#GreatBeast

[savage-kult-of-gorthaur]

TO MEGATHERIUM -- THE GREAT BEAST.

PIC INFO: Resolution at 2303x1924 -- Spotlight on a close-up shot of a giant ground sloth, a.k.a., Megatherium, an extinct genus of ground sloths endemic to South America that lived from the Early Pliocene through the end of the Pleistocene. 

PARY II: It is best known for the elephant-sized type species M. americanum, sometimes called the giant ground sloth, or the megathere, native to the Pampas through southern Bolivia during the Pleistocene.

EXTINCTION: "Megatherium became extinct around 12,000 years ago during the Quaternary extinction event, which also claimed most other large mammals in the New World. The extinction coincides with the settlement of the Americas, and a kill site where a M. americanum was slaughtered and butchered is known, suggesting that hunting could have caused its extinction."

Source: www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/rise-mammals.

Source #2: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megatherium.

[halfbakedspuds]

You know what, tell me about your stories. I wanna know all of them. Also is there 2nd ch of children of star?? We a re mutuals and we don't interact cause I have shit personality and you don't need to answer this

Thanks for asking and giving me an excuse to go on a tangent! And don't worry about interacting, as long as you're willing to put up with my ESL self occasionally forgetting how to speak English, you're welcome to do so.

There isn't a second chapter of Children of the Stars just yet. Mostly because I'm in my matric year and have been stuck with quite possibly the worst case of writer's block I've had in years. Two factors which have been making it quite difficult to write further, but I managed to partially get my jive back this week so progress continues!

Starting with the Tempest Prince, which is very blatantly inspired by me reading Percy Jackson and the Mortal instruments books during my first playthrough of Bloodborne. It used to be just one book, then I realised that I might need three to tell the full story (Which is when I started calling them the Saga of Storms). Soon, the Saga was five books long and then I realised that this universe still has a ton of loose ends after the story ends, and so five books became 21 split across five saga's, each told from a different perspective and dealing with a different thing that's been left unfinished. I will not milk this for content. There is no content, there is only a story that needs to be told and the 21 books it will take to tell it.

Worldbuilding wise, Earth in this universe exists as a result of five different layers of reality sitting on top of each other. The border realm, realm of chaos and entropy, has quite a visceral reaction to humanity seemingly existing to create order and reacts by corrupting living beings into beasts to kill us (Humans are sort of immune to this, but that's a long story). The higher the density of people, the more often these things manifest. Several thousand years ago, someone figured out that penguins who are corrupted become what humans call Dragons, and the bones of dragons can be made into weapons and infused with the wielders blood to become harder than steel, and immediately grant the bonded all the necessary instincts to wield it: the most effective weapons for killing beasts.

Thus were born the hunters, silver blooded super-warriors who were as much their weapons as their weapons were them.

With time, the hunters realised that with enough concentration, they could manifest runes to perform simple arcane tasks, and that chaining them together could create spells. At the time, people thought these runes were the language of dragons, and called it "Draconic magic". Later, the mages who dedicated themselves to its study realised that these runes were part of something far older, far more ancient. A theorized choir whose words maintained the universe, aptly named 'the worldsong'.

Fast forward eighteen thousand years, past a literal apocalypse, a civil war, and a complete reset of human- 'Redblood' -society to make it seem like the hunters never existed, and you end up in Vereeniging, South Africa, 2021 CE, where two unsuspecting brothers named Jason and Alex bear witness to a greatbeast manifestation (like a beast but considerably harder to kill), and despite having never ascended to become hunters or even having known that the supernatural even existed, the pair fought the beast and despite having not a drop of silver blood in them used actual magic (Which even they didn't know they could do).

Some shenanigans follow, the pair agree to become hunters, and Jason (being the oldest) finally reached the day where he'll ascend and begin his formal training. All the other candidates smear their drakespine (dragon bone) weapons with their blood, submerge them in water, and then pull them out to reveal perfectly refined weaponry hewn with silver veins. He follows their example, except when he pulls it out, the veins aren't silver...

... they're gold.

And nobody, not even the people responsible for prophecies and things, knows what that means.

After that, a mysterious group catches wind of the ordeal and begins scheming in the shadows, Jason and his new friend Helga start doing their training at the Academy of Allyria, with him deciding to study to become a Mage because he's honestly kinda dogshit with a sword, and her studying to become a medic to disprove that demihumans are too brutish to be in a position of caring for the injured.

