The comment system under the comic have been updated! It’s got several improvements but we are still testing it out! So- use it- so far I think I like it. One thing, it allows for longer reply chains. Which is nice 😀
Streaming tonight over at Picarto.tv/SageSaga at 8pm!
How about ‘all of the above and he completely believed the spirit’?
Or is everyone around here, still so weak after the removal of magics seals that they actually thought that spirit WAS the real amatrasu? (Or at least an avatar of her) after all she seems to at least have been stronger than the water spirit that liked slinging curses around. I am guessing she was likely top tier among lesser/middle level spirits?
Hard to say. There is some merit to suggesting they should have known better since it’s feasible Naoko’s family and Inari could have tried giving this government agency some pointers or literature on this a while back.
A lot of it strikes me as a timeline issue and how much of a set back Emi unleashing the Power seal affected the projected return of mystics and monsters. It’s been a while since we heard from the family and Inari is still a wild card here.
Since we don’t know if they were planning on decades before dealing with serious threats being released and as opposed to eaten by more mundane spirits Ama was a lesser evil here.
More over if the narration is to be trusted, which maybe dubious given Yuki is calling him out for ignorance. Allegedly the Suijin was a Demi-God. If that holds true it’s not a surprising mistake.
That said I can agree the casual arrogance here is stiffling.
Interestingly I wonder if he’s a type of chimera predisposed to channeling spirits. Leaving him with little recourse for this bond. I’m not familiar on the practice, but I think there was some form of ritual magic for hosting spirits in ones body.
Granted this is a massively leap in assumption though. Since this is half remembered on my end and possibly not even compatable with Yosh’s magic system.
But if you wanted to theory craft in the weeds for a bit, you could consider that some folks are specifically predisposed or only capable of this type of posession magic.
The chimeritization of the native population has gone rather sideways after the original Fire Magi’s mistake. So it’s not infeasible. Axel being a conduit for demons specifically might lend credance to this. But to be fair, he is a super special case on par with the Null though.
As strong as a spirit can get, it doesn’t always elevate them in status. Not being able to know themselves prevents them from ever growing beyond their class. A bunch of stolen power they can cause destruction with, but can never learn how to really use it. The only thing they could come up with was sharing it with someone else and manipulating them for more power.
That’s actually a really interesting angle. Since spirits may not have physical forms in the truest sense, a cognitive dissonance deviating from their true self could lead to some interesting consequences.
So this implies that faith is a similar source of power to mana and harvesting it can lead to short term gains but not necessarily profeciency in use?
This does bring up an interesting question on why they couldn’t intergrate it though. Presumably faith is faith, is there a lore reason why they couldn’t properly utilize it?
I imagine if it’s siphoned improperly from shrines that’s one thing. But Yuki’s in comic assertation asserts it was freely given. What exactly is preventing them from leveraging it? Provided you don’t mind asking.
Not given to the spirit. They prayed at the shrine to Amaterasu, not to the spirit of the stone.
So that it was housed in the shrine was simply incidental? The way Yuki phrases it; “She was enshrined and worshipped as Amaterasu.”
Implies they built a new one around her. Though I could be misreading it. I was presuming it was legitimately recieving worship. Even if the intention was for it to go to Amaterasu instead.
Incidentally depending on how young the spirit was and if it intentionally incited this misconception, it does bring up the question of knowing error or not. Not that I think it’ll turn out this way, but could the original worshippers have intentionally tried to create a controllable god through this? Or is it just a case of mistaken identity and the spirit being brain washed into this role through not knowing better.
Though your previous comment implies other wise.
I kinda see it as if you over-pressure a compressed air or hydraulic system. There are tolerances built into it so a little bit won’t cause a failure but doing so over a long period or dramatically over-pressuring the system can lead to a staggering amount of damage/chaos.
The problem with faith is that it’s probably “flavored” a certain way which can cause issues for those not intended to partake. In this example the spirit believed fully it was Amaterasu and acted according to it’s whims without the actual mandate, experience, or restraint that the actual Amaterasu would have. Now it wasn’t as powerful (Yuki is strong but I sincerely doubt she could counter the actual Amaterasu, goddess of the sun, with ice powers) but for those not in the know it was a convincing bluff which prompted more faith which caused a feedback loop further reinforcing the incorrect assumption and warping the spirit. Eventually that feedback and warping will probably fail which either corrupts the spirit into something nasty, leads to a loss of control and accompanying magical release (something like the Magi releasing their powers on a more local scale, though “local” depends on how much the spirit accumulated), or it could even go so far as to invert inwards to some sort of collapse which could open a hole for outsiders to enter from. Now those are speculation on my part but seem to make sense in the scheme of things.
That also opens up the idea that cults are actually really dangerous metaphysically in this setting because they’re conduits to feed faith improperly to spirits or other entities which leads to outsider incursions (cthulu mythos anyone?) or other arcane disasters. I doubt anything suitably powerful/intelligent would partake of twisted worship, maybe at best creating an aspect of a greater entity which more closely aligns with their nature to boost their own worship but a nature spirit who wasn’t quite as intelligent happening across an effective buffet is more likely to gorge themselves and suffer consequences like this “Amaterasu” did and explains why proper temples/religions are so concerned about stopping cults.
That does bring up the question of how fast spirits can be formed. Sage implied in one of the earlier posts that suffeciently intelligent reasoning creatures are needed to spawn spirits.
For example: Sentient animals couldn’t spawn one because they lack sapience. (Presumably.)
