#But please consider: Apocalypse is Egyptian

[artsy-hobbitses]

WIP for that large Gambit piece, this style takes a while due to the heavy inking, but I do love the therapeutic process of getting there. Still holding out for the Return Of The King later on in this season of X-Men 97, our Cajun Spice deserves the world.

Planning to play a little with his design as Apocalypse’s ‘Deathbringer’ as well.

[xueyangapologist]

oh here’s the Good Omens fic rec i conned two people into asking me for so i could feel like the absurd amount of fic reading i do is useful somehow. sectioned off by how i think about them in mine own brain.

there’s a section for fics written pre-show but i haven’t separated all of them. i’ve also included warnings where i thought it was necessary but mostly i’m trusting that everyone knows how to check ratings and tags.

section: favourites

A Backwards Proposal

But then, suddenly, the sun would shine on the angel’s hair, or a certain smell would remind Crowley of this or that sunset in Rome with a flagon of wine, or maybe they would just look each other in the eye, and Crowley’s chest would constrict, and he would wish he could die young like a tragic romantic poet or a young woman who had happened to be caught in a rainstorm once, and whose delicate condition just wouldn’t let her live.

After

After all that, after the apocalypse that wasn’t, after everything, could Crowley stutter through saying anything other than best friend? What was the point, when Aziraphale would never respond in kind?

The Temptation of Aziraphale, or How to Lose a Flaming Sword Without Really Trying

He was Here. The Source of his Agony. And surely something was really dotty in his head because he was starting to think in all capitals.

Different (and its sequels)

“Do you like me?” he wanted to ask. “No, I know you don’t like me, at least, I don’t think you do, except that maybe— But everybody likes me, why don’t you like me? What should I do differently? D’you ever feel, Aziraphale, like you’re one of the only guys around that really gets what this whole love thing is about? Everybody talks about it so bluntly, but surely there’s feeling in it, right? You have feelings, like I do? My feelings, do they sound real to you? Because I don’t know if they are.”

crowley/aziraphale is happening, just in the background at first, don’t worry. i need someone else to read this with me so desperately

the rest is under a read more because it got Too Bloody Long

section: toothrot

An Artless Proposal

“Every dame appreciates a ring.”

Good Old-Fashioned Lover Boy

"Oh yeah," said Crowley quickly. "Loads. All the time." 

some new beginning

The back rooms and the first-floor bedroom were cluttered with vases, and the green bastards seemed to like it better here than they had at Crowley’s flat. He didn’t count a single wilted leaf between the lot of them. Traitors.

section: halfway between the above and below sections, or: big dumb demon has praise kink make me cry

The One in Which Crowley Discovers Wanking

“Oh! They’re still doing the rumpty-tumpty wrong!”

section: are we still calling it pwp?

Really Weird Things

Blow jobs were often the easiest way to fulfill his Lust quota and had the effect of causing huge political scandals when Crowley got caught hard at work, which, considering that the results were very funny, was quite often.

based on a quote from the book, which makes this one terry and neil’s fault

section: sort of has a plot

An Invitation To Ruin

"That's fucking weird, that is," Crowley muttered, then cleared his throat and repeated in a more angelic voice, "My goodness, this is ever so odd." 

technically a sequel to I Got You To Help Me Forgive, which is good, but i like this one slightly better

you smiled (and it broke my heart)

It was quite some time later, after Crowley realised he was somewhere along the A82 in Scotland and still not feeling any better, that he decided he did not want to clear his head of Aziraphale anyway.

section: actually has a plot

Mirror, Mirror

The angel of the Western Gate’s wings rustled behind her as she turned her gaze from the sunset on the still-clear horizon to the serpent behind her.

canon universe collides with a universe where crawly talked to the wrong angel. only explaining that because I thought at first it would be set entirely in the alternate universe, and that made me so sad I nearly didn’t read it.

section: in the beginning there were only 12 good fics in this fandom and i’ve read all of them

Heaven Has No Taste

"It is not given to us to know the Ineffable Plan," the Metatron sing-songed.

please note that a homophobic slur is used in this one and it kinda comes out of nowhere

Strange Flesh and All That

“I always imagined that kind of talk would get you sort all manner of flustered.”

Aziraphale smirks. “Doesn’t sound like there’s much to get flustered over.”

TwoFish

It wasn't so much a kiss. It was lips finding their proper places.

also has a homophobic slur! what is it with these early fics! very very sweet fic though

Will You Do The Fandango

“I’ll thank you kindly to get out,” Aziraphale said, and he’d changed into his smiting clothes and all.

section: it’s about the YEARNING

and, so on

“Are you content?” Aziraphale asks.

“No,” Crowley says immediately. “I never will be.”

Things That Will Never Happen

"No. I mean I want to bring you back to my flat. I have a king-sized bed. Egyptian cotton sheets. I want to pull you under the covers and hold you as tight as demonically possible. I want to fall asleep in your arms." 

considered making a section just for this one titled “MORON4MORON”

section: yeah we gay keep scrolling

You Bloody Snake

Hastur dug his fingers deep in Ligur’s ashes and thought, I promise. 

Best Not To Mention It

As Ligur recalled, Crowley went in for time-wasting annoyances on a large scale. Or at least that's how Hastur had explained it.

section: i just think they (lesbians) are neat!

help me to say

In 456BC Crowley patted Aziraphale on the hand after a long airborne fight over Crete and Aziraphale still lay awake some nights wondering what it all meant.

parable of shepherds

‘But the apple just keeps being there,’ Aziraphale mutters contemplatively. ‘Doesn’t it.’ 

radiation?!

“A what?” Anathema asked suspiciously.

“A killer queen,” the demon said with a perfectly straight face. “Gunpowder, gelatin. Dynamite with a laser beam.”

your apple-eating heathen

“Try doing me the service of thinking with your brain, instead of whatever claptrap people are saying about me this century.”

section: a tiny bit meta

What Would God Say

 “It’s like the way it is when you stare out into the ocean,” Aziraphale said. “When you’re a little drunk, you know, and you suddenly feel very…tiny?”

we follow our own steps (while our shadows keep watching us)

Anathema may have been more than a little bit psychic but she was only human, really. She’d already settled comfortably into middle age, and soon she’d slip into old age and one day she would die, and Crowley would have to remember what she’d done about advice before befriending her. Most of the time, that was okay.

i put this here but it also has lesbians!!!! neat!!!!!

[agirlinhell]

Just in case y’all missed it or didn’t look at Clementine’s updated bio, here are a few things you need to know that are a distinct and unique part of my portrayal of her that I DO NOT want anyone stealing! Beware of spoilers and mature themes and post length! If you see anyone stealing these headcanons, please IM me.

-Clementine is an eclectic witch with an intrigue for the occult and all things magical. She takes elements from African Witchcraft, Animism, Art Witchcraft, Astrology Witchcraft, Crystal Witchcraft, Dianic Witchcraft, Divination, Elemental Witchcraft, Kemeticism, Floral Witchcraft, Green Witchcraft, Hearth / Kitchen Witchcraft, Hellenism, Lunar Witchcraft, Musical Witchcraft, Sea / Water Witchcraft and Hoodoo to make her own type of magic.

-Clementine is demibiromantic and demibisexual - most times she has no preference between men and women, but sometimes this fluctuates in preferences, i.e sometimes she prefers the company of males over females and vice versa.

-When she was younger, from ages eight to eleven, she would start to draw vent art, especially after the incident at the St. John’s Dairy - and often times this consisted of rather dark imagery. She stopped at age twelve.

-Clementine is racially ambiguous. She identifies as Black / African-American, but it is possible that she may be descended from other none-African races further back in the family tree, though this is debatable. Regardless, Clementine does not know her true heritage nor is it likely she ever will, and it’s not like she can take a DNA test. However, regardless of belief, it's highly unlikely that Clementine will ever know her true heritage, and as such, she identifies as Black / African-American, even if there is the possibility of her being mixed.

-Clementine identifies as Cisgender Female / Demigirl so thus she uses she/her/ and they/them pronouns. She’s still experimenting with her gender identity and discovering herself. 

