#age of empires 1 and 2 and mythology

[aliciavance4228]

Here's a List Of Fan Theories That Are Circling Around Overthrowing Zeus

Note: this post leads towads a Fanfiction zone rather than actual Greek Mythology, so please acknowledge the fact that it was written purely for the sake of entertainment and "What if?".

1. Athena Would Overthrow Zeus One Day

The prophecy just stated that the child of Zeus and Metis would overthrow Zeus. Everyone just assumed this would only apply if it were a guy; because of cultural perceptions. A woman be the King of the Gods? As if.

Considering the fact Gaia already had a grudge against all generations of gods and each time used someone to kill the ruler she didn't like (she gave birth to Cronus to castrate Ouranos and raised Zeus against his father), it's not much of a stretch she motivated Athena to end with Zeus rule. This time, Gaia would probably be satisfied, as Athena seems fair compared to her precursors. Its just a matter of which gods will be killed and which ones will join her.

There's just one single problem here: what are you supposed to "cut off" then? Both Ouranos and Cronus lost their manhoods. In her case the closest thing to a penis that you could cut is the clit. Or maybe just her breasts. Idk man...

2. Zeus WAS Overthrown

In some versions, it's specifically stated that Metis would have -two- children, the second of which would be the one to overthrow him. Thus, Zeus is considered to have defied fate by virtue of only producing one child from the relationship, regardless of who it was.

Except that, a second child *did* follow Athena, one who took after his mother's namesake, and who resembled and admired, but ultimately deposed not only Zeus, but the entire Greek pantheon... named Rome.

3. Ares overthrew Zeus, with Athena and/or Hephaestus' help

Depending on the myth, Hephaestus may not have a father. Father-son competition and the prophecy would prevent Athena from overthrowing Zeus. This leaves Ares, however he wasn't the brains behind the operation. Athena wanted the position of Top God, but because of Greek opinion couldn't directly become one. Hepaestus wanted to get back at his Karma Houdini of a father. They teamed up to train Ares to assasinate his father, which Athena planned to use as a puppet ruler. Mars is the chief god of Rome because its Ares, who has ascended to that role. Athena is either subtly manipulating Ares/Mars, or Ares/Mars got smart and removed her. His Papa Bear tendencies is him being prepared to prevent what happened to his male ancestry happening to him again.

4. Hephaestus overthrew Zeus and is slowly ushering in a golden age

Related to the previous theory: Hephaestus overthrew Zeus with Athena providing strategy and Ares/Mars and the The Roman Empire being the front cover of the coup. With him now on the throne he pays Ares back by letting him and the Romans conquer the world while spreading technology and science to the world. Now in the modern world he and Athena have brought western civilization to maturity while also rapidly improving technology and meanwhile Ares has benefited by causing two world wars and receiving upgrades to his weapons (thermonuclear weapons and the like).

5. Hades really is planning to take over Zeus's throne, but for benevolent reasons

He became King of the Underworld to both get some time away from the rest of the gods, and to have a good hidden base to plan in secrecy. (His Helm of Darkness is handy too.)

Building on this interpretation, Hades generally leaves mortals alone because he wants to avoid bad publicity with them, so one day when they get tired of the rest of the jerkass gods of the pantheon, Hades will suddenly be much more beloved and be in a good position to take over. He's building an army in the Underworld in secret from all the souls of the dead who come into his domain, hence why he is so harsh on anyone who dares try to cheat death or bring someone back from the dead, thus depriving him of new recruits.

He kidnapped Persephone in order to have an accomplice with which to plan, and a way of ensuring her mother Demeter's loyalty when the time comes to actually move against their brother, which is why he is so protective of her; in addition to being his wife, she also knows a lot of crucial information about his scheme and is too valuable in influencing Demeter to lose.

6. Combining the above theories, Ares, Athena, Hephaestus and Hades teamed up to overthrow Zeus

Also Hera, Apollo and Poseidon. They already tried to overthrow him once along with Athena, for different reasons. Hera could no longer stand her husband's infidelities. Apollo joined in after Zeus killed Asclepcius. Poseidon could no longer stand being #2. Athena had to play being a daddy's girl after he ate her mother and she spend most of her childhood in his stomach (her mother is still there, by the way).

Credits: TV Tropes

[tanadrin]

bonus objectives

The primary purpose of life is, depending on who you ask and what mood they're in, to live virtuously, to be of net benefit to the world, to enjoy yourself, to pass on your genes, to pass on your memes, or nothing at all--or some other bit of boring nonsense. The following are your bonus objectives. Point values are loosely based on a combination of difficulty, pointlessness, and entertainment value.

Get the IAU to name a planetary feature, solar system object, star, or exoplanet "Butthole." (5 points; +5 points if it's a crater) 2. Convince at least one U.S. state to officially allocate its electoral college votes to a nonhuman primate (5 points) or other animal (10 points).

Have a news story reporting your death be a major international headline (e.g., the number 1 post on Reddit for the day). (1 point; +9 points if you are not otherwise famous)

Become the first internationally recognized Emperor of Mars. (5 points)

Be the cause of a major revision to the UNCLOS. (5 points)

Mend the Great Schism/heal the Sunni-Shia divide/reunite Western Christianity. (10 points each)

Uplift a nonhuman animal to the point it can speak, write, or type a natural human language at least as well as a 10-year-old native. (10 points; +20 points if it's not a mammal; +20 points if it can also win a FIDE-recognized chess tournament)

Domesticate bears. (10 points)

Solve one of the remaining Millennium Prize problems in mathematics. (10 points each)

Build a medieval-style castle on the Moon. (5 points)

Receive a valid letter of marque from King Felipe IV, or his successor, and use it to capture a British-flagged vessel. (5 points; +45 points if you do this at or beyond low earth orbit)

Unite two non-Commonwealth countries in personal union. (1 point; +4 points if they're on different continents; +25 points if they're not monarchies)

Have Liechtenstein declare itself an empire, without its borders changing (5 points).

Convince Istanbul to change its name back to Constantinople, or Tokyo to Edo, or Mexico City to Tenochtitlan. (5 points each)

Convince Greece to change its name to South Macedonia. (25 points) 16. Successfully hoax the world into believing they're being contacted by aliens for at least a week. (15 points; +50 if you've got actual aliens on the line)

Start a new religion that gains at least 10,000 followers. (1 point; +4 points if it's not an offshoot of an exisiting major world religion; +10 points if it doesn't closely reference any major world religions' mythology or theology at all; +5 if that includes not borrowing any major new age or neopagan concepts; +10 if you do all this on, or convince your followers to move to, another body or planet in the Solar System; +10 if your religion subsequently becomes another major world religion; +25 if it's *not* principally a Scientology-style scam; +50 points if the place in the Solar System you establish as your religion's spiritual center is the one you convinced the IAU to name "Butthole")

Start a new political ideology that wins power in a UN member state. (1 point; +4 points if it's not just a cosmetic rework of an existing political ideology; +5 points if you win power through constitutional means; +10 points if you manage to retain power for at least 5 years)

Circumnavigate the globe under your own power. (10 points)

Leave the Solar System (dead or alive). (15 points; being on an escape trajectory will suffice for the purposes of scoring, unless that trajectory is likely to be intercepted or disrupted by a solar system body like a planet or asteroid; +50 points if you're somehow still alive when you hit the heliopause)

Touch an object of interstellar origin on an escape trajectory from the solar system (such as 'Oumuamua) and say "Tag, you're it," while remaining in contact. (20 points)

Develop a conlang that is used regularly by at least 10,000 people. (15 points; +25 points for every order of magnitude increase in users after that number; +100 points if it becomes a standard international auxiliary language spoken at least as widely as English)

Invent a word that makes it into OED. (1 point; +4 points if it makes it into desktop-sized abridged dictionaries)

[acourtofladydeath]

Hello all and welcome to the depths of depravity my masterlist! Here you will find all of my fics to date, which are available to read on AO3. While most of my work is currently ACOTAR based, I write for multiple ships across many fandoms and will happily hear your requests!

✍🏻 indicates a WIP

🌶️ indicates spice

🗡️ indicates depictions of violence, battles, and/or injuries

📚 indicates a multichap fic

💞 indicates fluff

❗ indicates heavy emotion/emotional trauma/death, however this may not be inclusive as every person experiences and reacts to emotions differently.

💤 indicates a hiatus

Please be sure to check all fic tags on AO3 as well as these initial indicators! Many of my fics include explorations of physical and/or emotional trauma.

Azris

All Things End ❗ This fic has an immersive, direct read playlist component that you can read about here!

