#{ anu }

[batshit-auspol]

When creating the new Australian National University in 1946, the Australian parliament can probably be forgiven for being far too polite to ever raise the suggestion that the acronym ANU may one day lead to problems.

And so it is in the year 2023, that Australia's highest ranked university has to regularly remind people not to add a possessive 's' to their name in headlines, lest the web address be shortened like so:

Likewise the unfortunately named ANU Sports has to go to great lengths to make sure that their name never appears as an acrostic, or on a single line without spaces:

But the award absolutely must go to the ANU Soccer Club magazine, cheekily named 'SCUM' by a student in the 90s much to the ongoing horror of design teams to this day

[lottiestudying]

16.08.2024—officially now a #gradblr ! i applied to one school for my PhD and managed to get in. so happy and relieved. that means at least four more years of content for you guys as well 🤍💗

[ramonag-if]

Official Character Portraits

The full body versions are available on my Patreon. The portraits were completed by Gengardraw.

From top left to bottom: Male Dena, Anu and Female Dena.

From top middle to right: Elora and Oren.

Bottom right: Irus.

[novikjpg]

Mesopotamian gods designs for an animation I’ve been working on lately (for my university, huh).

Goofy stuff.

[whencyclopedia]

The Forty-Two Judges

The Forty-Two Judges were divine entities associated with the afterlife in ancient Egypt and, specifically, the judgment of the soul in the Hall of Truth. The soul would recite the Negative Confession in their presence as well as other gods and hope to be allowed to continue on to the paradise of the Field of Reeds.

The ancient Egyptians have long been defined as a death-obsessed culture owing to their association with tombs and mummies as depicted in popular media and, of course, the famous discovery of the Tomb of Tutankhamun by Howard Carter in 1922 CE. Images of the jackal-headed god of the dead Anubis or the black-and-green mummified form of Osiris have also encouraged this association in the public imagination.

Actually, however, the Egyptians loved life and their seeming preoccupation with death and the afterlife was simply an expression of this. There is no evidence that the ancient Egyptians longed for death or looked forward to dying in any way – in fact, precisely the opposite is abundantly clear – and their elaborate funerary rituals and grand tombs stocked with grave goods were not a celebration of death but a vital aspect of the continuation of life on another, eternal, plane of existence. To reach this idealized world, however, one needed to have lived a virtuous life approved of by Osiris, the judge of the dead, and the Forty-Two Judges who presided with him over the Hall of Truth in the afterlife.

The Afterlife

The Egyptians believed that their land was the best in the world, created by the gods and given to them as a gift to enjoy. They were so deeply attached to their homes, family, and community that soldiers in the army were guaranteed their bodies would be returned from campaigns because they felt that, if they died in a foreign land, they would have a harder time – or possibly no chance at all – of attaining immortality in the afterlife.

This afterlife, known as The Field of Reeds (or Aaru in ancient Egyptian), was a perfect reflection of one's life on earth. Scholar Rosalie David describes the land which awaited the Egyptians after death:

The underworld kingdom of Osiris was believed to be a place of lush vegetation, with eternal springtime, unfailing harvests, and no pain or suffering. Sometimes called the `Field of Reeds', it was envisaged as a `mirror image' of the cultivated area in Egypt where rich and poor alike were provided with plots of land on which they were expected to grow crops. The location of this kingdom was fixed either below the western horizon or on a group of islands in the west. (160)

To reach this land, the recently deceased needed to be buried properly with all attendant rites according to their social standing. Funerary rites had to be strictly observed in order to preserve the body which, it was thought, the soul would need in order to receive sustenance in the next life.

Once the body was prepared and properly entombed, the soul's journey began through the afterlife. Funerary texts inside the tomb would let the soul know who they were, what had happened, and what to do next. The earliest of these were the Pyramid Texts (c. 2400-2300 BCE) which then evolved into the Coffin Texts (c. 2134-2040 BCE) and were fully developed as The Egyptian Book of the Dead (c. 1550-1070 BCE) during the period of the New Kingdom (c.1570-c.1069 BCE). The god Anubis would greet the newly departed soul in the tomb and usher it to the Hall of Truth where it would be judged by Osiris and an important aspect of this judgment was conference with the entities known as the Forty-Two Judges.

Continue reading...

[dailyfigures]

Anu ; The legend of Sword and Fairy ☆ Apex Innovation

[aquietnovember]

guys university is getting to me I’m not gonna lie… it’s only my first semester but this is harder than the aesthetic pinterest photos made it seem :(

I’m trying to stay motivated though! only 3 more assignments to go and then exams and then I’m travelling over the winter holidays

wish me luck everyone, and to you as well in any current and future endeavours <3

[fictional-gods-tournament]

Prelims

Fandom: The Elder Scrolls Part 1/2

Part 2/2

Characters' info under the cut

Anu (wiki1, wiki2)

Domains: Primordial God of Stasis and Light

Propaganda:

He is a product of the Godhead's dream that clashes with his mirror opposite Padomay to create the TES cosmos. He is the supreme force of the good side of things.

