#New Age beliefs

[creature-wizard]

Looks like it's time to talk about starseeds and the New Age movement again.

Since I'm seeing more starseed content being posted, I'm gonna make another post on why the whole starseed thing and the surrounding New Age belief system are... not good.

So for those who don't know, New Age mythology is essentially a hodgepodge of cherrypicked and distorted myths from various cultures, racist pseudohistory, and far right conspiracy theories. To put it very briefly, starseeds are supposedly here to help Earth resist the reptilians, a race of politics-manipulating, war-starting, media-controlling blood-drinking aliens. For those who don't recognize the tropes here, these are basically all antisemitic canards. The reptilian alien myth as most know it today comes from David Icke, who ultimately cribbed a bunch of his material from The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion, a Russian hoax created to justify violence against Jews. He was also influenced by the work of people like Fritz Springmeier, a hateful crank who based much of his work on other hateful cranks.

(David Icke, by the way, also claims that transgender is an evil reptilian conspiracy. You'll never find just one form of bigotry with these people.)

There are supposedly numerous alien races out there, and one of the most prominent among them are the Pleiadians, AKA Nordics. While modern depictions of the Pleiadians give them more variety in skintone, there's no denying that older Pleiadian mythology basically pictured them as Aryans In Space, even associating them with the swastika.

You see what's going on here? "Good" swastika-loving Aryan aliens versus "evil" Jewish aliens? Sound familiar?

Racism isn't just a tangential part of the starseed myth, either. It lies at its very core. It's inextricably tied in with the ancient astronaut hypothesis, which has a history of racist motivation behind it. The TL;DR is that a bunch of white people couldn't believe that non-white people had built a bunch of things they couldn't figure out how to build themselves (EG, the Great Pyramids), so they proposed that the real builders were anyone from Atlanteans to aliens. (Atlantis, by the way, never existed; it was a literary device created by Plato.)

One supposed purpose of starseeds is to help the world "wake up to the truth," which basically just means "convert people to New Age spirituality." New Age believes that world peace is contingent on a majority of the world being converted to New Age belief, and that resistance against their belief system is ultimately the work of the aforementioned reptilian aliens.

To put it another way, New Agers think they understand other cultures' spiritual traditions better than the actual members of said cultures, and think that anyone who disagrees with them is being manipulated by the conspiracy, or is an agent of the conspiracy. This includes Indigenous cultures which are already endangered from white Christian colonialism.

Essentially, endangered cultures cannot speak up for themselves and resist New Agers' efforts at cultural assimilation without being labeled a problem and an enemy. It's basically white Christian colonialism repackaged as "spiritual, not religious."

Again - if you heard from these people that some ancient text or myth describes extraterrestrial beings visiting our planet for one reason or another, you heard misinformation. They twist and misrepresent literally every myth and text they get their hands on. For example, you may have heard that the vimanas from Hindu traditions were actually alien spacecraft. They were no such thing. Or maybe you heard that the Book of Enoch describes aliens performing genetic experimentation on humans. It literally does not. At best, all of the stories they cite just kind of sound like aliens if you ignore most of their content and pay no attention to their cultural contexts.

The starseed movement preys on alienated people, especially autistic people and people with ADHD. You can look up nearly any list of signs that you're supposedly a starseed, and many of them will align perfectly with characteristics associated with autism and/or ADHD, or that people with these conditions commonly report. Some people within the movement even go so far as to claim that ADHD and autism don't even exist, but were actually made up by the conspiracy as a cover to suppress and control starseeds, which is some yikes-as-hell ableism.

So basically, people are being told that if they have these certain characteristics or symptoms, that means it's their job to spread New Age spirituality to defeat the conspiracy and help others ascend to the fifth density.

And what's the fifth density, you might ask? It's supposedly humanity's next evolutionary level, because New Age is also based on biological misconceptions. Supposedly once everyone's DNA "upgrades," they'll essentially morph into an aetheric form. Supposedly, this is preceded by a number of "ascension symptoms," including depression, headache, gastrointestinal issues, and any number of other symptoms that could indicate almost anything, including stress.

What many of these people don't realize is, this prediction has already failed. Back in the 2000s and 2010s, experiencing "ascension symptoms" was supposed to precede ascension to 5D beginning December 21, 2012. One lady, Denise Le Fay, was convinced that the hair loss she was experiencing in 2008 was an ascension symptom. As we can see by looking her up, she's very much still with us on the 3D plane these days, repeating the same tired old scripts New Agers recycle endlessly.