-Clementine is very androgynous, especially in her youth during the events of Season Two. Many individuals at Howe’s thought she was a boy.

-In her default verse, Clementine is eighteen, as it is set a few months after the events of The Final Season.

-Clementine is a proud Scorpio - and a Scorpio Queen at that.

-In her default verse, Clementine is leader and Headmistress of Ericson’s Boarding School For Troubled Youth, to which it is later renamed The Enlightenment - Aasim is the one who came up with the name because the previous suggestions that Violet gave out were considered quite informal but Clementine and Violet sometimes call the school the name they chose as a private joke.

-The Enlightenment is not only a settlement in it’s own right, but it also doubles as a sanctuary for the lost and the refugees from the wars outside of their borders and an actual school in the apocalypse. The settlement becomes formidable and renown for it’s neutrality and safe environment, and survivors from more established communities send their children to learn there.

-Clem was raised in a mild Christian household before the outbreak; she was an agnostic during the events of Season Two to Season Three: A New Frontier, and in present time, she is Pantheistic and a believer of the Greek Pantheon but will occasionally pray to and brings offerings to Egyptian gods such as Bastet and Sekhmet. She mostly prays and brings offerings to Hecate, Persephone, Aphrodite, Athena and Artemis, but will also pray to Apollo, Demeter, Dionysus, Hermes, Hestia, Harmonia, Nemesis, the Muses and the Charites. Yet her patron goddess that she prays to most will always be Hecate, the goddess of crossroads, entrance-ways, light, the night, the moon, magic, witchcraft, knowledge of herbs and poisonous plants, ghosts, sorcery and necromancy. Despite all this, she is very open minded to other religions and faiths, and even those who don’t have a faith.

-She believes in past lives and reincarnation, and that there is life on other planets.

-Honestly, at this point, after seeing humans literally rise from the dead and start devouring people, she’ll most likely believe in anything considered “occult”, “mystical” or “magical”.

-She speaks English (mother tongue), Spanish (intermediate, taught by the Garcia family), French (beginner, self taught, Louis teaches her a bit as well), American Sign Language (in a verse where Louis loses his tongue, self taught, intermediate, post-The Final Season), Latin (self taught, beginner, post-The Final Season), and Korean (beginner, taught by James, post-The Final Season) in default. She hopes she can learn more languages in the future, because of just how essential it is for communication in the apocalypse.

-Clementine has up to the middle of her calf on her left leg amputated by AJ after she was bit by a walker - often uses crutches to move around, but this advances to using a wheelchair or riding on her mare, Epona, when she wants to speed up her pace, and this evolves into a wooden foot and then a prosthetic foot via trade with other settlements.

-What is truly concerning, however, is her mental health: Clementine is psychologically damaged. Depressive disorder, PTSD, Anxiety, abandonment issues, suffers with hallucinatory episodes from time to time, she is an insomniac. Survivor's guilt. Self-loathing tendencies. Sociopathic tendencies. Suicidal tendencies. Possible messiah complex. She has the possibility of becoming an addict to drugs or alcohol if she is not careful and has suffered from substance abuse after her exile from The New Frontier whilst in Prescott at a young age. She could potentially have a "hero complex," with her inherent desire to help those around her, despite being unable to help herself, and having a compulsion to make the world right. She dislikes her reality which is mostly portrayed as polluted, dull and disheartening, full of the dead walking among the living, human trafficking, anarchy and homelessness, and struggles to cope with everyday life but it has improved post-The Final Season. 

-Clementine's lived in borderline poverty and homelessness for most of her young life and she has faced the possibility of prostitution at a very young age in Prescott in order to survive and this obviously leads her to having trust issues. Clementine was for the most part, lonely, and did not have friends or family, as everyone else had either betrayed her or died.

-She has heightened senses. 

-Clementine also has a deep fear of illness. She lived for a very long time in the wilderness with the groups she’s been with, especially in Larry’s case and his frequent heart attacks to the point where it indirectly lead to his own death by Kenny’s hands and then lived on the streets of Prescott and received very minimal medical care, for this, she can be absurdly clean to the point it’s a little jarring. Even a simple cold can make her worry as she had no way to provide for herself if ill, it reminds her of the extreme situations she endured. 

-She suffers in silence as a survivor of sexual abuse - she has never told anyone of her experiences. 

-She's self harmed and attempted suicide on multiple occasions in her past, both at a very young age. She hasn’t done either of these things since she was twelve years old.

-Clem still dreams of Lee and her loved ones and talks to them as if they were still there with her. 

-While Clementine is not completely cured of her depression and her mental illnesses, it is also noticeable that she is no longer suffering from it as much as she was before, and some of her mental health is under her control.

-Clem worked as a Former Supply Runner, Patroller, Hunter, Medic and Fighter for The New Frontier.

-She was a Former Spy, Beggar, Thief, Arsonist and Child Mercenary For Hire and has been a Bar Owner and a Businesswoman of many trades - almost that of a Gang Leader in Prescott - all at a young age.

-Clementine ends up taking Tennessee and Willy under her wing and thinks of them almost the same way as she would AJ - her younger brothers or her sons - it’s complicated, but she loves them very much.

-After the events of The Final Season, Tenn shows up quite often in her room at night because he cannot sleep due to the recent trauma he’s endured and asks her for advice or alternatively, to sing him to sleep. She gladly does so. 

-Clementine’s maternal grandmother was a Voodoo practitioner. Clem can still remember her, but only vaguely. Her grandmother had intended on teaching her granddaughter Voodoo but the outbreak hit before she could.

-Post-The Final Season, Clementine and the group takes care of nine stray cats who she’s named Luna, Hazel, Sol, Serena, Rai, Brynjar, Oreo, Pepper, and Stella. She and AJ take care of a little box turtle that they’ve named Franklin. Three stray, friendly foxes also make their way around the school, a white fox, a black fox, and a red fox, to which Clementine and the group began naming Aurora, Agni and Aenar. Determinantly, Clementine has her own horse that she stole from the Delta and named it Epona after the mare began taking a liking to the girl. Clementine rides her often whenever she feels stressed and they share a great bond.

-Clementine’s full name is Clementine Maria Jasmine Cree, but will use the surname Everett in honor of her protector and adoptive father figure. “Clementine” is “Mercy” in Latin, “Maria” is the Latinized form of “Mary” whom is a respected figure in many religions - notably Christianity and Islam - whom is the mother of the savior of the world; it has several different meanings: “sea of bitterness”, “sea of sorrow”, “rebellion”, “wished-for-child” and “mistress or lady of the sea.”, “Jasmine” is a Persian word meaning “Gift from God” or “God’s Gift” and it is also named after the Jasmine flower, which holds significant cultural, symbolic and religious significance in countries like India, Hawaii, Indonesia, Pakistan, the Philippines, Syria, Thailand and the United States. It symbolizes motherhood, love, respect, beauty, sensuality, appreciation, good luck, purity, and romance. “Cree” means “Highly Spirited”. “Everett” - a surname that Clementine takes on as a momentum to her mentor, Lee Everett, comes from the Old English word eoforheard which means “brave as a wild boar”.

-She is directly descended from a Voodoo Queen in New Orleans, she also has ancestral ties to the Maroons and many of her ancestors were bokor or caplata, meaning male and female Vodou witches. Many of her recent ancestors were skilled in music. Her relations tie back to Ancient Egypt and other great African empires, many of them were explorers, travelers and sailors, whilst others were horsemen and feared archers and warriors. Clementine has no knowledge of any of this, nor is it likely she ever will discover this revelation.

-Post-The Final Season, Clementine lets her hair grow out a little longer. She lets her hair loose, especially when the colder seasons pass through as it covers her neck and just past her shoulderblades. When styling her hair, she often chooses protective styles in traditional African styles such as Afro Puffs, Bantu Knots, braids, and cornrows.

