-the-scenes stuff and went, holy shit, this boy can make expressions?

This boy can make so many expressions.

I'm not going to argue that Wang Yibo was necessarily miscast as Lan Wangji, because that's not a fight I'm interested in having with internet strangers. I do, however, think it's undeniable that the Untamed misused him by all but ignoring his two primary skills: his giant goofy smile, and his being a dancer.

Legend of Fei makes use of both of these to great effect. Xie Yun is a gremlin who can't fight but can dodge. The show loves to leave the camera on him and let him spin and duck his way out of battles with his own mischievous grace. Wang Yibo does a remarkable amount of his own flipping and fighting, with and without wires. In a world of stunt doubles and smash cuts, it's a delight to watch.

My favorite thing about Xie Yun is that he likes that girl so much. He looks at her like she's the best thing in the world. He is her biggest hype man. He's all wife guy. Every time she's stronger and butcher and meaner than he is, he's pulling out his pompoms and cheering her on. He is in no way emasculated by the fact that she kicks so much more ass than he does. He is actually her wife, and he knows it. Kick their asses, baby, he'll be your flower.

Wang Yibo sells that devotion with each look in her direction. He brings every piece of his inherent chaotic good energy to the role. He's a comedic scamp right up to the point where he rips your heart out. If you are at all a Yibito fan, you owe it to yourself to get this show in front of your eyeballs so you can see what trouble that precious baby boy has gotten himself into this time.

Bonus: Do you like Word of Honor? Because this is how you get Word of Honor.

So I'm betting a lot of you did what I did, which was that you watched Word of Honor, and you loved it, so you went to read the book, and you were like, the fuck? Because Faraway Wanderers is also great, but uh, after a certain point, they're two very different stories.

While I cannot prove this, I would place a large amount of money on the screenwriter for Word of Honor's having been very aware of this production while doing the adaptation. See, in case you haven't read it, Faraway Wanderers itself barely spends a page of time with anything outside of what the main dads-and-kids quintet is doing, which makes for a fun danmei webnovel, but doesn't translate so well to live-action. I am almost certain that in the same way that they used frog DNA in Jurassic Park to fill in the gaps in the dinosaurs' code, this screenwriter (who is a priest fan) used Bandits/Legend of Fei to build out Faraway Wanderers' moments into a whole drama.

The timeline goes like this:

June 2010: priest publishes Qi Ye

October 2010: priest publishes Faraway Wanderers

November 2015: priest publishes Bandits

September 2019: Legend of Fei starts filming

June 2020: Word of Honor starts filming

December 2020: Legend of Fei airs

February 2021: Word of Honor airs

So yeah, it's not like the Word of Honor screenwriter could have watched Legend of Fei prior to penning the Word of Honor script. But there's too many similarities to be coincidence. To be clear, I'm not accusing the Word of Honor screenwriter of ripping off Legend of Fei. Watching it is more like seeing bits of Word of Honor's first draft. The Color of Ocean and Heaven and its five tokens become the World's Armory and the Glazed Armor. Wu Chuchu becomes Gao Xiaolian. Mu Xiaoqiao becomes the drama version of Xie Wang. All the nonsense with Yu Wenzhi and the Demons becomes all the nonsense with Zhao Jing and the Scorpions. Someone with more time than I have could probably make a thorough accounting of the number of times scenes with Wen Kexing and Zhou Zishu visually parallel moments Xie Yun and Zhou Fei have, and how often those scenes were in bits not related to the original Faraway Wanderers plot.

And I think this is great. It's why, even though a lot of Word of Honor was not in priest's original text, Word of Honor is still very priest-flavored. Frog DNA, you know?

All of which is to say: If you love Word of Honor, you owe it to yourself to watch Legend of Fei. It's much sillier and straighter, and it's way less sexually charged, but it's got a very similar vibe, and it's fascinating to see what the two have in common. Think of them as two distant cousins, where you're like, sure, I can definitely see how you're related, but ... huh.

Ready to embark on your journey?

So many options! It's on iQiyi (VIP), Viki, and YouTube.

We watched it on iQiyi, and the subtitles were ... well, they made some interesting choices. You could always tell what they meant, but the actual phrasing was often wonky. Occasionally, where you'd expect a "Dammit!" or "Crap!" these subtitles would have someone exclaim, "Screwed!" And we never stopped laughing about the poor villain whose name those subs rendered as "Pathetic Clam." I cannot tell you if the other subtitles are any more polished, but I can promise that the awkward translations just added to the charm.

Do I have a soft spot for well-meaning television that does not have the means to achieve its goals but tries anyway? You better believe it.

Just a pile of precious cutie pies.

#legend of fei #有翡 #rec post #i made this

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the-far-bright-center · 2 years

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There's a very annoying trend I am seeing on tumblr lately where people are calling Padme 'crazy', 'insane' or even 'a freak'....all because she chooses to be with Anakin. I'm sorry, what??? Padme is not crazy, nor is she a 'freak' for falling for him. To claim so is to totally misunderstand Padme's character and her love for Anakin. She is not somehow 'turned on' by his flaws and she doesn't view him as some kind of 'bad boy'. Nor does she just pretend he's not flawed simply because she finds him attractive. She sees his flaws quite clearly...but she ALSO sees his good qualities, and GENUINELY LOVES HIM.