By the way, everything you near New Agers saying today about old systems being dismantled, dark forces being arrested or kicked off the planet, and new economic systems on the horizon? They've been recycling these scripts for years now. Take a look at this page written back in 2012. You got stuff about the complete dismantling of an enormous network of sinister forces," "the arrest and removal of a world-wide cabal," and a "new economic system."

("Cabal," by the way, is a dogwhistle term for "Jews.")

Furthermore, people in this movement are often encouraged to try and access past life memories through dreams or hypnosis, which makes the whole thing feel even more real to them. But the thing is, you can have incredibly vivid experiences about literally anything you put your mind to - the people in the reality shifting having vivid experiences of living another life in the Harry Potter universe are a great example of this. Just because you have vivid experiences, doesn't mean they have any bearing on anything happening in this reality.

So yeah, the starseed movement and the larger New Age movement are both extremely harmful. They promote racist pseudohistory, medically-irresponsible pseudoscience, conspiracy theories that target numerous marginalized groups, and functionally target aliened people with ADHD and autism to convince them that spreading its beliefs is their job.

[spell-jars-and-black-wolves]

On the topic of New Age beliefs and how so much of it is just repackaged Christianity:

We were almost sucked into the New Age cult a few years ago. We had only barely begun our journey of deconstructing from Christianity and were dabbling in New Age practices such as "raising vibrations" and studying starseeds. We had been desperately searching for a place to belong and didn't feel like we fit in at school or in our town. A large part of this was due to us being autistic and queer and just generally feeling like an outsider in our community, and let me tell you something: New Agers will absolutely prey on this vulnerability to drag you into their cult.

For a while we genuinely believed that we were a starseed, feeling as though we were from someplace outside of this world. Now, for a bit of background on us: we're a plural system, aka a bunch of people sharing one physical body and brain; it's stated in our bio on this blog and every other blog we run. Our plurality is heavily influenced by our spiritual beliefs, particularly the idea that we are a gateway system, meaning many of our headmates come from some sort of outside source rather than our brain itself. And we do believe that the folks who enter our system from outside are in fact from other worlds than this one, alternate timelines and such. This belief has had a positive impact on our acceptance of our system and made us more open to understanding the experiences of other people and beliefs.

Now, back to our point. While we understand how our spirituality affects our system, that doesn't make us as a whole, or the physical body we all inhabit, a "starseed". We also collectively share a few otherkin identities, primarily wolfkin, faekin, and fallen angelkin. But back when we were active in New Age circles, we didn't fully grasp any of these concepts. We fully believed that we were actually an alien from another world, sent to Earth for the divine purpose of aiding humanity and ushering in a new age of prosperity and love. We explained away our autistic and ADHD traits with starseed stuff, but something about it never felt... right.

One thing we were caught up in for a while, and what actually inspired us to write this post, was something called the "New Message from God." It's been a long time since we've actually taken a look at the website, but it's basically Christianity infused with New Age beliefs like ascending to a golden age of love and light, the idea that every so often humanity receives a new prophet to interpret messages from God/Source, blah blah blah. According to the website, our current prophet is a man named Marshall Vian Summers who started getting messages from God several years ago in order to warn humanity of a coming evil and to help put a stop to it. It's a whole bunch of doomsday Armageddon BS, but we genuinely believed it for a while just like the starseed mumbo jumbo.

We're very glad that we listened to our instincts and actually broke down what the New Message from God and similar communities are trying to sell to people, because otherwise we would have been sucked into it completely with little hope of getting out. It's really important to think critically about what you incorporate into your spiritual practices, especially if you're converting from Christianity and still hold onto some of the things the religion teaches. This stuff is absolutely a cult and especially preys on young people who feel like they don't belong anywhere, giving them a false sense of having a community full of people that love them. But as with every other cult out there, this love is conditional; these people don't actually care about you if you don't believe in the same things as them. They will love bomb you and dress up their beliefs in pretty packaging and ribbons in order to conceal how harmful it really is, so you never see the damage it's doing to you before it's too late for you to escape. -Dylan

[hauntingsoffuturepast]

Controversial Hot Take:

Don't listen to information on here or from "spiritual people" only through the lens of the analytical, the clinical, and/or the established. A lot of the time I have found people tar an entire notion or experience with the same brush just because the people who may have introduced that concept were flawed or problematic. And, I've seen a lot of people throw-the-baby-out-with-the-bath-water because of this.

