#really specific and useful effects

[willyhoos]

alfred livestreaming his breakdown to the entire us public (as his pr team devolves into chaos)

[commsroom]

the u.s.s. horrible unending nightmare 💥 (once again from the incredible @hehearse)

[ginumo]

do you have a take on what stp’s Narrator might look like?

WELL. now i do

The Hero + The Cold — The Hunted + The Opportunist — The Long Quiet

(I have requests open!)

[sunlight-shunlight]

yeah!! like the veil going up should really be the equivalent of a mass extinction event, almost... by the time the games start there's been a few thousand years for stuff to readjust, but that's still not long enough for the environment to actually flourish after such a big change. especially with the blights haha. i think the first blight lasted literal centuries? so that should REALLY have an effect. not even just from the direct effects - people would be unable to farm from the blight, there would be tons of displacement, and they'd be basically hunting anything big enough to eat into extinction.

i like to think solas was doing the equivalent of constantly looking up youtube tutorials in his first year haha. like just phoning his spirit friends every 5 minutes like "what's that plant. what's that animal. can i cook this-". so he probably was fine but hated almost every minute of it. those orlesian frilly cakes were the only time he wasn't suffering, alas.

one thing about ancient arlathan i wish vg had gotten into (along with any other interesting details besides being vaguely desaturated haha) is that: the ecology should've been pretty crazy? i think it's hinted that spiders get really big in places where the veil is thin. and with all the ambient magic before the veil existed, surely there'd be tons of cool megafauna?? plus ghilan'nain was going ham with bioengineering stuff, there should be all kinds of things running around.

plus modern thedas has survived multiple rounds of blight, which would logically kill off tons of species and lead to a lot of places being turned completely barren... what would it have been like before that? it would add an interesting element to solas' nostalgia if the world is quite literally different in that way.

[xxplastic-cubexx]

idec anymore. sending this out into the wild

[harryzroze]

Corrupted Macaque based off @/Crooked_Bullet ‘s design on X!!

It’s inspired by Void Fiends in RoR2 >:)

Extra doodles + their character sheet under the cut!

I loved their design,,,a lot

[serpentface]

SPIRITUAL POLLUTION, THE GESTURES AGAINST EVIL, AND ABLUTION: A POST

The concepts of spiritual purity and pollution are central to the Faith of the Seven Faced God (and similar takes on the concept predate it throughout and beyond the immediate Wardi cultural sphere). There is no clean cut distinction between physical and spiritual health in this belief system (these concepts exist as a heavily overlapping venn diagram) and many methods intended to cleanse spiritual pollution address both realms.

The word for the concept referred to as spiritual pollution is 'mesechitse', which can translate to 'blockage' or 'severance' depending on the context (its underlying meaning is a pathway that has been stopped in some capacity).

At its core, spiritual pollution is a corruption of the living spirit (which is carried by/IS the blood). It causes both physical and spiritual problems. Polluted blood flows improperly and does not maintain the body’s natural stasis or integrity, causing or allowing disease or other bodily dysfunctions to occur. Many ailments are seen as wholly physical and internal in nature, occurring directly due to polluted blood flowing improperly and affecting key organs. Other diseases (particularly contagious or infectious disease) are known to be caused by dagi, which are harmful spirits that enter the body through orifices or wounds. A limited number of ailments (most notably pronounced schizophrenia-spectrum disorders or cognitive disabilities, unfortunately) are thought to be caused by possession by more powerful evil spirits.

At its worst, severe spiritual pollution is thought to impact or sever one's connection to God. Summarized very basically, severe pollution = blockage of flow between one's own living spirit and the greater spirit of God, which deprives a person of God's blessings and protection, severs them from the natural cycling of life and death (and prevents their necessary participation) and can put their afterlife in jeopardy.

Some degree of corruption to the living spirit is seen as completely inevitable and managed by the body, which physically expels some polluting agents via urine and feces, as well as menstruation (thus all of these substances are themselves dirty and polluting agents). It is reckoned as impossible for any living body to exist in a Completely spiritually pure state. The goal of cleansing (and broader practices revolving around spiritual integrity) is rather to maintain stasis of the body's natural cycling (and by extension a connection to God's living spirit) and to keep pollution contained and minimized.

If one's immortal soul successfully reaches the afterlife, it is then reborn into a spiritually pure existence incapable of being 'severed' from God in any capacity. God Itself is a spiritually pure being, but Its body and living spirit (the world and its cycles, manifested as Faces) is vulnerable. The purity of God's living spirit (and therefore the life-sustaining functions of the world that all beings depend upon) must be sustained, protected, and restored through right practice, which is what much what the public religion revolves around.