Is someone ‘insane’ or a ‘freak’ for loving a flawed but good-hearted person? Is someone 'crazy' for being compassionate and forgiving towards them? Not only is such a mentality deeply unfair and dismissive, but it also stems from fandom completely misunderstanding Padme’s character, motivations, and the development of her feelings for Anakin in the first place. I get the sense that people want to oversimplify Padme in their minds into some kind of ‘yass queen slay’ girlboss (simply because she’s a fashion icon who cares about democracy), and thus the fact she ‘strays’ even slightly from this imagined ‘girlboss-hood’ can only mean one thing…that she must have totally lost the plot, become unhinged, or gone insane. (Feels so insulting to even type that out, omg.) In reality, Padme is simply a young woman (she is 24 in AotC) who finds herself in a position of great responsibility, and who has been living with the weight of her entire world on her shoulders since she was a CHILD. She had originally planned to retire from public service after her time as queen was over, and only continued to serve in a political capacity because her successor, Queen Jamillia, asked her to. While she certainly cares about the Republic, deep down she wishes she could start a family of her own. All of this is already on her mind before she even reunites with Anakin at the beginning of AotC. Despite the fact that Anakin and Padme come from very different backgrounds, they are both in very similar positions at the beginning of that film. Both have commitments/careers in which they are expected to serve the Republic, and yet both are feeling that something is missing in their lives. Deep down, they are both longing for love and family. And while they care about each other’s respective careers and are supportive of one another, they also wish to be together. And on top of it all, there’s the fact that...Anakin genuinely loves Padme. She senses the depth and sincerity of his feelings, and this is one of the reasons she ultimately decides to be with him. She knows that he truly sees her, and loves her for herself, not just for her position.

If that is seen as ‘unhinged’ on Padme's part, then that is a very depressing indictment of how hypocritical fan attitudes can be. Somehow fandom can understand and accept various other characters in Anakin’s story as being able to love him, but not Padme? It’s also baffling because fictional stories are FULL of examples of compassion towards monsters, villains, and antagonists, and yet somehow Padme loving Anakin (who is neither of these at this stage in the story) is beyond people's comprehension. Anakin Skywalker is a tragic hero. And as such he has both positive qualities, as well as flaws that lead to his downfall. But the point is that he is not without positive qualities. People need to realise that their view of everything that happens in the Prequels-era is coloured by dramatic irony. We, the audience, know what is going to happen. We know that Anakin will become Vader. But the characters don’t know any of this. They are just reacting to their immediate situations, circumstances, and interactions with one another armed only with the knowledge of the present moment. So even Anakin’s flaws and mistakes are not something that overrides the rest of his positive qualities from the perspective of someone like Padme, who genuinely loves—and is loved by—him.

#padme amidala #anakin skywalker #anidala #fandom completely misunderstanding Padme and Anakin...what else is new #fandom's all about shipping Anakin with certain *ahem* other people #but Padme's the only one they think is 'insane' for loving him??#even though Anakin and Padme are canonically each other's one and only true love???#side-eyeing tumblr sw fandom so hard right now #padme is not insane tag

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forever-rogue · 1 year

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There is no problem in sending the same requests to other writers, we readers are not obliged to have new ideas all the time. Every writer writes differently, so no some stories would ever be the same because of the different perspectives various writers have. I sometimes send the same requests to different writers who write different characters, who are not from the same literary universe, animes, games, movies or real peoples because I know they will write differently and from different points of view.

If you want new ideas that nobody else has thought of then write them yourself.

You know what's more frustrating than hearing all that from a writer? it's when we (readers) spend hours thinking about an idea for a request and then we send it to you (writers) and you guys just ignore it but I fully understand that the inspiration to write doesn't always show up in every request you receive, but asking us to stop sending the same requests to writers is, to say the least, very disrespectful to your readers.

We are not obliged to always have "new ideas" and there is no new plot because every existing plot has already been written. I hope you also don't mistake this message as rude just because it's on the Internet, I was as sincere as possible but not rude.

PS: this is an open discussion because it involves writers x readers, so just as you expressed your opinion, we (readers) should also express ours, so don't ignore that either.

all i asked was that anyone that sends a request to me doesn't send the same one that they've sent to others. that is all i am asking people to respect.

#mail call

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ryuichirou · 6 months

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Jade gaslighting anon here, sorry if I sounded offended. Gaslighting is a very specific type of abuse that I went through for a very long time and while Jade is very toxic and problematic, he is not a gaslighter so it bothers me when people slap that on as a catch-all for all manipulative characters. Again, sorry if I sounded angry or offended.

Anon, I heard you. And I am sincerely sorry that you went through some very bad stuff in your life.

However. I want to say something and I am not going to mince my words this time because I need to make one thing clear.

Here is TLDR if you don’t want to read the whole post: No offence, but I can’t keep in mind everyone’s trauma, I don’t think Rook is a gaslighter, we will continue to post content about Jade being one.

I disagree with you on Jade not being a gaslighter and Rook being one. I don't think that this is the case, in fact, I think the opposite is true. But we are not going to have a character discussion right now because this clearly isn't the point of the situation that’s happening here. Based on what you’re saying, your opinion is influenced by your past experiences. Which isn’t a bad thing, we all have our own biases, but it makes a proper discussion quite difficult, especially when there is trauma involved.