The Soft Heart & The Shadow 🗡️❗

The Soft Heart & The Little Fox 🗡️❗

One Bed, One Bond, and a Pair of Wings

Enter: Uncle Autumn 💞

Fighting Fire with Fire 🗡️❗

And So Our Life Begins (ASOLB) ✍🏻📚💞

A Second Chance, *part of the ASOLB series

Finding His Shadow: An Azris Peter Pan AU **please note this fic is very aged up from the original material 📚🗡️🌶️ in Ch. 2 only

Fire Alarm

The Wall Comes Down 🗡️

All I Want For Solstice Is You, part 1 of the Winter Cabin series 💞

Forest Fever, Soothing Shadow 💞

To Speak Through Smoke, part 2 of the Winter Cabin series 💞

Pieces of Us, part 3 of the Winter Cabin series 💞

A Wound So Deep 🗡️❗

The Song of Azris series ✍🏻📚🗡️❗

Nessian & Nessriel

In Due Time 💞 (Nessian)

What Happens In The Night 🌶️ (Nessian)

Complications Arose, Ensued, Were Overcome 🗡️ (Nessian)

Take These Broken Wings ✍🏻🗡️❗📚 (Nessriel)

Just One More 🌶️ (Nessriel)

Hold Me Close, Hold Me Tender 💞 (Nessriel)

Our Greatest Adventure 💞 (Nessriel)

Multi-Ship or Other ACOTAR

3 Jewels In The Hewn City 📚🌶️ (Feysand, Nessian, Azris)

Lovers Live & Die Fortissimo (LL&DF)💤✍🏻📚 (Azris, Nessian, Feytamsand, Elucien, HelionXLOA)

Publicly Pleasing, Silently Drowning 🗡️❗ (Eris Vanserra)

How I Met Your Fathers 💞 (Feytamsand)

Stairway Snoops (Azris X Nessian polycule)

Into the Fire 🌶️ (Feytamcien/Lufeylin)

Return to the Hewn City ✍🏻📚 🌶️(Azris X Nessian swinging)

Welcome to the Family, part 1 of the "To Become A Vanserra" series 🌶️ (Elucien, Berlain, Erislain, Elain X all Vanserra Brothers)

Rules are Rules, part 2 of the "To Become A Vanserra" series 🌶️(Azris, Berzriel)

The Clause, part 3 of the "To Become A Vanserra" series (Azris, Elucien, Erlain, Luzriel) 🌶️

Birth of an Empire, part 4 of the "To Become A Vanserra" series (Beron X LoA, LoA X Beron's father and brothers) ❗🗡️🌶️

And So We Danced (Nesta/Eris friends, Azris, Nessian) 💞

A Walk In The Park (Casris) 💞

ACOTAR Drabbles

The Fawn, The Fox, & The Fiend 🌶️(Eltamcien)

Live, and Be Happy ❗ (Feytamsand)

The Wall Comes Down 🗡️ (Azris)

Just One More 🌶️(Nessriel)

The Empyrean

The Quiet Game 💞 (Tairn/Sgaeyl and Andarna)

Baby's First Birthday 💞 (Tairn/Sgaeyl and Andarna)

Last One Standing 🗡️❗ (Tairn/Sgaeyl, Andarna, Violet/Xaden)

Other Universe Fics

A Place Eternal 📚❗🗡️🌶️ in Ch. 5 (TSOA/The Illiad/Greek Mythology: Patrochilles, Hades X Persephone)

Reunited (Dr. Who: Amy X Rory)

The Final Moments ❗ (Torchwood: Jack X Ianto)

The Days We Thought We'd Never See 💤📚 (Spartacus: Agron X Nasir)

Event Week Masterlists

Poly+ ACOTAR Week 2024 🌶️💞

Azris Week 2024 🌶️💞

Eris Week 2024 🌶️💞🗡️❗

[liquidstar]

speaking of greece and also oc side projects, i was trying to do worldbuilding on the "godless" ocverse. still in the concept stage but heres what i got

what i've already established is that this is a fantasy world where all of greek mythology is real, but the gods have abandoned the earth for a long time. after almost 2000 years, we're in the equivalent of the 1800s/early 1900s. the general conditions (as well as designs) are based on real life greece during that era. the main difference is that its much more peaceful- part of the reason im setting this in an alternate world is because im not doing this to tackle ottoman occupation, the pontic genocide, or world wars 1 and 2. a lot of that stuff is heavier than what i wanna do.

but i am still trying to tackle one thing about greek culture, specifically in relation to the gods. the history of hellenism is still something very deeply ingrained into the country's culture, and yet... idk if you guys have noticed, but the country has been christianized (the fact that the gods absence lines up w the anno domini era is on purpose). my goal isnt to romanticize ancient greece by any means, there was a lot wrong with it and im not one of those "roman empire" guys lol. but what i wanna do is get into that weird "gap" in greece's modern identity vs its ancient one, via the feelings of the characters and being abandoned by the gods and the bygone age of heroes. (and im aware ofc that a big part of that IS the heavier side of the country's history, even if i wont directly be tacking the aforementioned real world events)

MOSTLY i want it to be a fun romp though, i wanna pay homage to the adventures of heroes like odysseus, jason and the argonauts, perseus, heracles, etc., who would all be REAL historical figures in-universe! (well, heracles is a demigod) most likely ones the protagonists would idolize in their own adventures. im referencing the cambelion monomyth/hero's journey as a format for that, but i don't intend to lean too heavily on it either.

all that being said, i made a map :)

i chose the name "ilia" from the ancient greek name for troy- "ilion," which is also the namesake of homer's iliad.

the region is split up into different territories. all the territories still worship the gods equally, but they each have one main major sanctuary to focus on the olympians+hades (and i included both hestia and dyonisis, i think it would be funny if both region didnt consider the other one a true part of the lineup). the position of the symbols shows you where the major sanctuary is located.

again, all regions worship all the gods and have different temples throughout (smaller towns and villages may have their own temples dedicated to more specific deities) however, the major sanctuary in each area is what defines it because the hiereus or hiereia of these temples acts as a head of state (of course, a world where gods are real is a theocracy). the requirements for a hiereus/hiereia are to be gifted by the god of the temple, and be a dedicated scholar of their domain. theyre selected from a large group, through a democratic processes, usually leading for life.

i have names for each reason but theyre not set in stone so ill keep those on the back burner

i dont have a lot of specifics plot-wise figured out anyway, but wanted something to visualize the idea. itll put me on the path to figuring out exactly what that could entail! after all, even with the gods gone, plenty of supernatural things remain. enchanted/cursed relics, hallowed ruins, ancient monsters, the underworld, olympus, oracles, and, of course, the gifts!

[theinquisitxor]

June 2024 Reading Wrap Up

I read six (6) books in June, and was able to get through most of what I wanted to read. I ended up reading several books that all take place in Britain, in a similar time-frame, which was completely coincidental. I read 4 fantasy, 1 historical fiction, and 1 nonfiction.

1.The Magician's Daughter by HG Parry (5 stars) This was a delightful standalone novel that is a coming of age story set in Edwardian era in England. When I first read the blurb about this novel, I thought it was going to be a retelling of The Tempest. It is not-- but it is an original story yet classic in its own way. While I would consider this a 'cozy fantasy' it does have its darker moments. I also really enjoyed the lack of romance in this book.

2 & 3. The Greenhollow Duology by Emily Tesh (4/5 stars) This was my Random TBR Pick for the month of June, which I was very happy about since this duology has been on my tbr since 2020. This was exactly what I was expecting- folkloric, woodsy, queer novellas following fairy lore and mythology. I'm glad I finally picked this up!

4.1177 BC: The Year Civilization Collapsed by Eric H. Cline: this was my nonfiction book for the month, and this book takes a look at how an ancient civilization collapsed, and ushered in the first 'dark age'.

5. The Essex Serpent by Sarah Perry (4/5 stars) I found this to be a very atmospheric period novel set in Essex in the 1890s. This is the type of novel where you can tell the author did a lot of research on the time period, and I felt transported right into the time period. Each character was very distinct and different from each other, and I enjoyed the hint of the fantastic in the novel surrounding the Essex Serpent.

6.The Blade Itself by Joe Abercrombie (3/5 stars) My brother got me the series for my birthday, after he read the books and enjoyed them. I will admit, that this type of fantasy is not necessarily my favorite, but I wanted to give this series a chance. I thought it was fine overall, but I can tell it's not my cup of tea. I have seen things about the second and third books being better than book 1, so I am hoping to continue. Glokta is my favorite and I would start book 2 just for him.

I have also been reading River Horse: A Voyage Across America this month too, but I've only been reading a few chapters at a time. This is a travel narrative about a man who traveled across the US by river. I'm enjoying it so far!

Those are the books I finished this month!

Books I'm hoping to read in July:

The Stardust Thief by Chelsea Abdullah

A Memory Called Empire by Arkady Martine

Daughter of the Forest by Juliet Marillier

Equal Rites by Terry Pratchett

Thief Mage, Beggar Mage by Cat Hellison

Charmed Life by Diana Wynne Jones

second First Law book by Joe Abercrombie

finish River Horse by William Least Heat-Moon

Most of these I have access to the audiobooks, so I'm hoping to read at least one via audio. I kinda fell off reading audiobook lately, so I want to get back into it.

