#cognitive alchemy

[lilithienne]

🏛️ | Wisdom in Astrology | 🏛️

The influence of Jupiter and Saturn when it comes to wisdom is a fascinating aspect of Astrology. Although the two represent contrasting forms of wisdom, they are equally valuable and can provide natives with an aura that makes others respect them and seek them out for advice.

This post includes information about Alchemy, specifically the alchemical significance of Jupiter and Saturn's energy.

Intelligence vs Wisdom

There is a distinction to be made between intelligence and wisdom.

Intelligence refers to cognitive abilities such as reasoning, problem-solving, memory, and learning. It encompasses the capacity to understand complex concepts, analyze information, and adapt to new situations.

Wisdom, on the other hand, goes beyond intelligence. It involves a deeper understanding of life, human nature, and the world. Wisdom includes qualities like insight, discernment, empathy, and the ability to make sound judgments based on experience and knowledge.

Intelligence can be seen in Mercury. Mercury is traditionally associated with intellect, communication, learning, and the rational mind. While Jupiter and Saturn can be more associated with wisdom due to Jupiter expanding our knowledge and philosophical understanding, and Saturn instilling the discipline and maturity needed to embody wisdom in our daily lives.

Wisdom Of Jupiter ♃

Jupiter's wisdom is a wide lens. It often encompasses grand visions, opportunities, and the pursuit of higher knowledge. It encourages exploration, faith, and a positive outlook on life.

Those strongly influenced by Jupiter often possess a sense of optimism, generosity, and a philosophical mindset. They are drawn to seeking meaning and purpose in their experiences, embracing diversity, and expanding their horizons through travel, education, or spiritual pursuits.

ᴊᴜᴘɪᴛᴇʀ'ꜱ ᴡɪꜱᴅᴏᴍ

Encourages a broad perspective and a search for meaning and truth. Its wisdom involves exploring beliefs, ethics, and higher knowledge.

Infused with optimism, faith in the future, and a belief that things can improve or be better.

Thrives on exploration, travel, and learning from diverse experiences and cultures.

Is generous, emphasizing sharing, giving, and enjoying the abundance of life.

Encourages taking calculated risks, seeking adventure, and embracing new opportunities with enthusiasm.

ᴊᴜᴘɪᴛᴇʀ ʀᴇᴛᴜʀɴ

A Jupiter Return occurs approximately every 12 years when transiting Jupiter returns to the exact position it was at the time of your birth.

This is a significant astrological event associated with personal growth, expansion, and new opportunities. Here are some of the energies you may experience during this time:

During a Jupiter Return, there is a sense of expansion and abundance in various areas of life. It can bring new opportunities for personal and professional growth, travel, education, and spiritual development.

Jupiter's influence during this time often enhances optimism, confidence, and a positive outlook on life. You may feel more adventurous, willing to take risks, and open to new experiences.

Jupiter is often associated with luck and blessings. During your Jupiter Return, you may notice fortunate events, unexpected gifts, or serendipitous encounters that enhance your life in meaningful ways.

This period is conducive to philosophical and spiritual exploration. You may feel drawn to seek deeper meaning, engage in self-reflection, or pursue knowledge that expands your understanding of the world.

Jupiter's influence encourages you to expand your horizons, whether through travel, learning new skills, or exploring different perspectives. It's a time of growth and broadening your intellectual and experiential boundaries.

Wisdom Of Saturn ♄

Saturn's wisdom is more focused and disciplined, representing the lessons learned through challenges, responsibilities, and limitations. Saturn teaches the value of hard work, perseverance, and self-discipline.

Individuals with strong Saturn influences tend to be practical, reliable, and grounded. They understand the importance of structure, planning, and long-term goals, often embodying qualities of patience, wisdom gained from experience, and a deep sense of responsibility.

ꜱᴀᴛᴜʀɴ'ꜱ ᴡɪꜱᴅᴏᴍ

Emphasizes the importance of discipline, patience, and perseverance in achieving goals and enduring challenges.

Is realistic, focusing on practical solutions, hard work, and a realistic assessment of limitations.

Involves building strong foundations, whether in relationships, career, or personal development, through slow and steady progress.

Encourages self-discipline, self-control, and the mastery of one's strengths and weaknesses.

Earned through experience, failures, and setbacks, teaching valuable lessons and resilience.

ꜱᴀᴛᴜʀɴ ʀᴇᴛᴜʀɴ

A Saturn Return occurs approximately every 28.5 - 30 years when transiting Saturn returns to the exact position it was at your birth.

This is a significant astrological milestone associated with maturity, responsibility, and life transitions. Here are some of the energies you may experience during this time:

The Saturn Return marks a period of increased maturity and self-reflection. You may reassess your goals, values, and priorities, seeking greater clarity about your path in life.

Saturn's influence during this time emphasizes responsibility, discipline, and hard work. It's a time to take stock of your achievements and commitments, and to make necessary adjustments for long-term success.

Saturn Returns often coincide with significant life transitions, such as career changes, relationship milestones, or personal transformations. These transitions may involve challenges but also opportunities for growth and resilience.

Saturn's influence encourages you to build solid foundations for your future. This may involve establishing financial stability, deepening meaningful relationships, or pursuing long-term goals with determination.

The Saturn Return is a period of gaining wisdom through experience. It's a time to learn from past mistakes, take responsibility for your actions, and embrace the lessons that contribute to your growth and maturity.

Alchemical Significance

In Alchemy, Jupiter and Saturn hold significant symbolic meanings, reflecting deeper spiritual and psychological principles.

Jupiter, associated with expansion, growth, and philosophical wisdom, aligns with the alchemical process of Ceration. This phase is akin to the quest for knowledge and understanding, where one must dissolve preconceived notions and beliefs to embrace new insights and perspectives. Jupiter's influence in alchemy embodies this process of breaking down the old to make way for the new, encouraging intellectual exploration and the pursuit of higher truths.

Saturn's association with discipline, responsibility, and practical wisdom corresponds to the alchemical process of Fermentation. This phase involves the integration of new knowledge and experiences into one's being, leading to personal growth, maturity, and the development of inner strength. Saturn's influence in alchemy reflects this transformative journey, emphasizing the importance of patience, endurance, and resilience as one navigates the challenges of life and undergoes inner alchemical processes.

Further Information & Sources;

There are a variety of sources online and older texts exploring the intersection of Astrology and Alchemy. Some can be found freely available online, some have been condensed into digestible articles. Explore all you can.

Astrology, Magic, and Alchemy in Art.

Alchemy: The Soul of Astrology

Alchemy: An Introduction into Symbolism and Psychology

Inner Alchemy Astrology

The Seven Stages of Spiritual Alchemy

[cryptotheism]

If you were to invent an interdisciplinary Alchemy major (or make a plan for individual study of it) at a modern university, how would you lay it out?

For analogy, my university offers an interdisciplinary major for cognitive science, which is basically a collection of courses from psych, neuro, philosophy, and more with the ability to choose tracks specializing in things like psycholinguistics or artificial intelligence

Any realistic study of alchemy would essentially be an antique language and history of science course. You'd need to know how to read Coptic and use a chemistry lab.

