#Soul Liberation

[gospelfunk]

Try Real Love - Soul Liberation (Soul Liberation, 1974)

[awakeneddominicangirl]

You leave me be, you let me be, you let me be free and free and free.

Get me out of this prison that keeps me from being me, being free, being liberated, being me.

Unrestrained without restraint, without judgment, without being kept in, perceived as something I'm not.

Achieving by being, seeing, being, giving, being, one more time.

Let me be free, set me free, set me free, let me be me, set me free.

-"Oppressed by Repression and Suppression", Melina Santos, May 8th, 2024

[inamindfarfaraway]

In the first episode of Season Six, “Startouched”, a white-haired girl in her late teens has emerged from a body of water onto a beach lit by the sun, and seen her not-actually-dead father who she lost two years ago restored to complete life with a dark magic spell that demands blood be spilled. She’s distraught after the intense trauma of killing another member of her family. Her father made peace with passing on, but she selfishly couldn’t bear losing him and acted to keep his spirit tethered to the mortal world, hurting him in the process. She stands, then falls. Someone she loves dearly, the male former high mage of Katolis with brown hair who has repeatedly used dark magic but solemnly sworn off it, embraces her and she returns it. But then he abandons her. She is unbalanced, despairing, directionless and lost.

In the last episode of Season Six, “Stardust”, a white-haired girl in her late teens has emerged from a body of water onto a beach lit by the moon, and is about to see her not-actually-dead father who she lost two years ago restored to complete life with a primal magic spell that demands blood be spilled. She’s relieved after the intense catharsis of enabling other members of her family to die. They made peace with passing on, and she selflessly accepted losing both of them and acted to heal and free their tethered spirits. She falls, then stands. Someone she loves dearly, the male high mage of Katolis with brown hair who has repeatedly used dark magic but solemnly sworn off it, embraces her and she returns it. He will never abandon her. She is mature, hopeful, purposeful and found.

[uncanny-tranny]

An important aspect of youth liberation is not tying the idea of later adult care with having children.

The broader attitude that only your children can ensure that you get taken care of when you grow old is not a good precedent to set. Having children should not be what ensures that you can live through old age, and fear mongering people with the idea that nobody will ever take care of them (or, rather, shouldn't) is such an awful motivator to have children.

[emmikouu]

Don't mind me...just thinking about how intense the sexual tension between Aizen Sōsuke and Tanisha Chōdhori would be. I mean, Aizen's the prisoner bound to a sentence of 19,976 remaining years (I think?) and Tanisha's the warden bound to guard him for almost two Millenniums...BOUND to Aizen for that long? Literally everyone in the Gotei 13 would be gone by then, and I don't even think that there would be a Gotei 13 by the time that era will arrive, there will just be Aizen and Tanisha—the immortal prisoner and warden. Last two remaining people in the world? Most romantic fucking shit I've heard.

[faintrustle]

SHIHOIN YORUICHI's side profile:

[cloudaxolotl07]

We got the Grandline quadrio! We got Tony Tony Chopper, Nico Robin, Franky and Brook personal designs for my au!

Individual below V

[aronarchy]

[gospelfunk]

Call On Jesus - Soul Liberation (Soul Liberation, 1974)

[satoshi-mochida]

Some games that are currently stuck on older consoles that I hope get rereleased in some way, Part 5:

Part 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7

Pandora's Tower

The Last Story

Unchained Blades

Deadpool(putting this here as a technicality since it got removed from digital platforms for licensing reasons)

Liberation Maiden

Jeanne d'Arc

Drakengard series

Shadow of Destiny(Shadow of Memories)

Ray Gigant

Michigan: Report from Hell

The older Deception Series games

Disaster Report Series before 4

Breath of Fire Series

Xblaze 1 and 2

Blinx 1 and 2

Pokemon Conquest

Higurashi Daybreak(hopefully a newer version would preferably based on Higurashi Daybreak Portable Mega Edition, maybe add even more characters to it)

Whiplash

Godhand

Under the Skin

Scaler

Dragon Quest IX

Namco x Capcom

Project X Zone 1 and 2

Time and Eternity(I know it's kind of divisive, but I liked it's style. Battles in Ray Gigant have a similar look, though not the same feel.)

Mega Man X Command Mission

Yakuza: Dead Souls

Yakuza: Kenzan

Albert Odyssey

Twilight Syndrome series/Moonlight Syndrome

[waitineedaname]

greedling are soulmates not in a romantic sense or even in a fate sense, but rather in the sense that their souls were put in a blender and now they're stuck with each other

[runespoor7]

For the ask meme, au where wwx kills lxc at qiangpi path instead of jzx.

Or gender swap jc au.

