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ava-of-shenanigans · 1 year ago

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Translating Nyarlathotep’s names, titles, and epithets into Middle Egyptian for funsies

Middle Egyptian is the version of the Ancient Egyptian language that was spoken from about 2000 BCE (4000 years ago) to 1300 BCE (3300 years ago). I’ve been learning it for several months now, but since I am still learning there are many epithets I just do not know how to translate yet (and I could be wrong even about the ones I think I do know how to translate). Also, I’m pretty sure that the lore around Nyarlathotep is that he was in Egypt in the Old Kingdom, when they spoke Old Egyptian not Middle Egyptian, but I don’t know Old Egyptian so fuck it, we ball.

All the hieroglyphs I’m going to show here should be read left to right, top to bottom. If you want to change them to be read right to left (which is how hieroglyphs were usually read), you just have to mirror reverse them so they face the other way. Hieroglyphs can’t be read bottom to top, however, so you can’t change that. Some formatting changes would be required to change the ones that are primarily horizontal to being primarily vertical, and vice versa.

First off: His name.

Originally, I was going to start this post with a punishingly long explanation of exactly what all this means and why I have all these different variations of the name. I think an explanation like that is necessary to put somewhere on this post, but I don’t want to force people who just do not care to read all that, so I’ve put it at the very end beneath a “keep reading.”

Now for (some) epithets and titles:

“Mighty Messenger:”

Transliteration: wpwty wsr. A way to pronounce it: Weputy weser or uputy user.

“Great Messenger:”

Transliteration: wpwty wr. A way to pronounce it: Weputy wer or Uputy ur.

The “Black Pharaoh:”

There are two ways to write this one. The first is this:

Transliteration: nsw km. A way to pronounce it: Nesu kem.

It means “black king” not “black pharaoh,” but I think it might make more sense to say it this way. The way you’d say “black pharaoh” is like this:

Transliteration: pr-ʿȝ km. A way to pronounce it: Per a’a kem.

This literally means “the black Great House,” since the word “pharaoh” literally means “Great House.” This would be sort of like if Nyarlathotep appeared on earth today in the form of a United States president and we called him “the black White House,” or if he appeared as a Russian president and we called him “the black Kremlin.” The problem with this one is that I’m not so clear on if the rules for stacking adjectives would even allow for you to say this.

Also, fun fact, Ancient Egyptians considered black to be a good colour, since they associated it with the fertile soil beside the Nile. So this title would not be sinister to them. Like if Nyarlathotep appeared as a US president and we called him “the cool awesome White House.”

“Soul (of the Other Gods):”

Transliteration: kȝ kywy nṯrw. A way to pronounce it: Ka keywey netcheru.

It’s hard to just translate “soul” directly into Egyptian because the Ancient Egyptians didn’t just believe in “a soul,” they believed in a bunch of different parts of a soul that all did different things. The part I’ve used for this translation is the ka, because I think it’s the closest to what we might think of when we hear the word “soul.” I think you could make an argument that since Nyarlathotep’s job is to go and enact the Other God’s will for them, he could be considered their akh, but the akh is a very distinctly Egyptian concept and has lot to do with being dead and getting to the Egyptian afterlife, so I don’t think it works well here. You might also argue that he could be their heart (ib) since the Egyptians thought that you did your thinking with your heart instead of your brain, and Nyarlathotep seems to be a lot more capable of thought than the rest of the “blind, voiceless, mindless” Other Gods, but hearts don’t go out and do things for you so I don’t think that one works either.

“Soul and messenger (of the Other Gods):”

Transliteration: kȝ wpwty kywy nṯrw. A way to pronounce it: Ka weputy keywey netcheru.

“God of a Thousand Forms:”

Transliteration: nṯr ḫprw ḫȝ. A way to pronounce it: Netcher kheperu kha.