[v-arbellanaris]

I have no idea why but I absolutely hate how Ameridan' story was handled, they basically dumbed it down to him worshipping both the creators and andraste/chant of light, which kind of proved Cassandra's dumb (and incredibly disrespectful) point of an inquisitor having "room for another god". It's also so unfair how they made the evanuris to just be power hungry slavers and tyrants, my only hope is that if the creators were disproving then I hope it would be the same for the chant of light and maker (seeing asnit was solas who made the veil and not the creator) I really hate how centrist the game has gotten, like flat out, whenever I hear the words grey morality and nuance I can't help burn cringe, that's how much dragon age has ruined it for me.

It's also so incredibly funny how the devs are genuinely surprised that most of the players are pro mage, like of course we are?

i think it's particularly extremely aggravating, the way bioware writers write about a pantheon as if polytheistic religions are simply a thing of the past and dead and some kind of mystery/mythology. according to bioware, this kind of writing for polytheistic religions is fine because no real religion these days would everrrrrrr worship multiple gods /sarcasm. (note that the links are just some examples and not comprehensive in the least)

there's a lot of writing choices i quite simply disagree with in dai, and there's some that are just... i don't even disagree with them because that implies it's something to argue about. some of their writing choices are just wrong. after borrowing so heavily from ethnic groups to shape their fictional histories, the disrespect of writing their fictional oppressed minorities as being responsible for their own oppression because they were not "open" enough to include/absorb expy christianity into their religious beliefs and fought back against violent colonialism. the resulting clumsy collation between isr*el and the indigenous people of the americas wanting to reclaim their lands stolen from them by white colonisers makes my blood boil.

ameridan is just another piece of the puzzle that makes me seethe. we have a man who apparently ~existed before hostilities between the elves and the humans~ which is now the fault of drakon's son who invaded the dales after ameridan was long gone. that's already absolute bullshit because ameridan lived in the fucking dales. elves only started living in the dales AFTER ANDRASTE'S REBELLION. after the fall of arlathan, and hundreds of years of enslavement at the hands of tevinter humans???

additionally, the battle of red crossing happened in 2:9 glory, but tensions between the elves and humans had been building up since the second blight. drakon the first died in 1:45 but the elves apparently did "nothing" to help montsimmard when it was overrun by darkspawn in 1:25 divine - twenty years before his death, there was already simmering resentment. additionally, it was drakon the first that expanded the orlesian empire and the orlesian chantry - wotv2 notes his battles against the darkspawn did more to spread the chant of light (specifically, the orlesian chant of light which he, yknow, fucking made up) than any of his other attempts. by the time the exalted march on the dales happens, over three quarters of thedas is under orlesian rule. maferath himself handed the dales to the surviving elves from andraste's campaign in -165 ancient and the elves lived in the dales peacefully until the orlesian chantry was salivating at its borders. and the orlesian chantry has a history of wiping out "cults" - i.e. other sects of their own religion that differ from belief, no matter how minor, to their own. including, notably, the wholesale genocide of a non-violent sect centered around fertility rituals and, later, the dragon worshipping sect in haven off their own land. (and i'm willing to BET MONEY that they were originally alamarri themselves, considering that andraste was brought there to rest, and considering how cultural variance in religion usually occurs [i.e. through the blending/adoption of folk beliefs or the cultural/religious practices from Before]. so the andrastians slaughtered the cult AND THEN TOOK THEIR FUCKING LAND.)

the entire way andrastianism is treated in inquisition makes me violent. and unfortunately, it does not look like it's going to change - there's been multiple statements about how the maker's existence will continue to remain "a mystery" out of a reluctance to confirm or deny the existence of a One True God which, coupled with how they've shat on every other religion in the game - the tevinter chantry, the qun, the stone, the elven pantheon, every other sect worshipping the maker/andraste - gives me absolutely no hope that the writing team is going to get their heads out of their asses about it.

[gemsofgreece]

Now stfu. Thanks :)

Oh wow. I kinda expected, you know, a page in an encyclopedia or any other page with educative content about Greece or geography in general, but you come proudly with a random Turkey vs Greece article by a David dude.

Honey. You will find anything spelled out on the Internet, including actual mistakes. That's why we check our sources. In fact, this article has many other mistakes as well.

False. Turkey gets more tourists than Greece.

False. The Turkish Republic is exactly 100 years old and the Ottoman Empire lasted about 600 years.

Where to start with this one... If Greece is famous for anything, that's not its urban locations.

Mistake #1: Aya Sofya is not famous because of its minarets and Mistake #2: Ephesus was built in the 10th Century BC, so its heyday or point in time it should be referred with was at least 900 years before the Golden Age of the Roman Empire. Although granted, a lot for its preservation was done in the Roman era.

OMG American mistake #18361986: Greece is NOT a tropical country and HAS ZERO tropical islands

Built by WHOM of WHAT? Perhaps David meant King Antiochus I Theos of Commagen, check an actual source for once

David is straight out pulling facts out of his ass, isn't he

"The major cities like Istanbul and Santorini" the guy is either trolling or hasn't stepped one foot in Greece ever. Santorini is a tiny island and its "major city" Fira has 1,600 residents LMAO my grandparents' godforsaken village has more than that

The guy does a super delicate trolling, I give him that. The guy says things like oceans and tropical and major city of Santorini but has also come across Slav-Macedonian. Amazing combo. David is a man of contrasts. For the record, I haven't come across it and I have lived all my life here. I mean, it exists but you have to struggle to find its speakers and they are all bilingual anyway.

Overall David, that international traveller, does not really mean bad... apart from this????

That was very professional there. But even though he says this, he proceeds to say equally good stuff about both countries, I 'd say. The article is a confusing text by a confused man. But that's not the point. The point is his myriad of inaccuracies and mistakes (as called out in several of the comments), some very typical of Americans, like mistaking Greece for a tropical destination or confusing oceans and seas.

Which brings us to you @libbyhaiku .

I believe, very politely, I added in the tags of that damn post this:

That really set you off. You sent me an ask, telling me to fact check in google... what... whether the country of which I am a native has seas or oceans?

And I did! Even though I don't need to fact check whether Greece has oceans. And once again every website of any actual integrity, apart from the David dude, repeats this over and over. Greece has seas. Which I told you.

Furthermore, @jamy-libations searched for it on their own accord, and to my understanding they are not Greek or native Greeks, they told you and you responded as you responded to me.

I wonder, did you tell them to shut the fuck up too in your message?

So, here's the answer. You and David are making a very typical American mistake, or maybe its not a mistake within your very own borders, which is that because the USA is surrounded by oceans, you think ocean is the standard generic term for sea.

In fact, the word ocean can be used in two ways: either as THE Ocean, which is the entire body of saltwater of the earth and derives as a concept from the Greek mythology, just like the very word derives from Greek so I know well what it means, or to describe the five major bodies of water: the Pacific, the Atlantic, the Arctic, the Indian and the Southern ocean.

Greece, unlike the USA, is surrounded by neither. Greece is surrounded by the Mediterranean Sea and its adjacent smaller seas like the Ionian, the Aegean, the Libyan, the Cretan, the Myrtoan, the Ikarian, the Karpathian Seas. While the Mediterranean Sea is connected to the Atlantic Ocean through the very narrow strait of Gibraltar, it is so enclosed by land and it exchanges so little water with the Atlantic that it is both traditionally and scientifically considered its own body of water, a Sea, and not just a general area of the Atlantic Ocean.

Here's to explain to you the difference between an ocean and a sea by an actually serious source.

Here is a map of the Mediterranean Basin. As you see, it is almost entirely enclosed and it does not earn the status of being an ocean, let alone containing a multitude of them. Greece is also in the far end of the Mediterranean, as apart from the Atlantic as possible. None of the countries in the Mediterranean Basin have access to an ocean or oceanS, apart from Spain, France and Morocco, as evident here.

Now, I would honestly have not cared or written so much if you didn't throw a tandrum for a tiny tag in a post I reblogged in a positive manner. Unfortunately, you chose the asshole way.

And since we're at it that photo was actually taken in the Italian....... oceans

and it's edited... but whatever, we have this species too.

[sparkliest-bard-bracket]

The ✨Sparkliest Bard Lineup✨!!

Here is our sparkly, bardly, lineup!

Polls are live! Vote today!!

Oh, and don't forget to keep everything civil! This is just a little game for fun, and we're all here to have a good time :D

Feel free to submit pictures and propaganda for your bards (see this post for more info)! The more, the merrier!

(Full Bracket with fandom names & poll links under the cut.)