-As an eclectic witch, she likes using glyphs, sigils, runes, colored candles, metals, herbs, oils, crystals, special stones, rocks, seashells, animal skulls, flowers and plants to use in her spells and to decorate her room. She has a grimoire that she write her past in, the history of magic and how she initiated, an appendix of crystals, herbs, plants and trees, spells, ingredients, prayers, incantations, rituals, holidays, zodiacs, planets and celestial bodies, gods/goddesses/deities, their powers and how to worship them, the planes of existence, animals, mythical creatures, demonology, dragonlore, necromancy, the dark arts, books to use as references, colors, altars, recipes while cooking / baking in spells, magical objects, spiritualism, mythologies of several cultures around the world, symbols, sigils, the phases of the moon, flower language from the Victorian Era and fan language. Luckily, the school is quite large and the library is being rebuilt and books are generously donated by other settlements through trade. Clementine’s knowledge skyrockets in adulthood, quite impressive for a girl who had once been in first grade.

-In the colder seasons, such as autumn and winter, she tends to wear more to clothing with furs on and inside them if she manages to acquire them. Some of the outfits she wears consists of her own homemade outfits of animal furs she had skinned herself. Clementine wears an Omega necklace that Louis gives her, symbolizing the end of something. In current plots, she wears a opal crystal pendant necklace around her neck, hanging down to about her chest as a gift from The Commonwealth; it’s her birthstone and she believes it could grant her luck among other things. She often makes her friends and family fur cloaks to keep them warm.

-She begins taking an intrigue in playing musical instruments, notably the piano, but has started playing the flute, the violin and the harp. Clem is mostly focused on learning her piano lessons as of now, though.

[crescentmoonrider]

@jootjogurt

aye so after like 2 hours of searching, i finally found the blog again (im such an idiot for not saving it the first time but what else is new)

so about that rhinoceros beetle

i actually remembered wrong, in that it was in fact a symbolic interpretation, and not a coded prayer

still, this person manages to find some meaning to what seems to be random words, and thats pretty admirable in its own right

in short (and using what little portugese i can understand through french and spanish, please dont take this to be Super Accurate)

Spiral staircase - the beginning (time, which has a start but no end, as well as dna and its double-helix structure, the foundation of life)

Rhinoceros beetle - development/growth/rebirth (think of Khepri, the egyptian beetle god and symbol of rebirth through its association with the rising sun. op believes the 4 times it is said each represents a stage in Green Baby’s life - the bone, the salad baby, C-Moon, and Made in Heaven)

Ghost city - the apocalypse (pretty self-explainatory, the end of everything)

Fig (?) - power over nature (the forbidden fruit, disobedience to god and the curse it entails, also jesus cursing the fig tree to neverbear fruit again) (i dont know why its a fig here and not a pear tart, please dont ask)

Via dolorosa - via dolorosa (i mean you could translate it but its a christian term so like. but yah its the path of suffering, jesus carrying his cross, yadda yadda. a difficult path)

Singularity point - the end (the centerpoint of a black hole, where spacetime curves infinitely. if this reminds you of Made in Heaven and (to a lesser extent) of C-Moon, this is normal)

Giotto - a new beginning (its Renaissance time baby ! but yeah we consider this dude to have marked the start of that small thing in art history, so like. yeah)

Angel - a messenger (op associates this one with Jotaro, who served as the unwitting messenger of Dio’s instructions, helping to bring about Made in Heaven. they also say they’re reaching a little here)

Hydrangea - rebirth (associated with water, baptism, rebirth... also this association of water and rebirth makes me think of Dio’s watery end, which turned out to not be all that definitive)

interestingly, the next Singularity is interpreted as a beginning by op, for no apparent reason i can understand

Secret emperor - god (secret because you cant see him even if you know he exists. im just quoting here. ill go on a personal interpretation here, but it could also be applied to fate, which definitely governs all, and which Pucci desires to make apparent to all)

again, this is a very succint, very approximative translation, and i know jack shit about portugese specifically

[jflashandclash]

Traitors of Olympus IV: The Fall of the Sun

Ten: Sadie

I Play Trans-Mythological Messenger

(or: I Crush a Commander with my Bum)

 A Quick Note from Yours Truly: Jak-Jak the Plague Bringer

           Dear Reader,

                       While I was singing these events to my personal scribe, I was rudely interrupted by a persistent young spitfire, audaciously asserting she could dictate this next section with more eloquence and style. Fortunate for her, spitfires are my style.

                       Her preferred method is using a low quality voice recorder (like a savage). If you have the misfortune of hearing that version (instead of reading it) I am the one accompanying all of her oration in acapella, to set the mood. I hope her insertion does not ruin the retelling of this epic tragicomedy for you. Though, if you do find yourself wanting to smash your face into a wall—as her brother assures you will—please remember that she’ll only be around for a few chapters and that smashing your face into a wall can cause severe trauma, enough so that you will not be able to attend your next bull fight or read the next release of Trials of Apollo.

                       And I promise to wrestle the mic from Ms. Kane should she get too vapid. Without a further drum roll (there’s a drum roll happening on the audio version) here is Ms. Sadie Kane.

                                                                                                 -Jack Flash

           Wrestle the mic? From me?

           I’ve tangoed with enough disembodied spirits to know they can make quite a fuss, but Jack, you’ve got no hands!

           Well, now that I finally got the microphone from that decapitated freak, we can tell this part of the story proper, where I, an Egyptian magician, deliver a Greek message from the future. Don’t worry, it didn’t make much sense to me either.      

           I’ll say one thing for Camp Half-Blood: I was not impressed. Brooklyn House is just better. Sure, they had a lava wall and a bunch of fancy cabins. But they didn’t have an albino crocodile guarding it—just a napping dragon who they should consider replacing due to job negligence—and they didn’t have a baboon running around eating Cheerios. I didn’t even see the half-horse guy that Annabeth had been going on about.

           I might have also been biased, considering my first few seconds at Camp Half-Blood involved me free-falling out of a portal before something squishy broke my fall.

           Sometimes, when you’re traveling by portal, you won’t end up where you plan—oh right. Portals are real. I can use them because I’m a descendent of the Egyptian pharaohs. Long story. At least it wasn’t as bad as the time I appeared three hundred meters above Cairo with a terrified Russian. Thank goodness that Russian could fly. Anyway, enough of flying Russians. Back to Greek demigods about to be obliterated.

           I expected a well-placed cushion or a particularly lush patch of grass had broken my fall. Had I known I was going to fall on top of a boy, especially a boy who was having a rather rubbish day, I would have shifted a few feet to the side and taken the worst of it! Honest!

           “Hey! Aim better when you skydive, lady!” the boy under me cried.

           “Sorry!” I said, scrambling to my feet.

           There were quite a few of them—campers I mean, not skydivers. They were gathered in a clearing around some metal dragon thing. After stopping a giant snake from ending the world a few times, I’d grown to resent giant creepy, scaly things, but it looked like they were trying to repair it, not destroy it.

           The campers stared back and forth from me to the spot several feet above me, like they wanted to disassemble the air particles and figure out how I’d made my brilliant entrance.

           “I need to talk to Annabeth or Percy right away!” I said, clutching a scroll in one hand. Leave it to the gods to make someone as important as me a message runner. Oh, the nerve!

           The boy that I had fallen on stood and placed his hands on his utility belt skeptically. He pushed up a pair of goggles from his face and into his hairline, leaving him with circles of soot around his eyes. With the oil-stained shirt and dirt smudges, he looked a bit like a mechanic or someone who had been hit with a steam train.

           He was Hispanic, with wild black hair, energetic eyes, and elfish features. Somehow, I felt like he’d be a minion of Loki if Norse mythology were real along with the Greek and Egyptian. (Oh, shut up Carter, you can’t assume it’s real. Honestly, my brother thinks he knows everything.)

           The energy and glee in the boy’s eyes seemed to drain as quickly as it came, like my entrance had given temporary amnesia from a bigger problem.

           “Are you one of the new campers?” he asked.

           “Erm, yes?” I said, confident as ever. I couldn’t just say I was a magician. When my brother, Carter, and I teamed up with Annabeth and Percy to stop a dead, evil magician from becoming a Greco-Egyptian god—also long story—we agreed not to have our two worlds mix. Enough apocalypses to stop with one mythology, thank you very much.