Spiritual pollution is a separate but overlapping concept with:

-Metaphysical vulnerability, the word for which is 'namne couyibase' (literally ‘lacking integrity of Being’). This is a state in which the body and living spirit is considered vulnerable to great change, for good or for bad. These states can have vital and positive uses (they are utilized in many rituals, and it is what allows for conception and birth), but must be entered with caution and intentionality. Uncontrolled namne couyibase can otherwise leave one open to forms of spiritual harm. -Curses, which are targeted infliction of harm (of all sorts- bad luck, evil spirits, etc) onto a person, place, or thing. A spiritually polluted body is has less resistance to curses, and curses can intensify this pollution. -Possession, which is when evil spirits attach themselves to or inhabit the body. In the vast majority of cases, possession does not mean an evil spirit is Controlling the body, merely harming it. A spiritually polluted body has less resistance to possession, and possession can intensify this pollution. -Ritual uncleanliness, which is a state of intensified spiritual pollution that requires complete prohibition from a person from entering sacred spaces or participating in certain rituals until they are made clean. The most common reasons for ritual uncleanliness are active menstruation, being in the mourning period, or having performed a known dirtying action without its required ablution (see below).

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Multiple levels of religious-medical practice are centered around maintaining the body's stasis and cleansing it of mesechitse whenever possible. The methods are both active and passive.

Passive methods include the wearing of protective objects/amulets or having the motifs on household items or as decoration (the most ubiquitous are charms like the pelatoche (lit: '(ocean) eye') or odatochent (lit. 'Gods eyes'), the skimmer woman, or phalluses, and the wearing of gull feathers), in addition to other beneficial/protective iconography (guardian lions are most common, though physical representations of each Face of God have beneficial functions).

Active methods cover a broad swath of rites and behaviors (which is even broader in non-doctrinal folk practices). I'll be focusing here on the two main everyday methods of protection/cleansing (rather than more specialized rites) that are supported by core doctrine and may be performed by anyone, rather than being restricted to priests.

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Gestures against evil

These are the absolute most basic protection methods, comprised of three core gestures.

Purity of intent: the hand is held with the palm facing upward, the pointer and pinky finger extended and the thumb and inner two fingers pressed together. This is the most directly ‘cleansing’ gesture, it attempts to bind uncleanliness within the body and thus to prevent inevitable background level spiritual pollution from the body infecting a pure environment or another person. You mostly perform this gesture while entering/leaving a protected or vulnerable space (literal or figurative).

Protection of spirit: the hand is held with the first two fingers pointed together, held upwards for generalized use or pointed for directed use. This is the simplest of apotropaic gestures, aiming to protect the body and spirit from outside harm. This is commonly used before or while entering contexts seen as physically and/or spiritually dangerous, or to un-aggressively counter an evil eye curse.

Dispelling of evil: The hand is held with the first two fingers pointing together, touched to the lips, and flicked away from the body. In practice, this is most commonly used to prevent attachment by malicious or otherwise harmful spirits that may have been evoked (you might perform this after you speak of someone believed to be an earthbound ghost or refer to an evil spirit directly, or immediately after touching a potentially contagious sick person (ideally followed by ablution)). This will not help you if evil spirits have fully Attached themselves to you, but can remove ones that have been attracted to you. Doing this gesture and flicking in the direction of another person is very rude.

These gestures have separate uses, but will often be performed in conjunction (usually in the order given) as a quick means of protecting oneself and the spaces around them. It is not considered a doctrinal replacement for ablution as it does not actually cleanse the spirit, but it attempts to reduce harm (both sustained and produced by the user).

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Ablutions:

Ablution is spiritually and physically cleansing the body with clean water. The metric for clean water is fairly expansive- ocean water, any flowing water, any clear lake, shallow water sources that are clear and free of (obvious) polluting elements such as animal corpses or unclean animal feces, any clear collected water.

The core requirement of an ablution is for the hands to be cleaned in all circumstances, and for other body parts to be cleansed in addition if the situation requires it. One must fully wet the hands/other affected areas and scrub thoroughly, and then use fresh water to rinse. If you have to clean other parts of your body, you save your hands for last (as they will be used for the cleaning).

It is appropriate to perform ablutions cooperatively, but the person assisting you should participate as well (ie- if you have someone washing your back, they should scrub and rinse their own hands after). Someone considered to be in a ritually unclean state that ablution will not immediately fix (the most common are actively menstruating or being in the midst of the mourning period) should not perform ablutions on others.