[russenoire]

i just finished fullmetal alchemist 2003...

and i have words about this.

while both series have lovely scores, courtesy of michiru ooshima here and akira senju for FMAB, FMAB's OPs and EPs are almost all far too good to skip, ever. (if i have to hear pornograffiti's 'melissa' one more time, i will scream.) both series rely pretty heavily on slapstick humor to leaven the surrounding darkness, and the massive chip on edward's shoulder about his height, grating in brotherhood, also wears on my patience here.

i liked this story's approach to alchemy and how it works. but the creators' vision of homunculi here, where each homunculus arises as a result of a single alchemist's hubris and becomes their sin to answer for? i prefer it a little more than the admittedly more cohesive explanation of a single being splitting off aspects of himself.

we get to spend more time with scar and maes hughes (my favorite character; i adore his hazel eyes in this adaptation and hearing the late keiji fujiwara's silky pipes voice him twice is a joy). i still can't decide which kimblee i like best.

both fullmetals are examples of satisfyingly meaty storytelling and full of awesome animation. i suspect a dislike of canon divergence behind a lot of the hate for the first series, and a preference for deeper character study and pathos behind hate for the second.

i'm usually wary of adaptations continuing after creators run out of source material myself, but the story shō aikawa and seiji mizushima constructed out of whole cloth offers up a feast of philosophy, character study, mindfuckery and intricate military-political intrigue. and for the most part, it holds up under its own weight.

here scieszka, winry and rose are more instrumental to the story's plot. dante the cursed shapeshifting genius alchemist is a brilliant addition to the story, as is archer (more on him below). lust becomes an almost sympathetic character, what with having loved and lost multiple times as she manipulates mankind into seeking knowledge while being only a tool herself. alphonse is a formidable alchemist and a prodigy in his own right. here that's not just hinted at; both boys could have passed the state alchemist exam with ease. i loved seeing the elric brothers use alchemy to squabble with each other, not just fists and limbs. and edward... he's a double amputee, but his prosthetic limbs work well enough to rid him of any real functional impairment (bless winry's fantastic engineering!). i'm not going to get into the fucked-up implications of that in this post, but i will say that FMA '03 makes his disability much clearer. we see how painful attaching his automail limbs is, repeatedly. a character pries them off of him at one point and he's almost helpless until he can get them back. it's now obvious why he wears gloves most of the time.

the brutality and pervasive racism of the military dictatorship running amestris is given far more focus here. (edward himself gets checked on his own racist assumptions quite a few times.) we see more of the armed forces in the act of genocide, not just flashbacks in haunted soldier memories. officers openly call people savages; kimblee is sent in as an exterminator because of his amorality and solipsism; shou tucker's sick research is allowed to continue, even though the military already has a more efficient method to make chimerae. while making the situation the elric brothers left behind in liore worse, the shady lt col archer sustains what would have been fatal wounds. he gets rebuilt into some sort of robocop hybrid sentient killing machine with no qualms about gunning down his own men. rose is traumatized to mutism raped by the military for having led a rebellion and still leads her people.

whether this feels heavy-handed to you may depend on your tolerance for darkness and cognitive dissonance; i'm still processing how i feel about it. both takes on arakawa-sensei's story present their main and supporting cast as capable of cruelty and kindness, but FMA '03 foregrounds that evil a bit more alongside the good. it made the kindness less palatable for me, in a good way.

also i spoiled myself a bit by watching the conqueror of shamballa before finishing this series. when i learned that mizushima-san is a huge fan of hideaki anno's work, FMA '03's 'inconclusive' ending made even more sense.

[jellisdraws]

WIP Whenever

It’s been a while since I posted anything from my Cyberfantasy WIP so…

The helm was a vision straight out of the last century of star cruisers , retrofitted into something more functionally modern. It's dated darksteel panels were accented with rust red ironwood, and a full suite of leather chairs and stations sat vacant on either side of the conically shaped room. In the middle of the room where an old timey captain's chair may have sat, a 12 foot tall, 8 foot wide inky black egg shaped pod was welded into the floor, it's sleek sides seamed with glowing strings of runes. Past the navigation egg, the circular front viewport glowed with the purple hue of the light spilling from the Gate, the traffic ahead of them mere dots of black with their own aetheric glow of main thrusters, slowly idling their way forward, waiting their turn to warp. Wires and cables humming with magic running out of the base of the pod disappeared under the floor panelling - Was that… mahogany? - and reappeared where they linked into the various navigation and control stations across the bridge. Advancements in cognition-enhancing alchemy, magics, and technology like Jack’s own implanted cyberbrain now allowed the entire suite of operating systems for a starship like this one to be controlled by one person- a fact not lost on the starlining corporations.

Now that Automaton Intelligences were calling for equal treatment as kith, and even the corporate funded governments were having to give way in order to appease their constituents both organic and manufactured, it was far cheaper to just maintain the fewest employees possible and focus on guild busting tactics. Paying for stimulants, overtime and legal payouts when things went wrong was far cheaper than paying a living wage and hiring Shipboard AI to supplement helmsmen. The pilots guild was more or less a full fledged insurrection anymore, hijacking, blockading and destroying Corpo ships across the Unified Systems. They supposedly maintained sleeper representatives across the various starliner companies, those willing to quietly recruit new guild members or crash starships into trade hubs in firey protest. Split between the Corpos bearing down on them and the Guild’s aggressive recruiting tactics, every pilot and helmsman Jack had ever met had been either stupefyingly boring or batshit insane. She hoped this one counted among the former.

(Rest under the cut)

A voice floated out of the Comm rune on the egg, “Hey, just a heads up we’re about T minus 16 minutes to warp. Not to put too much pressure on you, but non essential systems will be going down as we warp, standard procedure, and they wont be back on till we’re headed into final approach.”

“Right.” Jack said, edging around the pod, trying to get a view of the person inside

“It's weird you know, I don't remember logging a request.”

Jack froze, waiting for alarms, waiting for the doors behind her to open, but the voice continued, “ Sometimes I forget about the small stuff though, or maybe it's an old one- glad they're finally sending someone to deal with stuff like this,” The voice was dreamy- like their attention was largely elsewhere- which Jack supposed it was; flying large scale starships was consuming work.

She finally scooted in front of the navigation egg, peering through the layers and layers of projected information and glowing sensor displays on the glass of the viewing window into the beautiful reflective eyes of a mermaid. She smiled dreamily at Jack as she floated gracefully in the suspending fluid of the egg. She was around 4 feet tall, with a slender feminine torso covered in opalescent white scales that shifted into a curling, ridged neon yellow seahorse tail. Her pale green curls were trapped beneath a pair of headphones she had pulled around her neck- the cord of which disappeared into the top of the egg. Her eyes were the color and quality of mercury, sitting prettily in a heart shaped face. She had a prominent tattoo of an incredibly buff orcish man in a navy cap and not much else along her sternum. Down the sides of her neck and collar Jack could see her gills filtering. Jack had to remind herself to look the woman in her eyes.

“Hi there,” Jack said.

“Yeah, hi,” returned the dreamy voice through the pod, though Jack couldn't see the Mermaids lips move, “Feel free to do what you need to do, We got about- oh… just under 14 minutes now.”

“Right. I don't suppose we could speed that up?” Jack asked

“Speed it up how?”

“Most ships have thrusters I believe, they are used to provide thrust. I would like there to be more thrust.”

“Oh.”

Jack unfolded the titanium blade from her hand and pressed the tip into the glass of the navigation egg with what she hoped was a menacing click, her black eyes meeting the Mermaids mercury ones, “Im hijacking the ship.”

“Oh, Okay.”

“‘Okay?’ What the fuck do you mean, ‘Okay’?”

“I was acquiescing.” the mermaid said.

“I just told you I was stealing the ship. Why would you acquiesce to that? Who says acquiesce anymore?”