Out of the blue, Alex is abducted by a group who knows the meaning of golden blood and wants to use it for themselves, and Jason, angry as he is that someone dared to mess with his family storms off to find them, with Helga offering to tag along and help the only person other than her mother and her girlfriend who's ever treated her as a person, as more than a barely sentient animal.

That's about all I can say without spoiling.

Children of the Stars follows Lyanni Sverik, a former noblewoman who was set to inherit the ruling title over an entire Barony who witnessed the genocide of her people. In her anger, she began learning the forbidden knowledge of alchemy and of the arcane. When the temples learnt of this, she was arrested, branded a witch and made a mere slave of the state.

After she meets the patron Angel of her people, Adrian, she eventually learns that he's not divine or supernatural at all. He's simply an alien, a human from the Terran Empire working to uplift her people that decided that the mask of an angel was the easiest path to his goals. All the miracles his kind performed, the arcane might they showcased, were merely spectacles of technology so advanced that it was indistinguishable from magic.

Adrian is what I like to call my little bundle of incredibly fucked up. Like the amount of trauma this man has makes him a minefield to navigate.

The first person he ever killed was trying to kill his mother and succeeding in strangling her (A feat in and of itself, she was practically a one woman army on a bad day). His solution was to smash a shop window and grab a shard of glass to slit her assailant's throat with because Callistoan honour meant he had to protect his own. What's fucked up about this? He was only nine when he was forced to make that decision. His family helped him work through most of the trauma thereof, but even twelve years later, after fighting in a war and watching most of his family die because of what he believes was his mistake, after getting half his body blasted off and becoming a supersoldier for a few years before he was handed an honourable discharge, one of his remaining silent mannerisms is an absolute aversion to anything like a knife or a shard of broken glass.

Ironic then that his eventual girlfriend (Lyanni) usually has at least two of the things on her. Two knives and enough random chemicals to start making bombs and corrosives at a moment's notice.

The thing that's very interesting to write so far is the fact that both my protagonists are horrible people. Hell, they only need to be reframed slightly to be seen as the villains of the story (And only one aspect of the worldbuilding needs to change for them to actually become the villains),and yet they try and succeed in being better people for each other's sake. Also they're the first couple I wrote that got someone's approval for being well made, so yippee!

Other than that, a lot of politics, and a lot of speculative socio-political commentary (regarding topics that won't even have a chance to be controversial for at least another century), but it's fun to write at least.

Echoes of Shadows is based on our world as it was between 1895 and 1902. It's a fantasy world where magical control of the environment is tied to how well you understand what's happening around you. Understand the processes behind combustion well enough and you'll develop pyrokinesis, understand the properties of metal and why they exist well enough and you'll develop ferrokinesis, etc.

The point is, with general human knowledge growing as fast as it is, and the improved public access to such resources, almost half the population are mages with varying degrees of power in various fields.

The fictional country that the book is set in, Ost-Rietland, and its sister state, Zuurveldt, are based on the IRL Boer Republics that historically were one of the few peoples that the British Empire got its ass kicked by and gained respect for even after their subjugation. Ost-Rietland is based on the Transvaal Republic (The province I live in actually used to be part of their territory over 124 years ago), while Zuurveldt is based on the Orange Freestate Republic.

The city of Zuidpunkt is actually based on both Cape Town and Durban with inspiration drawn from photographs of Johannesburg in the 1880s.

The culture of most people outside of the five in the main group is just a slightly different portrayal of my own, down to the incredibly satirical personality of its people (If you've ever seen South African ads, you know what I mean, we make fun of everything- especially social problems- as a way to cope. After all, if you can laugh at something it suddenly doesn't seem so bad, and sometimes lifting that uneasiness helps spur discussions on how to fix it. Nandos is famous for this).

This universe actually came to be while I was giving a crash course on worldbuilding and I was creating a setting from scratch to show my method in practice and some problems that may arise from it when I thought "Hey, this could make for a cool story actually". Unfortunately, I have barely touched the writing for it, so not a lot to comment except that I'm a bit too proud of myself for my method of only portraying the eldritch by only revealing enough about how they look for your mind to do my job for me.

Also, all my WIPs actually share a multiverse. Adrian, Johan and Jason canonically ended up meeting when the veil between their worlds got especially thin, and you can see a different POV of the resulting fight in each story (plus, I have plans to maybe bring all three together for a crossover book at some point, but that's still years down the line if it happens at all)

Sorry for rambling, but thanks again for the ask!