Ok, so it took me a while to think this over, because there’s a lot here, and then talking it over with @demoiselledefortune I realized there’s even more than I thought! (still thinking about the genderswap jc one)

Also, poor, poor LWJ. 🙁 (LQR doesn't bear thinking about. That poor, poor man. I don't talk about LQR under the cut because it's too sad for me to contemplate.)

1) So the thing is, this isn’t a noticeably better accidental killing for WWX, because while the Lans may be less the powerhouse than the Jins, JGS will definitely try and use LXC’s death to turn against WWX. And it’s going to be stupidly easy, because LXC was a sect leader and the sworn brother of his son.

(I assume LXC was there because he was invited to JL’s 100 days ceremony and his passing there was a coincidence, while in canon he was already at Jinlintai. So maybe JZX is still in Jinlintai here, the confrontation happening earlier and thus before JZX departed; or JZX is here as well as he was in canon, and LXC was the one running late - in which case, JZX is alive and a witness and might speak up on WWX’s behalf at least to his wife and his BIL, at least to tell them that it seemed an accident. This turns out not to have much of an impact on the grand scale of things OR on JYL and JC’s understanding of what happened, bc they already trust WWX so much, but it does have an impact on JZX’s view of the world and himself. This is less about WWX than it is about politics in general and his father in specific. In that version he’s much more in-the-middle of things, much more aware of being personally dismissed. In that version there’s a chance he and JYL go live in LP.)

Besides the Jins, there’s also NMJ, who is a big fan of his sworn brothers not getting killed and of not shielding people from the consequences of their actions. Just putting it out there where we can see it. On the other hand, they’re not LXC’s most direct family. LWJ and the Lans are, so NMJ lets LWJ take point.

(There's a version of this prompt where NMJ qi-deviates when he hears about LXC's death. In that timeline should WWX get killed NHS' plans never feature bringing him back.)

2) Know for whom LXC dying instead of JZX changes things a lot, though? WQ and WN. When they decide to surrender themselves, they go to Cloud Recesses, not Jinlintai. LWJ and his sect I feel wouldn't punish WQ for LXC’s death. She wasn't there.

(WN, otoh, is very done for. There is no way GSL pulls a Jin to keep him around. He's a fierce corpse and the one who killed their sect leader at that. They execute him/lay his soul to rest. There's no further desacration of WN and that's probably the bitterest comfort WQ could hope for. WQ does try to shield WN when she realizes the Lans aren't planning on executing her, but she doesn't get that.)

WQ would easily get a promise of safety from LWJ for at least A-Yuan, probably Granny, maybe the others - on the sterner end of the scale for the adult cultivators. This is somewhat dependent on what JGS (and NMJ) are clamoring for but JGS wants the Stygian Seal more than he does the Wens and NMJ would be satisfied with the Lans supervising the fate of the Wen remnants. Besides, the most high-profile of the Wen remnants is WQ and she just surrendered herself. WN would say WWX isn’t responsible for LXC’s death, it was a freak resentful energy accident–

3) I think what LWJ does demand about WWX is... that WWX be given over to Gusu Lan. They can lock him up. And purify him of the resentful energy.

LWJ is in a frankly abysmal mental space - it’s only because his cultivation is so orthodox that he doesn't qi deviate. It’s all tearing him up, LXC’s death because of the guy LWJ has a crush on, LWJ’s want for WWX and LWJ’s wish that he could (imitate his father) bring someone back to CR and lock them up and LWJ suddenly being in the horrendous situation where he is imitating his father. The memory of the kiss is now a nightmare. It was always a mixed memory (how shameful, to lose control of himself thus - to take advantage of the one he loved - to lack even the courage to simply ask, either for the kiss, or at least for forgiveness) but now it makes him retch.

It's all twisted in the fact that LXC is dead, because of WWX. There can be nothing between LWJ and WWX now. Simply wishing there could be would be the worst betrayal.

(LWJ remembers the days of their youth, LXC’s delight and gentle teasing at LWJ’s inexplicable liking of WWX. The Water Abyss. And now LXC is dead, because of the boy he was so happy LWJ wanted for a friend. LXC always wanted LWJ to have friends, something akin to his own friendship with NMJ.)

0) (the Problem. The Problem is that I cannot see WWX staying in the Cloud Recesses if he's imprisoned there. If he wouldn't rather die at first, he will afterwards. LWJ thinks of his mother. If WWX dies LWJ would enter seclusion like his father once did. This isn’t something LWJ tells himself consciously.)

4) JC and JYL visit WWX in the Cloud Recesses while he's imprisoned there. JC hates LWJ for it, but I think he's self-aware enough to think “what if it had been Jiejie.” It’s hard to hate LWJ wholeheartedly.

5) WQ is in Cloud Recesses, too. She’ll never live outside the Cloud Recesses again, but it could have been far worse. She’s allowed time with A-Yuan (she is not in forced seclusion and neither is she A-Yuan’s mother but LWJ cannot let himself see them together, or else he starts to think of how she isn’t allowed to raise her kin herself.)