           “Which cabin?” He crossed his arms. “Other than the Cabin of Inconvenient Landings.”

           Ah, a smart guy.

           “I prefer the Cabin of Graceful Entrances,” I said and frowned. Carter was much better about remembering this kind of nerd stuff. I had a hard enough time keeping track of all the Egyptian gods, let alone Greek, and I had lived with an Egyptian goddess.

           I wanted to say the Isis Cabin. I vaguely remembered Carter saying something about the Greeks or Romans worshipping her at some point. I knew I should play it safe though. What was Percy’s dad’s name?

           “Poseidon’s,” I said.

           A few of the other campers whispered to each other. The boy laughed, the twinkle returning to his eyes. “Poseidon? Yea right, lady. And I’m a son of Aphrodite.”

           Goddess of Love! I knew that one. (Shut up, Carter. It’s not obvious.)

           “Well, you could be. You’re kinda cute when you smile, in a dorky sort of way. Put you on top of a sea shell, paint your nails, and I’m sure you’d fit in their cabin just fine,” I said. And, if it wasn’t for the grime and dirt, he would have been quite attractive. Not my usual type, but not bad. That, and I’ll admit, I might have hoped a compliment from a pretty girl would speed things along.

           He snorted. “Okay, if you’re working for Eris, this is the worst infiltration I’ve ever seen. Follow me and we’ll see if Percy can fit you into his busy schedule. And, sorry Pinkie—“ He was referring to the pink streak of dye I’d put into my blonde hair. “—but this Bad Boy Supreme is taken.”

           The luster went out of his eyes again as he led me away from the silver lizard and confused campers, past a few fairly impressive buildings that I could only assume were cabins.

           Now, it was my turn to snort. “I said you were cute. I didn’t say I was trying to chat you up or anything. Who do you think you are?”

           “Commander Leo,” he said. We walked through a field that looked like it lost a fight to a crashing helicopter. There were campers bustling all around, preparing battle defenses if I had to guess. But I’m not Greek. This could have been how they picnicked for all I knew.

           “Well, Commander Leo, I have a boyfriend too. Or I think I do.” I sighed, thinking over why I had been so eager to volunteer in delivering this message. “It’s complicated, dating older people, especially deities.”

           The boy rolled his eyes. “Tell me about it.”

           I rarely needed encouragement to do that, but—as we approached an oddly placed ping pong table with a throne and casino-style lighting above it—I found myself blathering to this stranger. “I mean, it is a LOT of pressure. I’m the reason he lives and everything, and that’s great and all, but I want to get him a hobby or a pet. Something else that reminds him that the pyramids will still be in Cairo if I’m not around.

           “I did not mean to literally tell me all about it,” Commander Leo said, though, for a second, his amber eyes flashed with understanding. Not something you expect when you’re discussing problems about your romantic, godly partner.

           We walked up to a meeting that looked awfully boring. I’m sure they were discussing important stuff, “Bla-bla-bla defenses here, bla-bla-bla chimera, bla-bla-bla magical, stolen stick” (oh? Do the Greeks have magic wands too?) but Jack tells me you’ve already heard enough of that.

           I had to wonder why Annabeth was half-asleep and Percy was sitting on such an odd throne.  That didn’t seem his style. They weren’t sitting side-by-side as I would expect of the cute couple, but I suppose business came first. There were other campers scattered around the table, maybe a dozen and a half, all looking agitated.

           From a quick glance at Percy’s expression, I could tell he was resisting the urge to bash his face into the table at the discussion. He flipped his pen furiously.

           “Hey, Water Boy, this chica fell out of the sky and said she’s your sister on your daddy’s side,” Commander Leo said.

           At first, I was offended. Percy scowled at me with irritation like I was a pile of particularly smelly laundry that blocked the end of his chore list. Then his expression lit up with recognition. He grabbed the armrests of his throne. “Sadie! What are you doing here?”

           Annabeth startled awake. Her disoriented gaze found me and she smiled.

           Commander Leo looked completely taken aback.

           I smiled at him smugly. “Told you.” I turned back to my friends. “Hey Percy, Annabeth. Sorry to say that I’m here on official business. Have you ever heard of a bloke called Hermanubis?”

           “He was a popular god when the Romans occupied Egypt, albeit he mostly disappeared afterwards,” Annabeth said, “He was a combination of the Greek god Hermes and the Egyptian god Anubis.”

           I winced, not wanting to think of any more gods in my boyfriend’s head. Walt hosted Anubis, the god of death and would die of an ancient curse if Anubis left. It was complicated.

           “Wait—slow down. Percy, a sister?” said a rather handsome blond boy with stunning blue eyes and enough muscles to punch out a sphinx. He had a cute scar on his lip, probably from fighting a hydra or something else hot Greek heroes did.

           “Not another demigod, right? Is she a nymph? She doesn’t look like one,” said a large Asian boy wearing a flowy purple toga with a military haircut.

           Maybe I shouldn’t have chosen Poseidon.

           “I’ll explain later,” Percy said.

           “Questions after the presentation,” I agreed. “So, half-Egyptian, half-Roman god. Yep, that would be the one. Apparently you’ve been talking to some Necromanteion Oracle or some nonsense? Dead people that use the oracle like a delivery system?”

           A girl with reddish-blonde hair timidly leaned forward. “The Traitors Prophecy, um, I think Rachel was possessed by that oracle when she gave it.”

           “Great,” I said, wanting to rush this along. I rather enjoyed getting out of Brooklyn House, but there appeared to be some eminent destruction underway if we didn’t make it quick. “So, this undead, Greek delivery system had to go through Hermanubis. Something about your gods all fighting each other and your communication being down—er—our communications being down.” Right. Daughter of Poseidon here. “So the oracle had to outsource to Hermanubis to deliver a message. That got to Walt, a host of—”

           “A child of Hades,” Annabeth translated for me.

           “Of Hades?” a girl with golden eyes and cinnamon hair said in surprise. She and a girl with a long back braid and eyes possibly fiercer than Zia’s (my brother’s girlfriend) exchanged a glance. (What, Carter? It’s not like I can measure it with a staring contest.)

           I ignored the whispers around the table and wary glances. “And that message got to me. So, ta-da!” I held up my scroll. “Good to know your g—our gods talk in riddles,” I corrected.

           “We’re getting a prophecy now?” Percy sounded annoyed. “We just sent out two sets of questers.”

           “Usually the gods are a bit more punctual than that. Like, by several millennia, right?” Commander Leo asked.

           “If the gods are all arguing amongst themselves and communication is down, they are a bit pressed for options right now,” the girl with the long braid said. “And I wonder if Apollo had a difficult time with predictions because two Mayan princes were involved.”

           Mayan princes? Great. MORE gods.

           The Greeks were lucky their gods still chatted with them. All of our gods weren’t allowed back in the world right now, least they’d bring chaos with them, another end of the world, and some other nasty nonsense. I had a calling card for Bes, the ugliest and most wonderful dwarf god you’ll ever meet, Anubis and Walt were sharing a body in the mortal world, and my Uncle Amos could chat a bit with Set, but our options were limited compared to before.

           “That’s not the end of it,” I said. “My Uncle Amos has an action figure board in the First Nome that tracks the movement of all mag—all demigods—”

           “All demigods?” the handsome blond asked.

           “How?” a girl with a feather in her hair sounded just as shocked.

           “Action figures?” Commander Leo asked, which I think was the most important question of the bunch.

           “Let her finish,” Annabeth said.

           Seriously, I wasn’t going to get anywhere with this annoying charade of being a demigod, but I kept going. “Anymore questions I can’t answer right now? No? Alright. So Amos’ magical board tipped us off to some activity in Phoenix, Arizona. And being a host of… a child of…” I glanced to Annabeth helplessly. I had no idea what Set’s equivalent would be in Greek mythology. “Chaos?”

           “Eris,” she said absently. Then, her mouth hung open like something brilliant had clicked.

           “Another one?” one of two twin girls said on the far side of the table.