A lot of the topics that I'm thinking of stem from New Age practices who seem to, for some reason, on Tumblr get a LOT of bad rap. I understand that there are people who can come across badly or be overly enthusiastic or just outright manipulative, but that's true of any group. And, even if the group (whatever group you might be thinking of) IS bad not every idea that they have or support is.

That's the difficulty of life, the best lies have a basis of truth in them.

The strongest example I have of this playing out in regular life is how the Nazis were STRONGLY opposed to pregnant women smoking due to health concerns related to smoking. Now, that is something that I, and hopefully you, and certainly most of modern medicine would agree with. However, that does not mean that I, or you, or the rest of modern medicine agree with all or even most of what the Nazis believed (obviously).

I write all this not to undermine people's real concerns, but to try and give perspective and also to support the reality that life is not so black-and-white as social media would often like to portray it as, and I've seen a lot of people lump certain ideas of spiritual thought or New Age movement all under one umbrella of "Cultural Appropriation" or "Ableism" or "Anti-Semitism" or "Eugenics" and so forth, while either having little backing to support this or only including the facts and examples that bolster their own narrative, and for those unsuspecting individuals who come across those posts trying to learn more on their spiritual journey they may take these words as gospel and consider an entire belief or experience out-of-bounds or off-limits because one or two people emphatically said so.

I'm not saying that those things can't be present at times in these spaces or used for those devices, but to paint an entire topic with one brush just because some problematic or villainous people used the belief to their own advantage or to support their own causes is often not helpful to those who are new and trying to learn in my opinion. And can root in people a strong dislike or disdain for something they don't even truly or fully understand because they were introduced to it through a very biased lens.

It should be no secret to the modern spiritual community (and certainly not to the Tumblr spiritual community) that deeply spiritual experiences or beliefs can be co-opted or used in ideas that are ultimately problematic (to say, perhaps, the least).

Examples of this can include everything for those get-rich-quick types of spirituality co-opting the idea of manifestation for financial gain, to once-again the Nazis supplanting the holy iconography of the Swastika which had THOUSANDS of years of spiritually sacred history in its use prior to the Nazis adopting it and using it for their own devices.

I guess what I'm trying to get at here is use your own best spiritual discernment and/or wisdom as much as you can because you certainly can be tricked or duped by others into believing things that have no real grounds in the usage cases that you find them, you can also be tricked or duped by YOURSELF and by your own fears and worries and the way that others can twist those around inside of you to support the narrative they've constructed around an idea or a fear inside THEMSELVES.

I.E. It's easier to convince yourself of a lie (or, at least, an exaggeration) if others believe it too.

So, circling back to my original point in the introduction try to use (as much as you can) your OWN spiritual discernment when it comes to these kinds of things and don't be too quick to judge.

Be mindful, of course, but also be open to both you and other "more knowledgeable" people being wrong. Even if they have "the facts" as large sections of society or their own communities might see it, in my experience, spirit has a funny way of supplanting that with Truth (with a capital "T") that you can NOT deny or rationalize your way out of.

All this to say, walk wisely weary traveler, but do travel and see for yourself before just assuming someone else's opinion is correct even, and especially, when it reinforces what you already believe to be true, but isn't matching up with what your spirit says to be true.

[sandalstrapchronicles]

[mamaangiwine]

Native American spirituality isn't your jumping off point for New Age. It's not your resource for New Age talking points. Our myths are not your's to mine for "proof" for your conspiracies or to change for your "prophecies". Our spirituality has nothing to do with "vibrations", negative of otherwise.

Stop trying to swallow Native American spirituality. Stop using it to justify your surface level spirituality.

Most of all, stop acting like New Age is the natural successor to Native Spirituality- we're the natural successors, because we're still here.

[thepersonalquotes]

Thoughts create emotions, emotions create feelings and feelings create behaviour. So it’s very important that our thoughts are positive, to attract the right people, events and circumstances into our lives.

Avis J. Williams, The Psychic Mind: A Practical Guide to Psychic Development & Spiritual Growth

[noknowshame]

hello- on your jesus birthday post you said The Child Is The Price. What does that mean?

Okay THIS one I will answer. this is a reference to Roberte Icke's adaptation of Aeschylus' tragic play(s), The Oresteia. simplifying as much as possible, the story begins by following Agamemnon, the leader of the Greek army during the Trojan War. the winds he needs to sail his army to Troy have not been blowing, and Agamemnon receives a prophecy/instruction on what is needed in order to return the winds. the prophecy states "The Child is the Price". this phrase is repeated throughout the play, and what it is asking him to do is make a human sacrifice of his young daughter, Iphigenia. eventually, he goes through with it, and the winds do indeed return.