1 - Jareth the Goblin King (Labyrinth) vs David Bowie (Real Life) 2 - Thom Merrilin (Wheel of Time) vs Gurney Halleck (Dune) 3 - The Bard/Kiwi (Wandersong) vs Daeron (The Silmarillion) 4 - Callie Cuttlefish (Splatoon) vs Finrod (The Silmarillion) 5 - Apollo/Lester Papadopoulos (The Trials of Apollo) vs Apollo (Greek Mythology) 6 - Bill Cypher (Gravity Falls) vs Chong (Avatar: The Last Airbender) 7 - Max Rebo (Star Wars) vs Edgin Darvis (Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves) 8 - Dimentio (Super Paper Mario) vs Will Scarlet (Robin Hood)

9 - Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem (The Muppets) vs Link (The Legend of Zelda) 10 - Katalina (Tabletop Time) vs Starling Birdsong (Realm of Elderlings) 11 - Orpheus (Greek Mythology) vs “Weird Al” Yankovic (Real Life) 12 - Dave BruBot/The Major Player (Toontown: Corporate Clash) vs Carrie Wilson (Julie and the Phantoms) 13 - Kvothe (The Kingkiller Chronicle) vs Elan (Order of the Stick) 14 - Raz'ul, Son of Daz'ul (BomBARDed) vs Edward Chris von Muir (Final Fantasy IV) 15 - Binary Bard (Poptropica) vs Christian (Moulin Rouge) 16 - The Bard (Shovel Knight) vs Fflewddur Fflam (The Chronicles of Prydain)

17 - Man with the Harmonica (Once Upon a Time in the West) vs Kyoami/The Fool (Ran/King Lear) 18 - Diedrich Knickerbocker (Headless: A Sleepy Hollow Story) vs Hannah Montana (Hannah Montana) 19 - Bard the Bowman (The Hobbit) vs Leliana (Dragon Age) 20 - Sprig Plantar (Amphibia) vs Lucifer Morningstar (Lucifer) 21 - Neil Banging Out the Tunes (Tumblr) vs The Muses (Disney Hercules) 22 - Robinton (Pern) vs Thistle/Sissel (Delicious in Dungeon) 23 - Loquatius Seelie (Critical Role) vs Cicero (Skyrim) 24 - Michael Jackson (Real Life) vs Oli/TheOrionSound (Empires SMP)

25 - Megamind (Megamind) vs The Onceler (The Lorax) 26 - Mettaton (Undertale) vs Gamzee Makara (Homestuck) 27 - William Shakespeare (Real Life) vs William Shakespeare (Something Rotten) 28 - Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (Classicaloid) vs William Shamspeare (Ace Attorney) 29 - Marceline the Vampire Queen (Adventure Time) vs Brook (One Piece) 30 - Gerard Way (Real Life) vs Sea Hawk (She-Ra and the Princess of Power) 31 - Snufkin (Moomin) vs Frank Sinatra (Real Life) 32 - Lias "Cliff" Bluestone (Discworld) vs Rick Astley (Real Life)

33 - Alan-a-Dale (Robin Hood) vs Essi Daven (The Witcher) 34 - Lúthien Tinúviel (The Silmarillion) vs Stefen (The Heralds of Valdemar) 35 - Roman Sanders (Sanders Sides) vs Remus Sanders (Sanders Sides) 36 - Bard (Crypt of the Necrodancer) vs Kass (Legend of Zelda/Breath of the Wild) 37 - Steven Universe (Steven Universe) vs Glenn Close (Dungeons & Daddies) 38 - Miss Piggy (The Muppets) vs Nydas Okiro (Critical Role) 39 - Charlie Pace (Lost) vs Dob the Half-Orc Bard (Oxventure) 40 - Kitagra (Kings of the Wyld) vs Kaylie Shorthalt (Critical Role)

41 - Father Gabriel (The Mission) vs Gabrielle the Battling Bard (Xena: The Warrior Princess) 42 - Haer'Dalis (Baldur's Gate) vs Tsukasa Tenma (Project Sekai: Colorful Stage!) 43 - Tom Bombadil (The Lord of the Rings) vs Sylvando (Dragon Quest 11) 44 - Steve McKenzie/Jester (Galavant) vs Gieve (The Heroic Legend of Arslan) 45 - Jaskier/Dandelion (The Witcher) vs Kubo (Kubo and the Two Strings) 46 - Guiliastes/Gui (1/2 Prince) vs Rocky (Lackadaisy) 47 - Asmodean (Wheel of Time) vs Neil Ciciregea/Lemon Demon (Real Life) 48 - Kermit the Bard (Tales of Tinkerdee) vs The Pied Piper (The Pied Piper of Hamelin)

49 - Venti (Genshin Impact) vs Sir Robin's Minstrels (Monty Python and the Holy Grail) 50 - Oscar Wilde (Rusty Quill Gaming) vs Franz Liszt (Classicaloid) 51 - Eddie Munson (Stranger Things) vs Puss in Boots (Shrek) 52 - Freddie Mercury (Real Life) vs Hoid/Wit (Cosmere) 53 - Noise (Roleslaying with Roman) vs The Amazing Devil (Real Life) 54 - Klavier Gavin (Ace Attorney) vs Rickety Stitch (Rickety Stitch and the Gelatinous Goo) 55 - Ron Stampler (Dungeons & Daddies) vs Thancred Waters (Final Fantasy XIV) 56 - Raine Whispers (The Owl House) vs Jack Black (Real Life)

57 - Scanlan Shorthalt (Critical Role) vs Éile (The Witcher: Blood Origin) 58 - Hap Gladheart (Realm of Elderlings) vs Alastair Nobledrifter (Saving Throw - DnD Podcast) 59 - Maglor (The Silmarillion) vs Bill & Ted (Bill & Ted) 60 - DJ Cadence (Club Penguin) vs Imp Y Celyn (Discworld) 61 - Bard Otter (The Last Dragonlord) vs Yara of Nowhere, the Wandering Bard (A Practical Guide to Evil) 62 - Dorian Storm (Critical Role) vs Maria von Trapp (The Sound of Music) 63 - Demyx (Kingdom Hearts) vs Hisirdoux "Douxie" Casperan (Tales of Arcadia: Wizards) 64 - Bilbo Baggins (The Hobbit) vs BMO (Adventure Time)

[emptymanuscript]

You know, I just saw a post supporting the writer's strike and saying there are plenty of old shows to watch... and it occurred to me that it might be good to share some shows we love just in case people haven't seen them yet.

Places that make it easy to find where to watch things: Reelgood and JustWatch. Check both, they sometimes conflict, get it wrong, etc.

My Recs (in hopes others will add) (admittedly the low hanging fruit):

The X-Files, 1993, 11 Seasons, free on freevee, available on Hulu, can rent or buy other places. If you haven't seen X-Files, you're missing out. It was a smash hit in the 90's for a good reason. Two detectives, a believer and a skeptic, try to solve unsolvable mysteries in the midst of grand conspiracy. And find, somehow, that as much as they annoy each other, they need each other.

Babylon 5, 1993 / 1994, 5 Seasons, free on Roku and Tubi. An Epic Space Opera that never quite got the success it deserved. It is one of those things whose influence is written all over modern sci-fi and fantasy without much acknowledgement. This is the interplay of empires and mythology, double dealing and political cruelty.

SPACE: 1999, 1975, 2 seasons, free on Crackle, Peacock, Fubo, Pluto, Freevee, Plex, Shout, and Roku. I dare you to listen to the theme song and not feel the groove of this classic campy space opera. When Earth's moon is ejected from orbit to hurtle through the galaxy, the people of Moonbase Alpha have to confront new alien weirdness every week. Part of what makes it so good is that the show takes itself completely seriously, there's no wink and nod in here.

Kindred: The Embraced, 1996, 1 Season, available as a slime tutorial. It's Vampire: The Masquerade as a cheesy soap opera. There are constant reminders of what the clans are like in the most pointed, ridiculous dialogue you can imagine. Had the lead actor not died, this show might have found its place in a couple of more seasons, as it is, it is deliciously campy and dumb. Days of our LARP.

Profit, 1996, 1 Season, available as a slime tutorial. What if the Antagonist was the Main Character. Profit was ahead of its time. It would be right at home in the modern streaming era but it absolutely didn't fit in its own day and age. Profit is dark and twisted (For people who follow me, see if you can find an early inspirations for JJ) with mature and uncomfortable themes. One of its benefits is that it was network televison, so it couldn't show all the gratuitous violence and sex that it would be given if it was made today. It's psychological violence and murder off screen, which, if you let yourself get into it, can grow into worse things than can be shown. Profit is about power, greed, and ruthlessness and what happens when someone even more ruthless and immoral than you shows up.

Farscape, 1999, 4 seasons and a TV movie, available for free on crackle, peacock, popcornflix, shout, freevee, pluto, roku, and tubi. In spite of my picture, this is live action space opera, but it is looney tunes, literally in one episode. This is what happens when the Jim Henson company decides to make a space opera as far away from Star Trek as possible. It's zany, over the top, sometimes hilarious, often creepy, and there's only one human who is far out of his depth.

Blake's 7, 1978, 4 seasons, available on BritBox, and you should be able to find all of it with a little searching on youtube. Like Farscape, this show focuses on escaped prisoners but when they find an advanced spacecraft, they decide to become freedom fighters against their fascist regime instead of just trying to escape. Darker than most of what you could find on US tv until fairly recently. These are wounded people in hostile space.

The Outer Limits, 1995, 7 seasons. Free on Roku. This is a sci-fi anthology series. Some episodes are more interesting and thought provoking than others but overall a lot of good stories.

There are now 12 series with 44 seasons between them totaling up to 880 episodes of Star Trek. That's about 3 months straight of 24 hour programming if you ran it back to back with no pauses at all. That's a lot of show. Mostly on Paramount+ but it's probably not terribly difficult to find the material less officially. It may not all be your cup of earl grey but there's a lot to try out to see if you like it.