Note that there is no Hard distinction between bathing for spiritual cleanliness and bathing for physical cleanliness (there is a separate set of cultural standards for physical hygiene, but most hygiene expectations are Covered by ablution). In most circumstances, ablution is just a regular, sometimes tedious everyday activity rather than a solemn or special occasion.

The ritualized requirements denote that only the hands + any given affected body parts Must be washed, but ablutions will often be an aspect of a full-body bathing routine to meet other hygiene standards. (ie: someone performing ablution before making offerings or eating a meal is only Required to wash their hands, but will very often wash their whole bodies and clean their hair- offerings and a meal are (typically) daily activities, so this is a good time to just get a full bath in while you’re at it). It may additionally involve washing the skin with oil or soap, moisturizing the hair with oil, scraping away dead skin, and applying perfumes. This is not a ritual requirement and is performed because generally, people like to feel clean and smell nice.

The hard physicality of cleansing WITH WATER is KEY to this practice. Per core doctrine, there are no DIY cleansing methods that replace washing with water. If one does not have access to clean water for ablutions, they should not perform offerings whatsoever (but are allowed to pray) until they can be cleansed, and accept that they are receiving spiritual pollution by performing ablution-required tasks in the meantime. A blessing from a priest is the only doctrine-supported spiritually cleansing replacement for water ablutions. In practice many people will use the gestures against evil as a replacement (which is not supported by doctrine and is more common in folk religious practice), and virtually everyone will find ways to get physical contaminants off of their body either way (if you step in dog shit and don't have any water nearby, you're going to wipe it the hell off even if that doesn't make you ritually clean).

Times when such an ablution is generally considered a hard requirement:

Before bloodletting in prayer or making other offerings

Before meals

Before assisting in a birth

After menstruation ends

After receiving penetrative sex

After defecating

After urinating (this isn't as ubiquitously seen as a hard requirement, in a lot of cases people interpret it as 'only if you actually get pee on your hands')

After touching urine

After touching feces (many lines of thought make exceptions for the excrement of cattle and khait due to their clean and sacred status- this makes life a easier for the majority of people who have to use dry dung as fuel)

After touching a dead body (human or animal)

At the end of your mourning period for dead kin (traditionally as part of a larger ritual involving full body submergence in flowing water, rather than as a common ablution)

After touching someone else's blood (aside from rites that require it, in which the blood is expected to be clean and the cross-pollution of living spirit is intentional) (technically includes semen but this does not come up very often)

After touching most sick people (particularly with contagious diseases or any skin ailments)

After recovering from an illness (ablutions will be performed as an aspect of treatment as well)

Before entering most temple's inner shrines (and some temples altogether)

Also a requirement for participation in certain specific rites and/or festivals

The exact nuances on how hard these requirements are sometimes vary, particularly in instances revolving around touch. Official doctrine is that any unclean touch requires ablution, but in common practice this is sometimes reinterpreted as only a hard requirement when the touch occurs to the hands. Most practitioners do not perform an ablution immediately after an unclean touch occurs (if you're a field laborer and step in dung, you're probably going to wait to wash until you retire for the night), and not everyone performs ablutions every single time they 'should'.

Only drawing I have related to ablution under the cut (nudity)

This is one way to do it

[phobiaexists]

hii, Big fan of ur AN Other AU and your designs in general (The butch Jane in me compliments the butch Jane in you) so hmm, I may or may not have made some sketchs with ur designs while I was studying anatomy, they look silly I'm afraid.

I wanted to make a silly contrast between them, John suppose to give a more softer prey (omg references) look while Jane is a more of an apex hunter. Jane has more muscle mass than John and overall a sharper demeanor and a shady look, ik she's pratically a sniper but at somepoint she has to throw hands with someone (and she's good at it.) she's pretty much battle scarred bcuz hmm fights hmm

John still extremely strong, however, that fact get overshadowed because he looks crazy soft (that's also servers as contrast between OG John and AU John, too. prey animal and apex predator and all 🫡) he's slightly paler than Jane bcuz hmm eye injury me thinks (and bcuz he's a nerd)

I also tried to make a small cute art of them snuggling (would never happen ❤️... mean like probably)

pretty much inspired by that ask u said he likes to appear small near Jane, yes he's idk 6'3 or smt on AN Other but do we care???? no. anyways, I am allowed to be delulu and make a whole ahh scenario where Jane breaks free from that whole stinky illusion or I'm supposed to suffer? (bonus doodles bcuz hihi)

sorry if the ask looks invasive, didn't meant to do it aaaoorghh my brain is like... melting rn, again sorry 😔

OH MY GOD.