In the original plays by Aeschylus, the actual death of Iphigenia has already happened and is referenced as something the audience should already know all about. Icke chooses to add an act to the play that allows us to linger on that decision much longer. As a whole, the play deals heavily with themes of the nature of sacrifice, narrative inevitability, and cycles of guilt and violence.

When I was drafting my... infamous christmas post, I was trying to think of the story of the birth of jesus like a greek tragedy, involving very similar themes. factually, in a textual sense, jesus is the sacrifice. his death is the price paid for - according to christianity - absolution. and what I was attempting to point out is that we spend so much time celebrating jesus' birth as this wondrous arrival of the savior that we don't stop to meditate on exactly how bloodily that saving is going to play out. it's the exact same thing: The Child is the Price.

As a last note, many many many people have told me in the tags that me saying "Mary did you know? that your womb was also a grave?" is stupid because "all babies are born to die, Jesus isn't special" ...but there is a Very important difference I'd like to point. yes, all babies will die eventually. but NOT all babies are born to die. Jesus was. it was God's plan from the start for him to horrifically die on the cross, and it was inevitable as soon as Mary agreed to give birth to him. I feel that is an important part of the story. The Child is the Price.

(...anyway go read Robert Icke Oresteia and also watch Jesus Christ Superstar (1973) while you're at it)

[y-rhywbeth2]

'Astarion outliving his friends and possibly SO' is angsty and good for those who like exploring the themes of bereavement and all, and it is a possible outcome (he's not helpless), but it is my firm opinion that there is still a damn good chance that guy is gonna die first and be outlived by them.

[corvidscreams]

Ok but. Lil’ Boba would not be impressed by a Jedi promising ‘safety’.

[givemewallywestorgivemedeath]

Growing up in an extremely ultra religious, cult-like family was a mindfuck for multiple reasons but that doesn't stop unfortunately, even when you escape. For example, see: The overwhelming feeling of boiling hatred and shame for who you used to be.

The angry hatred for the past person I used to be, the version of myself that mindlessly parroted my family's beliefs and listened to their every command, constantly simmered under my skin and invaded my every thought. I was embarrassed of what I used to be- even as I made friends of different ethnicities and faiths, as I listened and explored new ideas and worlds that I never knew existed, as I started the first LGBTQ+ club at my school and volunteered with kids who deserved so much more- there was always a little voice in the back of my head.

"They would hate you if they knew what you were. They would hate the horrendous teachings that were seared into your mind, the things that you used to say and believe. You are nothing but a pretender."

And it is true that my beliefs were bigoted in all the worst ways. It is true that I believed truly heart-wrenching things without a second thought and judged others in such harsh and unfair ways. I told myself that there was no coming back from that, not really. There was nothing I could do to ever make up for it.

Then I remembered that the person who said those things wore velcro light up sneakers and collected finger puppets that the librarians handed out as awards for reading picture books. The person that held signs at pro-life rallies and anti-LGBTQ+ protests had a cherished sticker book and hunted minnows in the creek after school and adored their puffle on club penguin and was really into greek mythology and had skinned knees from climbing trees at recess and knew every Disney song by heart and was absolutely terrified of the dark.

That person was a child.

I was a child.

It took a really long time. Years and years of reflection and distance, but I've decided that I can't hate the past version of myself anymore. I feel pity and remorse, I feel anger- I feel so much fury and violent rage- at what my childhood was and I grieve what could- no, should- have been, but I no longer resent who I was.

I'm not ashamed.

I am so, so, so unbelievably proud of that little kid. For being brave enough to leave the comfort and safety of what I was told was right. For not being afraid to be wrong. For seeking out information and knowledge in a culture that praised ignorance. For questioning everything, relentlessly.

I am by no means a perfect person, I never have been and I never will, but I am proud of myself in every iteration that has ever existed because I know that I have never stopped trying to understand and learn and grow, and I never will.

If you have ever been in a similar situation and feel similar things, first of all: My condolences on your lost childhood. Second of all: Please be nice to that past version of yourself and recognize all the hard work they did to make you who you are today. That person was a survivor and an inspiration. They deserve nothing but love.

[creature-wizard]

Some ways New Age and Christianity are similar

So first off, I'm not claiming that any of these characteristics are essentially unique to Christianity. However, they are common in many politically-significant forms of Christianity, and are not necessarily shared by other spiritual traditions.