1899, 2022, 1 season (cancelled), available on Netflix or wherever else one finds shows. This is my only modern show because I know it didn't get a lot of viewership in spite of being brilliantly twisty. 1899 is one of those shows that it is very hard to talk about without spoilers. I think it is however immediately obvious that the cruise ship Kerebos, en route to New York, is not at all in the situation it appears to be in. It is magnificently multilingual with the ability to communicate when you can't speak each other's language front and center in the narrative. It's sadly cancelled and the creators are on record that they don't want to finish it in another medium so we'll never know exactly what happened but there is wonder to be had from this first season.

Magnum P.I., 1980, 8 seasons. Free on freevee and Roku. 1 season available with Amazon Prime, rest for rent or purchase. Mix a lovable goofball naval vet with PTSD and a very stiff necked British curmudgeon vet with PTSD and you get a fun mystery every week in paradise. Magnum shrugs off most of his work and pawns it on to his friends getting by on charm and some wit.

Murder, She Wrote, 1984, 12 seasons. All available for free on Roku. 6 seasons available for free on freevee. Note that one of the primary writers for Murder, She Wrote was J. Michael Straczynski, this is the job that got him the ability to make Babylon 5. Jessica Fletcher is a charming and clever lady who has retired to the placid sea side village of Cabot Cove to write mystery novels but somehow always ends up at murder scenes. It has been estimated that if Cabot Cove was real, it would be the murder capital of the US.

Tales from the Crypt, 1989, 7 seasons, available as a slime tutorial. To get it to lucky number 13, I present another great anthology show. Every episode a different tale of the macabre or horrific. The crypt keeper is a charmingly gruesome host and there are a few episodes that have stuck with me since I first saw them in the 90's.

Hopefully one among these number can fulfill your needs and if not, hopefully someone else will tack on a few more. I know I left out plenty of my own favorites. There's lots to see while your current faves are on hiatus. There might be a brand new fandom waiting for you.

[waitingforsecretsouls]

Encouraging people to check out reddit user Genghis/Kazoo’s asoiaf meta. Even if you end up not agreeing with some stuff, it offers interesting new perspectives (compared to popular/accepted fandom opinion on the issues in question) and certainly revitalized my interest in the asoiaf lore, so you might find it thought-provoking or just plain fun nonetheless! Some of my favourites include:

1. Mance Rayder woke the Others on purpose, to gain personal power and further the interests of an Asshai'i conspiracy . What it says on the tin, an alternate perspective on Mance and the Others both that fits GRRM’s stated goals for the series as well as its themes far more than the popular ‘everyone vs the (maybe not completely evil) Others’.

2. The Stallion's Revenge: How Mirri Maz Durr Ruined Everything. If you have strong Mirri opinions the title might sound a bit inflammatory, but basically the meta deals with the true nature of Azor Ahai and the way Mirris well-intentioned but ultimately utilitarian prevention of his incarnation in Rhaego led to a far worse alternative, because prophecy in asoiaf cannot ever be useful except in hindsight (and no, it does not involve Dany as Azor Ahai or the ‘Great Darkness’).

3. The Grey King = the Pearl Emperor = the first Hightower: Decrypting the mythology of the Grey King, GEOTD, Oldtown, and the Seven . Connecting some dots in the Dawn Age lore between the Great Empire of the Dawn, the Ironborn, and the Hightowers/Oldtown, all highly relevant for the series plot-thread regarding...the Ironborn, Azor Ahai Reborn and Oldtown.

4. Invasion from the Deeps, Part 2: Beyond the Eldritch Apocalypse. Similar in flavour to the above in that it examines the Dawn Age history of the Ironborn and why the connection to some sort of fishy precursor race or a sort of ‘Deep Ones’ is misguided, particularly regarding the series endgame.

5. The Jade Compendium and why Lightbringer is a genuine goddamned superweapon . What exactly is the deal with Lightbringer and why is it so dangerous? Hint: It’s because it’s not three adolescent dragons. You’ll wish it was as tame as that.

6. Brightroar, the Black Bazaars, and a Big Boom: A New Theory on Who Sold the Lannisters Their Sword and Blew Up Valyria. An investigation into one of the most consequential events in asoiaf history, with a side dish of explanation as to the above-mentioned ‘Asshai’i conspiray’.

6.5 Lightbringer "went critical" and caused the Doom of Valyria. With an    addendum of Lightbringers potential involvement.

7. How Sam the Slayer is being forged by the narrative into the ultimate weapon against Euron. Predictions regarding Sam and the Reach and Euron. Or: Why the Reach is doomed to become part of Sams tragic backstory (...2!) and fuel for his at the least significant contribution to Euron’s defeat in the series climax.

8. Ten reasons nobody should trust the Azor Ahai prophecy. Arguably a bit ‘basic’ after all that, but a valuable little summary nonetheless, since it’s far from  the universally agreed upon perspective (despite the fact that GRRM is not subtle about it).

9. The Bloodstone Emperor and Azor Ahai both sound eerily similar to Ineluki the Storm King from Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn. More Azor Ahai ‘lore’. If you’ve read some or all of the previous theories you’ll probably already have seen it come up, but here’s a salient collection of their parallels.

10. Euron is definitely Azor Ahai reborn. I had to put it on the list, despite the fact that it will have appeared in multiple of the theories listed above. I just love the core-concept of it. So. much. ’Euron’ endgame material for real.

11. No, the Five Forts aren't the Wall of Essos. Another deconstruction of a widespread fanon and it’s implication for the series endgame.

12. Qarth is the Gnostic false Eden, and Highgarden an imitation thereof. The First Men originated in Qarth. Moving away from my beloved Ironborn, an interesting theory about the origin of the First Men!

[railingsofsorrow]

300+ followers celebration

•°. *࿐。o○☆ 𝗔𝗦𝗧𝗥𝗢𝗡𝗢𝗠𝗬 o○☆ ′࿐•°.。

A/N: i still can't believe I'm at 300 followers, thank you so much guys!! this give me so much motivation to keep writing. this blog has been my little relief from my busy college days. now, I'm creating this little celebration so you can fill up my ask box with requests <3

❝ we've traveled the seas, we've ridden the stars we've seen everything from saturn to mars... ⋰ ⋱ ⋰ ⋱

[ GUIDELINES & RULES ]

― i will not write: smut; age play; zoophilia or any topics related. and you must pick characters just from the list below.

🪐pick a character (special spots to go stargazing)

— can be reader insert, character x character or no pairing.

🪐pick a length (travel through a galaxy)

🪐pick a trope (visit a planet)

🪐pick a dialogue prompt

🪐specify if you want canon, canon divergence, au, soft or heavy angst, etc, or if I can go with the flow.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. SPECIALS SPOTS TO GO STARGAZING ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ.

🪐pick a character

the beach ― “stupid things have good outcomes all the time”

jj maybank

kiara carrera

pope hayward

sarah cameron

john b routledge

cleo (does anyone know her last name???)

the forbidden forest ― “I solemnly swear that I'm up to no good”

remus lupin

sirius black

james potter

peter pettigrew

regulus black

pandora lovegood

lily evans

marlene mckinnon

the fbi headquarters ― “wheels up in thirty”

spencer reid

emily prentiss

jennifer jareau

the mystic grill ― “i was feeling epic”

stefan salvatore

caroline forbes

bonnie bennett

the compound ― “always and forever”

klaus mikaelson

kol mikaelson

rebekah mikaelson

freya mikaelson

the empire state building ― “with great power comes great responsibility”

andrew!peter parker

tom!peter parker

♦

･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. TRAVEL THROUGH A GALAXY ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ

🪐pick a length

milky way

the Milky Way is made up of approximately 100 billion stars. the concentration of stars in a band adds to the evidence that it is a spiral galaxy and the amount of dust and the dominant colors of the light match those we find in other typical spiral galaxies. ↬ drabble = 100 words

andromeda galaxy

Andromeda, also known as Messier 31 (M31), is a spiral galaxy located about 2.5 million light years away. It has a past involving collisions and accretion of other galaxies. ↬ blurb = 200 + words

alcyoneus

the Alcyoneus galaxy — named after the son of Ouranos, the Greek primordial god of the sky — was discovered about 3 billion light-years. It is considered the largest galaxy discovered and it also provides insights about the cosmic web. ↬ oneshot = 400 + words

♦

･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. VISIT A PLANET ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ.

🪐pick a trope (you can either choose one or mix two or more tropes)

friends to lovers

platonic

fake dating

enemies to lovers

second chance at love

grumpy x sunshine

star-crossed lovers

love confessions

♦

･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. STARE AT A CONSTELLATION ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ.