“I dunno. Protocol I think.”

“Protocol says to agree to hijacking?”

“Yeah.”

“I need to be through the Hyperlane gate as fast as you can get us there…?”

“Madolyn.”said Madolyn the mermaid.

“Madolyn, hi. My name is-”

An explosion rocked the cabin as the doors in the rear blew open with a wild squeal and cracking of metal and ceramic, with a shower of blue and purple arcane sparks. The Corprobots began to force their way through the exploded doors, kicking and twisting burning out of their way.

“JACK GATHOWAY YOU HAVE BEEN FOUND NON COMPLIANT.” came a loud tinny voice followed by a short burst of gunfire.

Jack yelped and ducked behind the egg as bullets ricocheted around the cabin, struggling to flatten herself against the convex surface.

“Now please Madolyn!” She yelled

“Just feel free to call me Maddie!” she said cheerfully, righting herself in the tank and pulling her headphones back up around her ears. She began to wave her hands fluidly though the fluid, and the ship responded instantly. Jack felt herself pressed firmly into the smooth hard surface of the egg as gravity shifted in response to the acceleration. An echoing crash and the sounds of cursing revealed a corprobot had fallen off of it's feet and tangled the legs of the others.

Jack looked frantically in front of her, the aetheric glow of the gate was huge and all encompassing, trying to stay stuck behind the egg as Maddie swung the starliner in and out of traffic, avoiding the ships trundling there as she continued to accelerate towards the gate.

“Stay where you are!” came a corprobot voice, and then more gunfire, Jack hissed as a ricochet skimmed past her forearm, slicing the skin like a red hot razor. The bots were spreading out, making the precarious cover she had found increasingly tenuous. Between the shouting and gunfire she could hear Maddie cheerfully speaking to someone,

“Thats right Raxxus Control we have been spacejacked, and the culprits are accelerating us directly into the Gate!” A pause, “Nope, it does not seem like re-establishing control of the vessel will be possible.” She gave Jack a thumbs up, and Jack returned the gesture with a weak smile.

A Metallic hand grabbed Jack by the ankle and ripped her out of her hiding spot and she yelled, swinging and kicking, slamming her knife repeatedly into the torso of the corprobot holding her, the aetherium infused titanium sinking into the thick ceramic armor over and over until the bot fell in a shower of purple sparks. More gunfire from the bots- TING! A bullet lodged itself in her metal leg, she almost could have laughed until another one took her in the shoulder and she spun over the controls landing with a bone rattling THUNK on the other side of the defunct console. Maddie was still speaking,

“That's right, we are a passenger vessel, so firing on us is out of the question unfortunately. Eject them? I don't have the authority to do that sir, Im so sorry. Listen we’re about to hit the Gate, it's been lovely to talk to you- what was that? Collision?”

Jack’s eyes widened as she turned to look out the front viewport to see the prow of Starsailer emerge from the gate, followed by its masts and sails, a huge galleon from the ancient days of spacefaring, it's Draconic figurehead looking as surprised to see the Starliner as they were to see it. Maddie hewed the ship hard to port, but it was too late. Jack felt it shudder beneath her before the impact came and she was thrown across the room. She slammed hard into the ceiling, navigation egg, floor, egg again. As the starliner bounced off of the hapless Starsailer’s shields and directly into Raxxus Station itself, metal and glass and ceramic buckled as the momentum of the ship ground it further and further into the Gates’s superstructure. Jack felt the shuddering reverberations of arcane explosions before she saw them, massive roiling purple flames being ejected out of the gate with increasing intensity as the starliner crashed into it before the momentum of the spinning structure caught them and flipped the disintegrating ship entirely and the purple aetheric glow overtook all.

[scarwasright]

An interesting side effect of writing so much in Scar's POV is the very consistent through-line that alchemy and racism are inseparable.

What thinks and feels like a human but isn’t? A great many things, answered alchemy. And maybe that was the sickness at its foundational center. Not power over energy, matter, or even decay, but the right to declare inhumanity by its own hand. The power of a state. The power of an army.

It could be strongly argued that alchemy is the belief system of Amestris, its own cultural religion. Even Marcoh calls it so. There's a consistent cognitive dissonance when alchemy and its practitioners/adherents/believers come into contact with someone whose very person has been touched by alchemy -- An attached soul, a chimera, a homunculus. These people, undeniably thinking and feeling and possessing of a will of their own, are stripped of the social privilege of humanity. This is alchemy's doing.

Reframing this world, this society, these conflicting ideas through Scar's eyes makes the failed logic of our original POV character (Ed) all the more obvious. It makes his personally convenient, inconsistent notation of what is human and what isn't (Al is, Sloth isn't) all the more obviously bogus.

It feels so obvious that denoting all of this in my own text feels condescending, but I wanted to talk about it a bit because it's so interesting, so I opened discord and was immediately hit with this tweet about the official FMA mobile game:

And I just. You really can't make this shit up.

"Hey guys I think maybe alchemy and racism are thematically inseparable within this universe?"

Official FMA media: "FIRE COMBO THE SHIT OUT OF FREEDOM FIGHTERS FROM A COLONIZED ETHNIC MINORITY!! ISN'T ROY SO FUCKING COOL?? GIVE US GACHA MONEY."

It's a bad joke. It really, really is.

[aetherialpiplup108]

How the Alchemy of Souls Season 1 Ending Perfectly Demonstrates Yeong's Guilt, Uk's Persistence, and the Beauty of their Bond

I should hate the ending of Alchemy of Souls season 1. Jin Mu's random contrived bells showing up and being used as a pivotal series-defining plot-point in the same episode drives me just as insane as it did Mu-deok. And it kills me to watch two characters who are defined by their ability to challenge the world and resist fate succumb to its pressures (note: I don't think this is a flaw in the series since it's simply a fraction of the overarching theme the story is trying to convey but boy did it hurt). I should have been so massively disappointed and yet the climax itself runs rent-free in my head a full year after I saw it for the first time.

First of all, we finally get sword-fighting Yeong again and in the absolute worst way possible. It creates this wonderful cognitive dissonance in your head where you're simultaneously crying in angst while cheering on Jung So-min as she puts on the performance we've been longing for the entire show.

Next, there's the behemoth stabbing scene itself. When Mu-deok regains consciousness in Uk's arms, there's a brief look of confusion in her eyes likely due to the gaps in her memory, the heaving of his voice, the desperate way his arms are wrapped around her, or maybe even the blood seeping between them. But the first thing she says even before processing everything is: "Jang Uk? ...Did I do this?"

Despite embracing the ruthless assassin lifestyle (a hard path she undertook due to the love she felt for her family and the immense grief felt in their loss), Yeong does care about other people. We know this through the way she slyly sneaks in affection towards Uk, helps Yul heal and let go of the guilt he's held onto since running into her as children, and offers Go-won an esoteric companionship they both come to value greatly. In season 2, through amnesiac!Yeong, we're given an even clearer glimpse at her intrinsic compassion through the unhidden empathy she shows to practically everyone she meets.

But the real Cho-Yeong spent years of isolation in Danhyanggok's cruel winters training, breathing, and living for revenge. Knowing only how to kill and draw blood, of course Yeong believed she'd end up hurting anyone stupid enough to come too close. It's why her first instinct is to shear off every potential bond she could make: to protect herself from any more loss and to protect others from her. When it became impossible to deny the love she and Uk shared, Yeong chose to wield it callously to avoid getting attached, to remind him and her that she wasn't round-faced Mu-deok who was free to earn and give affection. She was Naksu. Undeserving, dangerous, poisonous Naksu. We see this thought process and self-denial make a reoccurrence in season 2 when Yeong immediately distances herself from Uk the second she gets her memories back, even if it agonizes her, because she can't bear to hurt him again.