Secondly, I'm not writing this to condemn all of Christianity or anything, but rather to demonstrate where New Age is influenced by Christianity and Christian culture. And remember, even if a specific element is found in another tradition, the fact remains that New Age was developed by people who'd been brought up in Christian cultures, and therefore internalized Christian ideas of what spirituality should look like and entail. New Agers who went out searching for spiritual truths in other religions were biased toward the elements that appeared to agree with Christianity - just as the medieval Christian perennialists before them did.

So here's a list of some elements these two strains of belief have in common:

Belief that true spirituality is about reuiniting with a transcendent divine. This one is such a prevalent belief (and not just in Christianity!) that a lot of people just don't really realize that it's not true for each and every spiritual tradition. (And I want to emphasize that there's nothing wrong with spiritualities that emphasize this. However, New Age primarily got this from Christianity.)

Belief that Jesus is an important figure. Most New Agers believe that Jesus was delivering an important message from God (or Source) regarding the truth of our place and purpose in the universe. You'll find them often citing passages from the New Testament in support of their beliefs.

Belief that a new world is about to arrive. Both Christianity and New Age are big on the idea that our present troubles and turmoils are leading to the arrival of a new world where all our troubles will pass away and everything will be wonderful. (In fact, it's the core belief of New Age.) New Agers even cite passages from the New Testament in support of their beliefs.

Belief that we will progress to a superior form of bodily existence. Many Christians believe that they will be resurrected in immortal bodies during the Second Coming. New Agers believe their DNA will be upgraded or unlocked, giving them perfect health and longer life, if not actual immortality.

Searching through holy texts and traditions for prophecies about the future. They don't only search through Christian stuff when they do this, but the practice itself is pretty damn Christian.

Belief in good and evil as actual spiritual/metaphysical forces. Many people understand good and evil as abstract concepts, or social constructs. However, Christians believe that evil is an actual metaphysical force that alienates one from God, the metaphysical wellspring of good. Meanwhile, New Agers believe pretty much the same thing, albeit phrasing it in terms of "low vibrations" and "high vibrations." Doing acts and thinking thoughts regarded as "low vibrational" will "lower your vibrations," thus distancing you from God/Source. And just as Christians believe in demonic entities that will try to separate you from God, New Agers believe in low vibrational entities that will try to alienate you from Source.

Belief in spiritual thoughtcrimes. Christians believe that merely thinking about sinful acts is itself a sin, while New Agers believe that thinking low vibrational thoughts will lower your personal vibrational frequency.

Belief that emotions have intrinsic metaphysical and moral properties. Christians associate things like joy and gratitude with being closer to God, and generally perceive feelings like anger and resentment as sinful feelings that distance one from God. New Agers do the same thing, albeit using the terms "high vibrational" and "low vibrational" instead.

Massive emphasis on love and cultivating love. Christians often proclaim that God is love, and emphasize the importance of brotherly love and performing acts of Godly love. New Agers believe that "love energy" is of the highest vibrational frequency, and that cultivating it is an important part of the ascension process.

Belief in angels. New Age is pretty big on angels right now, particularly the Archangels, especially Archangel Michael. Like Christians, New Agers believe that angels are here to help carry out God's divine plan.

Belief in other angel-like figures. The benevolent aliens in New Age belief are distinguished from angels, but the role they play is pretty much the same. They're supposedly here to inspire us to do better, and protect our world from hostile entities.

Belief in malevolent, sabotaging entities. Much as many Christians believe that demons are trying to prevent people from gaining salvation, New Agers believe that "low vibrational entities" are trying to prevent humanity from ascending.

Belief that humanity has a higher purpose. Just as many Christians believe that humanity exists to be saved and reunite with God, New Agers believe that the purpose of humanity is to spiritually evolve into higher and higher forms.

Again, while many of these things aren't unique to Christianity, to say that they have absolutely nothing to do with Christianity would be to ignore New Age's culturally Christian background.

[blueiight]

Louis w the camera. claudia w the diary..

[quotelr]

It is in doing things and not reading about them that results come about.

Stephen Richards

[good-beanswrites]

Can I request "this didnt turn out like I intended" with shidou, es, and amane?

Aw yeah!! Thank you so much for the request -- I ended up giving the line to Es but honestly all three of them could have said it, it was perfect 👀 I pictured this before the T2 interrogations, with Es being fairly quiet about their guilt towards everything that happened. Though Shidou appears a bit less, I hope I could convey that he and Es share a lot of thoughts, interestingly.