Here is the thing. I know what gaslighting is. I myself was also a victim of gaslighting, believe it or not. I was in a very bad place for a lot of years, and some of the events from that time affect me to this day. There are a lot of things that trigger me, ruin my mood, make me panic, in fact, all of us have those things to some degree. And all of us have content that is deeply upsetting, even if it’s not related to one’s past trauma. But that doesn’t justify asking people on the internet to stop talking about characters a certain way or reading them a certain way. How is it different than people asking us not to post Shroudcest or not to talk about them in as a romantic ship? There might be people who don’t just use it as an excuse, but are actually getting triggered by me drawing these two, so what should I do about it? Obey every single one of those people? Then it’s just easier not to post anything about any character.

Unfortunate as it is, I cannot take care of all of you: it's impossible. You have to take care of yourself. Mute the word, avoid our posts about Jade, whatever feels more suitable. Because we are not going to rewrite the way we view certain characters because of someone else’s bad associations or even just different reading of the said character, it just isn't fair to ask that of someone. You didn’t say “you know, I personally don’t think that Jade is this way, because of this, this and this”. This isn’t how you approached this; you were upset about the fact that I made Jade into a gaslighter instead of making Rook one, and this is clearly your bias. Which is, once again, not a bad thing in itself, it’s just that I still have no idea what exactly you wanted me to do. Even if Rook reminds you of someone from your past, even if Jade is your comfort character, I can’t take those things into account about every single one of our followers, so why should I do it for you? This wouldn’t be fair to the rest of the people here, right?

We are all entitled to our own opinions and feelings, and I wouldn’t dare to argue with you about it anywhere else: this topic is clearly hurting you; so arguing about it would just be mean and uncalled for. But this is our blog, our space and our territory; and we are going to talk about the characters in the way that we want. Especially when this is a hc post, for fuck’s sake.

You didn’t sound offended or mad, you sounded upset. And I might also sound upset, but I actually am a little mad because if you are the person I think you are, I am a bit disappointed by you saying this to me via Anon.

Please understand. I am being this strict because I feel like I need to remind you about certain boundaries that I don’t want to get violated.

Having bad associations and getting triggered by a character is a horrible thing, and as someone who had to rewatch a bunch of stuff to get new fond memories of quite a lot of characters, I understand that, believe it or not. I actually had to rewatch a lot of shit to get to love some characters again. And it was my fight to fight that Katsu was kind enough to help me with because Katsu is my partner who wanted me to get better: I am a part of Katsu’s life, that’s why Katsu listened patiently when I was mad at a character that had nothing to do with the thing I was actually mad about.

My point is that we have our own circumstances, and you have no idea how bad of a timing this whole shit is. You don’t know what kind of life we live and what we go through right now, and, to put it mildly, it’s not the best, so we’re really not in the mood.

So please. Take care of yourself and just ignore shit that you don’t like because while it might be traumatic for you, to us it might be one of the few things that bring us happiness.

#replies

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ranna-alga · 9 months

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A very long (and Joel-Miller-apologist biased) TLOU hot take incoming:

I don't want to get too deep into my honest opinions about TLOU2 because even though I am quite critical towards it, I'm sincerely uninterested in engaging in any discourse about the game that has been going on for three whole years. Instead, I'll just talk about one thing that I consider to be a personal nit-pick that I don't see many talk about. This may be a hot take, so if you want to comment on anything, I kindly suggest you hear my side first ♡

[screenshot from MKIceAndFie's gameplay on YT]

One thing I wish was different with TLOU2 involves the scene where Ellie gets the truth of what happened in Salt Lake City, and I'm unsure if the writing is to blame, but I lowkey wish Joel... Defended himself a bit more?? 😭

Don't get me wrong, I absolutely understand Joel wanting to let Ellie be angry at him - she had every right. I found it quite bizarre that such an important scene (or at least the conversation) felt very... short? I feel like maybe it would have been more interesting to not only see Joel acknowledge how hurt Ellie is (again, her reaction is understandable and I'm not trying to say she's in the wrong at all) but also try to at least give his point of view of things, especially on why he did what he did to the Fireflies.

This, plus Ellie, albeit still heartbroken and furious, emotionally exclaiming how she feels, and why getting a cure was so important to her deep down. Or at least as well as she could put it in her current emotional state.

Maybe I am biased in this because I am a Joel Miller apologist until I die before I am my own person. Like, you may as well call me Saul Goodman because I'm practically this man's lawyer with how much I defend him.

In my opinion, he would be justified in saying that even if the operation was a miraculous success, the Fireflies would probably exploit her name by setting a price on the vaccine, or if a war between the Fireflies and FEDRA/other Factions erupts in order to seize it, killing more people than saving them. He would be justified in saying that they never asked for her consent and would wonder if they would still put her under the knife if she refused the offer. He would obviously know she was capable of making her own decisions but would also understand that she has Survivor's Guilt (something Joel may have felt before, especially after Sarah died and he didn't) and how that could affect her mentality/decision-making, especially at just fourteen years old. He would feel justifed if the operation failed and Ellie would have died for nothing, a risk he refused to take.

He would probably tell all these things to Ellie, trying to make her understand at least a little bit. But these reasons likely came to him after getting Ellie to safety. In his mind and heart, he might as well have had only one reason for doing what he did.