THIS IS THE MOST ABSOLUTE FUCKING THING TO WAKE UP TO OH MY FUCKING GOD? JANE DOE IM. JANE DOE IM GAY AS HELL. JANE. JANEEEEEE 💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖

OHFHVHRHCHRHC OHHHH MY GOD THANK YOU FOR ENJOY MY AN OTHER AU AWAWAWAAAAAAA DJDJDJDJDJ 💖💖💖💖💖 I LOVE HOW YOU DREW JANE AND JOHN HGNVHFHCHFH are those bullet wound scars on the prey animalll GWAAA YOURE RIGHT FOR THAT GEHDGDGDGRVD

Jane with facial and bodily scars and with grey streaks in her hair yes yes YES THATS HER THATS MI AMOR CBFGXGRGGDRVRGHRG 💖💖💖

You’re like the second person I’ve received fanart of my own designs/interpretations from and it already just. It already makes me so, so, so fucking happy seeing my own John design be drawn every time because I know it’s meant to be specifically my take on him when the dotted patterns and scales in his corruption are included and especially when his gills are drawn and especially since AN Other!John exclusively has the eye patterns in his corruption and and and HNFHXHRGRGRGRGGRRHFHCRGR

THE ART OF THEM SNUGGLING OHHHH MY GODDDDDD I LOVE YOUR RENDERING AND THE DOODLES ARE SO CUTE EHHXHDHXHRBD every time someone draws Jane with a gun I feel so much absolute rabid joy. Poor John is not getting his survivor wins with her around and she’s gonna fucking make sure of it when she breaks into one

Don’t worry you guys are allowed to be delulu. I’ll probably join you guys in being delulu eventually as well when I get that AN Other!Jane design actually going. Brain keeps juggling between regular John and Jane, AN Other AU John and Jane, and Gasharpoon John but currently Gasharpoon John fixation is strongest but again my brain likes to juggle things HDHSJEHDH

[medicalunprofessional]

play dentist

[aliusfrater]

i was originally gonna make a joke about how 'even crowley's quote unquote intervention is less violent that sam's (x2). he gets company at least <3' but the differences and similarities within these two dynamics is actually super interesting to watch back to back

[lovelywingsart]

I'm just saying, if the chance was given to romance him, Saren would hold Shepard like they're the most precious fucking thing in the entire goddamn universe even though they kicked his ass twice and would easily do so again.

They may not entirely change his mind on his views of humanity but they changed his views on them, and he wouldn't take that for granted.

Shepard would become the most important thing to him and losing them would utterly destroy him, and you absolutely will not change my mind.

[cordycepsbian]

carving out a fact from a reckoning, beckoning you back, skin sagging off its skeleton levitating off the ground, is another man wearing your face? all the other false identities, remedies or enemies to mitigate your memories shuddered at what they found when they stripped away the grace

[lovely-hikari-cosplay]

A little preview of something I’ve been working on ❤️♌️

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Guess I’ve been feeling nostalgic as I’m redrawing my Legacy of Winx OC’s AND reanimating my Sailor Senshi OC, Leo! I suppose I really meant it when I said I was going to learn OpenToonz since my CSP license is about to expire, I might even fully switch over!

•

Would y’all like to see a process/comparison video? The initial plan was to post a comparison gif like I did in 2019, but I love sharing my processes when it comes to art 🤔🤔🤔

⬇️Comparison gif under the cut anyway ⬇️

[squidfreak]

I mist admit if I think someone's on post dni is silly and not at all related to the post, and I'm somehow on the dni... I do not care 😭 you will live if I give your post a little heart and a reblog

[moongothic]

Seen people share their headcanons of what would Luffy call Crocodile if Crocodad was Real, and it did get me wondering

Like on one hand, Luffy has a perfect track-record with respecting trans people and not misgendering anyone, so if Crocodad Real, Luffy wouldn't misgender him

But also, Luffy has two braincells, and having two people to call "dad" would probably be confusing for him. And Luffy doesn't seem like the type of guy who'd either of his parents "Father" either. Canonically Luffy tends to use more affectionate terms for his family, including Dragon despite never having ever met him ("tou-chan", "ji-chan" for Garp, "nii-chan" for Ace. Note the lack of the polite "o" at the begining, and the use of "chan" instead of "san". The take-away here is that he's basically being a bit familiar and kind of affectionate)