Also, as a bonus, I noticed while I was looking for epithets to translate that Fungi From Yuggoth calls Azathoth the “Lord of All.” That’s an Azathoth epithet, so I don’t really have an excuse to translate it into Egyptian, but “Lord of All” is also a common epithet for the Egyptian god Horus. If I ever write that thing about Egyptian gods fighting Nyarlathotep then I will find a way to exploit this. Anyway, here’s how you can say “Lord of All:”

Transliteration: nb tm. A way to pronounce it: Neb tem.

Nyarlathotep’s name is kind of a nightmare to try and spell with the Ancient Egyptian alphabet (good for him, he’d probably want it that way). Here’s my long ass explanation of why I chose to write it the ways I did in this post:

Why is his name spelled without vowels?:

In Ancient Egyptian writing, the vowels are usually left out and only the consonant sounds in words are written down (it’s a lot like Hebrew in this way). The Egyptians eventually did create a system for writing vowels, and that was used for words that Egyptian readers wouldn’t already know how to pronounce, like foreign names. Nyarlathotep, coming from outer space, would be pretty foreign to them, but the earliest vocalic writing is from the end of the Old Kingdom. I’m going to use that as an excuse to say it didn’t exist when he was around and just not bother with it, because there is no way to spell his name in any vocalic writing system that isn’t incomplete and/or confusing (there are two A’s in there and one of them is right next to an L and that is An Issue). The Is in the spellings of his names with the eye symbol in them do not count as vowels, because they are actually transliteration symbols for a consonant sound.

The L sound:

The L sound in his name is an issue because Ancient Egyptian languages might have had an L sound in them, at some point, but they might’ve not. Basically: If you’ve ever done one of those things that will tell you how to write your name in hieroglyphs, you’ve probably been told that this vulture glyph 𓄿 makes an A sound. That is only true in certain types of vocalic writing. The rest of the time it made a consonant sound. We don’t know what consonant sound, though, because the Egyptians stopped pronouncing it in the New Kingdom. Our best guess (based on it being used to transcribe words from other languages that we know had L and R sounds) is that it made a sound like L or R, which is why I’ve used it here for the L sound.

Why are there all those variations around the TH sound?:

Ancient Egyptian languages did not have a TH sound, and the Egyptian letter T and the Egyptian letter H did not combine to make a new sound like they do in English. They did have an F sound, so you could just spell it Nyarlafotep instead. However, “hotep” (transliteration: ḥtp) is an actual Ancient Egyptian word. It means “peace.” Many Ancient Egyptian names are the name of a god + ḥtp, for example “Amenhotep” which means “Amen is at peace.” That the Ancient Egyptians would have thought Nyarlathotep’s name meant that someone called Nyarlat was at peace is too deliciously ironic to ignore, and that meaning is lost if you spell it NYRLFTP. The two options to preserve that meaning are to make the T the bread loaf glyph 𓏏 (this would change the pronunciation to Nyarlat-hotep) or to try and keep the TH sound somewhat by putting the horned viper glyph 𓆑 in there (this would change the pronunciation to Nyarlaf-hotep).

What do the variations with the eye sign in them mean?:

The eye sign is a hieroglyph that makes two consonant sounds. These sounds are transliterated ir, but that i does not represent an actual I sound (except in vocalic writing). Usually, i made a glottal stop sound, but sometimes it made a Y sound. This means you could use the eye glyph for the consonants YR in his name (and this is cosmic horror, where we like eyeballs and put them on everything wherever we can). However, this might make the name even more confusing to read, because it makes it easy to mistake the Y in the name for a glottal stop.

Why is his name in a cartouche?:

The names of pharaohs (and only pharaohs) were written inside cartouches. And not just any of the pharaoh’s names. Pharaohs had several different types of names, and only the throne name and birth name were written in cartouches. This means it could be debated wether or not it would be proper for his name to be written in a cartouche. However, Nyarlathotep is not actually from Egypt, he’s from space, and at least one of the stories he’s in portrays him as a showman who uses aesthetic connections to Ancient Egypt as a gimmick to get people to come see his brainwashing prophecies of doom, so I feel like he would not care if it was proper or not and would use it anyway because it’s a very recognizable piece of iconography. But if we found hieroglyphic carvings by Ancient Egyptians that warned of the evils of the god Nyarlathotep, his name might not be written in a cartouche and instead be written with the determinative for god 𓀭 after it.