That reason being? It's simple. He loves her.

To him, that is more than enough, and Ellie may possibly realise this. Perhaps, after him listing out all those reasonings, Ellie might say,

"But all those things... They weren’t really the reasons why you did it, were they?"

"... No. They were not."

I definitely don't imagine Ellie would forgive him immediately, obviously. I still think Ellie would leave and not talk to Joel for some time, but with this interpretation, I'd imagine she would have a lot to think about in the meantime. Ultimately, I think it would have been a very interesting scene between these two verbally-repressed people who very much care for each other but are at a breaking point.

TLDR; I think there was potential to have this scene be a bit more "fleshed out" in terms of Joel expressing his intentions whilst also acknowledging and recognising Ellie's feeling of betrayal and heartbreak. Almost like a parallel to that "I'm not her, you know" scene in TLOU1.

#ranna word dumping #this may be a bit messy im sorry #these two make me sick i love them #the last of us #tlou #the last of us part 1 #the last of us part 2 #the last of us game #the last of us series #the last of us hbo #tlou game #tlou show #joel miller #ellie Williams #joel tlou #ellie tlou #tlou meta #hot take #unpopular opinion

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stellae-de-baphometis · 1 year

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An Ultimate Revise: Who Or What Is Satan?

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Okay... So I have a lot to say before I get into this post, because the original blog post I made was extremely problematic and I would like to address it, first and foremost.

My original "Who Or What Is Satan" post that I wrote was meant to be an educational and historical post, but it ended up being far from historically accurate whatsoever. It was full of errors and antisemitism, and I had absolutely no idea what I was talking about.

And so I've decided to completely rewrite and revise the entire post from scratch. It's something I've been wanting to do for a while now, because I really hate how my original post turned out and how antisemitic it was.

So without further ado, here is the revised and rewritten version of my original post, minus all the bullshit lol. Strap in, because this is gonna be a looong post! Full blog post is under the cut. ↓

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So here's a little more info and backstory on the original "Who Or What Is Satan" post, before we get into the revised version;

⚠️ - TRIGGER WARNING: Antisemitism - ⚠️ About a year ago now, I wrote a blog post of the same title under the username of @/thebaphometicforest. At the time of writing that post, I was extremely uneducated and new to Daemonolatry, and I had also been almost fully indoctrinated into a Ne0-Naz1 cult on Reddit without realising it (cough cough the fucking cesspit that is r/DemonolatryPractices cough). The blog post I wrote was full of misinformation and antisemitic propaganda, and I'm really not proud of the fact that I used to hold such antisemitic beliefs surrounding Judaism and cultural appropriation in general. I have since deleted the post, though I believe there are reblogs of it that exist, for those who wish to seek it out for further context, or whatever other reason you may need it.

I would like to take the time to sincerely apologise to the Jewish community for how blatantly ignorant and disrespectful I was in my past. There is no excuse for my antisemitism; I was just stupidly misinformed. I want it to be clear though that I never intended to purposefully discriminate against Jews, I just didn't realise how problematic my views were at the time. I wanted to clarify that distinction; But the bottom line is that the intent doesn't matter. At the end of the day, I was still a dick. It is no excuse and I take full accountability and responsibility for my past actions.

Please know that my past problematic views do not represent me anymore and I have changed and educated myself since then. And with that said, I want it to be my main goal to help dispel antisemitism, ignorance, and bigotry in occult spaces as an ally, as well as advocate for the rights and wellbeing of the Jewish community not only in occult spaces, but overall. 💙

With all of that said, it's time to set the record straight and talk about who and what Satan actually is!

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DISCLAIMER: Please keep in mind that I am not Jewish or Muslim, and therefore cannot speak from those perspectives on this subject. I understand and acknowledge that the concept of Satan originates in Judaism and have no intention to be appropriative. I'm simply just going off research and from what Jewish people in occult spaces on Tumblr have said regarding this subject. I also apologise in advance for any inaccuracies in this post. Please don't hesitate to point them out and I will correct them as soon as I can! Xx

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+: GIF Credit :+

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Satan has evolved to become a very complex character in the modern day. In fact, the very concept and idea of Satan can depend on who you ask, as there are multiple different spiritual paths that interpret Satan differently nowadays. Satan's history has also been muddied quite a lot over the years.

But what are the actual historical origins of Satan, and how did he even come to be?

༺・ The Origins Of Satan ・༻

So, where did Satan even come from?

The origins of Satan can firstly be traced back to Judaism, where Satan refers to an angel (Ha-Satan) that was initially subservient to God. It was only later that he came to be known as "The Devil" in Christianity (sometimes considered synonymous with Lucifer, a bastardised Greco-Roman god) and was referred to as an evil demon, devil, and fallen angel. Later in Islam, he came to be known as an evil spirit who went by the name of Iblis or Ash-Shaytan.

The concept and role of Satan varies drastically between Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and other belief systems which may have similar figures in their mythology. Let's further elaborate on what Satan means when it comes to these three belief systems.

Note: In the Christianity section, I have added a lot of my own interpretations and personal beliefs on the subject as I used to be a Christian as a child. However, I have not done the same with the Judaism or Islam sections as they are closed practices from what I have heard, and I feel that it is not my place to have a UPG on a closed practise, especially if I am not a part of it. Therefore, I will only be including historical info I have gathered from doing research in those parts and nothing more. I wish to remain respectful by not adding my personal input on those parts.

