#Isle of the blessed

[twistedshipper]

Go to the place that men call the Isle of the Blessed, where the power of the ancients can still be felt. There you will discover Arthur's salvation.

[jb2w2yloonaxezktor2xa2le]

[rastronomicals]

8:56 AM EDT April 7, 2025:

Soft Machine - "Isle Of The Blessed" From the album Land Of Cockayne (1981)

Last song scrobbled from iTunes at Last.fm

"The Land of Cockayne is a country where life is a round of luxury and idleness. In Cockayne there are rivers of wine, houses built of cake and streets paved with pastry. Roast pigs wander about with knives and forks in their backs, crying "eat me, eat me," while naked nuns bathe in rivers of sweet milk. In the sky there is a palace of glass, floating above the clouds. To enter this land one has to wade up to the chin in swine's dirt for seven years."

This album--which really doesn't sound like Soft Machine--features Jack Bruce, Allan Holdsworth, and a string section. It very pointedly does not feature Mike Ratledge or Hugh Hopper.

File under: Fusion/Last Hurrahs

--

  <859x858>

[silavut]

SAY WHAT NOW???

Just started Isle of the Blessed in TP2 Road to Elysium, and saw these in the logs.

WHAT???

"...wormhole onto another world." ????

So I guess Athena really did go somewhere else! Wow! Can't wait to see what's next!

[ilions-end]

i'm very tickled by the suggestion that the reason menelaus went largely untouched by the tantalid family curse was because his marriage to helen, a daughter of zeus, acted as a kind of inoculation

like not only is my wife hot as fuck, she's given me antibodies against the compounding sins of my ancestors

[aurelion-solar]

Kalista, Ledros & Hecarim - Ruination Wild Rift Cinematic

[justaz]

Going feral as I think about my greek soulmates percabeth who were Perseus and Andromeda in a past life and Odysseus and Penelope in another. Falling in love in every lifetime. Finding each other every time. Their love is true and unconditional. Listening to “Would You Fall In Love With Me Again” from Epic and thinking about post Tartarus Annabeth having to cope and deal with the more cruel and dark version of Percy she saw in the pit and coming out the other side still loving him. He hesitates before reaching for her and his touch is so gentle and barely there, his hands tremble slightly as if he’s afraid he’ll hurt her and Annabeth is sure that no matter what he does, he’ll always be hers. He’ll always be her love. He’ll always be her best friend and soulmate. She’ll always love him.

[corvidpolyglot]

man they really all conspired to get his ass huh. phenomenal

who convinced yaqut to actually solve some puzzles lmao. i'm convinced 1k and byron conspired with miranda or athena to make this one happen

[scholar-of-yemdresh]

Adult SFF Books With Aromantic Main/Major Characters

Wanted to highlight lesser known books; including not-so-obscure books that aren't known for their aromantic rep.

[blestanderson]

hi! my name is chuck okeke. i created the artist, blessed anderson, the wes anderson of music. i look more like the second photo. i had quasi success on tumblr already with my blog 90scartoons, but the whole point of this blog is the appreciation of everything wes anderson. i think hes a brilliant director, innovator, culturist, minimalist, artist, human being. welcome to the matrix. enjoy.

[courtierofdementia]

Weird question- does anyone have any pictures of the Gatekeeper (either Oldblivion or Remastered) in a t-pose?

I need this For Reasons (making Vitruvian Gatekeeper photoshops).

@elderscrollsconceptart Hate to bither you, but could you boost this?

[rastronomicals]

6:41 PM EST December 23, 2024:

Soft Machine - "Isle Of The Blessed" From the album Land Of Cockayne (1981)

Last song scrobbled from iTunes at Last.fm

"The Land of Cockayne is a country where life is a round of luxury and idleness. In Cockayne there are rivers of wine, houses built of cake and streets paved with pastry. Roast pigs wander about with knives and forks in their backs, crying "eat me, eat me," while naked nuns bathe in rivers of sweet milk. In the sky there is a palace of glass, floating above the clouds. To enter this land one has to wade up to the chin in swine's dirt for seven years."

This album--which really doesn't sound like Soft Machine--features Jack Bruce, Allan Holdsworth, and a string section. It very pointedly does not feature Mike Ratledge or Hugh Hopper.

File under: Fusion/Last Hurrahs

--

  <859x858>

[anthrofreshtodeath]

untitled drabble

clearly I’m still thinking about Jane and being bad.