[trashcanalienist]

Two gods embrace on the skull of a fallen greatbeast while a third parodies the sun. For years they are still, silent, unmoving in the vast black empty desert. Then they begin to change, deliberate constructions deliberately stalking, miming a great personal battle, fighting even as in love they are reluctant to harm a friend. The sun twists and falls, then rises again as they once again lock into fellowship's embrace. They repeat this dance another time.

[aadhilahamedh]

#elephant #srilanka #srilankanelephant #endangered #wildlife #greatbeast #giant #conservation #humanity #animal #animalism (at Sri Lanka) https://www.instagram.com/p/CRSeeuFtg2g/?utm_medium=tumblr

[edwintse-diary]

February 17 2021 George Dog!!! “Seeing a St. Bernard in Brooklyn is like seeing a shooting star”

[gotojobin]

#TheGreatBeast #GreatBeast #Great #Beast The great beast dominates the battlefield by sheer resilience of conventional weaponry and tactics. Its main uses are battlefield command and as a platform for ranged units bearing high-powered muskets, impractical to be carried on foot. It can also be modified with various siege weaponry, including cannons and trebuchets.  The main threat facing the occupants of the carriage is not the enemy but the beast itself. Unintelligent and at times unpredictable the beast is known to occasionally rear and swipe at the enemy causing chaos for its crew. nb: Only just became aware of the rules about equipment etc. If the piece doesn't make it to poll, I won't be overly upset as I've had a great time creating it.  https://www.instagram.com/p/BxEHEJOlZmc/?igshid=92i580pxf8is

[misspriority16]

Abeke: Ok let’s just agree to say “I’m sorry” on the count of three. One, two, three.

Meilin:

Abeke:

Abeke: you see now I’m just disappointed in the both of us.

[andthewinner]

#hellboy #guillermedeltoro #ronperlman #mikemignola #darkhorse #darkhorsecomics #worlddestroyer #greatbeast #beastoftheapocalypse #righthandofdoom #sonofthefallenone #brotherred #red #manbeast #mane #beast #apocalypse #illustration #comics (Tarihi Yeldeğirmeni Mahallesi)

[incorrectpjoquotes]

Leo: You know what’s so interesting about Calypso?

Piper: Oh, kill me now.

Leo: The thing about Calypso I find so interesting is that, after all the gods have done to her, she’s still got hope life will get better.

Frank: The thing about Calypso you find so interesting is that she said six words to you.

[docmorro]

I Watched A Movie

Joker 2019

I’ve finally given in to the mass media collective and watched one of the hottest, for better or worse movies of the year. Amid scathing comments about the directors’ thoughts on genre films to the thought pieces that the film poses a danger to the mental health of those that see it, I took the great personal risk and sat in a packed theater on the day we all celebrate some Italian genocidal maniac.

The movie was good. More than that the movie was beautiful, much more so than I ever thought that anything that came from “The Hangover Guy” could be, not taking into account that the first movie was a sprawling scope on a real live city, then forgetting the sequels because anything after 2016 seems like a blur of nonstop torment. Digressing, the director uses real life environments well and as a period piece it never didn’t feel as such.  From a technical aspect everything about it was amazing, the cinematography, the music, the actors, the decoration, and the period appropriate aspects of the world.

So what’s the deal with JOKER 2019? Why is it being heralded as both the worst movie and the Best movie?

“Joyless” I’ve heard some say.

“Classist”

“Nihilist”

I’ve heard all these comments as both cheers and jeers

Everyone is entitled to their opinion and because the internet exists you’ll get another.

I watched Joker 2019 in The AMC Magic Johnson Harlem 9 and the crowd applauded for two things during the sit in,

1.       The HARRIET trailer a promotion for a Harriet Tubman Biopic.

2.       The “The End “ title card at the end of “Joker”

In between those two things was the movie. A tale set in sometime by my cultural estimation the 1980s, that followed a downtrodden workaday fellow working on his mental faculties searching for a stable hand to help raise him up and for a shoulder for him to lean on and help him limp to some semblance of happiness and understanding, but that’s not what the ‘80s were about and the movie lets you know that, garbage strikes , civil unrest and closed down or sanitariums with stricter qualifications meant those with mental illnesses are out in the world to fend for themselves. And after a bout of street violence is put on to our “protagonist” an “ally” gives him a way to protect himself, the way all  only straight, white, males of the time knew how, with a gun.  He thinks it’s a joke, but that gun ruins his life and shows him the way in ways the system that dropped him like a sack of hot potatoes ever could. Therein lies the conflict of the film: A joker with a gun VS an uncaring system.