--- --- --- --- ---

+: In Judaism :+

There appears to be two main accounts of Satan in Judaism. The most well-know account is that Satan refers to an angel in the Torah named Ha-Satan (literally "The Satan") who is actually subordinate to God, rather than being an opposing force of God. His role was to test the faith of God's followers by tempting them to sin. If they resisted Ha-Satan's temptations, they were proving themselves faithful and loyal to God.

Another account comes from Satanail, the Prince of the Grigori Watcher Angels. The role of the Grigori were to descend to Earth so they could guide humans and teach them. But when they began having sex with humans and producing offspring such as the Nephilim, they were cast out of Heaven and became fallen angels. Some translations suggest that the Nephilim were a type of giants, whereas other translations suggest that they were the hybrid children of fallen angels.

Sometimes the archangel Samael is also equated with Satan, however they don't necessarily have the same functions. Samael was usually tasked with destroying sinners, whereas Ha-Satan was tasked with tempting and testing sinners.

--- --- --- --- ---

+: In Christianity :+

Here's where things begin to get muddy. Satan is referred to in multiple different ways in Christianity, and it really just depends on the interpretations and translations of the Christian Bible. Let's have a look at Satan's multiple titles that are mentioned.

~ The Serpent ~

Satan is considered to be synonymous with The Serpent that convinced Eve and Adam to eat fruit from the Tree Of Knowledge. In Genesis 3, the serpent claimed that if you ate the fruit, you could "be like God, knowing good and evil".

+. Genesis 3 .+ ❧ Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the LORD God had made. He said to the woman "Did God really say 'You must not eat from any tree in the garden'?" ❧ The woman said to the serpent "We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, but God did say 'You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die'." ❧ "You will not certainly die", the serpent said to the woman. "For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil". ❧ When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it.

In my interpretation, Satan brought liberation, indulgence enlightenment, wisdom, and free will to Adam and Eve through eating the fruit. He showed them that if they open their minds and were willing to learn new things, they could grow and flourish to be wiser than they once were, as well as constantly strive to be the best version of themselves.

It was actually God that brought about consequences for Eve and Adam eating the fruit from the Tree Of Knowledge, not Satan. My interpretation is that if you choose to embrace your true and best self, there are always going to be people who will not like or approve of you; But that doesn't mean that you are doing something bad (as long as you aren't hurting anyone or doing anything immoral of course, lol).

~ The Devil ~

I think everyone is aware that Satan's most well-known title that he goes by is "The Devil". Personally, I don't like to refer to Satan using this title because the word originates from the Ancient Greek word 'diabolos', meaning 'slanderer'. This implies that Satan is a liar and deceiver, which I don't personally believe. In my experience, he has always been a bringer of wisdom and truth.

Satan is said to be the "father of lies" and that he "leads the whole world astray", but I still have yet to see any evidence of him lying or leading anyone astray. The Christian Bible says that he lies, but doesn't show how he is a liar; At least not to my knowledge anyways. However, the God depicted in the Christian Bible seems to have lied about how the fruit on the Tree Of Knowledge would kill Adam and Eve... Because it didn't. It enlightened them and opened their eyes. It helped them to see the truth.

I can't really find any bible verses that suggest Satan actually lies; Only verses accusing him of being a liar. I did, however, find evidence that God lies in the Christian Bible. (Please note that this isn't me trying to be anti-Christian or anything, I'm just trying to make the point that there isn't really any evidence that Satan is deceptive in the Christian Bible. This is mainly to point out the hypocrisy of conservative/extremist forms of Christianity.) Here is an interesting verse that I found which may prove my point that God is deceptive and does in fact lie:

+. Jeremiah 4:10 .+ ❧ Then I said, "Alas, sovereign LORD! How completely you have deceived these people and Jerusalem by saying 'You will have peace', when the sword is at our throats!"

Just something to thing about lol.

~ The Dragon ~

It is when Satan is introduced as The Dragon that the idea of him falling to the Earth (presumably from Heaven) is addressed in Christianity for the first time. In the Christian Bible, Satan is described as taking the form of a giant seven-headed red dragon, donning ten horns as well as seven crowns, one atop each head. It is described that Satan is "hurled down" to the Earth, as well as his angels that serve him.

+. Quotes From Revelation 12 .+ ❧ Then another sign appeared in Heaven; An enormous red dragon with seven heads and ten horns and seven crowns on its heads. Its tail swept a third of the stars out of the sky and flung them to the Earth. ❧ Then war broke out in heaven. Michael and his angels fought against the dragon, and the dragon and his angels fought back. But he was not strong enough, and they lost their place in Heaven. ❧ The great dragon was hurled down - That ancient serpent called The Devil, or Satan, who leads the whole world astray. He was hurled to the Earth, and his angels with him.

+. Luke 10:18 .+ ❧ He replied, "I saw Satan fall like lightning from Heaven".

I personally don't really believe in angels or the Christian God, therefore I don't believe in fallen angels and I don't really buy into the divine simply being split up into "good vs evil". Instead, I believe in metaphorical fallen angels; Deities and spirits that were bastardised by Christian extremism and painted as evil, simply because they were anything other than the Christian God (e.g. Baal and Ashtoreth starting out as Canaanite deities and being demonised into the Goetian daemons that are Bael and Astaroth).