Arkay (wiki)

Domains: Life and Death

Propaganda:

…dare I say the god with the most normal followers? Like, they don’t like necromancy. Cool!

Azura (wiki)

Domains: Dawn and dusk, twilight, the night sky mystery, magic, fate, prophecy, the in-between, gates, vanity, egotism, beauty, love.

Propaganda:

By Azura, by Azura, by Azura! One of the "good" Daedric Princes, Azura of the Crimson Gate (or Azurah, or the Queen of Dawn and Dusk, or the Mother Soul, or Moonshadow, or Mother of the Rose, or Queen of the Night Sky, or Twilight Queen, or the Rim of all Holes, or the Cosmic Severer) is much beloved by her worshippers on Nirn, and she loves them in turn. Whichever form she takes, of mer ("elves"), khajiit (cat people) or man (...humans), she is most beautiful, as is the sky when she controls over it. For enjoyers of the Elder Scrolls, she is best known for her role in the third game Morrowind. "Fear not, for I am watchful. You have been chosen." The role the player takes- of Nerevarine- is one directly connected to her: the reincarnation of the Champion of Azura, Indoril Nerevar. You play your part in the prophecy set in motion by her and get to enjoy the best high fantasy RPG of the millennium so far. She has minor quests in every game since Daggerfall too; the one in Skyrim, in particular, starts at her temple near Winterhold, arguably one of the most beautiful sights the game has to offer. Her realm of Oblivion, Moonshadow, is said to be so beautiful as to partially blind mortals. Rose trees, waterfalls and flowers surround a city of silver. When she spins the thread of fate, none in her favor shall come to harm, and all her enemies will- sooner or later- suffer their downfall. She wishes for all mortals to be the best version they can be, and hopes to become symbol of that idea for them. Vote for her and step further to perfection!

Fa-Nuit-Hen and the seven Barons Who Move-Like-This (wiki)

Domains: They are the Multiplier of Motions Known, with each baron representing a certain kind of movement. Also haunts those who fell in battle and still wonder why.

Propaganda:

This link.

Hircine (wiki)

Domains: Hunting and Lycanthropy

Propaganda:

God of werewolves!!!

Lorkhan (wiki)

Domains: Trickery, Creation, Man and Mortality

Propaganda:

Lorkhan is the dead god who set all the events in the Elder Scrolls in motion. He tricked all the other Aedra into creating Nirn, and thereby giving mortals a means of ascension above gods through tribulation. Connected with the primal god of Chaos, Sithis, and the newest god of man, Talos.

Meridia (wiki)

Domains: The boundless energy of living things; light overwhelming

Propaganda:

This one's for everyone who hears "I WILL MAKE YOU THE INSTRUMENT OF MY CLEANSING LIGHT!" and gets a little... flustered.

[shinakazami1]

I'm thinking of @krotiation post about how Rhys is strong sm and I'm just wondering of Anu and him

Anu presents herself as genius - after all, she made the device to mimic power of sirens which is just very awesome but... We don't see her genius at all in the game. All we see is that she's dependant on her goggles to analyse for her.

The way the comments are built in the game suggest that Rhys had some doing to them. They are snarky, they get some Atlas marketing in there too and while Echo devices had always existed with some remarks, they have their own character well before Ocvatio puts additional programming in.

Best way to show how dependant she's on them is Episode 4. When she reaches her designed spot where she's made to believe to be seen as genius, she problems solves through... The goggles. She doesn't solve the issues by herself at ALL - everything has to be said to her.

Through Tales, we watch Rhys use the Echo device a lot. But there are many moments, in combat or through hacking in Ep 3 that show its only an enhancer of his abilities, not main source of them. It is of course unfair a bit to say - as he also has the arm that he uses a few times, since it's stronger than his body but, I feel his loss of the devices is very significant. Because at the end of the day - he wanted a manager position from the start. He was sometimes an asshole, a coward, but in the end, he did exactly what he wanted. Through his own hard work, he got to the top.

They both used their echo devices to analyse. Anu however, used it to think for her. Rhys used it to help him think.

[avakkins-alter]

🎂🎂🎂 | Anu

[birdsofrhiannon]

[codeintumb]

Skytober!!!

Day 3: Nest

[ramonag-if]

Could we get some insight on the first time the RO’s caught feeling for the MC? I feel like Elora was kind of affection at first glance, Iris friends to lovers. Anu is definitely enemies to lovers - I haven’t played Oren so I’m unsure. I’m curious at what moment they all realized they liked the MC.