When it comes out *pretty damn early* that WWX doesn’t have a core, she’s the one who implies WZL got him.

(JC is in LWJ’s office clamoring, begging for WWX to be released into the care of YMJ in a hot minute after he finds out - which takes at least one or two visits, because no-one wrote to tell him, and it takes him asking a question about how getting WWX rid of resentful energy and not letting go when the answer’s too cagey to his taste for him to know. If it were just LWJ– but LWJ has elders. plus there’s also LXC’s sworn brothers to contend with; LWJ isn’t thinking of that, and JC will think of it later, after LWJ has refused to return WWX to YMJ.) JC is so so so angry at everyone involved - WWX for *lying to him*, why didn’t you *tell me*, I would have *helped* - WQ for hiding it from him AND not telling him when she told the Lans (to which she retorts that she isn’t exactly allowed a free correspondence. Hmph. Okay. JC allows that. WQ has negative scruples about lying to him about the core rn.) - LWJ for keeping WWX a prisoner here even though WWX is, is, WWX isn’t a cultivator anymore he’s a normal person let YMJ watch over him, let JC - even JYL for having something else in her life that she loves, that isn’t WWX locked up in another sect.

WQ is also the one who sees when WWX is seriously at risk of his life just fading away, and this time she tells JC: if WWX doesn’t get out, he will die.

The fic ends with WQ and JC breaking WWX out of the Cloud Recesses (it’s implied LWJ is looking the other way). WQ stays in CR, of course, but JC is taking WWX to Lotus Pier. There’s no plan for “later”.

[house-of-mirrors]

This is what I got with my main from the Museum of Souls in Burrow, having your soul examined. Thinking about the soul flaws from skies and I just learned from the wiki the text is variable based on your quirks:

First, for comparison, the text from skies for when your soul is pleasing: "The devils of Carillon claim to be experts in the assessment and improvement of the soul. They would describe yours as tantalisingly opaque, and rich with personality."

Now, onto my interpretations with the delightful flaws. (I refuse to be appetizing!)

High Melancholy: Flickering: "Soul-light is unpersistent, incurious, lacking. [...] intermittently tantalising with an aftertaste of disappointment."

"Here the Devils treat flatterers, the excessively malleable, and those who don't know themselves at all. [...] Maybe you've found yourself lying as a matter of course. Maybe you've forgotten a few inconvenient aspects of yourself."

High Heartless: Cold: "The soul is icy to the touch. Dispassionate, clinical, removed. [...] still, pale and chilly to the palate."

"Indifference to love can be corrected. But not easily."

High Austere: Lightless: Here, things get a little complex. The echo uses "flavourless" which corresponds neatly to "[...] distressingly bland, inoffensive and liable to dissatisfaction." However, Lightless is also described as "Slothful, viceful, willful abandonment of talent and interest," which does not fit Austere. More of the text does, though.

"Vision, imagination, the ability to see beyond the nearest convention: that's what the Devils are trying to evoke here. [...] Perhaps you have fallen into habits. Perhaps you haven't stretched your imagination lately."

Not a perfect match, but alas.

Low subtle: Clear: "Soul is fully transparent. No swirls, no clouding, no personality."

"Disregard of death is a serious flaw. It displeases the Blue Kingdom; it makes the Devils tut."

(Sticking my tongue out at the Sapphir'd King.)

Conclusion: I can't find any obvious comparisons for the ruthless or hedonist quirks. I'm going to remark upon the soul flaws that don't present parallels here.

A fermented soul is "pungent of odour and indifferent to taboo." What I did in skies to get it was commingle with a rubbery man and accept an eye tattoo from the Halved. Good times. If I had to guess, I might connect this one with the Daring quirk. Fermented foods may be described with a "sharp" flavor but that's a stretch; I really don't see a connection to ruthless.

A curdled soul is "Overly willing to please, envious, obsequious." I can't think of any obvious quirks this would correlate to.

Finally, a stained soul: We know what terrible things this means in FL. One gets it by being a seeker, asking what shouldn't be asked. From skies: "Soul appears damaged, scorched. Reckless, dangerous and fatally curious. [...] over-rich, cindered and irrevocably damaged."

"Perhaps you've looked into topics you should not have. Perhaps your soul has been consumed and spat out again by an unspeakable beast."

("The starveling cat! The starveling cat! Soiled your soul! Grew glossy and fat!")

Now go forth and consider your characters' souls. Be unappetizing!

[ssparksflyy]

this burnout kinda burning ngl

[faintrustle]

Student ABARAI RENJI:

[readyforevolution]

QUEEN OF SOUL & PHYLLIS HYMAN