           “Maybe Pax will have to fight to be counselor of the Eris cabin,” said her sister. “A real competition.” The thought of competition seemed to excite those two a bit too much.

           “Anyway,” I said. “Amos is better at keeping track of… other children of Eris. He thinks it has to do with a host of chaos, and a rather nasty one at that.”

           Although Annabeth’s eyes were already narrowed from exhaustion, they further slanted, making me fear she’d fall right to sleep. “I’ll bet that’s Lapis Pax.”

           “That person I heard arguing with Eris? Eris said that henchy is guarding Hemera,” Percy said.

           Annabeth nodded. “We know Hiro is in New York. I would guess Lapis is in Phoenix, Arizona. I just wish I knew why Lapis chose that spot to hide Hemera.”

           I had a few ideas, although I couldn’t give it away without revealing the whole Egyptian thing. From what I knew about Greece, they didn’t have many deserts, so I could guess their home goddess of chaos didn’t have desert affiliation, unlike our lovable Set. (Yes, Carter. I know there aren’t any deserts in Greece! Give me more credit.) If this Lapis was hosting Set, then Set would be far more powerful in his natural environment.

           “We still don’t know how Hemera is connected,” a tough looking boy with a rainbow tattoo pointed out.

           “You said that you have prophecies?” the girl with the long braid and purple cloak said, “They might give us a clue as to the connection.”

           “Right.” I unrolled my papyrus scrolls. When I saw the first, tiny slip of papayrus on top of the second, I almost tossed it away in embarrassment. It looked ridiculous compared to the other one, but Walt suggested it likely important. “Well, there’s actually two. The first is a haiku.”

           “That would be Apollo,” Percy grumbled, slumping into his throne.

           A groan resounded around the ping pong table. At least I knew the gods weren’t trying to pull a prank on me. I still felt awful silly clearing my throat to read out loud:

             “If you read this note,

           It means I will be captured.

           S. O. S! Send help!”

             If possible, the campers looked more annoyed.

           The girl with cinnamon hair and golden eyes frowned. “Last Thalia said, Lord Apollo was locked in a competition with Lady Diana to see who can capture the Teusmessian fox. And he’s been captured too? Or will be?”

           “Another sun god,” the girl with reddish hair muttered.

           “What about the second one?” the boy in the purple toga asked.

           This one would be much more of a pain to read, but at least it felt official.

             “Sand slithers to noon; bells do chime,

           To announce chaos’ course, and sun’s decline.

             Theft: essence of day, then erode to night.

           Parapets decay to beckon the wight.

             Two will leave; five and quart’ return.

           Death of a god, their hearts do yearn.

             Prevail! Trials of Psyche, led by Desire.

           Without arrows of bliss, these pilgrims expire.

             Growth is death and death is growth.

           Cycles again, love phoenix to loathe.

              Sprout ashes of rancor, a new blossom to flower.

           Hearts of the ancients, these youths shall devour.

             End of an era, before night is done.

           Sacred tears and gods fear the day to come.”

             This one got more of a stir.

           Annabeth paled. The red-haired girl put a hand to her mouth. The campers exchanged uneasy glances at the last two couplets.

           “What’s a parapet?” one of the twins asked.

           “It’s a low, defensive wall, sometimes used for concealing troops,” the girl with a braid said. She glared at the scroll, like her scowl could threaten the verses into revealing their riddle. If it could, we could certainly get her a well paying job in the First Nome.

           “I think the second verse is referring to sunset, when Phobetor will keep the Mist barrier down and allow Melinoe, a wight, into the camp. But those next few lines…” Annabeth trailed off, looking troubled.

           “Calex was supposed to go with them,” the redhead said.  

           My head spun. That name sounded familiar. In my adventures, Carter and I had traveled all over the world, in its many layers, but that name wasn’t common enough for it to stick out without importance. We didn’t have any new initiates by that name…

           Annabeth nodded grimly. “In the Trials of Psyche, Eros, or Desire, pulled Psyche from her sleep, brought her to Olympus, and made her immortal. Euna has Joey’s quest box, the last item from the Trials of Psyche. Calex, a son of Eros, must be connected.”

           “It could also refer to Reyna,” Percy pointed out.

           The girl with the braid, Reyna I presume from the way her killer stare made an attempt to scowl Percy out of existence, demanded, “What?”

           Percy shrugged sheepishly. “I meant for Axel. Ignoring how you feel about him—”

           “Wisely,” the boy in purple said and leaned back into his chair, like he was getting ready to duck.

           “—Axel is the one leading them through the labyrinth. And he also received two of the trials, between the whole cereal thing and the ice water. If he’s really into Reyna, maybe having her around will stop him from going crazy and killing everyone.”

           The way Percy said it felt a bit too routine for my taste. Did Greeks often go raving mad? Not to say magicians were much better, but it was good to know who you were working with.

           “Still doesn’t explain how Hemera or Apollo is connected,” Mr. Rainbow-Tattooed said.

           “I’ll bet we can get some answers if we go to Phoenix and beat the snot out of this Lapis person,” I said, rubbing my hands together. It had been awhile since I’d had a good battle. Granted, my magic wasn’t the best suited to combat, but maybe it would give me a good excuse to have Bes visit.

           Percy grinned. “Eris said warriors couldn’t go after Hiro. She never said anything about Lapis.”

           “And while Eris does seem to act haphazard, there must be some reason she kidnapped Hemera,” Annabeth said. “Saving her could disrupt Eris’ plans.”

           “And it is way better than sitting around here without a solid plan,” the girl with cinnamon hair and golden eyes said. She blushed. “Oh—sorry Percy—”

           Percy gloomily waved it off. “It’s okay.”

           “What else can we do to help you with Lapis?” Annabeth asked and it suddenly occurred to me that neither of them was going with me. Annabeth looked exhausted and Percy kept fidgeting, like he couldn’t get out of that chair.

           My heart sank. When I’d come to Camp Half-Blood, I’d partially hoped to repeat some of our adventures—not the Setne trying to take over part, but I wanted to enjoy some quality time with these two.

           I shrugged, trying not to show my disappointment. “Not much, unless you have someone who is lightning proof.”

           Everyone at the table turned to the handsome blond boy with the scar on his lip.

           “Gods of Egypt,” I cried. “Are you really? Fancy that. I’ll take two of him please.”

           “The other ‘one of me’ just left,” he said.

           The beautiful girl with the feather in her hair frowned. “Jason, are you up to—”

           “Yes,” he said in a way that told me whatever might prevent him from going had an embarrassing origin. I’d have to worm that out of him later. “But why lightning? Pax can turn into people, but he can’t use their powers. I assume Lapis will be similar.”

           “Sadie will give you the full explanation on the way over,” Annabeth said, eyeing me meaningfully.

           “Right,” I said. What luck to have someone lightning proof. “Any chance one of you is fireproof too? I assume that would be too much luck for the gods to grant?”

           Commander Leo stepped forward, looking more like a child in a military elf performance than a dangerous ally, and saluted. “Flaming Valdez, here to report. Felix is up and running and I could use this quest to take her for a test drive.”

           His eyes flickered back towards camp. I got the feeling there was something he was hiding from back there.

           Jason frowned and glanced from Percy to Reyna, to the other boy in purple. “Are you going to be okay here without us? If we leave, we might not make it back in time for sunset.”

           “Oh, don’t worry about that,” I said. I’d had to do some ridiculous stuff to get here quickly—tying ancient artifacts to birds and sending them out when you’re hoping no one is looking with strict instructions to fly over a mythical Greek camp. However, getting from New York to Phoenix should have been much easier.

           “You guys go have fun,” Percy said with a weak grin. “Sadie, Jason’s a big tough guy, but don’t bully him too much. And Jason, if you know what’s good for you, I wouldn’t let Leo and Sadie plan any pranks together.”

           Leo glanced over at me. For that moment, the spark erupted in his eyes again. “Pranks? Me? Never.”

           “And I’m a respectable lady,” I chided Percy. “You shouldn’t spread rumors like that.”