I think the whole thing of Satan being "hurled down" was most likely just a metaphor to symbolise his apparent defeat and that he had no place in Heaven, according to the Christian God.

~ The Morning Star ~

I think this is mainly where the whole idea of fallen angels came from, when Satan was conflated with The Morning Star, better known by the name of Lucifer. Funnily enough, Lucifer is never actually addressed by name in the Christian Bible; At least not that I could find. Rather, he is addressed as "morning star" and "son of the morning".

+. Isaiah 14 .+ ❧ How you have fallen from Heaven, morning star, son of the dawn! You have been cast down to the Earth, you who once laid low the nations! ❧ You said in your heart, "I will ascend to the Heavens; I will raise my throne above the stars of God; I will sit enthroned on the mount of assembly, on the upmost heights of Mount Zaphon. ❧ I will ascend above the tops of the clouds; I will make myself like the Most High." ❧ But you are brought down to the realm of the dead, to the depths of the pit.

+. 2 Peter 1:19 .+ ❧ We also have the prophetic message as something completely reliable, and you will do well to pay attention to it, as to a light shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts.

These verses seem to paint Lucifer as some sort of fallen angel that was jealous of God and wanted to rise above him. However, what some may not know is that Lucifer didn't even start off as an angel at all. The name "Lucifer" is Latin for light-bearer. The Greek word for this term is "Phosphorus", which is also the name of a Greco-Roman deity!

Phosphorus was the personification of the planet Venus, which appeared as the brightest "star" in the sky at dawn, hence the term "morning star". Phosphorus was the son of Aurora, the Roman goddess of the dawn, hence the term "son of the morning". So technically speaking, Lucifer and Satan may not even be the same entity. At least, not historically. The concept of Satan originated in Judaism, whereas Lucifer seems to have spawned from the bastardisation of a niche Roman god.

However, when it comes to Luciferianism, Lucifer is seen as a guide/teacher, liberator, guardian, beacon of enlightenment/ wisdom/ truth, and even sometimes the "true god" as apposed to the Christian God. I personally differentiate Lucifer from Satan to an extent in my beliefs, but more on that a little later!

IMPORTANT EDIT: A good friend of mine has since informed me that the aforementioned bible verses weren't referring to the Roman god Phosphorus. I was incorrect about this. The term Lucifer was actually a title applied to the King that ruled over Babylon at the time, most likely Nebuchadnezzar (II) the Great. The King of Babylon was compared to the planet Venus because of his power and influence in the world. He was "cast down to the earth" because of his wickedness. In this context, "Lucifer" was a physical human being; Not an angel, nor a god.

It was only until Christianity that these verses were misinterpreted (probably because of mistranslation issues, though I'm not entirely sure) and the story of the King of Babylon was twisted into the tale of an alleged angel that got his arse kicked out of Heaven for "disobeying God" or whatever lol.

You can read more about the backstory in this PDF I found that goes further into detail here.

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+: In Islam :+

The concept of Satan is also found in the Qur'an under the names of Iblis or Eblis, also known as Ash-Shaytan or Al-Shaytan. He was a djinn and the "leader of the devils" in Islam. On some accounts, Iblis actually started off as a high-ranking angel and went by the name of Azazil (not to be confused with Azazel). Iblis was assigned the role by God of eradicating disobedient and destructive inhabitants of Earth, so that they could be replaced with humans who were more obedient. But when Azazil refused to create a successor, he was punished by being cast down to Earth by God, where he then became a shaytan.

In another account, God created Iblis from the fires beneath the seventh Earth. Iblis worshipped God for thousands of years, and eventually, he ascended to the surface and continued to rise in rank until he accompanied angels in the seventh heaven.

God then created Adam from the essence of clay and breathed life and a soul into him, and ordered the angels to bow down to Adam. But Iblis refused to bow down; Being a jinn born of the essence of fire, he felt superior to Adam and refused to bow down to someone he considered to be below him. His disobedience to God and efforts to prove humans unworthy led to him being cast out of Heaven, where he earned the position of an eternal enemy of humankind.

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So with all of that said, I would now like to talk about my UPG of Satan and my personal spiritual beliefs surrounding him! :)

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+: GIF Credit :+

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༺・ What Does Satan Mean To Me? ・༻

My personal experience of Satan is that he's a very complex figure made up of many different bits and pieces from other spirits and deities. But mainly, I view Satan as being a triune godhead made up of three different beings/aspects; Lucifer, Sathanus, and Baphomet. It's kind of similar to the "Holy Trinity" in Christianity. He's a diagram I made of the "Satanic Trinity" lol.

In my UPG, I see Lucifer, Sathanus, and Baphomet as their own distinct entities, but I also see them as all being aspects of Satan as well. Think of them as being like a hydra dragon; Three distinct heads that all connect back to the same body. I also believe that other daemons can hold this title as well (Azazel, Belzebuth, Mephistopheles, and possibly many more) but I also see the term 'Satan' as just that; a title.

