#Power spheres

[mochiyzz]

Here have this.

[kizzer55555]

Core Gems

So when a ghost becomes injured, they have a last ditch defense where they retreat into their core. And I mean, injured badly where their body is rip apart to the point they can’t hold a solid form anymore. And they basically go into a hibernation state until they are strong enough to form again.

Ellie, Danny, and Dan are all injured in a final battle against the GIW. The organization was destroyed and the ghosts were safe but the halfas ended up being so injured that they reverted to core form and then went to sleep for a bit. When they woke up, they were still weak but at least recovered enough to gain consciousness. And realize…they are in some kind of auction…in the middle of a heist. It appeared that two furries (one in a bat costume and one in a cat costume) were ducking it out. And they…they were a necklace. All three of them had been turned into a necklace with their cores as gems accompanied by sapphires, pearls, and opals. And frankly gorgeous craftsmanship as the metal was crafted around their cores as if to cradle them and the other gems.

Unfortunately, they were too weak to take a form properly, they could still feel the strain on their bodies. But at least they could still communicate through their auras. Then the cat lady punched a hole in the glass container surrounding them and grabbed their necklace.

However, the bat grabbed the other end and it resulted in a sort of tug-a-war. Meanwhile, Danny, Ellie, and Dan were having a back and form commentary on the situation and what they should do. Completely unheard by the other party.

In the corner of their eye, the three halfas finally noticed a third contender. Some kind of clown who was…hold on…holding a gun?! And it was pointed straight at the two fighting furies who had yet to notice him. The ghosts’ protective instincts went into overdrive and they frantically tried to shout, yell, move. Just do something to warn the two but their cries fell on deaf ears. All they succeeded in doing was faintly glow which immediatly caught the attention of the fighting duo. The two turned to look at the strange necklace but right at that moment, the clown fired and a gunshot rang throughout the auction room. Having no other options, Danny and the others poured every ounce of ectoplasm they had to try and phaseshift, making the two furries intangible as the bullets passed right through them, but in their shock, the two jumped away in opposite directions and accidentally ripped the necklace apart. Gems and pearls went flying and the three cores bounced along the ground.

Luckily, the two finally noticed the clown and went to deal with him and his minions who had appeared. Seemingly putting their fight on hold and forming a temporary truce. The three halfas could only watch as the battle finally wound down, ending with the cops barging into the place and arresting the clown and his grunts, the cat managing to escape with half the scattered gems and pearls from the broken necklace along with a few other jewelry pieces (none of their cores though) and the bat leaving through a skylight.

The auction continued and in the end, despite being broken, their necklace seemed to have caught someone’s interest. A man named Bruce Wayne bought up every piece of the shattered jewelry wear. The auctioneers appeared relived that the item managed to sell in the end and gratefully gave it to him.

Bruce had no idea what happened at the auction, but he could have sworn that some of the gems faintly glowed right before he and Selina were shot. If the necklace was some sort of magical item, then he needed to understand exactly what has been brought to Gotham. It was unfortunate that Selena had taken some parts of the necklace but he utilized his vast wealth to make sure all the other parts ended in his possession. Now he would take them back to the mansion for examination.

[zephyrbug]

A healer of the remedial abyss 🪶

This was meant to be a lil rendering experiment but that didn’t work out. However I have been wanting a character based on a golden pheasant for a while so I thought I’d still use the sketch, plus my friend was considering running a wuxia game in the future so here’s my demon bird alchemist!! Haven’t picked out a name yet and i’m in no rush cause the game won’t run for a while but they’ll be a fun one to build eventually!

[pratchettquotes]

"I told you, I never made the world," said Om. "Why should I make the world? It was here already. And if I did make a world, I wouldn't make it a ball. People'd fall off. All the sea'd run off the bottom."

"Not if you told it to stay on."

"Hah! Will you hark at the man!"

"Besides, the sphere is a perfect shape," said Brutha. "Because in the Book of--"

"Nothing amazing about a sphere," said the tortoise. "Come to that, a turtle is a perfect shape."