           Jason paled slightly, though I honestly couldn’t imagine why. I’m sure this Commander Leo was a reasonable person and I would go easy on him if it was Percy’s request.

           Everyone said their quick goodbyes. Jason gave the girl with the feather in her hair a quick kiss and some minor reassurance. Leo stood beside me, fidgeting with something in his utility belt with one hand as he saluted a goodbye with the other.

           Jason joined me beside Leo and I grinned. “Right, now that all that is sorted,” I said, “how do you blokes feel about jumping into a roaring vortex of sand?”

[gabriellerudessa]

Hi there again :3 i just tagged you in it, but could I ask what your other fandoms are? It helps me to write new material, you see :)

Heard the song and loved it!

Oooh, that's a hard question, I'm in so many fandms it is hard to track them all 😅

From the top of my head... I'm usually looking at anything MCU related (please don't ask about the comics my father has A LOT of them but I really fell discouraged at reading them so I've never touched them 🤡). Anything related to Enderal and Nehrim too (one a game made using the mod-tool for Skyrim and the other with the one for Oblivion). Mass Effect and Dragon Age all the time. The Evil Within. Slasher and creepypasta things also dominate my brain. Saint Seiya to this day dominates my life. The Wheel of Time, Middle Earth and Narnia too. Oh, Artemis Fowl and Rangers, totally. Can I consider Nordic, Egyptian, Greek and Celtic Mythology as a fandom? If so, then them too 😂 Hannibal... Bioshock... Prey (2017)... Dishonored... Star Wars (mainly Mandalorian and Knights of the Old Republic)... Subnautica... Fallout... Elder Scrolls... A Tale of Crowns... Wayhaven Chronicles... Scout An Apocalypse Story... I'm not deep into some of them, but God I love all of these worlds and stories... 😂

Truly hope something from these will help you write more good songs! Can't wait to see what you will write! 😁 May Inspiration be on your way!!! 😁😁😁

(Also I just remembered that I also love The Strain)

[ofnailbatsandaxefives]

The Phoenix and The 100 S4

“From the ashes we will rise” The tagline for season 4 of The 100 brings to mind imagery of the great mythological bird the Phoenix. A creature that sets itself on fire at the end of it’s life, so that a new Phoenix can be reborn and rise from the ashes of the old. This is already a pretty good analogy for what is going to happen to the world and the characters we love within the show, but it goes even further than that. 

The Phoenix is a creature that appears in many different cultures, with some similarities between them, as well as some differences. I’m not going to cover all of them, but I’ll do my best to cover a majority. 

First I’ll start with some of the basics of the mythology surrounding the Phoenix. These are things that are pretty much constant in all versions of the mythology.

Things The Phoenix Symbolizes

Renewal 

definition A “an instance of resuming an activity or state after an interruption”

- The City of Light can be viewed as the interruption that the people faced in season 3. It halted life in Arkadia, Polis, among the clans living outside of Polis. It halted the attempts at reconciliation between the Sky People and the Grounders. (Not saying that Ontari would have not still tried to wipe them out for bringing in Pike, but Kane was still heading to Polis to try and speak with the new Commander.) In season 4 how are our heroes and those around them going to try and resume the lives that they had before the City of Light? 

definition B “the replacing or repair of something that is worn out, run-down, or broken.“

- If we go by this definition, it could be about the grounders (and possibly sky people together) coming up with a new government for the grounders. Replacing the idea of the Commander with something else, or maybe even where it isn’t centered around the flame. Maybe it isn’t about completely replacing this system, but rather repairing it and finding a way for more of it to make sense. Like, y’know maybe not having a battle royale to find the next commander, cause just because someone can kill people does not make them a good leader. This can also be applied to Arkadia, and I think could be sign that Bellamy and Clarke are going to be working more with Kane (and possibly Abby) to be leaders among their people. 

some synonyms for the word renewal are: revival. restoration. reformation. reparation (atonement), redemption, resurrection. 

- Are we going to have people trying to atone for the things they did while in the City of Light (Ilian? Kane? Jaha? Jackson? Jasper?)

- Are we going to have a redemption arc for Octavia?

Empire

“ an extensive group of states of countries under a single ruler”

We know from the trailer that Roan is going to try and rule the 12 (well I guess 13) clans. The flame is still going to be in play somehow too, but is the person who takes it still going to be the next Commander? It’s possible, but I think this is more about Roan’s arc and goals than it is about the flame.

The Sun

The Phoenix can symbolize the sun, but there are also things that the sun can symbolize. Some things about this symbolism are “the sun can be about being able to command and lead,”the sun is bright and gives the people the energy and strength that they need,” “the sun gives the people the determination to succeed.” 

Who does this sound like? Well, it kind of sounds a bit like the way in which Bellamy leads. He’s the one that’s known for the inspirational speeches, but wait, who do we see in the trailer giving one? Clarke. From interviews and such we know that these two are going to be working together again, so this could apply now to the Bellarke leadership as a whole, rather than to just one of them. However, I do think this part of the symbolism applies more to Bellamy.

Metempsychosis

“ the supposed transmigration at death of the soul of a human being or animal into a new body of the same or a different species”

This part of the Phoenix’s symbolism in relation to the show is most definitely about the flame/chip itself. We don’t know how yet, only that it’s still going to play a role in next season. Is the new grounder woman in the trailer going to take the flame? Is there going to be a new Commander? Are there going to be more grounders who stop seeing it as a religious thing to be revered? Is there going to be conflict between those who view it as sacred and those that do not? 

Now comes the part where I start on the Phoenix when it comes to the stories in individual cultures. Now, first let me note that this is all from research so if I get anything wrong let me know.

Egyptian

In Egypt the Phoenix is known by another name, Bennu.

Bennu is associated with Osiris (Ausir) who is the god of the afterlife, the dead, transition, and resurrection. 

Death is something that is pretty common on the show, but ‘god of the dead and resurrection?’ Who does that sound like, oh, I don’t know maybe ‘the Commander of Death.’ Clarke not only has been shown to take life, but she has been shown to restore it as well. 

Osiris has a sacred willow tree that he sat under. The willow tree can represent both grief and healing. There’s going to still be grieving in season 4, not just from Clarke, but there’s also going to be healing in this season. Who or what is going to be healed we don’t know yet. The willow tree also represents renewal and immortality, much like the Phoenix. While no character on the show is immortal, are we going to see even more the immortalization surrounding the idea of Wanheda?

Bennu is also associated with Ra, the Egyptian Sun God, and as I noted above sun is one of the things the Phoenix symbolizes, and that this can apply to Bellamy. According to Egyptian mythology when Ra was in the underworld he merged with Osiris to become the god of the dead as well. 

Osiris = Clarke

Ra = Bellamy

Merging in the underworld = “Together” and pulling the lever in Mt. Weather

Both Clarke and Bellamy should be considered Wanheda, but only Clarke does, same as Osiris is usually considered the god of the dead and not Ra.

The Bennu is the sacred bird of Heliopolis, which from what I could find is near modern day Cairo. Some of the most famous pyramids are found on the outskirts of the city, and if I remember correctly we see pyramids in the trailer. There’s also the fact that it has the name Polis right in the name, 

Chinese

in China the Phoenix is called Fèng Huáng

it is a symbol of high virtue, grace, power, prosperity, and the union of yin and yang.

the Empress is often symbolized by the phoenix Fèng Huáng, especially when paired with the Emperor, who is symbolized by the dragon. (I’ll touch more on this a little later)

The colors of the Fèng Huáng’s feathers are black, white, red, green, and yellow. 

These colors are said to represent the five virtues of Confucius

Ren: benevolence, humanity, charity

Yi: honesty (broken down into zhong: doing one’s best, loyalty, and shu: altruism “benefiting another at one’s own expense”, reciprocity “exchanging with another for mutual benefits”)

Zhi: knowledge

Xin: faithfulness, integrity

Li: propriety, politeness, ceremony, worship

The Phoenix was power sent from above to the Empress, and would only stay when the ruler was without darkness or corruption. She started a bit on this path in season 3, but I think in season 4 we are really going to see Clarke coming out of the darkness of everything she has had to do and has been through. I also think she’s going to come out from some of the corrupted ways of being a leader that she learned from L. 