My best friend @sortiarus-de--naturas--daemonum has a really cool UPG regarding Satan as a title. She believes that Satan can be anyone or anything, and that it can also be a title for people who appose Christian (extremist) values. I actually really love this lol and agree with it quite a lot. ^.^

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In regards to the Satanic Trinity, the number (3) is said to historically be a sacred and magical number, revered across many different cultures and religions.

❧ In Celtic Paganism, the Earth was said to be made up of three realms/parts; Land, Sea, and Sky. ❧ In Alchemy, there were Three Primes (tria prima) that corresponded with the three aspects of human nature; Salt (body), Mercury (mind), and Sulfur (spirit). ❧ In Greco-Roman religion and Neo-Pagan religions such as Wicca, the triple goddess was a triune godhead usually made up of three different goddesses (e.g. Artemis-Selene-Hecate) and was usually also associated with the waxing, full, and waning phases of the Moon.

I view Satan in a very similar way to this. I see Sathanus and Lucifer as being almost like polar opposites, with Baphomet being in the middle of both of them.

❧ If Lucifer is Above and Sathanus is Below, then Baphomet is the middling Within and All Around. ❧ If Lucifer is the Sky (Upperworld) and Sathanus is the Land (Middleworld), then Baphomet is the Sea (Underworld) that meets and connects the two. ❧ If Lucifer is the Radiance of light and Sathanus is the Shadow of darkness, then Baphomet is the grey Quintessence in between. ❧ If Lucifer is the Sun above and Sathanus is the Earth below, then Baphomet is the Moon that middles between the two. ❧ If Lucifer is the Waxing Moon and Sathanus is the Waning Moon, then Baphomet is the Full Moon that connects the two moon phases together.

These are the correspondences I personally associate with Satan. I also have my own UPG about how Satan came to be.

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༺・ So... Who Is Satan Then? ・༻

I believe that Satan came to be through many different deities, spirits, influences, and Christian extremist paranoia throughout history. To an extent, I believe Satan to be a spirit shard of sorts. What's a spirit shard, you ask? Allow me to explain...

+: Spirit Shards :+

❧ A spirit shard is when a piece of a deity or deities breaks off and develops into its own entity that stands alone from its fountainhead deity. This is usually the result of vilifying and demonisation of gods from other religions and belief systems, primarily done by Christian extremists.

A good example of this would be the formerly mentioned Bael and Astaroth; I believe they are both spirit shards of Baal and Ashtoreth that came about because of demonisation by Christian extremists, and eventually those demonisations broke off from the fountainhead deities and became distinct daemons.

I also believe that there was some egregoric influence that aided in the creation of Satan as well. Thus, I feel that he could partly be an egregoric entity too.

+: Egregoric Entities :+

❧ An egregoric entity is a spirit, deity, or other type of entity that arises into existence from the collective thoughts, influences, and energy input of a distinct group of people.

Lord/Lady Baphomet themselves are a perfect example of an egregoric deity that arose from the collective belief in them being falsely conflated with "The Devil" by Christians. But more on their origins a little later. :)

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With all of that said, here is my take on how the three main aspects of Satan that are Lucifer, Sathanus, and Baphomet came to be! Please note that this is just my UPG and isn't meant to be presented as an absolute truth or fact; These are just my personal beliefs.

Note: In my practice, I believe in eight elements rather than just five. I believe in Fire, Air, Water, and Earth. I also believe in Spirit, but I split it into three aspects; Spirit Above (Radiance), Spirit Below (Shadow), and Spirit Within (Quintessence). Finally, I also believe in Void as an eighth element, which is represented by The Self, as you are the ultimate creator of your own personal practice. :)

∙---+ 🜍.~ Lucifer ~.🜍 +---∙

As previously mentioned, Lucifer seems to have originated from the Roman god Phosphorus, a personification of the planet Venus that appears as the brightest "star" in the sky at dawn, called the "morning star". Phosphorus also had a brother named Hesperus, who was basically the same but instead appeared at dusk instead of dawn, and was known as the "evening star". In some accounts, the two gods were later combined into one singular deity.

For whatever reason, this niche Roman god was then dragged into the Christian Bible with the coming of Christianity, thus demonising them and leading to an initial split of Lucifer as a spirit shard from Phosphorus/Hesperus.

Interpretations then spread of Lucifer apparently being some sort of "fallen angel" that was cast out of Heaven for wanting to "rise above God" out of jealousy and pride. They were then conflated with being an evil demon, possibly originating from the benevolent daimon/daemon that was initially a type of guiding spirit that provided wisdom and knowledge, and not actually having anything to do with being evil at all.

Lucifer then started being conflated with The Devil, The Serpent, The Dragon, and the entire concept of Satan in general, thus leading to Lucifer earning their place in the Satanic Trinity.

❧ Lucifer represents higher consciousness, wisdom, enlightenment, knowledge, spiritual liberation and freedom, a guiding light in the dark, expressing/embracing your true self, confidence, standing up for yourself, self-love, rebellion, and always striving to be the best version of yourself.

+: Other Correspondences :+ - Animals: ravens/crows, hawks, swans, tree snakes, doves - Colours: icy blue, sunshine yellow, snowy white, sandstone orange, rich golds/silvers/bronze - Element: Air & Radiance (Spirit Above) - Incense/Scents: sandalwood, lavender, juniper, amber, lily - Metal: Copper & Gold - Planet: Venus & Sol (The Sun)

∙---+ 🜔.~ Sathanus ~.🜔 +---∙

In my UPG, Sathanus is a complex daemon and deity that came into being via multiple sources. I believe that the concept of him spawned in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam; However, he later broke off into a spirit shard and egregoric deity, and further developed into his own entity over time.