Irus: Love at first sight. By the time they reach Vinia in Chapter Three.

Elora: By Chapter Six.

Oren: By Chapter Seven.

Anu: By Chapter Eight.

This is a rough estimate - of course you're free to interpret when the ROs start catching feelings for the MC since there's not really a specific point in time that they start feeling any hint of romance towards the MC. It's a combination of the stuff they go through plus the MC's actions that makes them fall for the MC.

[roundseys]

Finally finished Anu's bio after fiddling around with the aesthetics forever !!

Accessible version of the bio below the cut. Wingdings, zalgo text, binary, morse code are all translated, and the untranslated portions are omitted for screen readers. Caps-locked text is moved to normal sentence case for readability.

[Image description: A circular icon of a simulation of the cosmic web, a sponge-like texture where areas of high density are a warm pinkish orange, and areas of low density are a deep purple.]

[Wingdings text, translated: "Anu, the Universe"]

The Eternal Cosmos, the World of Worlds

[Binary text, translated: creation and destruction and stagnation]

[Wingdings text, translated: boundless]

[Morse code text, translated: recognition reconstruction]

The Cosmos was infinite. The Cosmos was unfeeling. The Cosmos was ambivalent.

The very fabric of spacetime buckled and dipped and bent and curved. Strings of galaxies twisted and wove together to form one great tapestry. Nebulae bloomed and collapsed. Stars shone brightly before winking out. Ravenous black holes tore atoms apart.

Billions of years of this. It was all the same in the end. The Cosmos was infinite. The Cosmos was unfeeling. The Cosmos had seen it all before.

Yet still, a hunger grew deep down. Curled and tugged and churned; itching, burning, blazing. The cosmos became aware. The Cosmos became curious. The Cosmos had not seen this before.

The hunger pointed towards a planet. Nothing more than a small speck of dust. Insignificant, were it not for this novel feeling. The Cosmos watched and saw.

It saw petty wars and bloodshed. Anger, hatred, phobia of the unknown. Haste and desperation. Destruction of the self and mutilation of the other. Dragonkind and beastclans and the ones who came before. Unimportant beings clinging to old ways, trembling in fear of impermanence, blinded by ignorance as they were on that small rock, unable to touch the endless universe beyond. Bound by the limits of space and time, they knew nothing but the violence that their world had been born into.

But the Cosmos also saw great kindness. In this great pool of chaos, life had found its way towards connection and companionship. Parents hugging their children close, lovers embracing after long departed. Friends comforting friends. Strangers saving strangers. Communities congregating and growing together, voices raised in unison, plant roots weaving together, a hand held in another. Each creature connected to the next, each a part of a larger whole: a great web of life, strung together like galaxies in a supercluster.

In this single, small little rock, the Cosmos saw itself.

It made a decision. As this planet's lifeforms reflected the Cosmos, so too shall the Cosmos reflect them.

[Wingdings text, translated: bounded]

[Morse code text, translated: rebirth protector]

It began like how the cliffs of a canyon erode: particles of sand scattering in the breeze, falling away millimeter by millimeter over millions of years. It began like how a new forest grows from barren land: blades of grass reaching for the sun for the first time, giving way to shrubs and saplings, until ages later the grass is overshadowed by the arching bows of ancient trees. It began like how a spider weaves its web: string by string by string until a grand tapestry is born.

It began like all things do. It began slowly, a series of minuscule changes unseen in the larger structure, but changes nonetheless. It began with hydrogen atoms and charged particles ejected into the galactic wind. A slow trickle, molecule by molecule, drawing closer together over time.

Atoms and molecules gave way to gas and dust. Dark clouds of it clustering in the empty space. Instead of collapsing under its own gravity, it stretched its limbs out. Arms, legs, head and tail - a mimicry of what it had witnessed on that small planet. It wiggled its fingers and blinked its eyes and marveled at the sensation of a body.

It took on the form of a dragon. Hydrogen its circulatory system, stars its nervous system. Dust clouds condensed into muscle and bone. Nebulae bloomed into wings. Each heartbeat a supernova, each blink of the eye the spinning of a pulsar. Mathematical physics a mimicry of magic.

The planet was named Sornieth, and it had ensnared the Cosmos itself in its orbit. It had become the center of the Cosmos, the world of worlds. The Cosmos cradled the planet in the palms of its stardusted hands and vowed to protect it.

As long as Sornieth existed, so would Anu.

Cosmic web graphic by the Millennium Simulation Project (Springel et al. 2005)

That voice is the same voice you heard on the same night that everything glowed, took you into the air, and the arms of the Universe kept you from falling.