The phoenix also represents the celestial bodies, let’s remember that Clarke, and the other sky people came from the space (where the heavenly bodies are) as well as the direction south, possible migration south to Brazil? ( @loft-meeting )

Okay, so like with talking about the gods in Egypt, I’m taking a short detour from Phoenix talk here to come back to the Emperor being symbolized by a dragon. 

Please note I am only talking about dragons in terms of how they are viewed in China for this.

Things that the dragon represents in China: Perseverance, Heroism, Boldness, Intelligence, Vigor

Who is someone that has persevered despite the odds? Who has shown his heroism time and time again? Who have we seen making bold choices for his people? Who do we know shows his intelligence in how he plans things or leads? Bellamy fucking Blake, that’s who.

The Empress = The Phoenix = Clarke

The Emperor = The Dragon = Bellamy

The Empress + The Emperor (The Phoenix + the Dragon) = the union of yin and yang 

Japanese

in Japan the Phoenix is known as Hō-ō.

Just as in China it is a symbol for the Empress. 

Here it represents fire, the sun, justice, and fidelity. 

In some traditions it is said that the  Hō-ō only appears to mark the beginning of a new era. Is this what is going to come in season 4? Are we going to see the start of a new era for the sky people and the grounders? Are we going to see them setting their differences aside and uniting to survive? 

In other traditions the Hō-ō only arrives during times of peace and prosperity. The whole ‘first we survive and then we thrive’ mentality Clarke is putting forth to inspire the people from the trailer? In this tradition the bird nests in the Paulownia tree, which is nicknamed the Empress/Princess tree...so while I know we don’t care much for the Princess nickname and don’t want to see it come back, we can’t deny that it’s always going to be something associated with Clarke.

Greek/Arabian

when someone makes a reference to the phoenix, it’s most likely this version of the bird you think of. An eagle like bird streaking across the sky, or sitting by a well and singing its melodious song. 

Its feathers are often crimson, purple, scarlet, gold, or a combination of the three. 

Crimson: fire, importance, power, determination to succeed

- having/gaining power (Roan)

 - the determination of Clarke and those on team survive to find a way to survive the coming apocalypse. 

Purple: inspiration, the future

- Clarke trying to inspire the people in Arkadia, and Bellamy in turn being that inspiration for Clarke. 

- Not to mention the inspiration the other characters will find in each other. Kane and Abby, Murphy and Emori, etc...

- while they will obviously be dealing with things in the present, much of this season I feel is going to be focused on the future. The future of mankind. 

Scarlet: enthusiasm, love of life

- Enthusiasm and love of life here makes me think of Jasper. So far in the show, at least at the beginning it seems, that Jasper is on what I refer to as ‘Team Fuck It.’ He doesn’t want to survive, he wants to live, and there is a difference between the two. If the world is ending, Jasper is going to go out on top. He’s going to go out not with a whimper or a bang, but with music blasting from the rover and a cup of Monty’s moonshine in hand. 

Now whether or not this attitude is a good thing is open for debate.

Gold: success, abundance, wisdom

- a successful alliance possibly between Azgeda and the Sky People? 

- characters continuing to grow and learn, Clarke and Bellamy gaining more wisdom from people like Abby, Kane, and even Jaha on their little trip to upendi. Is Octavia going to gain some wisdom from Niylah this year? What about when Luna comes back? Is she gonna drop some wisdom on people? Maybe Monty with his questioning the excuse of ‘my people.’

The phoenix has tears that can heal wounds and resurrect the dead *cough* Clarke Griffin *cough*

In this version the phoenix builds a pyre and gathers things such as cinnamon and myrrh in the preparation of its death.

Cinnamon and Myrrh both represent pretty similar things two of which are Protection and Healing. 

Season 4 is going to see characters trying to protect one another and heal, not just healing physically, but also healing mentally and emotionally. Think of the way a phoenix uses the items that represent these in it’s pyre before it dies and a new phoenix rises from the ashes. Now think of the way these need to be something that the characters need to realize and go through, so that when they rise from the ashes they arise stronger than before. That in order for mankind to continue and for a new world to come about, one where the Arkers and Grounders truly work/live together, the old ways must first die, so that the new ways can live. 

Slavic

in Slavic folkore it is referred by a few different names, most of which seem to translate to something along the lines of Firebird.

Once again the Firebird can represent a number of different things.

For some it is a creature of blessing, and others it brings doom to anyone who captures it. In some tales it’s a symbol of wealth and power, and in others it’s the object that’s been ordered to be capture. (I know this post is mainly about the phoenix in relation to season 4, but holy fuck if this doesn’t scream season 3 C/L if you think of Clarke as the Phoenix) 

The Phoenix is also believed to bring hope and relief to suffering. 

- hope has always been a pretty major theme of this show. almost everything has relied on hope. The hope that the ground is survivable. The hope that grounders and sky people can work together. The hope that they can survive the coming apocalypse. 

- relief to suffering - call back to Atom, anyone? Is there going to be more of things like this in season 4? Perhaps a relief that doesn’t end in death or something false like the City of Light?

Conclusion

My conclusion is this, if you look at the overall/wider aspects of the Phoenix then it can encompass the overall theme of season 4. It can symbolize many different characters, story lines, arcs, etc. When you examine each version individually you find that, while here and there something might apply to a different character or arc, it seems that it is mostly represented by Bellarke, and more so by Clarke than Bellamy. But isn’t that what this show is? At its core the show is Clarke’s journey, followed by Bellarke (platonic, romantic, or otherwise), and then everyone else. 

@ginalou16 @bellamypotter @ravensluna @abazethe100 @the-ships-to-rule-them-all @insufficient-earth-skills @rosymamacita @falafel14 @adamantinesky @forgivenessishardforus @thunderlovesbird @jane-doe07

[puttingfingerstokeys]

the shambling deceased

Nanowrimo day 23 Featuring an unnamed narrator Post-apocalyptic setting, zombies Zombies, death, body horror Finished and unedited

Human olfactory senses are not meant to become accustomed to the sweet stink of death. I don’t care how many television programs you have consumed over the years, where the heroes don’t notice the shambling threat until it is far too late. If the noises these revenants make are not enough to alert the characters in the show, surely the stench of rot and decay would catch their attention, right? Depending on the dramatic needs of the program, it may or it may not. But I am here to tell you, point blank, that the dead—they stink. They stink bad. They stink worse than the ugliest most odious smell you have ever experienced, bar none. A skunk cannot compare to the smell of death, though it certainly tries. The smell permeates, sticks, clings, and drags on you until you are well away from it.

And if the dead are the pursuing kind, rather than the sort who lays on the ground like a corpse really ought to do? Well, you do the math. They are not what anyone might call “quick”, but if the wind is right, the smell will do you in but good. It is rot, decay, and wrong. The smell is actually alarming, if you can believe that. Trust me when I say this: you never want to experience it if it is at all avoidable. Most people, in their lifetimes, smell death once or twice, usually when an animal has gotten itself up under their home and done the indecent thing, dying there to stink up the house and the surrounding area. They always seem to do this on hot days, too—it’s in rather poor form. Regardless, this stench only mimics what the shambling dead bring with them when they rove through an area.

That they move in herds is something the old shows used to get right, at least. I genuinely have no idea what, precisely, attracts them, though I think it might be sound. The dead, you see, don’t have lung capacity; their vocal flaps are generally decayed beyond use as it is soft tissue and, as a result, are unable to produce sounds like the groans you might think they would make.

I guess that might be one thing the television would have had right, about not being able to hear them, except those ambulating corpses would always moan and snarl and make all kinds of animalistic sounds. It was as if they were begging to be discovered. Real ones are hardly apex predators, but at the very least, they do not alert their prey of an incoming attack via audible means. It would really be embarrassing to be killed by a loud, stinky corpse.