🪐pick a dialogue prompt

alpha canis majoris ( angst )

[1] [2]

also known as "canis major", it represents the bigger dog following orion, the hunter in greek mythology. home to the brightest star in the sky, sirius, as well as to several notable deep sky objects.

lupus ( fluff )

[1]

"the wolf" lies in the southern hemisphere, between centaurus and scorpius. lupus contains two stars with known planets and no messier objects. the brightest star in the constellation is men, alpha lupi, with an apparent magnitude of 2.30.

lyra ( hurt/comfort )

[1] [2]

the constellation is associated with the myth of the greek musician and poet orpheus. lyra lies in the northern sky and represents the lyre, a musical instrument with strings used in antiquity and later times. contains six formally named stars: aladfar, sheliak, sulafat, vega, xihe, and chasoň.

leo ( touch-starved )

[1]

one of the easiest to spot over earth, the leo constellation is the 12th largest of all the constellations and can be found by looking for the head of the lion, or the "sickle," starting at the regulus (alpha leonis) star.

vulpecula ( platonic )

[1]

its name means “the little fox” in latin. the constellation was depicted as a fox holding a goose in its jaws. the stars were later separated to form two constellations, anser and vulpecula, and then merged back together into the present-day vulpecula constellation.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

ready to stargaze?

⋰ ⋱ ⋰ ⋱

...as much as it seems like you own my heart it's astronomy, we're two worlds apart. ❞

[greypetrel]

OC asks -> 1, 14, 19 for Raina and Max!

Hi Whimsy! Late but here I am! :3

Tis the prompt list

1. What was the first element of your OC that you remember considering (name, appearance, backstory, etc.)? 

Raina: Her class. I was tempted on a mage, but I had tried playing a mage in Origins with... Failed results. So I went for a Rogue because I liked the armour best. Second thing was the name, "Marian" instantly brought me to Maid Marian (the fox one) and it wasn't the vibe I was going for. I started considering on the letters and Raina came to mind. Max: If I entered Dragon Age with knowledge of what it was about, I was totally in the blank for Mass Effect. The first things were her name (I wanted a nickname from a slightly embarrassing longer name), the class ("I can play an engineer? Cool, that sounds fun!") and I randomly decided she was Italian because I never create italian character and thought it would have been fun to try, for once.

14. If you had to narrow it down to 2 things that you MUST keep in mind while working with your OC, what would those things be? 

Raina: 1. Her confidence is a façade, She hides behind humour, and has a VERY low opinion of herself. 2. She is an idealist. She's the chilliest person of the world. Until you step on her ideals. Then you have an enemy.

Max: 1. Music plays a very important part in her identity. She grew up in a family very fond of music: all her songs are there because they're linked to a relative or a memory. You can tell her mood by the song she's playing, and she communicates by sharing songs with you. 2. She firmly believes in hard work and consent. "No pain, no gain" is her motto, when she commits to something she always gives her best, as long as she can have a say in choosing where to commit. (she spent A LOT of Cerberus money on garbage and silly things just to piss TIM off because he took consent away from her. Imagine his face when an expense list came and he found out she spent WAY too many money to buy on ebay a handkerchief that the owner swore belonged to Joey Tempest. Or autentic Bialetti coffee machines, one for each crew members.)

19. What is your favorite fact about your OC?

Raina: She's trash. She knows she's trash and isn't qualified to cover an important position, is just a farm girl with no particular studies or talent save her sarcasm. She doesn't let this stop her: if she can help someone or her family, she will. Or die trying, but Death doesn't want a pet raccoon, so she's still here. Max: Being able to explore a little my origin country and comes to term with it. Italy is wonderful to visit as a tourist! Living here... As most times goes, it's more complicated than it looks. Beside you know. The far-right government. I worked drawing commissions in the Greek Mythology fandom, and let me tell you: researching my own country on anything that isn't the Roman Empire or Pompeii is A NIGHTMARE. No ok even pompeii, I spent three days madly looking for references of a very specific villa there which wasn't one of the hugely famous, I wanted to cry. So yeah, one character that is italian and happy about it (because she never actually lived there, she just has her family pushing on her identity) is nice and is being fun. Beside that: how silly she can be in her relationship with the others. She and Garrus are besties, Grunt is her son, she installed a circuit in Liara's cabinets so every time she opens them "You shook me all night long" starts playing. She's teaching Cortez Italian and learning Spanish from him and James. She tried to convert Mordin to metal and she always answers in a renegade option to Miranda (with time it's out of affection).

[shoggothkisses]

Lore Rant: Castor, Pollux, and the Arrogation of the Twins

cw: brief references to sexual assault in the context of mythology; in-game references to cannibalism (sort of)

hi okay so. this came about because i was reading Gods and Myths of Northern Europe (H.R. Ellis Davidson, 1964) and came across a brief section on the worship of god-twins in Germanic/Norse/Old English religions.

according to Davidson, “there is good reason to believe that at one time the heathen Germans worshipped twin deities, two brothers who were the sons of the god of the sky.”

among certain Germanic tribes, these twins were known as the Alci/s. The etymological root for this name appears to be contested (according to Wiki, at least), and may stem from Old English/Germanic as either 1. “elk,” 2. “to protect” or 3. “healing hand” (referencing the Germanic rune algiz.)

another, Old Icelanding name for the Alcis may have been the haddingjar, from the root haddr (woman’s hair. Which, I mean.)

(Certainly no argument there.)

The Roman historian Tacitus, when researching folk beliefs among Germanic tribes, strongly believed that the Alcis/Haddinjar were the same twin-deities worshipped in the Roman Empire - that is to say, Castor and Pollux.

So here I found myself switching from looking at Norse and Anglo-Saxon mythology to taking a dive into Roman mythology to see where the similarities lie. (Something that I’d somehow never done before? But anyway.)

Castor and Pollux are described as both being ‘blond-haired, large-eyed, fair complexioned, and well-built with trim bodies’ (Dares Phrygius, via Wikipedia).

Much like the Alcis, they’re considered protective gods, and STRONGLY associated with horses. (I can’t explain this bit, but I do think it’s hilarious that we still haven’t seen a horse in Teyvat despite being told they exist, and the iconography that might connect twin-gods to horses is, likewise, nowhere to be found.)

Castor and Pollux are ALSO twins, ALSO brothers, and ALSO sons of the god of the -

actually wait.

that part isn’t the same????

and THAT was where i fell down the rabbit hole that caused the alleged ‘mind-blowing’ that i talked up when i first started doing this post weeks ago.

because while Castor and Pollux are twins - they’re not identical.

Castor and Pollux are a product of a (rare but technically possible!) reproductive phenomenon known as heteropaternal superfecundation: two separate ova, within a single womb, being fertilized around the same time by two separate sets of sperm.

Pollux is a demigod - a result of Zeus (THERE’s the sky god) sexually assaulting Leda, future queen of Sparta, while he disguised himself as a swan.

Castor’s father is human. Making Castor, at the time of his birth, 100% human.

Castor and Pollux, along with their other (non-twin) siblings, are sometimes said to have been born from an egg (presumably due to Zeus’s influence? and because of this, they’re sometimes depicted wearing white caps meant to be bits of their…birth-egg-shell?).

now i simply CANNOT ACCEPT that these things are a coincidence. we have twin siblings with slightly different features (height, sex, hair color) who nevertheless appear to be the same age. and while they don’t have the eggshell hats, it does feel a little on the nose that Aether and Lumine have wings and bird-feather accessories, if they’re meant to have any similarity to a set of twins birthed from an egg.

WHICH, on the topic of the egg itself: this is a CONSISTENT MOTIF that comes up in relation to the twins, but it’s especially important to point out that in Orphic-Greek mythology, the Cosmic Egg from which the primordial deity is born comes from (or is made from) Aether. Not the protoscientific substance aether. The deity Aether.

as far as how BOTH the divine Pollux and human Castor became worshipped as deities: apparently the twins got mixed up in a…cattle-raid? in other words, stealing cattle. from Arcadia.

—which was a piece of info I was just going to skip over, until I did the required searching and was reminded that ARCADIA ACTUALLY EXISTS IN GENSHIN. because it’s brought up aaaaaall the way back in Mondstadt, during Kaeya’s Story Quest. The “lost ruins of Arcadia” are on Galesong Hill in Mondstadt.

it’s also WELL worth mentioning that Arcadia (in Greek myth) was the home of Pan and Hermes (who i am going to talk about SO MUCH MORE. another time).

during said raid, and the ensuing battle, Castor is dealt a fatal wound, and so Pollux gives up half of his own immortality so that he and Castor can stay together. this earns them their place among the constellations, as Gemini.

so if we’re keeping up on the “Castor+Pollux” / “Lumine+Aether” parallels—human twin dies while stealing something from an area known for being the birthplace of gods. (whether that something is cows…let’s not worry about.) godly twin decides to give up part of his godliness to save sibling. sibling is now…ALSO godly.

now let’s just look at Genshin on its own for a second. Celestia does NOT like it when beings color outside the proverbial lines without their permission. they find out a nation is worshipping a different god? NO gods? messing with human evolution (possibly by ingesting dead-god flesh—looking at you, Alberichs)? poking around at forbidden knowledge (also chilling in dead god flesh)? just gotta burn it all down and curse the sinners responsible!

isn’t it just as likely that they’d punish one of their own for committing the same crimes?

and now the Sustainer of Heavenly Principles is on their case, and she is not happy.

imagine: Celestial twin finds out they have a human sibling (our “prince/princess of Khaenriah,” according to the Caribert quest) that doesn’t remember having celestial family. Celestial twin is overjoyed! Celestial twin descends(!), finds human twin, maybe they have some adventures, but then—oop, gotta steal something (maaaaybe the genesis pearl? or maybe just cows! /j) from Mondstadt. Heist goes wrong—human twin hurt in process. Celestial twin surrenders some of their divinity to save human twin from death—but now they’ve broken the laws, not only about tampering with life and death, but also about keeping humans human.

doesn’t it seem possible that her confrontation with the the twins isn’t just because of their involvement with Khaenriah, but because they’ve also committed their own, more personal sin?