Es would never get accustomed to the screaming. 

They’d heard a few anguished cries from the prisoner’s videos. They’d gotten a few agitated shouts when the first trial verdicts were announced. But nothing could have prepared them for the way the prison halls echoed now. Whether the prisoners poured out their sorrows, anguish, or agony at recent injuries, Es didn’t think they needed Milgram’s power to hear the true sounds of their heart. 

Es wished they’d just stop already. They knew it was selfish to hope for. They knew it stemmed from their own guilt. That didn’t make them wish for it any less.

The current bout of cries was coming from Shidou’s cell. Es had paused just before passing, trying to bury a wince as they listened to Fuuta struggle with treatment.

Amane approached from the other side. She glared at the cell, though Es knew it wasn’t the screaming that was bothering her.

She opened her mouth to speak, but they said in a hushed voice, “hey, I don’t need you giving Shidou any trouble. I know you disapprove, but I stand by this. I’m the one who told Shidou to check on Fuuta and Mahiru. I’m going to make sure they’re cared for.”

Amane studied them with her bright, unsettling gaze. “Why?” Her voice came out as strangely even as always. She was one of the few Es hadn’t heard any kind of shout from. “If something is destined to happen, who are you to change its course? Do you really believe you are the same as God, having that much control over the lives of others?”

“Not at all.” Es didn’t fight her. They weren’t here to change her heart, only read it. Still, they wondered if they could convince her to soften a bit without denouncing her beliefs. “The thing is, I’m not affecting their fate.”

“Then what do you call this?”

“Putting things back the way they should be.”

Es had tried to stand by their actions. They’d put on a tough face in front of the injured prisoners. They could not show weakness. As their warden, they couldn’t show any uncertainty, whatsoever. After all, the only thing worse than nearly getting killed was finding out you nearly got killed because of a child’s mistake. So they would keep this act up. They would assure everyone that this was still going according to plan. 

The way Amane looked at them, she already knew it wasn’t.

So, they figured it wouldn’t hurt to speak a little more openly now. Maybe it would even help explain Amane’s verdict. That certainly hadn’t gone as planned, either. “I wrongfully changed their lives when I let them get hurt. I saw that Kotoko had the capability for something like this, and I ignored it in the name of forgiveness. Now I need to fix the harm I’ve caused.”

“You haven’t caused any harm.”

Fuuta howled from inside.

Amane turned her gaze away. “That was still an outside force. You had no control over Kotoko’s actions. You and Shidou have control now.”

“I did have control over Kotoko, though. I knew my choices would have consequences. This is my fault.”

It felt good to say it out loud. Maybe not 'good.' It was a relief.

“And if I may venture to speak for Shidou…” That man was a mystery, but Es had put a few pieces together, at least. “It seems… he also took some lives off of their intended course. This is his way of fixing that. Right now, this is all we can do to make up for our decisions of the past. Isn’t that acceptable?”

She went to answer, but some shuffling from the cell cut her off. Shidou emerged, his expression changing ever so slightly upon finding the two just outside. Fuuta scowled on his way out, but said nothing. 

As the pair stood face to face, Amane’s eyes lit with fiery fury. Shidou met her with a harsh coldness.

“I wasn’t expecting you two,” he said simply. He was one of the others Es had yet to hear with a raised voice. Their two quietest prisoners, locked in such an intense struggle. That had certainly been an unexpected turn. “Is everything alright?”

“Yes,” Es lied. “We just stopped to talk for a moment.”

“Oh? What about?” Shidou folded his hands together. His gloves were covered in blood, they noticed. 

“Just that… this…” they waved a gloved hand in a general gesture, “didn’t work out as I intended.”

Shidou offered them a smile. It was one without any warmth, but that didn’t make it any less genuine.

“Mmm. It never does.”

[fairmoephelia]

i think it’s important to understand that isaac is simultaneously much weirder and much more normal than the rest of the coterie thinks and they will never once get it right. rey thinks isaac is about to start cutting off his own limbs? he just wants to make sure serif is armed for the fight, that’s all. the group thinks he might be vulnerable as he uses his new powers? he’s fine, he’ll just be extending his bones into blades. these conversations happen minutes apart. incredible

[thepersonalquotes]

A self-limiting belief is no stronger than the flimsy rope that tethers an elephant by its foot.

Stephen Richards, Six Figure Success: Time To Think Big - You Can Do It