—-

Jane lumbered out of the confessional booth in St. Joseph’s, her boots heavy against the well-worn tile as the wood of the seat creaked beneath her. Everything about the moment was so damn old, including her, she thought. She refused to think about the physical aches and pains that came with her exit because Maura had a concussion - a fucking brain bleed - and Nina had just gotten out of surgery, but she couldn’t block out that ancient catholic guilt, belonging to the generations of parishioners here before her and settling on her shoulders now.

Not her guilt - to be quite fair. No, she felt something far older, something that tingled in her fingers, dragging them to the holster on her hip. Perhaps that feeling was catholic, too. But the absence of guilt told her that here was where she needed to be. 

Told her she might be too far gone, and so she’d better get her ass to church, because she’d felt this way before, and it’d caused her to do some stupid things.

And forty years of guilt other people told her to feel, it aged her. If not in body, in spirit. How many times had the tang of vengeance singed the back of her tongue, only to be cut down by the icy deluge of admonishment? How many times had she been told that she felt too much, too often?

Now the tang was all she could taste, and the best she could do was stand before God ahead of time. Because like she told the priest, she hadn’t been to confession in years, and there was a lot to confess, but perhaps her grandest sin was standing in defiance of regret.

Not for what she planned to do now, anyway.

She marched right past the pews on her way out the heavy double doors, only breathing in when that chilly fall air settled on her face.

It’s not what I’ve done - it’s what I’m going to do.

She’d left an important part out. And that I might not make it to the other side of this. 

That, however, was a sin for another confessor, and Jane, craving nothing more than the Newports she used to chain smoke in junior college, prepared herself for more penance on her way to her car. 

Beacon Hill had been aptly named, because it called her. 

She released herself into the driver’s seat of the unmarked with a thud. When she closed her eyes for a bit of peace, to quiet the raging of all those thoughts before she turned the key in the ignition, she exhaled. Loud, unsteady. 

God she needed sleep.

But first, she needed to get to Maura.

So, she buckled up, blinked herself into wakefulness, helped by the light of the moon, and drove west to Beacon Hill from the North End. 

She’d made the trip a thousand times over the last five years; she barely needed eyes on the road. She used most of the time to think of what to say, or rather how to say it. She thought she’d just about got it right when she pulled up on Pinckney street, but it left her when she shuffled through the courtyard and turned her key in the lock.

Maura was standing there, back to Jane when Jane entered, still in the day’s black blouse and pink trousers. Still with the butterfly bandage on her head, in front of a sink with dinner’s dishes still soaking inside. Maura herself stared out the window, gripping the lip of the counter.

“H-hey,” was all that Jane could muster. She closed the door with respect, the latch clicking softly. The warm light of Maura’s front room caressed her, such a sumptuous affront to the dimness of St. Joseph’s. It almost burned away the murder in her. 

Almost.

“Hi,” Maura answered, but she never turned. “Where have you been? Your mother’s been looking for you.”

“I… hmm,” Jane did not expect the emotion that stifled her. She pushed through. “I went to church.”

“To church? What for?” Maura began to scrub.

“Confession,” said Jane when she brought herself over to the granite counter. She placed each hand on it, key ring still looped on her index finger, teeth biting into her palm as she pressed. She licked her lips - that is how the moment should feel, yes. Again, penance. The discomfort met the mood.

“Oh,” Maura acknowledged. There was a beat, like she would be too defeated by her own pain to ask about Jane’s. But then she cleared her throat. “Am I allowed to ask what you confessed?” It was quiet, timid.

And Jane hung her head.

Where was her Maura who, at the start of those five years, had winked at her and asked did you have a lot to confess to? Who had put sex into every syllable of that question? Sex and unequivocal joy? 

This Maura, run ragged by circumstance, by the violence in Jane’s orbit, barely allowed herself space in Jane. 

And that angered this Jane, hollowed out and filled up with nothing but rage and the animalistic fear of losing whatever iteration of Maura she could get.

She walked over to the sink, dropped her keys in her pocket, and put her face to the crown of Maura’s hurting head. It still smelled like flowers and fruit. “You’re allowed to ask things of me,” Jane whispered. She hoped Maura felt it like Jane felt strands of hair against her wet lips. The walls fell. “You’re allowed to demand things of me.”

Maura stiffened. There were long moments where she only tightened her grip on the counter and Jane only froze in place. But then. Then. “Tell me what you confessed.”

“That I wasn’t, hmm,” Jane found herself struggling to find the right words in light of Maura seizing her opportunity. “That I’m gonna-“

“That you’re going to kill Alice Sands,” Maura said.

“No,” Jane replied.

“Then tell me,” Maura ordered.