"A perfect shape for what?"

"Well, the perfect shape for a turtle, to start with," said Om. "If it was shaped like a ball, it'd be bobbing to the surface the whole time."

"But it's a heresy to say the world is flat," said Brutha.

"Maybe, but it's true."

Terry Pratchett, Small Gods

[nelkcats]

King and Joker

The bats were confused when Joker announced he gained a companion. His partner (or sidekick) is strong and has too many powers but looks sad. They tried to ask him if something was wrong but he remained silent. Joker liked to call him "The King", but he insisted that he was only "Phantom". The clown didn't care and continue with the nickname.

"King Phantom" tends to ignore when civilians are evacuated, feign ignorance when someone tries to escape, and has offered the bats bandages and medicine a couple of times. But when The Joker is present he becomes completely desperate and aggressive, as if he is fighting for something.

On the other hand, Joker got a completely new weapon, it was a green sphere that produced lightning but Phantom winced every time he saw him use it. On one occasion Tim swore he heard him whisper "Ellie".

Danny was scared, Ellie was unstable and anything he did could be fatal. When he arrived in Gotham looking for her missing core he didn't expect to find it in the hands of a clown. The clown realized that he had something to bribe him (although he didn't know how important it was) and began to order him around.

Danny hated it, he held back most of the time because he was fighting humans, not revealing many of his powers. And he would have killed the clown a thousand times if it weren't dangerous for Ellie. Joker would never break away from the core by saying it was "good luck", and would lock it in a ghost-proof cell, which is probably where he found it originally. The halfa just wanted his the girl back.

[1five1two]

[front-facing-pokemon]

[heraldofsomething]

Assassin's Creed: Origins The False Oracle

I die, my work unfinished. So close, so very close to ushering in the perpetual rule of the strong and virtuous! The vault will give us the power of the gods - what is one boy?

[aaabatteryy]

project i just turned in a few minutes ago, i loved being able to yap about flatland

[serpentface]

Can you tell us more about the Usoma-Hibitte

The Usoma-Hittibe is a sister (typically the eldest) of the Usoma, the Wardi monarch.

((IMMEDIATE LINGUISTIC TANGENT: The phrase Usoma-Hittibe could be functionally translated "king-sister"- Usoma has been the word used for Wardi monarchs for much of their history, which does not actually Translate as 'king'. The word Usoma stems from a now obsolete concept-word referring to death as a 'catalyst of the cycle' (referring to death and birth as dualistic forces that sustain life via their perpetual cycling). This gradually became closer in meaning to 'benefactor of life' or just 'benefactor', which began to be applied to kings as an epithet, and eventually became their titles as sovereign with most other uses falling into obsolescence (though it also appears in the name of the Face Kusomache). Hittibe straightforwardly translates to 'sister', though dead literally is a feminine form of a word meaning 'of the (same) womb'.))

The modern day role is largely a remnant of traditions of the oldest Wardi monarchies and their lineage structures (most significantly the Ephenni, who developed the first monarchies and TREMENDOUSLY shaped all following models of Wardi kingship). All Wardi tribes had patriarchal systems of power (though with greatly varying intensities) throughout their recorded history, but not all have been patrilineal.

The Ephenni (and a lot of the other west-southwest proto-Wardi tribes) had matrilineal kinship structures for the vast majority of their history, with kinship passing from mother to son. This translated to a system of royal inheritance where kingship was passed from a king to his sister's eldest son, rather than to his own sons. The king and king-sister would each be wed to their own consorts, but only the king-sister's children would be potential heirs under normal circumstances.

In a societal context where power is patriarchal and inheritance is matrilineal, this system is Very effective for both ensuring inheritance remains in one family AND to prevent succession crises (which the incest approach to keeping rule within a family doesn't accomplish). A child's father generally cannot Technically be completely certain in a world without genetic testing, which in patrilineal kinship opens the door to claiming illegitimacy of heirs. A matrilineal structure where kingship passes from a man to his nephew via his sister negates this- the mother the a child is unambiguous (you can see her being pregnant and giving birth), and even if the child WAS born out of adultery, the illegitimate father does not ultimately matter to the child's status as legitimate heir. The child will bear the mother (and thus the king's) family name regardless, thus keeping power securely in one family with no avenues to dispute legitimacy.