Rather than assigning blame to Jin Mu, she takes her sword through Uk's chest as mere confirmation of what she always believed: how could the ruthless shadow assassin that lives off revenge be allowed to love and be loved?

Yeong's guilt is especially ironic when paired with Jang Uk having no doubt in his mind that she's innocent. He gets stabbed and just pulls her close before he's even able to process what's going on because they'd been there before at Jeojingak when he had her hold a sword to his neck.

Jang Uk is the first and only person, really, to hold complete confidence not in Yeong's prowess as a mage but in her character and ability to care. And it means more because as her pupil, he's the person (aside from herself) that Yeong's been the harshest with. She continually put his life in danger whether through poison or overtraining or by inciting death matches, and hurts him again and again with words and actions (gambling the jade egg) meant to prod right at his insecurities. Yeong had thought this would be enough to keep him at bay, to force him into a transactional relationship where she wasn't afraid he'd run away too soon and yet wouldn't let herself build up hope that he'd actually stay when the terms of their initial agreement were met.

Except.

Uk had already seen glimpses of that lonely girl Yeong buried inside and actually tried to understand her, failing at times but doing his best to make sense of the way she thinks without judgement. In the process, he realized just how much Yeong values the people she loves, how much she wants to protect those who've shown her even the ounce of kindness she doesn't think she deserves. That's how he knows, instinctively, that she couldn't have stabbed him. It's how he knows she wouldn't even fight Dang-gu (although, I'm not sure if he was aware that she killed Cho-yeon's father before arriving in the forest). Because how could someone who's so grateful for the love they deem themselves undeserving of cast it aside so easily?

And finally, because somewhere along the way this post devolved from a loosely structured rant over one scene to a frantic gush over these two ridiculously endearing characters, the beauty of the climax is shown in the way Uk just watches helplessly as Yeong struggles and breaks down in a way so uncharacteristic of the stoic, emotion-swallowing woman who could only say "I like you" under copious amounts of alcohol. It's so unbelievably soft (idk, maybe I'm just a lunatic) when he slowly searches for her hand, using the last pieces of his strength and then some to lace their wounded fingers together, somehow managing to use his entire blood-soaked body in the last 2 minutes to show her that she has his entire heart, whether she deserved it or not, and there wasn't anything she could do that would make him leave.

of course, these are just my interpretations of the characters. Maybe I'm completely off or reading way too much into it.

tl;dr: I have a lot of criticism for certain aspects of Alchemy of Souls, but the relationship Jang Uk and Cho Yeong share is so powerful. Though tragic and shockingly reliant on plot-convenience, the finale of season 1 depicts their relationship beautifully by illustrating the depth of their trust and reliance on the other. Also, UkYeong has rooted itself thoroughly in my head. I've never been so invested in a ship, someone send help!!!!!

[art-of-mathematics]

Evolution of the sciences throughout history

Yesterday I could finally scribble a rough framework of an observation and concept I had regarding the sciences, and how they emerged from some ancient mysticism pseudoscience stuff, such as astrology and alchemy.

I considered 5 stages:

Primordial stage: Natural philosophy

Early/primitive stage: Alchemy, Math(could also be between primordial and early stage), Astrology

Main stage: Chemistry, Anatomy and Biology, Physics, Astronomy

Early interdisciplinary stage: Biochemistry, microbiology, astrophysics, nuclear and particle physics, cosmology, quantum physics

Complex interdisciplinary stage: Sociology, psychology, neuroscience, cognitive science

... then coming back to logic and linguistics and looping back to philosophy... and a new round begins... (What does this mean in concrete? That one is for another article as it would exceed the margin now. (But it has to to with dynamical iterative rendering processes, to summarize it.))

[lightlessentwine]

[ELDEN RING GRAND THEORY REVISION 2.1- SUBJECT TO INQUIRIES AND FURTHER REVISION]

The Narrator in the newest trailer opens with the line, "Pure and Radiant, he wields love to shrive clean the hearts of men.. There is nothing more terrifying." and frankly every aspect of Miquella's role in the Golden Order is terrifying from his perspective. He had to pass judgement in blessing others, which alone can be enough to break someone. It is from here that we may see part of Miquella's original reason in creating the Haligtree. At some point, Miquella became St. Trina to guide followers to the Haligtree. Knowing Miquella is St. Trina, it is possible to extrapolate on Messmer's identity when applying the concepts of Alchemy and how it translates to a classical understanding of Analytical Psychology. a lot of this speculation also ties back to extensively studying the world of the game, as well as a bit of real world religion, history, and even learning to cross-reference in-game crests and murals:--

We must first establish that literally anything not understood in a binary in Elden Ring actually confounds and terrifies followers of the Golden Order. It in fact worries Corhyn so deeply that he refuses to believe Goldmask as he grovels in the ashes of the Erdtree-- One of the biggest revelations in the entire game is premised around breaking a binary that was never proven to be a binary at all. In other words, the entire Golden Order is based in dichotomies and binaries and there is a fundamental flaw in that regard; it disregards the individual and non-binary aspects of the World to force them into a simpler mold that was going to fall with time, regardless.- Much like with Gwyn's plight in Dark Souls; it was never about the people of the land with him, it was about preventing a coming age and clinging onto whatever control found in preserving the current one forever.

At the basis, St. Trina and Miquella may have shared one body but two identities because of having been born of a single-bodied Rebis, or at least as the Golden Order sees Marika/Radagon, a God. this is an ability only demonstrated by Marika that Malenia seems incapable of. I believe her bestowment from the outer god of Rot is the reason for her lack of other personal identities; she does not have any others to project other than what she is, due to societal perception of her bestowment/affliction and her choice to let miquella ascend to the role she could also be in. In the current age, all she has been doing is dreaming (note: st. trina) and awakens promptly when we arrive; likely to the only movement of air she's felt in ages

I think Miquella is the entity of purity while St. Trina is a Lunar Reflection; the Albedo, or an Animus in Jungian Psychology, which has heavy ties to alchemy. She's the hero and protector of the people thar Miquella often envisions within. Messmer, residing in the shadow realm, represents a deep seated truth within Miquella- a sort of "Cognitive Rubedo" if you will, or a "Truth in the Mind" that he hates as much as others fear, and that nobody wants to be found. part of this truth must be Marika's fault, and it has left Miquella with a personal guilt that has torn at him so badly that eventually, a Shadow of himself tore away and became its own monster from Within.

Imagine it like this; if St. Trina is Miquella's image of theirself as a blessed, pure caretaker and a sort of christ-like figure, then Messmer is the part of him that represents "The Sins of The Father." Marika's own rise to power and established order themselves are what shaped a young Miquella. It was with time and between his noted brilliance and ability to "compel affection," that he found a way to break free of his fated identity which meant breaking free of the Order itself.