As Christianity spread and extremist paranoia began to mount throughout the years, more and more deities were demonised and vilified in comparison to the Christian God. Deities such as the Greek Pan, the Celtic Cernunnos, and the Canaanite Moloch were all conflated with "The Devil" and falsely assumed to be demons. Overtime, attributes and pieces of these gods and many other vilified horned deities began to feed into the concept of Satan; And in an egregoric fashion, Sathanus evolved into a daemon and deity of his own.

He even has entries in several demonology grimoires that were written within the past few hundred years (e.g. Livre Des Esperitz and Liber Officiorum Spirituum).

Sathanus is primarily The Serpent, The Devil, and The Dragon. In the Garden Of Eden, he showed Eve that she wasn't bound to follow the rules of God if she didn't want to. He gave her the fruit of the Tree Of Knowledge to open her eyes and show Eve that she had freewill and could be the god of her own life. At least, that's my interpretation of it anyway lol.

Some rumours suggest that The Devil appeared at Witches' Esbats as a "great black goat with a candle between its horns". In this account, he was referred to as "The Witches' Devil".

❧ Sathanus represents worldly pleasures, power through knowledge, self-leadership, ecstasy, strength, confidence, insurgence, finding/embracing the beauty in darkness, finding hidden wisdom, nature, deliverance from limitations, courage, hedonism, and liberation through "sin" and freewill.

+: Other Correspondences :+ - Animals: dragons, snakes, goats, bats, spiders - Colours: blood red, jet black, electric blue, rich golds, rosewood / dark strawberry pink - Element: Fire, Earth, & Shadow (Spirit Below) - Incense/Scents: dragon's blood, rose, cinnamon, black opium, sandalwood - Metal: Lead & Titanium - Planet: Saturn & Terra (The Earth)

∙---+ ☿.~ Baphomet ~.☿ +---∙

A lot of people don't actually believe in Baphomet as an existing daemon or deity, but rather simply as a symbol representing universal balance; However, from my personal experiences, they definitely are a very real entity. But how did they even come into being? Let's have a look at the history of Baphomet, and how they came to be associated with Satan later on.

Baphomet was said to have been a Pagan deity or idol that was allegedly worshipped by the Knights Templar. The name Baphomet first appeared in trial transcripts for the Inquisition of the Knights Templar starting in 1307. However, there doesn't seem to be any evidence that Baphomet was worshipped by the Knights Templar. Furthermore, it has been stated that the name Baphomet was actually a bastardisation of the name Muhammad, the founder of Islam.

It wasn't until the 19th century that the well-known illustration of the "Sabbatic Goat" was drawn by Éliphas Lévi. It was comprised of a number of binary elements in order to symbolise the "equilibrium of opposites"; Half-human and half-animal, male and female, good and evil, light and darkness, above and below, mercy and justice, etc. Lévi's goal was to symbolise his own idea and concept of balance, with Baphomet being an ultimate symbol and personification of "The Absolute".

But what many may not know about Baphomet, is that Éliphas actually drew inspiration from two distinct existing deities to create his Baphomet illustration; The Greek Pan and the Egyptian Banebdjedet. Lévi equates his image with a god that went by the title of "The Goat Of Mendes" (Mendes is the Greek name for the ancient Egyptian city of Djedet). On some accounts, it is said that Pan is The Goat Of Mendes, but it is much more likely that this title referred to Banebdjedet instead, who was mistaken to have been goat-headed instead of sheep-headed.

The chief deities of the city of Mendes were the ram deity Banebdjedet (meaning "Ba of the Lord of Djedet"), who was said to be the Ba of Osiris, as well as his consort Hatmehit, the fish goddess. In my UPG, Baphomet was partially conceived through these two deities, as well as through Éliphas Lévi's illustration.

❧ Baphomet represents ultimate balance, equity, unity of the universe and all its elements, cosmic order, the cycles of life/death/rebirth, queerness, beauty, duality, love and peace, creation, liberating knowledge, embracing/becoming your true and best self, creativity, wisdom, manifestation, and nature itself.

+: Other Correspondences :+ - Animals: sheep, goats, rams, cats, sea snakes - Colours: amethyst purple, sapphire blue, stormy grey, charcoal black, oceany blue-green - Element: Water & Quintessence (Spirit Within) - Incense/Scents: oud, patchouli, sandal rose (sandalwood and rose), frankincense, myrrh - Metal: Mercury & Silver - Planet: Mercury & Luna (The Moon)

+: Divider Border Credit :+

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Please keep in mind that all of the correspondences and associations listed here are brief summaries of my UPG regarding these three deities/daemons. I will be making additional posts going into further detail regarding Satan as a triune godhead, hopefully in the near future! I'm not sure when the posts will be out though lol.

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Welp, that's pretty much it for this post! Holy shit this took me so long to write. 😭 I hope this has helped you learn more about Satan origins, and Satan as a concept as well as an entity!

I wish you well on your spiritual path. :)

༺⋆✦. Ave Satanas .✦⋆༻

-Korv

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