The Usoma-Hittibe thus had profound importance as the mother of kings, outranking the Usoma's actual wife in significance. A Usoma's own sons would instead live out their lives as noblemen with no claim to the throne (though technically would be 'reserve' heirs in catastrophic failures where a Usoma-Hittibe and any other king-sisters fail to birth sons).

This matrilineal kinship structure was lost over the course of history through a combination of internal societal changes, centuries of occupation, and the assimilation of the various pre-Wardi peoples into collective Wardi identity. Imperial Wardi culture now exclusively uses a patrilineal kinship structure. However, before this change could fully occur, the Usoma-Hittibe's role had extended into numerous ceremonial and political roles and was deeply entrenched into the identity of Wardi royalty, and the position was thus retained even through her reproductive obsolescence.

The most obvious shift to the role of modern Usoma-Hittibe is that they are Not Only no longer the mothers of kings, but have absorbed the cultural 'celibate woman occupying positions of power' archetype and now remain unwed and ostensibly virgins for life, as well as having slightly 'masculinized' elements of their performance (their etiquette and some of their regalia is considered masculine, though not to the same extent as Odonii). This parallels the importance of celibacy and 'de-feminization' in Odonii, partly conceptualized as allowing a woman to retain strength in bodily and spiritual integrity that is otherwise deemed only natural to men. Like Odonii, the bodies of Usoma-Hittibe are politicized into symbols, imagined here as physical representations of the health, strength, and integrity of the royal family. She will be used as a proxy for the entire royal family in rites intending to bless and protect them. She is the public female face of the royal family, and serves ceremonial functions in most rites that would normally be taken by a family's wife.

In addition, a Usoma-Hittibe has a significant degree of hard political power. She is the default regent in case of an Usoma's early demise, has the ability to take action in his stead during absences, and can freely make appointments to the lower court (but not the council), giving her potentially tremendous influence over the court. Her power is still ultimately limited- a Usoma has absolute veto over any of her actions, she is prohibited from issuing military commands (even when acting as regent, this must be in coordination with the council), and the inner council has veto power by majority vote on actions she makes in a living Usoma's stead (though the council does not have generalized veto power over regent Usoma-Hittibe).

There has also been a significant shift in recent history to the Usoma-Hittibe gaining significant control over the state priesthood of the Face Kusomache (which is Partly assigned a role as the protector and legitimatizer of royalty). The Usoma-Hittibe is currently THE person who appoints a high priest to Kusomache as an aspect of her ceremonial roles, and the past few Usoma-Hittibe have negotiated privileges to perform rites otherwise exclusive to the priests (which is unprecedented, as this priesthood (and all other core cults to the Faces save for Odonii and Galenii) is closed and all-male). This has contributed to internal fracturing among this priesthood- cult traditions surrounding Kusomache focused on this Face representing death and safe transitions to the afterlife (as well as sacred mysteries and the movements of the cosmos), and the additional 'protector of royalty' trait was rather inorganically assigned by the merging of an entirely separate tradition. Many members of Kusomache's priesthood feel the Face is being warped and defiled, resent the Usoma-Hittibe's appointments of puppet high-priests, see tremendous insult in these royal lay-women integrating themselves into the cult's structure, and fear that these king-sisters will attempt to take over as high priests. Some have even broken off to form a separate sect to Kusomache in response, which by official decree are illegitimate, but is gaining public favor as one of many symptoms of growing distrust and dissatisfaction in the royal family.