Some misc. stuff:

the “divine twin” myth isn’t exclusively European in nature, and pops up around the world with lots of similarities: the different fathers (one of which is always a sky deity); associated with stars, horses, and (often) the sea); divine martial protectors (i.e. in battle); providers of magical healing; etc. they’re often also worshipped as fertility deities but I know better than to talk about that here.

and of course whenever the same stories or motifs pop up in different places again and again I feel the need to bring up Jung, since he loved the idea that a “collective unconscious” was responsible for giving human beings the same ideas for myths—the figures within which played archetypal roles that reflected the human psyche. (why he thought that made more sense than having core myths get spread out and retold with the evolution of human civilization…i have no idea.)

the Divine Twins may have been the original drivers of the Solar Chariot (presumably the same one owned by Apollo in Greek myth, which he gives to Phaethon to drive—with disastrous consequences), hence why they became associated with horses. this isn’t really related to the implications of this post but i am most CERTAINLY going to be making another, much bigger post about the Chariot because it’s been driving me crazy. pun absolutely not intended.

other symbols associated with Castor and Pollux are the dokana (a structure of posts and cross-beams that has been associated with everything from gates and doors to grave-markers and mirrors; this article written in 1919(!!) about them was actually super interesting), shields, and snakes. (here’s a dokana with a pair of snakes for reference!) snakes are about as important as eggs in this lore, but I'll save that, too.

as a result of Pollux’s choice to share his divinity with his brother, they (much like other Greco-Roman gods like Persephone and Dionysus) surrendered their full-time residence on Mount Olympus, becoming instead capable of traveling between Olympus and Hades. considering whichever twin we don’t pick at the start of our journey becomes the “Abyss twin,” and both twins appear able to travel freely between Teyvat and the Abyss at will, it feels like a logical stretch to say this part of their myth is also lore-relevant.

cool okay i think that’s it for now, go crazy, go stupid, and SOLAR CHARIOT YOU’RE ON MY SHORT LIST

[necroangelz]

🪽 & 💉 please。。

I'm gonna pretend this didn't take me like 2 weeks to respond to again

『 💉 』

a kin memory

as Monika from ddlc, i remember two timelines/lives! one timeline follows the canon events of the game where i was a sentient entity trapped within the game. in the other timeline, i was a human girl living in like, a normal world, except i suffered a huuuge breakdown from heavy stress. something in me snapped and i began to see the world as lifeless and flat, and i thought i was stuck in a simulation or video game of some sorts where everything and everyone was fake and i was the only real being. it was.... very hard, as you can probably guess, but with professional help and support from the other club members i got better

『 🪽 』

infodump about an oc

@yaoimurder hi squid I'm tagging uu here bc this is where i ramble about that vampire oc i mentioned ages ago, if uu remember that!!! read on if uu'd like (: my oc infodumps are very long and i mention almost EVERYTHING about them so uu can just read the basic info only lol

picrew one and two

her name is midah she is my babygirl. she's also my first (and only) empires SMP oc and i ship her w my f/o (mythicalsausage s1)!!

picture #1 is much more accurate to how midah looks but picture #2 includes details about midah not present in the other photo, such as her red vial necklace, flowers on her cheekbones, and silly little hat

since she's an oc for a series I'll mention stuff that some might not know about, im too lazy to explain everything though so if anyone's curious at all just ask :3

okay midah's backstory is a LIIITTLE murky bc i mainly use her for vague-daydreaming purposes. anyway shes an assassin sorceress who practices blood magic and other types of magic (such as offensive fire Magic that involves creating and manipulating white fire). i got the idea for her name from the line, "touch me, midas, make me part of your design," from my ordinary life. other than that though, her character/story doesn't have much connection to the mythology figure midas. it's just her name that's connected to him. her name is pronounced like midas without the "s", or like the name Micah.

midah is half vampire and half flower elf. i don't really have info on what a "flower elf" is exactly, i don't think i wrote down the info for that, but basically it's just. Elf type connected to Flowers. and flowers often grow on (and maybe in...) their bodies. this can be seen in the red roses that grow on midah's cheekbones. help me my brain is coming up with ideas fur this elf type as i type this but I'm too tired to really focus on that and too focused on finishing this rambles

shes brave, strong, self assured of her own capabilities, tbh for the most part she's a normal person with not much mental and emotional problems, and she cares deeply for those she loves (like a certain mythical j. sausage... aka my f/o ever) she cares deeply to the point of sacrifice but hey, anything for true love amirite... shes also usually the voice of logic and reason compared to sausage but she doesn't try to stop his antics (until his antics start getting a little... demonic.) she totally tops sausage btw. shes also older than him by a bit and she's much taller than him (she's like 7ft tall)

anyway midah isn't very affected by the sunlight BUT she does need to drink blood every now and then, otherwise she gets a bit Quirky (aggressive, uncontrollable monsterlike behavior, and also she starts feeling a lot of physical pain) blood is like a Huge thing for her. she can perform rituals using blood. she wears a vial of blood tied to a necklace for good luck. she has a special bond with the blood sheep

wait what the fuck is a blood sheep? they're creatures from empires SMP s1, particularly the mythland empire (cough cough, that's the main setting of midah's "story") basically they're just Minecraft sheep dyed red. but lorewise they're mysterious creatures who have inhabited mythland for a very long time. they exhibit erratic behavior and sometimes display aggression to other beings. their blood and guts are also very useful for rituals! the blood sheep like midah a lot. they follow her around and nuzzle her like docile farm sheep and sometimes she can communicate with them and they follow her orders. they also protect her FIERCELY against anyone

the vial midah wears around her neck is filled with the blood of a sacrificed blood sheep. she wears it for good luck but replaces it every now and then because the luck can degrade and eventually attract bad luck instead

so yeah i have a lot of different storylines i imagined for midah and ill try to go over them briefly (I'll totally not type like 6 more paragraphs)

- backstory #1 explaining how sausage and midah met: midah moves to mythland and works there as a regular farmer at first and then attempts to join the assassin's guild managed by sausage. she expresses interest in being an assassin and spy. sausage is unsure of her at first,but hes intrigued by her, so he tests her with an easy normal mission: assassinating codfather Jimmy in the empire next door and bringing back his head. yeah that's totally not, like, the beginning of a war and political feud or something. so midah sneaks to the codlands, successfully kills Jimmy, returns with his head, and gets accepted into the guild. at the beginning of this backstory she puts on this facade of a totally unassuming and regular citizen who doesn't seem to have any fighting capabilities, let alone the capability to fight with magic and perform rituals, but then time passes and more and more is revealed about her and it's like Wow she's not who she seems to be. at all. and she quits her farmer job and goes all in on the assassin gig but does other stuff on the side too. and falls in love with saus along the way LOL

- midah x saus backstory #2: they're ~ childhood friends ~ who have been separated for like more than a decade and reunite when midah moves back to mythland. (i envisioned this scene in my head actually—a few days before returning to mythland, midah sends sausage tons and tons of letters sealed within a thick envelope, talking about her plans to return to mythland and why. and also updating him on what's been going on in her life the past decade or so. then on the day she arrives in mythland, they have one of those cute cliche scenes where they run towards each other on a long path and hug each other at the middle. and they cry a bit and talk and marvel about how long its been since they last saw each other. its really sweet ugh)

in this backstory midah was actually part of one of mythland's noble families. i made up some lore where mythland used to be ruled by four noble families (among them were house sausage, which is where sausage comes from duh, and house lavendar, where midah comes from, and yea it's intentionally spelled that way). the noble families/houses went to war with each other for power over mythland and the other two houses were defeated. most members of house lavendar left of their own accord and the rest that remained renounced their noble lineage, leaving house sausage who became the ruling family of mythland. the members of house lavendar specialized in blood magic and a lot of advanced complex blood spells were created by them. hence they have connections to the blood sheep in some way.

i like the longtime friends/allies to lovers dynamic that's going on in backstory #2 (: backstory #1 is still cool in its own way, strangers to lovers is nice, getting to know each other on purpose bc uu find each other intriguing is nice, even though uu might think uur very different people at first, uu get to know the other person a bit more and uu find out things about them and uu realize uur not so different after all ^_^ i read smtg about that once, about loving each other on purpose and choosing to love each other even though uu don't have years and years of history with the other person, and uu grew up completely without them and uur roots aren't tangled with theirs. but still uu love them. and that's very beautiful

okay umm this is getting to be a lot lol i think I'll cap it here, maybe the next time someone sends a 🪽 emoji I'll do a pt2 bc i still have more to say LOL

[maybeevilsdays]

Dafina Hoxha

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Dafina Bora Hoxha (born 17 March 2000)[1] is an albanian actress. She gained international fame portraying Kierra Boothman in The Daughter from across the sea from 2015 until 2018.