It is still incredibly unclear what exactly animates these things. They do not appear to have normal blood flow or brain function; nothing beats or moves and they are decidedly lukewarm. Something is still firing up in their rotten noggins, but it certainly is not what you would call “proper” function. It seems to drive them toward the base urge to feed. I don’t think their bodies process the flesh they consume, however. The stuff probably sits in their guts and ferments—that’s where you get the explosive ones. We haven’t really bothered naming them anything fancy or cutesy. They’re shambling, bloated corpses and honestly, flippant as this commentary has been, there is absolutely jack shit all that’s funny about seeing once-living humans reduced to … that.

They cannot help it. There is no malice in them. There is nothing in them. They are husks, which is as good a name as any. Zombie has always sounded kind of silly to me, even if the implications are always fairly dark and dire. Husks better describes the hollowness of them, I think. So “the undead” or “the infected” work, but “husk” is a better term, given that we do not actually know if they are infected with anything or how they got that way and when you call something undead, it makes the thing somehow spookier than it has to be, lending it some sort of power. We should not fear these things. We need to dispose of them quickly; it is the absolute least we can do.

As far as corpses go, they are just as brittle and easily-perforated as what you might expect a half-decayed corpse to be. The hardest part, to be perfectly honest, is the clothing. Most people did not turn whilst also happening to be nude, unfortunately. Piercing clothes with a stick or any other blunt instrument is a lot tougher than the television shows always made it seem. You are best off with a machete or even a bat. Cutting off brain function stops ambulation. I… do not know if it stops brain function entirely unless the brain is vaporized. No one seems inclined to hang around husk-infested areas long enough to find out.

Now, I will be the first to admit that I was (partially) wrong about the events of a so-called “zombie apocalypse”. I had always theorized (during slow times at my job, mostly) that no society with known zombie-based media could fall victim to the idiotic happenings of your average zombie show, that the zombies could not last much longer than a few months, at most in, for example, a densely populated city, but that in the country, the problem would be solved within a week. There is simply more space way out in the boonies to see things like that coming—people are more armed, too, and not necessarily even with firearms. I am referring, of course, to basic farm implements: pitchforks, shovels, a literal tractor, splitting mauls, axes, actual logs—I could go on.

I was foolish, thinking it would be easy to simply go out and strike down things which had formerly been human, because I would know that they were not. What they don’t usually show in zombie shows—or didn’t; I doubt anyone will ever produce another, assuming we get to that point—is that when someone is freshly dead, they still look… human. Not just humanoid, mind you, but like a sick human being.

Okay, so remember when I said the husks don’t make noise? The old ones don’t, that’s true. But the fresh ones… sometimes it feels as if they are trying to communicate in some way. It definitely is not the growling-hissing sound you get from a movie or whatever. It feels like speaking to a person with a severe speech impediment, who is also deaf, and has some combination of Alzheimer’s and dementia. That is to say, you are not speaking with them, so much as listening. I have no idea what they are trying to say and I have only seen a fresh one a few times; thankfully, by the time they reach our home base, they have deteriorated thoroughly enough that there isn’t any more of that half-talking thing. It gives me the shivers even considering it. Do they consider what they are doing? Can they feel it? What part of them is left—if any?

I am one of those people who hopes that whatever they feel is rudimentary, pure instinct, that there is nothing of the soul who was once occupying the body—yet another decent reason to call them “husks”, rather than zombies.

They are chilling to behold, more than any George Romero film could attempt to portray. As a matter of course, anyone who has ever owned a zombie film or series has tossed it summarily out into the gutter, so to speak—though in some cases, literally. I have genuinely witnessed people with whole collections, tossing them out into our now-defunct trash bins. The gesture seems more symbolic than anything else; the only garbage truck I have seen in the area is the one the former “rogue garbage man” (a story for another time) had used to make his living, except this thing was ass-over-teakettle in a swamp. Whether it was a group of husks or just some of the run-to-riot wildlife in the area that drove him off the road, I guess I’ll never know.

The village I call home is a small place, a five-by-five mile square with probably five hundred people, total. The cop shop doubles as the library and town hall, if that gives you any idea of the scale of things. We have a four-way which is the biggest attraction in town and isn’t even a stop—traffic on the old highway zooms right on through. We have the essentials, a bar, a hardware, a convenience store and two churches, one Catholic, the other non-denominational, the church equivalent of “Original” and “Spicy”. I’m not entirely sure which one is which, but since the Catholics serve wine, I’m going with Original Recipe—they’re the ones who own the one graveyard in town, which I am pleased to say has expelled none of its residents. It probably isn’t feasible to rise from your grave when you are encased in cement and filled with formaldehyde. Who knew that our uncomfortably Egyptian burial practices would come in handy? There are a few cross streets here and there, but they either lead to dead-ends or a twisted mass of nonsense roads that curve and twist and transform into other roads as they hit county lines.

Everything that is not a house or trailer is a field, woods, a swamp, or some combination of the two.

For having so much farmland, however, there are very few farms. In recent years, times have been tough on anything that is not a massive, factory farm and, needless to say, anything called a “village” does not have the consumer base or, likely, the location to support such a thing. The government has been doing what it does best: making it hard on the little guy. I wish I could tell you it was because of this regime or that, red or blue, but to be perfectly honest, I’m not sure the agenda changes much across the aisle—not where regulatory licensure is concerned, anyway. Farmers just cannot keep up with government subsidization if they aren’t an approved recipient and then they lose their farms, plain and simple. It isn’t the best explanation, nor is it a terribly sympathetic one; don’t think me cold for this, but I recognize that there is plenty about the world I cannot change and, when the dead are walking, you quickly learn which battles to fight, which passions to chase, and which issues to leave behind in the dust of a previous age. I’ve shaken that particular blend of mud from my shoes.

My family is one of the fortunate few who had a “hobby” farm before this whole thing went down. I don’t know who decided to call it that, but this thing is no hobby. It is absolutely, without question, a full-time job taking care of the animals. We have the staples, chickens and hogs, like you would expect in the rural Midwest, but rather than cows, my family long ago elected to raise, breed, milk, and butcher goats. Don’t knock it ‘til you’ve tried it, my friend; goat is good eating. The milk is creamy, the cheese is exquisite, and they are friendly, mid-sized beasts who can be pushed and pulled where you need them to go. Sometimes, we lament not having at least one cow, but upon reflection, the sheer size of any bovine is enough to stop that thought quickly; they eat a ton and if they do not want to cooperate, they simply won’t. There is little a human can do without a cattle prod (or dogs) and we’re fresh out.

We are fresh out of cattle prods, that is, not dogs. We have dogs. Everyone around here has at least one dog. It’s just something you do in the country. You have dogs. We have four, actually, and right now, they make for excellent guards, alerting us to the presence of the undead with quiet barks—we call them “low-commitment”, because it isn’t a full-on bark, but it’s loud enough to let us know something is up. It’s as if the dogs understand that the dead are attracted to sounds. Now, if a human being wanders by the fence, the dogs go all out. They’re really the epitome of “a bark worse than their bite”, but nobody else knows that, so they keep the riff-raff out. By riff-raff, I mean drifters, thieves, those who are not committed to survival by hard work, but by capitalizing on the work of others. Around here, there are plenty—or there were. Needless to say, that behavior does not win you many friends during a crisis like this one. My family is generous, but we are not soft, nor stupid. Telling the good from the bad has never been difficult for us… or the dogs, actually.

So there you have it… “hobby” farm with doggy security system. We have ham, goat, and chicken a-plenty; we have eggs, milk, and cheese. We are very well-outfitted for this “apocalypse”, if you want to call it that. I think it might be a bit overblown, but nobody asked me, did they? There are plenty of people and families out there who were not so fortunate. It did not take long to realize how well-positioned we were (and still are) to survive and even to thrive in these new dark ages. Oh, but I guess I got ahead of myself again—or maybe behind… again. You probably aren’t here for logistics or whatever. You probably saw the opening monologue and thought “shit, she’s going to spill it all; we’re going to get a real juicy story”. You want to know how it started, or at the very least, how it started for me, don’t you? Well, strap in. This is a long one.