---

SIDE NOTES ON THE QUEEN-CONSORT

The queen-consort's modern role is somewhat expanded in that she is now the mother of Usoma's heirs, but in few other capacities. Her powers are limited to those natural to her social status, and she has no hard political power whatsoever, even within the scope of the court (though some queens gain indirect power via personally influencing their husbands, sisters in law, and council). Imperial Wardi royal families have generally sought to display themselves as the ideal perfection of the familial sphere with the Usoma as the epitomical protective household patriarch, and thus a queen-consort typically lives in the utmost of feminine cloistering within the palace and is rarely (if ever) seen by the public (in the limited cases in which she travels outside of palace grounds, care will be taken to keep her out of sight within her carriage or litter). This functions to emphasize her privilege as the highest status wife within the domain, and by extension to show the invulnerability of the royal family as a whole by the unseeable and therefore untouchable nature of its Vulnerable wife/mother.

(The concept of a wife being able to exist in protection exclusively within the family home is considered an ideal, which isn't really attainable for nobility and is out of the goddamn question for the lower classes. You'll notice 'women's bodies being heavily politicized and abstracted' being a recurrent cultural theme here- the wife of a household is the vessel for a family's continued existence and conceptually the vulnerable representation of the family's survival, which must be controlled and protected. The social privilege of royalty allows for this to be utterly realized in the case of the queen).

The queen-consort is (apart from being known by name) functionally the abstract concept of the idealized wife and mother and the womb of kings rather than an individual person to most of the public. Attention is actively Drawn to her physical absence via a queen being represented in effigy in the vast majority of public appearances by the royal family (represented in statuary, and in abstraction in the form of the lotus sceptre held by the Usoma-Hittibe). Statues representing each current queen-consort are placed in major temples to Kusomache, Ganmache and Anaemache to gain the protection of these Faces and to be honored by the visiting public.

[imperial-daffodil]

The Emperor's Love - watercolour ink, watercolour, alcohol markers, and pigment ink on paper.

. . . He Weaves, He Makes, He Gives, He Takes.

He Reigns, He Conducts, The Grandest Orchestra of All, That of Perfectly Crafted Dolls.

. . .

I have but a little poem this time, so here is an abstract from a song that I love, it is from Black Math, the song is called Sirens:

"How open is Your empty space I’m moving in We’ll see the end of something unfamiliar I saw your hand You took awhile The cold was crisp I thought your warmth Would break the silence But all I hear are sirens

You take me Far, I’m far from safety Lines where you try to chase me On hollow ground I’m navigating this mystery While I follow you into your history"

. . .

Link to the song under the cut:

[mochiyzz]

Thank you so much koko ci for saving this power spheras. I wish i could give motobot a hug because i want to do it.

[wonder-worker]

Angelberga was a peculiarly prominent personality in manifold aspects of European politics [in the late 9th century. Born to the Supponid family of Italy, she married Emperor Louis II and had several opportunities to establish her position as an active and controversial player in the vicissitudes of her husband's reign]. She acted as Louis's regent, accompanied him on expansionary military campaigns in the south of the peninsula and represented him at [congresses, tribunals, and diplomatic negotiations]. Strikingly, she was also the beneficiary of a spectacular collection of charters. Almost one in seven of Louis II’s extant charters were issued in her favour. Angelberga’s conspicuous exploits in the field of charter acquisition did not diminish after the emperor’s death, and this helped her to maintain a position as a key power-broker in Italian politics, control of land [particularly monastic foundations] being a fundamental building-block of power in this period. In the interregnum following 875, during which Charles the Bald of West Francia and Karlmann of Bavaria fought to claim the succession to the heirless Louis, Angelberga herself conducted the negotiations and decided the loyalty of a major sector of the Lombard political community. She maintained this high profile until her death [having supported her son-in-law Boso's quest for power, endured a temporary exile, maintained the support of Pope John VIII, and founded the monastery of San Sisto in the city of Piacenza, where she probably ended her days sometime before 891].

-Simon MacLean, "Queenship, nunneries and royal widowhood in Carolingian Europe"

[basicallyanotherwitchesthing]

Jean Burns - Your Innate Psychic Powers - Sphere - 1981

[core-augur]

[mojang-officialer]

you would not BELIEVE the RP blogs that try to interact with me