#nyarlathotep #cthulhu mythos #lovecraft #ancient egypt #lovecraftian horror #cosmic horror #lovecraftian #ancient egypt stuff #ava has thoughts #id in alt #tw caps

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cinderflower · 3 months ago

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I don't know if this has been talked about elsewhere but while writing Field of Reeds, I've found there's a very interesting amount of mythology and symbolism that ties in between Malenia, Miquella, and ancient Egyptian mythology. I think the concept of different soul parts (ba, ka, akh) is particularly insightful into a potential way to interpret how bodies and souls are referenced in Elden Ring.

One reason I think this may have served as at least some of the inspiration is the relationship between Elden Ring lore and real life mythology, specifically the Golden Order ties to Roman (and greek, irish, norse) mythology but also how those were influenced by ancient egyptian mythology. Miquella's character in particular seems to reflect on the past state of the world pre-Golden Order for inspiration on how to move forward in the future, similar to how the romans looked to ancient egypt in the past.

List of topics:

The Lotus | Trina & Miquella Lilies

Scorpions and Selket | Malenia, Goddess of Rot

Waterfowl, Nekhbet, and the Bennu Bird | Malenia, Blade of Miquella

Shed, Protective Child God | Miquella the Unalloyed

Death and the Soul | Godwyn, Trina, Dreams, and Spirits

The Acacia Tree | The Erdtree & Haligtree

Horus | Miquella the Kind

Hathor | Marika the Eternal

A few disclaimers: There is a vast amount of information on the mythology and there are a lot of contradictions and hotly debated topics within it and I'm no expert, so these will be mostly very surface level comparisons I think may have been used for inspiration, this is not intended to be a declarative comparison. I'll try to keep my sourcing consistent and most references will link back to a single source which compiled a lot of the references together. I did cross-reference these with other sources and will try to call out these additional sources as well as any contradicting opinions where applicable for additional perspective/context.

The Lotus | Trina & Miquella Lilies

Contrary to the name, the flowers referred to as "lotus" are actually two variations of water lilies, a blue and a white variant: Blue Egyptian Water Lily (Nymphaea caerulea) & White Egyptian Water Lily (Nymphaea lotus).

As you can imagine, this immediately caught my interest considering we have two variations of lilies in Elden Ring, Trina's lily (blue/purple) and Miquella's lily (unalloyed gold).

Unalloyed gold is representative of a pure gold and white is often the symbol of purity and that's no different here; additionally, at times white was even used interchangeably with yellow. Meanwhile for blue, you have the common themes of water and rebirth it's associated with but it was also commonly used in funerals. We know that water and this particular blue/purple hue in the game is associated with both dreams and death.

The lotus was also associated with alcoholic intoxication, and it was used as a recreational drug when soaked in wine; the roots and blossoms contain narcotic substances which are soluble in alcohol. It was also used in medicine (the juice has a mild sedative effect).

This last point is interesting in the context specifically of Trina's lilies and works well with my own interpretation of Trina's lilies being used as a sedative which I actually wrote even before stumbling across this fact.

The lotus was a symbol for life: at the very beginning of creation a lotus flower containing the god Ra was the first thing to emerge from the primordial waters. The lotus was strongly associated with the sun, as the flower retreats beneath the water at night and rises again each day at dawn like the sun-god.

As with many symbols of fertility, the lotus was also symbolic of rebirth after death. This again ties in well with the original concept of Miquella/Malenia being Abundance/Decay representing the cycle of death and rebirth.