Dafina Hoxha speaks fluently four languages including: albanian; English; Japanese and Italian. She also know some Korean and Spanish. Is also said she started self teaching herself Turkish.

Early Life

Dafina Bora Hoxha was born on 17 March 2000 in Tirana, Albania,[2] to Aida Hoxha and Ardit Hoxha. Her dad is from Tirana and her mother from Duress.

Pyramid of Tirana, Albania

Hoxha was raised in Tirana in her early years, and later moved to Glasgow. She began boarding at Hyndland Primary School at age six, moving to Caldercuilt Primary School at age eight.

Dafina started acting at age six after her first school staged a show for the end of the year.

Career

Early work (2006-2014)

While still getting background roles, Hoxha began appearing on the big screen thanks to Mike Navelle[3] rom-com movie Cupid’s Little Helpers (2006) for Scotland BBC.

She appeared in one episode of Doctor Who[3] “Whispers in the Sanctuary”[4] (2007); she was a guest star in a couple of episode of Game of Thrones[5] (2011-2014).

In 2013 Hoxha appeared in Only Lovers Left Alive[5] in a guest role. But it was in 2014 and early 2015 that she started getting some popularity thanks to KidUlt[6] (2014) and Hello, Hi-tech[7] (2015)

Breakthrough and worldwide recognition (2015-2018)

Dafina Hoxha on the set of The daughter from across the sea

Hoxha is well-known for his portrayal of Kierra in the 2015 TvShow The daughter from across the sea. She was invited to audition by Lei Hoire the show’s director, after he had heard nice words about her. Hoxha said about Hoire “He changed my personal life and my career. At first the Japanese team didn’t want me because of my basic knowledge of the language but he managed to change their minds.” [8] Dafina Hoxha was given eight weeks to improve her japanese, so she started as soon as she left the audition venue to study the language. It took her only six weeks to get on a good enough level for the production team but never told them until she brought it up during an interview. Empire magazine ranked Hoxha’s portrayal of Kirra as the 20th Greatest Show Character of All Time.[9]

While in Japan she started putting together a couple of ideas which ended being the plot for A love so fragile[10] and She is called Mythology,[11] two of her most famous screenplays.

In Japan Hoxha had her debut as a magazine model, posing for Cosmopolitan[12], BAZAAR[13], GQ Japan[14], Dazed[15] and Vogue japan.[16]

She got overnight recognition in Japan being the first western celebrity with an Asian fanbase bigger than her western one.

Her fanbase in 2016 was composed by the 10% of Japanese and Korean celebrities, BTS[17] and Bigbang[18] are part of that percentage that knows and supports her.

Varied roles and further success (2019-present)

After coming back from Japan, Hoxha started working more behind the scenes as a screenwriter.

Her first project A love so fragile aired the 14th February 2019 and was praised by the critic, making Hoxha the youngest successful screenwriter in Hollywood.

Between 2019 and the end of March 2020 she kept a low profile as an actress and kept on working on writing from the big and small screen, creating a tv show called She is Mythology based on greek, Roman, Norse Egyptian mythology and more. The pilot, Freya’s Day, Cats’ day[19], was very successful. The critic said “Serafina Hoxha is a young mind, taking risks and bringing integrity on screen” as she pushed the casting directors to cast albanian actors for the show. She is called Mythology casted a total of 100 and more albanian actors both in leading and supportive role.

2021 and 2022 were the years she went back into acting working on two movies, that expanded her western fanbase, Ephemeral Echoes[20]and Whispers in the Shadow[21]

Dafina Hoxha on the set of Ephemeral Echoes

In 2021, while in Australia, Dafina Hoxha, met Chris Hemsworth. The two bonded over their appreciation for sharks. Hoxha was able to follow Hemsworth around during the shootings of Shark Beach with Chris Hemsworth.[22]

The 3rd January 2022 another one of her screenplays, Killer Nights, was aired and got nominated for 2023 BAFTA’s Original Screenplay[23] which she won.

Upcoming projects

Late 2023 Hoxha announced she was going to host the 2024 Oscars Awards.

In October 2019 it was announced that she is will be starring in Disney+ limited series Unrequited friends.[24]

In May 2022, it was announced that she is set to star in Netflix remake of Only Lovers Left Alive.[25]

Personal life

Hoxha resides in Los Angeles as of 2021

She is a huge Canucks[26] fan and was spotted a couple of times at some games of the team, mostly in America until 2023. Between 2023 and 2024 she started attending their home games as well.

She dated Hailee Steinfeld between 2018-2020

She was rumored to have dated Dove Cameron but the rumors where denied when the two revealed that they weren't seeing each other as much as before.

At the end of 2021 it was rumored she was dating Ferdia Walsh-Peelo, the rumors were confirmed during New Years Eve but the couple had been spotted together just for a couple of months.

Halfway through the hockey season of 2023 some rumors started going around about a relationship with hockey player Quinn Hughes. Hoxha and Hughes got photographed a lot while together. They confirmed their relationship saying it bloomed after a year of good friendship.

Charity work

She has supported several charities, including Shatterproof, Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), The California Wolf Center, The Shark Research Institute, American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), The Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Community Center, National Indian Child Care Association,  Indigenous Roots, Polished Man Campaign.[27][28][29[30][31][32][33][36][37]

Acting credits and awards

Main articles: List of Dafina Hoxha performances and awards and nominations

According to Rotten Tomatoes and Box Office Mojo, Hoxha's most critically acclaimed and commercially successful films and shows are Cupid's Little Helpers (2007), Game of Thrones (2011-2014), The Daughter from across the sea (2015-2018) and Hello, Hi-Tech (2015)

Hoxha has received a Golden Globe Award and an Oscar Award among other accolades.

[neteyamyawne]

Myself :

Hi there 👋🏼 I'm vaishnavi, I'm from India.

You can call me Vaishu, Vi or V.

I'm a libra ⚖️🔸INTP-A🔸19

She/ her, I'm a bisexual 🏳️‍🌈 (more like bimyself 😭)

I'm currently in medical College but very addicted to these blue aliens so i had to make my contribution to this fandom 😩🫶🏼

I'm absolutely infatuated by Jake from avatar 2009, he drives me absolutely crazy till now 😮‍💨👏🏼

English is not my first language y'all so bare with me, I'm somewhat fluent so i try my best 🫠

Likes :

General : I love the colour green 🍏, as you can see, I like writing book reviews 📗I love horror movies 🎥

Characters : Loki Laufeyson, Azriel (acotar), Leonard Hofstadter, Monica Geller, Ginny Weasley, Genya saffin, Nina zenik, wylan van ek, Danika, Jake sully, Neteyam , Neytiri, tuk, Grace, Trudy etc.

Authors : Sarah J Maas, Marissa Meyer, Ana Huang, Tahereh Mafi, Sabaa Tahir.

Books : Acotar series, Crecent city, Ember in the ashes, shatter me , cat and mouse duet, Harry Potter, Empire of storms, sharp objects etc.

Movies : conjuring (all parts), Incantation, 8th night, evil dead rise, evil dead (everything), infinity war. Avatar 1&2, Thor , home alone, Insidious (all parts) etc.

Shows : Friends, Big Bang Theory, The Modern Family, Archive 81, shadow and bone, Locke and Key, cabinet of curiosities , manifest, 1899 , saas Bahu aur flamingo (Hindi), squid game etc.

Tropes : Enemies to lovers, one bed trope, Nightmare trope, "who did this to you?", Friends to enemies to lovers, lovers to enemies (i love it idk why), age gap, arrange marriage, slow burn, marriage of convenience etc.

Genres : high fantasy, mystery, thriller, drama, horror, mythologies, sci-fi.

Dislikes :

General : I don't like being called more than 3 times by the same person 🗣️, I hate strawberry Icecream and flavour🧃🫣

Characters : Umbridge, tamlin, Rachel, falcon , captain America (don't come at me 😭) Parker (avatar), amaratha, etc.

Authors : J.K Rowling, Colleen hover, Shakespeare, stephenie meyer, holly black.

Books : It ends with us, cruel prince, to kill a kingdom, tower of dawn, etc

Moives : goblet of fire, etc

Shows : she hulk, etc

Tropes : friends to lovers (sometimes), second chance, miscommunication, etc

Genres : rom-com, insta love, non-fiction, philosophy, western fiction.

Hobbies :

I love reading, writing (obvi 🫣) , forcing my friends to read as well, making fake scenarios, drawing, singing, edits (not so good) , roller skating 🫶🏼 and especially eating and sleeping 😭 because hell yeahhhh 😌

Social Media :

Instagram 💚

BeReal 💚

Facebook 💚