Jane’s old, tired heart thrilled. It beat faster, sending another impulse to her fingers. This time, she obeyed, wrapping them in Maura’s hair and tugging. 

Maura hissed when she went back, but Jane knew.

Jane knew that it wasn’t from pain. She moved her lips to Maura’s temple. “I’m gonna feel no regret when I put a bullet in her head,” she murmured. “I confessed that I’m gonna kill her and I’m gonna enjoy it. But there was somethin’ I left out.”

“Don’t make that mistake twice,” Maura turned her head so that her mouth danced on Jane’s as she spoke.

“Wasn’t a mistake,” Jane returned the favor. “I was savin’ it for you: I might have to give myself up to get that. To end her. But it’s a price I’d pay every time.”

Maura’s gaze narrowed, and Jane’s grip loosened, but they stayed close. And when Jane’s fingers, still in her hair, settled on the nape of her neck, she uttered one last command. “Well, make sure you don’t have to. Because I’m not god. I won’t forgive you if you do.”

And Jane, reinvigorated, nodded. 

[twistedshipper]

"Go to the place that men call the Isle of the Blessed, where the power of the ancients can still be felt. There you will discover Arthur's salvation."

[aurelion-solar]

"Beyond The Mist" - Kalista Wild Rift Champion Trailer

[lyculuscaelus]

It’d be interesting to view the failed nostoi of Achaeans (which is the migration of Trojan War heroes to other places like Italy) in the context of the Hesiodic lore of the fourth age of men (Works and Days, line 156–175), aka the Heroic Age.

ἔνθ᾽ ἤτοι τοὺς μὲν θανάτου τέλος ἀμφεκάλυψε, There certainly the death’s end enshrouded some [of them],

So many of the Achaeans met their end in two campaigns against Thebes and especially the Trojan War.

τοῖς δὲ δίχ᾽ ἀνθρώπων βίοτον καὶ ἤθε᾽ ὀπάσσας  Ζεὺς Κρονίδης κατένασσε πατὴρ ἐς πείρατα γαίης. While to the others he sent with them a living and abodes apart from men, Father Zeus the son of Kronos, and settled them at the ends of earth.

They were sent to Italy (which is pretty far from the Mainland), for a living, the abodes being the cities they founded there.

καὶ τοὶ μὲν ναίουσιν ἀκηδέα θυμὸν ἔχοντες  ἐν μακάρων νήσοισι παρ᾽ Ὠκεανὸν βαθυδίνην,  ὄλβιοι* ἥρωες, τοῖσιν μελιηδέα καρπὸν  τρὶς ἔτεος θάλλοντα φέρει ζείδωρος ἄρουρα.  And look, they dwell, holding a carefree heart In the isles of the blessed beside the deep-eddying Oceanus, Happy heroes, to whom the honey-sweet fruit Growing thrice a year—the fruitful earth bears them. * tell me I’m not the only one being reminded of this same word used in Teiresias’s prophecy—runs off to prepare for another post

Here, the Isles of the Blessed are depicted at the end of earth where the swirls of Oceanus flow. Note that in Roman mythology, the land of Hesperia (the western end of earth) was associated with Italy, and the colonies of Greeks (where Magna Graecia now lies) were also mentioned in Virgil’s Aeneid. Not necessarily what the Romans had in mind, but it’s an interesting connection nonetheless.

τηλοῦ ἀπ᾽ ἀθανάτων: τοῖσιν Κρόνος ἐμβασιλεύει.  τοῦ γὰρ δεσμὸν ἔλυσε πατὴρ ἀνδρῶν τε θεῶν τε.  Far from the immortals—Kronos reigns over them. For the father of gods and men released him from his bonds.

Isn’t it fascinating that the god Saturn, the Roman equivalent of Kronos, was one of the most important gods in so many Italian tribes back then? Now that these Greeks were far from their homelands, far from the realm of the gods they knew of, and submitting to the reign of Saturn, who was associated with Kronos in the Greeks’ mind?

τοῖσι δ᾽ ὁμῶς νεάτοις τιμὴ καὶ κῦδος ὀπηδεῖ.  And honor and glory attends to these greatest ones equally.

Considering how many heroa (ἡρῷα) there were in Italy, yep.

So personally, I do consider the failed nostoi working well within the Hesiodic context, even though they are later traditions themselves, which are inconsistent with Homeric epics. But that’s my personal view. (And of course you can argue that the Isles of the Blessed here are associated with Elysium fields which means that they’re all sent there after death but hey you guys are even putting the location of Hades in Italy which is literally saying “the hell is right here in Italy” which I’ve been wanting to shout at for this whole time…now just allow me to have fun)