And let us not forget, how Luffy loves giving nicknames to people

So it would be perfectly on-brand for Luffy to come up with a new nickname for Crocodile, if only to help differentiate The Dads

(Like yes, Luffy does technically have a nickname for Crocodile already ("wani", lit. "crocodile"), but it's not really an affectionate nickname (or a particularly disrespectful one either, kind of neutral (though calling someone you're not friends with by a nickname is kind of rude)). And while Luffy can and does drop the funny nicknames for people if he decides he likes them enough (see Hammock turning into Hancock, or Luffy learning Bonney's name and using it because he felt bad for her), if Luffy did learn about Crocodile being his other dad and wanted to treat him as such (which he also might not, to be fair)... yeah he could come up with a new nickname)

Now the question just is... what kind of a nickname would Luffy then come up with?

And because I'm a fucking loser with a passion for translation and localization, I'm almost specifically interested in what kind of a nickname Luffy would come up with in Japanese. And partially because, depending on the nickname, it could just be the exact same nickname in English too. Like Luffy's "Yama-o" got localized as "Yamabro" because the "o" (written as 男, lit. "man") needed to be translated and localized for the nickname to hit the same in English. Same for shit like "split head" for Foxy or "giant shallot" for Moria, or "wani" getting localized as "gator" because Luffy calling Crocodile a "crocodile" as a nickname would not make any sense in English lmao

So... a cute nickname that makes it easy for Luffy to call Crocodile his "dad" without it getting confusing with calling Dragon "dad". Maybe something that ties to his name already and preferably rolls off the tongue easily in Japanese... Like we have our Crocodads and Dadodiles but these nicknames are based in English, so they don't roll off the tongue nicely -> Can't imagine Luffy saying either. But... I think the fans are onto something there... There must be a variation of this nickname that would work well in Japanese...

Papadile.

I could see Luffy coming up with a nickname like that. It would roll off the tongue pretty easily. The only counter argument against it I can think of would be that Luffy does not seem like the kind of guy who would call anyone "papa". Like that word does not fit in his mouth.

...Anything else?

Well. I guess there is the third, forbidden option of Luffy calling him "oyaji" ("pops"), much like Whitebeard's crew called their captain too.

But that just leads us to an interesting thought; what the fuck would Crocodile prefer Luffy call him?

I mean this is Sir "Call me what you will" Crocodile, who generally does not seem to care that much about what people call him. Like we could take that and just assume Crocodile would not give a fuck about what Luffy called him, but it's also possible this could be like The One Exception to The Rule. And there's many potential reasons why too

Like there's the practical side of things where it could be a pain in Crocodile's ass if the world found out the two were related, because it'd mean anything bad happening to either one could be used against the other. Someone targetting Luffy could be then used intentionally to target Crocodile and viceversa. As Dragon said, a child is a parent's weak spot after all. So it could still be in Crocodile's self-interest to keep their blood relation a secret. But also; Crocodile had to leave his child behind. Much like how Olvia felt like she had no right to call herself Robin's mom, it'd make sense to me if Crocodile felt kind of the same. That regardless of their blood connection, he had no right to call himself Luffy's father, let alone deserve to be called that after what he'd done to Luffy.

So maybe Crocodile would prefer to be just called by his name. Maybe he'd be satisfied with that. Perhaps being called "pops" would lowkey annoy the shit out of him because it would just remind him of That Asshole Who Took His Hand and beat his ass. Which, y'know, fair. Perhaps "Papadile" would be just a bit too ridiculous and cutesy for him tolerate. And perhaps Luffy calling him "dad" (or "father", or any variation of it) would be a lot more emotionally compromising to Crocodile than he'd like to admit, especially if he believed he would never be called that

But knowing Luffy, if he knows being called "dad" made Crocodile happy (even if he didn't want to admit it), and if Luffy did decide he liked Crocodile/accepted him as his other dad... He'd probably keep on calling Crocodile some variation of "dad", even if he insisted that "Crocodile was fine"

Also worth noting that according to this SBS, if Croc did raise a child that child would use 父上 ("chichiue"), which is quite a formal way to call someone Father

So that would be Crocodile's canon preferred term but god knows there'd be no way in hell he'd be able to convince Luffy to call him that, shit's way too formal for Luffy

[hyper-lynx]

Oh God I'm thinking about rewriting my whole mod to be all data driven......... I already added KubeJS support I really don't have to do this, the people can already make reactions in modpacks !!

(But it'd be cool)

It would but, but...