This begs the question, that if a cult produced a thought experiment and fixated enough consistent directed attention. Could they spawn a spirit? Leveraging the unconcious minds of the masses by utilizing the internet could they exponentially raise one in power through faith?
I’m sure it wouldn’t gain insight and precise control over their abilities like this. But it’s an interesting thought experiment and how modern technology might affect the ecology of future spirits.
Would ancient spirits be able to leverage podcasting or other services to increase worshipers? Is Vtuber spirits the next big thing? Probably not. But there is some humor there.
You know this is drifting into the same thought experiment region as Roko’s Basilisk in some ways. Like if they create a vengeful spirit that seeks to make those who don’t worship it suffer is it better to worship for your own safety or not and delay it’s creation and the suffering it would bring?
That also makes creepypasta a LOT wilder because you could actually spawn Slenderman, MalO, or even older creations like Bloody Mary if the general cognition of them grew strong enough.
My first thought was “without a physical phenomenon there couldn’t be a spirit” but if things as esoteric as the first snowfall or the dawn can spawn powerful spirits then I guess enough belief or knowledge could create weaker spirits tied to their myths which then could create more physical anchors like a mirror used regularly for the bloody mary ritual or a ragged notebook with scrawl about a faceless monster following the writer.
Generally I think there’s probably some hurdle of a certain amount of active worship or belief to create a spirit which internet skepticism helps head off but using the internet to spread word/worship of existing spirits probably does work even if the concept of “the internet” is too nebulous to spawn it’s own spirit, though that’s more for my own sanity because a spirit of the internet as a whole would probably vary dangerous from batshit insane to hyper literal with odd moments of lucidity.
That’s actually where my mind drifted to honestly. If I had to posit a theory without having to pester Sage to answer it for us.
I would suggest a focus is likely necessary. Especially during the initial stages. Presumably Power mages could affect this process by virtue of their abilities. But barring that and stipulating faith only as a caveat. It’s probably something like faith can only go so far from the body before deterioating. Like mana or spells.
So having fixed locations of worship would be necessary. You could assert that routers or servers could facilitate the transfer if designed that way or rituals made specifically to address that.
But it’s highly likely like Ama here, fixed locations are necessary at least in the begining. So things like places and objects will specifically spawn such spirits provided they have enough faith and are within close proximity to their congregation/people of fixation.
But hot damn, tulpas are going to be wild in Yosh when magic really starts integrating into society. I wonder if thats where familiars are derived from.
Noticed the improvements in the new comment system immediately. Much appreciated Sage. The edit feature is a fantastic addition in my personal opinion.
Yuki is responsible for all improvements, I’d break something, or make it work in some arcane way that shouldn’t work and only worked for 10% of people! 😀
Haha, fair. I can’t say my tech literacy is much better. Please pass on my regards to them. Let them know me being quarrelsome on the site has never been easier for me. You two have a good weekend.
So was adding her to Yosh payment for the improvements.
Nope. Yuki has been a close friend and admin to the website for many years now. I wanted a new celestial character to add to the story and got her permission to use her.
She’s not mad, she’s disappointed.
Edit: Cool that works too! :3
I’m imagining that meanwhile Inari is standing just off panel, quietly waiting for ‘mom’ to finish scolding the foolish exorcist.
Oooh, like the new software. Good choice!
As for the comic, I can’t wait for her todd to reluctantly announce his presence. I imagine he’ll probably get a hug, but there’s the chance she’s annoyed enough to share some of it.
Yuki speaks of his abilities, but did he even have any? Didn’t Kate say, that everything he did was the doing of somebody looking through his eyes, as in only fake Amaterasu was doing the work? Maybe he doesn’t have any abilities at all.
I believe the exorcist explicitly said as such when he banished the Suijin. It’s highly likely he was functioning solely as a conduit for the spirit’s powers.
This is incorrect. He said he didn’t personally have the power to send the suijin away. This does not mean he has no power at all. Kate was unnerved by the spirits power and how it was using him. She didn’t say he was powerless (though he himself doesn’t think he’s capable without the spirits power).
Oh, I suppose I missed that plot point. I suppose the spirit may have exploited that learned helplessness then.
E’s kicked the Null, ‘e’s shuffled off ‘is mineral spirit, run down Yuki’s patience and joined the bleedin’ obvious!!
THIS IS AN EX- ORCIST!!
Considering how much was lost following the sealing of the elementals. It’s likely that and form of distinguishing a false spirit from a true spirit no longer exists. As well as any form of proper exorcist training. Whatever does exist is likely patchy, as they probably never shared their secrets with the kitsune or other higher beings during their heyday.
That’s hard to say, the cult of Five and Naoko’s family seem to have retained the teachings and literature. Even in the earlier days of Yosh, -though feasibly dubiously canon-they complain about hating magic. So while weakened, it is implied that some enclaves still held out.
Whether the majority have useful knowledge or pratical applications of it is another matter. More over how in touch with modern society they are or influence they have is probably where the disconnect us at.
I’m confused. I thought the person Yuki is now talking to was still talking to Yuki’s daughter?
I’m pretty sure the “I’m back” implies that time has passed. Given that we now know Yuki didn’t take the spirit to a spiritual realm or something like that (the “I sealed her in the Indian Ocean” comment) their encounter would have taken some time which probably overlapped with the exorcist’s discussion. I wouldn’t be surprised if the next page doesn’t either have a “hello mother” moment or the exorcist passing a message.
She’s addressing the Exorcist currently.
Oh… dear. Her kid’s going to have some explaining to do to have let things get this far.