Applying the Realm of Shadows to this "Within," having been physically separated from the lands between by Marika's own mischievous deeds, it is likely that the shadow realm now acts as a cognitive realm of Marika's, of sorts, which could absolutely contain the perception or persona of another person within it. (think Mementos from Persona 5, lol)

So.. Without the current Elden Ring there would be no Order, but the current Order hides a serpent at the central intersection, which seems to represent Messmer. this is the same concept as how a pentagram represents a human, and humanity, while being inverted it represents a goat, or in many cases, Baphomet. Baphomet is labeled as half-human, half-animal, male and female, good and evil.. he is referred to as a man but is essentially every binary and every dichotomy that arises from them. He is even seen as both a deity and a demon. I believe Miquella and Radagon's work on discovering the Law of Causality is the main hint toward Messmer's presence, which ties into the rest of the alchemy involved. He is a pagan cult deity who represents balance and neutrality, and is almost always depicted doing a gesture signifying "as above; so below" which is a condensed version of the Law of Causality, already known to be associated with Miquella and Radagon, well before the Shattering; "Causality is an influence by which one event, process, state, or object contributes to the production of another event, process, state, or object where the cause is partly responsible for the effect, and the effect is partly dependent on the cause."

For clarity's sake, because i figure i'll be asked if not addressed: It's not impossible for Messmer and Miquella+Malenia to have all been the first child of Radagon/Marika with this Theory. Malenia was a twin born at the same time as Miquella, so she would be a first child with Miquella. If Messmer is a diety representing neutrality or, as I expect, a product of the Law of Causality, then he would be a product of Miquella as much as Miquella is of him. this idea lends to the possibility of Miquella actually being the remainder that was left over from a splitting where Messmer's counterparts (possibly both Miquella and Malenia, given their twin nature) are representative of his own aspects.. it does is beg a sort of "chicken or egg" paradox, but before we had a realistic answer to that, many would reply- and almost sarcastically, if not for the fact that it was the best answer we had- that the first thing to appear was "the Universe." The modern answer is, in fact, that the egg came first. (whether any of this analogy alludes to the actual lore or not is something i think we'd just have to wait for the expansion to know)

Marika herself had this Shadow hidden away, and this presents rather well because we know that there was a long period of time after the Night of Black Knives that Marika was still active but becoming more distraught, preceding the Shattering. on top of this, more proof resides in that, within Jungian psychology, it is that one's Anima/Animus comes to them in dreams, much like St. Trina came to people in theirs (who, as an Animus herself, was probably motivated by helping malenia look for her Anima, which perhaps never existed). It is also true that a Shadow Persona is borne of conflict tearing at one's conscious until it becomes its own entity, which i've already presumed of Messmer above.

[joking-suggestions]

a kind of analysis on albedo

I feel like a lot of people mischaracterized albedo a lot since he's an artificial human being and he constantly gets compared to an emotionless robot when, well...he clearly is not.

as a homunculus albedo was created with the intent of following the sample of any other human being, as Wikipedia says:

" A homunculus (UK: /hɒˈmʌŋkjʊləs/ hom-UNK-yuul-əs, US: /hoʊˈ-/ hohm-, Latin: [hɔˈmʊŋkʊlʊs]; "little person") is a representation of a small human being, originally depicted as small statues made out of clay. Popularized in sixteenth-century alchemy and nineteenth-century fiction, it has historically referred to the creation of a miniature, fully formed human. "

this means that those children, except for their peculiarities, were not that different from any other human child.

" That the sperm of a man be putrefied by itself in a sealed cucurbit for forty days with the highest degree of putrefaction in a horse's womb, or at least so long that it comes to life and moves itself, and stirs, which is easily observed. After this time, it will look somewhat like a man, but transparent, without a body. If, after this, it be fed wisely with the Arcanum of human blood, and be nourished for up to forty weeks, and be kept in the even heat of the horse's womb, a living human child grows therefrom, with all its members like another child, which is born of a woman, but much smaller. "

just because albedo was artificially created does not affect his cognitive processing of feelings.

moreover, I think this misconception originated from the fact that albedo is apparently a calm and reserved person. but of course we know that someone relatively calmer isn't necessarily cold-hearted, they just have a subtle way of expressing themselves. an introvert isn't a cold person, do you agree, my introverted fellas?

genshin tries to additionally point out in its special events how albedo is warm at heart and is slowly learning (through the traveler and his personal life experiences) how to open up to others. that's called character development.

Albedo's Artwork - Friendship Lv. 4

" (...) When strolling through Mondstadt, he enjoys sketching and painting all manner of living things, but particularly people in moments of joy. Sometimes, he even gifts his artwork to his unsuspecting models, believing that when a work of art captures a transient moment of enjoyment, it is something worth treasuring. (...) "

I would like to ask you, would a numb and insensitive person gift their sketches to random strangers on the street just to make them smile? or...would such a person try to look after a child? listen up, if klee loves her older brother so much it's because she truly feels at ease with him. taking care of children isn't an easy task, so of course, albedo needs to be emotionally aware of their feelings in order to properly taking care of them.

besides, I think we also have to take into account how he grew up. "childhood" is fundamental when it comes to our adult personality, as phycology teaches us. albedo has likely spent centuries of his existence by his master's side, probably without getting in touch with anyone but her during that time. he was raised with strict rules to abide by, and rigid learning schemes to attend, otherwise he risked arguably to be abandoned by his mother, the only person he looked up to. so, OF COURSE, albedo is so reclusive, that's just how he was used to live after all this time. now that he's finally living a normal life in mondstadt he's slowly learning how to deal with other people too. it's a process, but he's getting there.

and yet, he still puts work first because that's what he has done for the equivalent of a lifetime, to the point he neglects even his own well-being. that's everything that was taught him. albedo is basically trying to accomplish his master's last mission, everyone else in this case is just a distraction. if he gets distracted he might fail, and failure means disappointing everyone and, consequently, being left alone. again. I like to think that, in the end, albedo doesn't approach people much because he's afraid od rejection. albedo is afraid of not meeting people expectations about him, he is aware that he's different from all the normal folks in town, or even in the world.

but, he's changing. he's slowly learning the importance of befriend other people. perhaps, maybe it's part of his mission, too?

albedo does care. a lot. he struggles with expressing his feelings, but the affection of his friends and family is there and he's getting the importance of it.

[fictionadventurer]

"I will not lie down to sleep till I have told you again that I love you."

'"Love is the fulfilling of the law," and the law of our love is liberty."

"The Tyranny of our love is sweet."

"This surpasses alchemy. It is divine. It is a new proof of the truth that "God is love."

You'd think these would be quotes from some poet or epic romance. The kind of thing that people quote on tumblr gifsets or get tattooed or whatever. But they were written by 20th President of the United States James A. Garfield writing to his actual wife, and I don't know how to deal with that. The cognitive dissonance is wild.

[ryin-silverfish]

Chapter 14: The Mind Monkey Cometh!

-This chapter begins with a poem by Zhang Boduan, a Daoist master of the Quanzhen Sect whose theory of internal alchemy heavily inspired that of JTTW's, and would appear later in the book as an immortal guest star.

"The dharmakaya has no shape or form…"

-Hmm, what is a dharmakaya? The Yu translation doesn't have a footnote for that, so here's my brief explanation: in Mahayana Buddhist beliefs, there's the idea of the Trikaya, the Three Bodies of the Buddha——three facets of existence for an enlightened being.

-Dharmakaya, "Body of the Law"(法身), is the bits of pure existence and universal Buddha-nature in all living things that is immutable and eternal.

-Sambhogakaya, "Body of Benefits"(报身), is the miraculous body a practitioner attains after countless trials and cultivation that receives all the good karma they have accumulated over the years.

-Nirmanakaya, "Manifested Body/Body of Transformation"(应身), is the physical form a Buddha/Bodhisattva takes in order to assist and educate the masses, and can be anything, from a holy statue to a person to a plate of food.