[whencyclopedia]

Inanna's Descent: A Sumerian Tale of Injustice

The Sumerian poem, The Descent of Inanna (c. 1900-1600 BCE) chronicles the journey of Inanna, the great goddess and Queen of Heaven, from her realm in the sky, to earth, and down into the underworld to visit her recently widowed sister Ereshkigal, Queen of the Dead. The poem begins famously with the lines:

From the Great Above she opened her ear to the Great Below From the Great Above the goddess opened her ear to the Great Below From the Great Above Inanna opened her ear to the Great Below. (Wolkstein and Kramer, 52)

The work then goes on to describe Inanna's descent to the underworld accompanied, part of the way, by her faithful servant and advisor Ninshubur.

Summary

Inanna is dressed in her finest clothes and wears the crown of heaven on her head, beads around her neck, her breastplate, golden ring and carries her scepter, the rod of power. Just before she enters the underworld, she gives Ninsubur instructions on how to come to her aid should she fail to return when expected. Upon her arrival at the gates of the underworld Inanna knocks loudly and demands entrance. Neti, the chief gatekeeper, asks who she is and, when Inanna answers, “I am Inanna, Queen of Heaven”, Neti asks why she would wish entrance to the land “from which no traveler returns.” Inanna answers:

Because of my older sister, Ereshkigal Her husband, Gugalanna, the Bull of Heaven, has died I have come to witness the funeral rites. (Wolkstein and Kramer, 55)

Neti then tells her to stay where she is while he goes to speak with Ereshkigal.

When Neti delivers the news to Ereshkigal that Inanna is at the gates, the Queen of the Dead responds in a way which seems strange: “She slapped her thigh and bit her lip. She took the matter into her heart and dwelt on it” (Wolkstein and Kramer, 56). She does not seem pleased to hear the news that her sister is at the gate and her displeasure is further evidenced when she tells Neti to bolt the seven gates of the underworld against Inanna and then let her in, one gate at a time, requiring her to remove one of her royal garments at each gate. Neti does as he is commanded and, gate by gate, Inanna is stripped of her crown, beads, ring, sceptre, even her clothing and, when she asks the meaning of this indignity, is told by Neti:

Quiet, Inanna, the ways of the underworld are perfect They may not be questioned. (Wolkstein and Kramer 58-60)

Inanna enters the throne room of Ereshkigal “naked and bowed low” and begins walking toward the throne when:

The annuna, the judges of the underworld, surrounded her They passed judgment against her. Then Ereshkigal fastened on Inanna the eye of death She spoke against her the word of wrath She uttered against her the cry of guilt She struck her. Inanna was turned into a corpse A piece of rotting meat And was hung from a hook on the wall. (Wolkstein and Kramer, 60)

After three days and three nights waiting for her mistress, Ninshubur follows the commands Inanna gave her, goes to Inanna's father-god Enki for help, and receives two `galla', two transgender beings created "neither male nor female", to aid her in returning Inanna to the earth. The galla enter the underworld “like flies” and, following Enki's specific instructions, attach themselves closely to Ereshkigal. The Queen of the Dead is seen in distress:

No linen was spread over her body Her breasts were uncovered Her hair swirled around her head like leeks. (Wolkstein and Kramer, 63-66)

The poem continues to describe the queen experiencing the pains of labor. The galla sympathize with the queen's pains and she, in gratitude, offers them whatever gift they ask for. As ordered by Enki, the galla respond, “We wish only the corpse that hangs from the hook on the wall” (Wolkstein and Kramer, 67) and Ereshkigal gives it to them. The galla revive Inanna with the food and water of life and she rises from the dead.

As in the Greek myth of Demeter and Persephone, however, one who has sojourned in the underworld cannot just leave it so easily. Someone must be found to take Inanna's place and so the galla demons of the underworld accompany her up to the earth's surface to claim her substitute. The demons try to take Ninshubur first, then Inanna's sons Shara and Lulal and even Inanna's beautician Cara but, in all these instances, Inanna prevents them because Ninshubur, Shara, Lulal and Cara are all dressed in sackcloth and are in mourning for her apparent death.

When Inanna comes upon her lover Dumuzi, however, and finds him “dressed in his shining…garments…on his magnificent throne” she becomes enraged that he, unlike the others, is not mourning her and orders the demons to seize him. Dumuzi appeals to the sun god Utu for help and is transformed into a snake in order to escape but, eventually, is caught and carried away to the underworld. Dumuzi's sister, Geshtinanna, volunteers herself to go in his place and so it is decreed that Dumuzi will spend half the year in the underworld and Geshtinanna the other half. In this way, as, again with the myth of Demeter and Persephone, the seasons were explained. Yet why so elaborate a myth simply to explain the seasons? The Greek tale of Persephone (though, also, about much more than seasonal change) accomplishes the same end more succinctly.

Continue reading...

[mymusicbias]