A tale as old as time itself.

It harkens back to tales once told around the fire of a young man with a dagger against the furious beasts that stalked him in the night. Maybe that’s why it resonates with us, the story isn’t dangerous but early mankind knew there were dangers that came out at night, that stalked you that was hungry, that knew you were good meat. Now, we don’t have those beasts in the night we have our way of life that’s hungry that, needs you more than you need it, that wants your meat of algorithmic 1s and 0s to keep it going to strike again the next night, and knowing that if you holdfast with your dagger or the modern parlance a gun you could bring the beast of capitalism down. Just like with the night beast the collective trip grabbed daggers and spears and defended themselves from the ferocious beast so to could the collective with the guns take down the great beast that is the system, but some people like living in fear of the beast knowing that in their home they are safe and it’s only the dummy walking around at night with his dagger that is in danger.

Maybe that’s why people are upset.

Or maybe it’s because it built on The Bat-Man mythos in a way they weren’t expecting. SPOILERS. Being “Joker” you would think that it would be about the beloved villain, but if you’ve watched the movie, you did not watch that characters story. This was a story of a loner that started a revolution that opened up the scab of a wounded city with a gun and a clown persona. Much like how the movie “V for vendetta” 2005 wasn’t about historical failed revolutionist Guy Fawkes, but sports his death mask all over it. It introduces a mythos of clowns to the batman mythos on a scale never before seen in a time in the batman mythos seldom explored. I personally applaud what the writers of this feature, Todd Phillips and Scott Silver have added, as I feel like it only expands and in no way detracts.

It expands in ways I enjoy, such as:

In 2016s Batman V Superman: Dawn Of Justice, Bruce Wayne/Batman has the line; “Maybe it's the Gotham City in me, we just have a bad history with freaks dressed like clowns.”

Now a petty line aimed at his perceived foe superman and regarding his greatest foe The Joker has so much more in world implications.

Another way is that it makes The Joker,  the to be villain, (not Joker 2019s titular character) somewhat of a hipster, clutching on to a movement that people have let fall behind in their minds, much like wearing jnco jeans or The Weather Underground.

In other words I liked the movie and I believe its just the bleak kick in the pants the cinemas need if all studios want to make is idealistic disneyfied comic book properties. Joker 2019 is in the line of Logan 2017 a dissatisfying feel and place with uneasy characters that you can care for; that I hope brings out conversations about our current societal implications and hopefully brings about change.

[icaroid]

thinking about greatbeast muhs this morning

miss u everyday king... fucked up that u got assassinated </3

[chupacabra111]

and in the distance, i spied the great beast - red lodge, mt - september 2017 #montana #mt #redlodge #yellowstonewildlifesanctuary #yellowstone #wildlifesanctuary #wildlife #sanctuary #animals #zoo #adventure #adventurers #daddysgirls #daddy #dad #littlegirls #girls #littlekids #kids #children #buffalo #bison #greatbeast (at Yellowstone Wildlife Sanctuary)

[eolq]

WE ARE ONLY KIDS 🌹💀 🎶@jurymagliolo #creaturesofthenight #beast #seal #secondaclasse #theremin #lizard #music #friendship #space #spirit #black #love #magic #moog #mood #dorothybhawl #greatbeast #man #stage #riffs #igers #club #drunk (presso Seconda Classe)

[athleticeatery]

Choose your leaders with wisdom and forethought #leadership #leadershipquotes #wisdom #forethought #Leadershipmotivation #gym #fitness #health #workout #leader #motivationalquotes #greatbeast #chooseyourleaderwisely #warriorlife #sports #athlete #sportsperformance #follower #humanitywarrior #integrity #corevalues #psychology #teamdynamics #gymlife #motivationalquotes #octaviabutler #athleticeatery #sportsperformance #Toronto #the416

[tattorium]

#hellboy on a3 paper made with #talensink . so what next? color? background? hope you like it. #nis_staack #tattorium #tattorium_work #copenhagen #denmark #æøå #ronperlman #anungunrama #WorldDestroyer #greatBeast #prince #demon #paranormal #bprd #b.p.r.d. #guillermodeltoro #dickieslife

[lindsaydenniberg]

#pandorastalkboxproductions #killermakeover #tvtest #thehive #snoopy #greatbeast #unicorn @ceejaax