(Very unserious analogy: if Buddhahood is water, dharma-kaya is like H2O molecules, sambhoga-kaya is like the ocean, and nirmana-kaya is the convenient cup of drink nearby that can quench your thirst.)

-Boqin mentioned that SWK was trapped under the mountain during the time of Wang Mang's usurpation(9-23 CE), between Western and Eastern Han dynasty. Which, if we are to be chronologically accurate, would be 600-something years before Tripataka's pilgrimage instead of 500.

-The 100 years off may post a problem to people who wanna calculate SWK's birth year and age for fun; I, however, am more interested in the fact that he was either born in the Spring-Autumn or Warring States period, and the earlier option would make him a contemporary of Confucius(551-479 BCE).

-Just imagine him going "Confucius? Really tall guy, lotta students, wandered from state to state lookin' for work? Yep, I think I ran into an old man like that while seeking immortality!"

-Allegorically, the Six Robbers represent the six senses, something the footnote has pointed out. However, I feel like this warrants a more in-depth explanation.

-The Yogacara School——not the Ming administrative division, but the tradition of Buddhist thought the historical Xuanzang followed, has a theory of consciousness that divides the mind into eight layers. The first five layers are the five senses, and the inputs they receive are sent to the sixth layer of Thought for processing.

(Reference to these six also appears in the Heart Sutra: "None is shown by eye, ear, nose, tongue, body nor mind"——无眼耳鼻舌身意)

-Beneath the sixth layer is the seventh layer, Manas, which sends the processed information to the eighth layer, and is the layer responsible for the illusion of selfhood + all the woes that stem from said illusion. The final layer, Alaya-vijnana, is the consciousness that stores all information in the universe, and contains the bits of inherent Buddha-nature obscured by regular human cognition.

-The historical Xuanzang had a poem that referred to Alaya as the "Master/Head of Household", and the Yogacara theory of consciousness was also taken up by later Daoist thinkers, who believed that Alaya was the same as the internal alchemy concept of "Spiritual Mind"(元神).

-That's why SWK refers to himself as the Six Robbers' proper master, the True Mind who is supposed to dominate these senses. However, my personal reading of the allegory is that he isn't the True Mind yet, and his killing of the Six Robbers is akin to someone who uses extreme means to free themself from worldly distractions.

-Like, sensory pleasures and experiences can be very distracting and serve as a serious obstacle to getting things done, but you don't free yourself from those distractions by blinding your eyes and cutting out your tongue and engaging in self-imposed sensory deprivation.

-Thus, Tripataka's chastisement isn't just about SWK committing multiple homicides and violating Buddhist laws. The way I see it, it's also a subtle way of telling you that the mastery of heart and mind cannot be forced, and a truly powerful practitioner is one who can triumph over the distractions of the senses without cutting themself off from the world.

@journeythroughjourneytothewest

[lesewut]

'Nature speaks in its own tongue.'

From the book series Secret Sciences - A collection of older and newer writings on alchemy, magic, Kabbalah, Rosicrucianism, Freemasonry, witches and devils Published by A . v. Linden in 1918 after the  Amstadam original edition of 1700.  16th volume:  Seraphinic  Flower-Garden,  selections from the mystical-religious writings of Jakob Böhme.

'Magia is the Book of all students.'

Mysticism should not only be interpreted as a significant phenomenon of intellectual and religious history, but as the awakening of the religious feeling concerning nature. Perhaps certain symbolic interpretations have receded into the background of our rationally calculated world, since everything that cannot be empirically proven is dismissed as a phantasm. But if the human being separates himself from his collective deep consciousness, he lacks a decisive possibility to (re-)connect with deep collective consciousness. Mysticism has the aim to deepen the soul for religion and art, a poignant love unparalleled in the world/s of appearances. Dwelling in a cosmic strive for connecting with God and the Divine Energy, without the profanity of manifestation in images, but in a astonishing cognitive emotionality. Through the art of inner liturgy it can be possible to trace the ontological search for the human’s home. The eternal questions, like fixed stars above the head of the dust born, have been no less relevant since the first question, and yet have not come closer to the truth, which is always in progress and false, when decorated as stored and captured. And don't we notice with every achievement how our collected knowledge is revised in the cosmic expanses? That we are almost forced to think outside the box and to regard regularity in chaos as an illusion? The cosmic rift is not only dividing humanity from the cosmos, it divided man from himself and thus also human beings from each other. In the centre of revelation, which is common in all mystic practices: learning and learning to know the self, in order to understand more.

’Be sober, watch, fast and pray that you may deafen earthly reason and make it dead at once, that God's Spirit may take place in you! When he appears, he soon overcomes earthly reason and looks at the will in fear with its love and sweetness, since then always a beautiful twig is born out of the tree of faith, and serves all tribulations and temptations for the very best of the children of God.’

'Man comes to know the Creator in contemplation of himself.'

[professionalowl]

Actually, while we're shaming people for their 452 unread books, here's a list of unread books of mine of which I own physical copies, attached to the year I obtained them, so that you can all shame me into reading more:

2024: Ways of Being: Animals, Plants, Machines: The Search for a Planetary Intelligence (James Bridle; just started)

2021: Islands of Abandonment: Life in the Post-Human Landscape (Cal Flyn)

2024: Extreme Fabulations: Science Fictions of Life (Steven Shaviro)

2021: The Unreal & The Real Vol. 1: Where on Earth (Ursula K. Le Guin)

2023: A Study in Scarlet (Arthur Conan Doyle)

2023: Ritual: How Seemingly Senseless Acts Make Life Worth Living (Dmitri Xygalatas)

2023: Vibrant Matter: A political ecology of things (Jane Bennett)

2023: The History of Magic: From Alchemy to Witchcraft, from the Ice Age to the Present (Chris Gosden)

2018: Ways of Seeing (John Berger)

2022: An Immense World: How Animal Senses Reveal the Hidden Realms Around Us (Ed Yong)

2020: Owls of the Eastern Ice: The Quest to Find and Save the World's Largest Owl (Jonathan C. Slaught)

2023: My Life in Sea Creatures (Sabrina Imbler)

2020: The Bird Way: A New Look at How Birds Talk, Work, Play, Parent, and Think (Jennifer Ackerman)

2023: Birds and Us: A 12,000-Year History, from Cave Art to Conservation (Tim Birkhead)

2020: Rebirding: Restoring Britain's Wildlife (Benedict Macdonald)

2022: The Song of the Cell: An Exploration of Medicine and the New Human (Siddhartha Mukherjee)

2022: An Anthropologist on Mars (Oliver Sacks)

2021: Sex, Botany & Empire: The Story of Carl Linnaeus and Joseph Banks (Patricia Fara)

2023: At The Mountains of Madness (H.P. Lovecraft)

2019: Invisible Cities (Italo Calvino; I have been trying to finish this forever and am so, so close)

2023: Brian Boru and the Battle of Clontarf (Sean Duffy)

2021: What is History, Now? How the past and present speak to each other (Helen Carr and Suzannah Lipscomb; essay collection, half-read)

2020: Winter King: The Dawn of Tudor England (Thomas Penn)

2022: Caliban and the Witch: Women, the Body, and Primitive Accumulation (Silvia Federici)

2020: Black Spartacus: The Epic Life of Touissant Louverture (Sudhir Hazareesingh; half-read)

2019: The Five: The Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper (Hallie Rubenhold; 3/4 read)

2022: Lenin on the Train (Catherine Merridale)

2020: October: The Story of the Russian Revolution (China Miéville)

2019: The Villa, the Lake, the Meeting: Wannsee and the Final Solution (Mark Roseman)

2019: Heimat: A German Family Album (Nora Krug)

2018: Maus I: My Father Bleeds History (Art Spiegelman)

2020: Running in the Family (Michael Ondaatje)

2022: Wide Sargasso Sea (Jean Rhys; also never technically "finished" Jane Eyre, but I did my time, damn you)

2023: Time Shelter (Georgi Gospodinov)

2019: Our Man in Havana (Graham Greene; started, left unfinished)

2019: The Spy Who Came In From The Cold (John le Carré)

2021: Why I'm No Longer Talking to White People About Race (Reni Eddo-Lodge; half-read)

2017: Rebel Without Applause (Lemn Sissay)

2022: The Metamorphosis, and Other Stories (Franz Kafka)

2011?: The Complete Cosmicomics (Italo Calvino; vaguely remember reading these when I was maybe 7 and liking them, but I have forgotten their content)

2022: Free: Coming of Age at the End of History (Lea Ypi)

2021: Fairy and Folk Tales of Ireland (W.B. Yates)

Some of these are degree-related, some not; some harken back to bygone areas of interest and some persist yet; some were obtained willingly and some thrust upon me without fanfare. I think there are also some I've left at college, but I'm not sure I was actually intending to read any of them - I know one is an old copy of Structural Anthropology by Claude Levi-Strauss that Dad picked up for me secondhand, which I...don't intend to torment myself with. Reading about Tom Huffman's cognitive-structural theory of Great Zimbabwe almost finished me off and remains to date the only overdue essay I intend to never finish, mostly because the professor let me get away with abandoning it.

There are also library books, mostly dissertation-oriented, from which you can tell that the cognitive archaeologists who live in my walls finally fucking Got me:

The Rise of Homo sapiens: The Evolution of Modern Thinking (Thomas Wynn & Fred Coolidge)

The Material Origin of Numbers: Insights from the Archaeology of the Ancient Near East (Karenleigh A. Overmann)

Archaeological Situations: Archaeological Theory from the Inside-Out (Gavin Lucas)

And, finally, some I've actually finished recently ("recently" being "within the past year"):

The Body Fantastic (Frank Gonzalo-Crussi, solid 6/10 essay collection about a selection of body parts, just finished earlier)

An Entertainment for Angels: Electricity in the Enlightenment (Patricia Fara, also a solid 6/10, fun read but nothing special)

Babel: An Arcane History (R.F. Kuang, 8/10, didactic (sometimes necessary) but effective; magic system was cool and a clever metaphor)

The Sign of Four (A.C. Doyle, 2/10 really racist and for what)

Dr. Space Junk vs. the Universe: Archaeology and the Future (Alice Gorman, 8/10, I love you Dr. Space Junk)

In Search of Us: Adventures in Anthropology (Lucy Moore, 8/10, I respect some of these people slightly more now)

The Dispossessed (Ursula K. Le Guin, 9/10 got my ass)

The Hound of the Baskervilles (A.C. Doyle, 7/10 themez 👍)

[undyingembers]

TVTropes - The Homunculus Children

I got inspired by @the-raging-tempest's post here, so I made my own mock post for the homunculus girls.

In General

Adopted into Royalty: Much of the story’s angst revolves around whether the girls will inherit the crown if Daeran formally adopts them.

All of the Other Reindeer: Most of the girls have trouble making humanoid friends.

Artificial Human: Each girl was created using a magical formula and seems to start at about ten years of age

Artificial Family Member

Badass Family: What they become when they grow up. Their parents are also very powerful adventurers.

Cute Monster Girl: The girls are all homunculi and are rather adorable

Four Temperament Ensemble: Opal is Sanguine, Giselle is Choleric, Grace is Melancholic, Talia is Phlegmatic. Magnolia is Eclectic

Happily Adopted

Little Big Brother: Except for Magnolia, who is very small and is the second oldest, each girl gets a little taller as you go from oldest to youngest (Giselle is fuming).

Mature Work, Child Protagonists: The girls are cute, but MLH is just as dark and mature as the two works it is a derivative of

Our Homunculi Are Different: The girls are strange even by Pathfinder standards.

Tears of Blood/Unable to Cry: The girls can’t cry normal tears. Half of them can’t cry at all, while some of them have substitutes (Giselle starts running muddy water down her face, and Talia has sand dropping from her cheeks).

Giselle

“Anger is Healthy” Aesop: For her, but also for Daeran, who she donates her Anger Affinity to. Despite being the Anger homunculus, more often than not, there’s always a reasonable source to her frustrations, and the story gives her plenty to be upset about.

Best Served Cold: Poor Elisel…

Big Sister Instinct: Is the oldest, and anyone who teases her younger sisters will earn Giselle’s ire very quickly

Girly Bruiser: Loves clothes, frills, balls, and all the girly stuff. She’s also the heavy-hitter of the group, specializing in large weapons when in combat training. Her character class (skald) encapsulates this.

Girly Girl

Jerkass Woobie: The rudest and most blunt of her sisters, but she deals with a lot of internal and external judgement because of what she is and what she is made of.

I Just Want to be Beautiful: Is very insecure about being a homunculus made of mud when she wants to be a pretty princess.

Little Miss Snarker: Is able to match her father in witty banter.

Princesses Prefer Pink/Graceful Ladies Like Purple: Often wears pink or purple dresses.

Regal Ringlets: Has some pretty impressive curls, and her greatest ambition is to be a princess.

Square Race, Round Class: A homunculus made from mud who becomes a more ladylike Court Poet

Token Evil Teamate: Definitely the more ruthless and vengeful of the sisters. It gets even worse when she grows up and marries an unscrupulous vampire marquis.

Tsundere: Rough, demanding, and difficult to please, but she does care very much.

Unholy Matrimony: With Radomir when she grows up.

Magnolia

Alchemy is Magic: Becomes an alchemist when she grows up.

Brilliant but Lazy

Daddy’s Girl: Is very close to Daeran, despite their differences.

Goth: Wears black more often than not.

Feminine Mother, Tomboyish Daughter: A lot more sloppy and ragged than the refined and graceful Leonosa.

Lack of Empathy: Has difficulty with cognitive empathy due to her autism.

Strict Parents Make Sneaky Kids: Lenarius is a very strict parent. Magnolia spends her time going off and getting into places she’s told not to be.

Strong Family Resemblance: Since Lenarius used his/her own blood in Magnolia’s creation, she takes a lot of traits from him/her

Opal

Badass Preacher: Her character class when she grows up is a cleric of Iomadae.

Cheerful Child

Creepy Good: A genuinely good person, just a bit unsettling.

Major Injury Underreaction: Takes getting impaled in the chest with a gardening implement very well. She also recounts one time where she didn’t notice she injured herself on her way to a lesson and gave the instructor a fright when she walked in with her arm bent in an unnatural angle.

Plucky Girl: In keeping in line with her Joy Affinity, she is a very cheerful and kind girl. And too energetic for her own good.

Token Good Teammate: The only Good-aligned sister (Giselle is Evil and the other sisters are Neutral; this could also count for the family as a whole, as Daeran is Evil and Lenarius is Neutral)

Uncanny Valley Girl: The most kind and sociable of the girls. She can be a little unsettling sometimes, particularly when she doesn’t understand that it is not normal for a girl her age to be sustaining the injuries she’s had.

Wacky Parent, Serious Child: Has this relationship with Daeran. The only time he’s ever been disappointed in the girls was when Opal asked him if he would let her go to church on Sundays.

Wide-Eyed Idealist: Never thinks ill of anyone and is the only one of the girls to try to reach out to their grandmother, the Viscountess

Grace

Afraid of their Own Strength: Afraid to hurt someone with her spikes.

Cowardly Lion: Is easily scared, but was the first to volunteer to try out the Affinity-harvesting machine Xanthir and her mother created.

Fear is Normal: What she gives to Daeran when she donates her Fear Affinity to him. Also, much like Giselle, while she is easily scared, she often has justifiable reasons for her fear.

Flowers of Feminity: Is quite girly and loves to wear flowers.

Fragile Speedster: Trains to be a Slayer, a Dex-based martial class.

Nervous Wreck: Appropriate, for a Fear homunculus.

Plant Person

Cactus Person: Made from branches of an acacia tree instead of an actual cactus, but the effect is still the same.

Innocent Plant Children: She is a ten-year-old girl and acts like one.

Botanical Abomination: Her appearance frightens even herself when she looks in the mirror for the first time.

Poisonous Person: Downplayed. Getting pricked by one of her spikes will leave a rash.

Swashbuckler: A skilled fencer and a proficient Pathfinder when she grows up.

Talia

All Girls Like Ponies: Is very fond of horses

Big Beautiful Woman: The largest of the homunculus sisters and very beautiful.

Following in the Relative’s Footsteps: Becomes Leonosa’s apprentice and grows to be an exploitation wizard

Indifferent Beauty: Is very beautiful, but not really interested in romance or people.

Mature Younger Sibling: Though she’s the youngest, she is seemingly the smartest and most put-together.

Squishy Wizard: Becomes a wizard, and her glass body is quite fragile.

The Eeyore: Keeping in line with the Sadness Affinity. Talia is very pessimistic and is prone to point out the worst case scenario of any given situation.

The Smart Guy: Is very good at mathematics, formulae, and memorization. She is the one who trains to be a wizard.

[cypriathus]

Here is my version of Merlin from Arthurian legend!

Merdzalonius Eysplumona is a 460-year-old kind and gentle archmage, bard, and advisor, but behind closed doors, he’s melancholic and bitter. He’s able to put up a convincing facade that he’s completely fine, but shows no fear to berate someone if needed. He’s a sadomasochist who derives most of his sexual pleasure from the infliction of physical and psychological pain on others and himself. As a womaniser, he enjoys getting affection from plenty of women, while flexing his charisma and flirtatious expertise. He’s eager to advise and be of service, and able to use past experiences and knowledge in order to make sensible decisions and judgments. Despite his maturity, he’s playfully cunning and has a fondness for bewildering games, quirky disguises, deception, and strange humour. Merdzalonius is hyperactive, delusional, and anxious with concentration troubles, occasional temper tantrums, and inability to handle stress.

He’s a 9’ 11” (302.26 cm) trapezoidal mesomorph with an average musculature, a square chest, and a slightly rounded belly. He has Alice blue skin that’s fairly smooth, a melanzane forked tongue, and cinnabar eyes with slit pupils and dark burgundy sclera. His glistening edgewater hair is a nest of long, tentacled appendages with marble-like old gold and strikemaster patterns. Merdzalonius dons a glossy black goat patch with signs of greying, reaching to the middle of his pectoral muscles. He has razor-sharp claws in a metallic blue and the wings of a rusty blackbird. His lower half is a giant, slithering Babakina anadoni with eighteen tentacles in the front and the shell of a Charonia tritonis.

The tail half of Nikmuvolefja’s hooded seal pelt (it’s eventually replaced with a grey seal pelt) is stretched across a necklace of alternating raven leg bones and rectangular pieces of lavender quartz. He wears three rings on his left hand: a silver claddagh with a golden heart on the ring finger; a pink coral beaded ring on the middle finger; and a grandidierite solitaire on the index finger. His left forearm and hand are covered in a vambrace of jagged, draconic scales and a sharp-fingered gauntlet, which are both made from gilded brass. Merdzalonius wears layered, flowing robes of cloud burst adorned with purple-white and gold stars, and a short-sleeved mulberry wood tunic made from the finest silk. He’s in possession of a drooping, pointed hat that has an oceanic gradient from rosy pink, brilliant red, teal, light blue, and dark navy. The wide brim is decorated with fourteen hanging bronze bells and a yellowish-brown silk ribbon is wrapped around the base. He carries around a gold-plated, wolfskin grimoire with an evil eye in the centre of the front cover and a long, wavy wand of birch.

Merdzalonius can see a few hours into the past and future of his current timeline, and utilise clairvoyance, telekinesis, psychometry, and elemental manipulation. He’s able to transform people into heroes, anti-heroes, anti-villains or villains based on their moral compass and current emotional state. He possesses an indomitably strong lust and the ability to shapeshift into any animal he truly desires. He’s a master of alchemy white and black magic, psychology, pedagogy, escapology, disguises, beast-taming, music, and singing. He can control people to obey his commands and satisfy his desires through a sing-song voice. As a result of his absolute mind, he has god-level intelligence and cognitive proficiency, mentifery, great wisdom, terrifying charisma, superior instinctual awareness and capabilities in adaptability, and an indomitable willpower. Merdzalonius possesses full comprehension of the multiverse and a clear understanding on how others think and fight.

FAMILY:

Unnamed incubus father

Unnamed human mother

Unnamed fairy enchantress (ex-lover)

ALIASES/NICKNAMES:

The Maritime Madness

The little blackbird

Man of Wonder

FUN FACTS/EXTRA INFORMATION:

As an Æylphitus, the different parts of his name have special meanings: Merdzalonius means “sea fortress” and Eysplumona means “moulting songbird in a cage or singing in their own feathers”.

He used to be a cambion

His former physical body is forever sealed up in a tree that resides somewhere near the heart of Brocéliande.

He has two dragon familiars: an ice-breathing dragon and a dragon born with the powers of erupting volcanoes. They’re tasked with guarding his castle tower from invaders and bringing him ingredients and potential specimens.

He has a strong affinity with nature and animals

He often withdraws himself into Avalon to meditate

He laughs a lot

He enjoys working and living in cluttered environments with limited open spaces as they keep him stimulated and preoccupied.

The weight and stickiness of his mollusk body makes him slower than his former self, which can get on his nerves at times.

[madamlaydebug]

Fermentation: One wouldn’t traditionally think of decay as a form of cleansing, but much like the Phoenix eternally dying unto itself so that it can be reborn from its ashes, fermentation provides the necessary decomposition that will allow it to occupy a higher level of being. This operation in alchemy is marked by the putrefaction of the product that was assembled in the previous stage, into a ferment to ensure that full integration of the alchemist’s separate fragments have taken place. ⁣

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This ferment acts as a fertilizer for the soul. The process is similar to the caterpillar’s metamorphosis into a butterfly. Within its cocoon the caterpillar releases enzymes that dissolve all of its tissues liquefying it into a soup that will be reorganized into the blueprint of a butterfly. When an individual’s psyche is undergoing this same process, Carl Jung referred to it as metanoia. Although we may not be willing participants in our own demise such as the caterpillar, the agreement within the self that was reached during Conjunction has now made us so. We now seek to surrender the contents of our former identity and rectify all of our remaining cognitive dissonance as we incubate inside our cocoon of deep introspection.⁣

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— Sarah Elkhaldy⁣

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🌑Art by: @sakoasko 🌑