The Egyptians looked forward to their souls coming to life "like a lotus reopening," and the Book of the Dead has a spell to allow the deceased to transform into one of these flowers. Faience models of lotus buds were sometimes placed in tombs. In many tomb scenes, the deceased is shown with a lotus flower held to his nose in order to breathe in the divine perfume.

Lotus Sources [x][x][x]

Scorpions and Selket | Malenia, Goddess of Rot

Like the lotus/lilies there were two common types of scorpions: a venomous land scorpion and a harmless water scorpion. As such, the scorpion had a dual purpose and could be seen as either friend or foe depending on the context much like how we see the scarlet rot both harms and strengthens Malenia. We also know the Rot God under the lake is at least in part scorpion in nature and thus this is best represented in Selket, the Scorpion Goddess, who is seen as benevolent and is often represented by the harmless water scorpion.

[Continued under the read more]

Scorpions were greatly feared and scorpion stings were one of the main hazards of everyday Egyptian life. Scorpions were described as “A very small thing, a sister of the snake, a sister of Apophis*, sitting at a crossroads, lying in wait for someone who goes in the night . . .”

I believe the scorpion sting serves as an apt representation of the way scarlet rot manifests and which I suspect is clearly intended with the blade crafted from the scorpion stinger of the Rot God sealed beneath the lake of rot.

[* I think there's an interesting parallel between Apophis and the God Devouring Serpent and Rykard but this is already too long, so here's a link about Apophis [x]]

Meaning of Selket: “She Who Causes to Breathe.” Selket's name refers to her power over scorpions, as those who have been stung tend to breathe too fast and too shallow because of the venom.

Another great description which ties in with the Scarlet Rot as it's shown in Elden Ring, specifically through the state of Millicent when we first come across her: slumped against a wall and breathing shallowly because in her words, "My flesh writhes with scarlet rot."

Selket was depicted with a scorpion above her head, as a scorpion, or as a scorpion with a woman's torso. She often had green skin, a reference to her help with regeneration in the Duat.

The last note here caught my attention knowing that Malenia's Great Rune which is covered in Scarlet Rot is what grants her the ability of regeneration. The specific callout of "in the Duat" is also of interest since the Duat is the underworld, meaning she regenerates in death (decay).

Historically, the scorpion was regarded as a symbol of motherhood in many areas, as female scorpions carry their young on their backs. The protective goddess Selket, who guarded the coffin of the deceased, was often pictured as a scorpion. An ancient Egyptian proverb states: “I love the scorpion, yet I know its venomous sting.”

This last passage I find summarizes Malenia's relationship with Rot and Decay fairly succinctly and ties in well with how I've always interpreted rot as the force of decay seeking to reestablish the proper life cycle into the Lands Between which had been forced into a state of stagnation from the removal of Destined Death. But because of the rejection of this rot and decay aspect, Malenia suffers the consequences, the venomous sting of the scorpion rather than the benevolence of it. This cascades down to her "children" as well where rather than accepting the rot and motherhood, she rejects both it and her "children" alike. This is actually very well contrasted by Romina in the DLC who finds strength when she embraces the rot and accepts the role of motherhood to those rejected by Malenia.

And, lastly, the visual of Selket guarding the coffin of the deceased is a striking visual comparison with Malenia in the roots of the Haligtree guarding Miquella's cocoon (his coffin) before it had been taken.

Scorpion and Selket Sources [x][x]

Waterfowl, Nekhbet, and the Bennu Bird | Malenia, Blade of Miquella

Another common concept seen in many religions is the association of birds as either representations of spirits passing or guiding them to the afterlife. While Malenia's title of Valkyrie is obviously a clear call to the norse mythology, there are once again roots of this concept that can be found in the Waterfowl, specifically the Heron and the phoenix variation of the Heron, the Bennu Bird. There's also the Vulture Goddess, Nekhbet, who serves as a protector of the dead/underworld.

A passage from the Book of Ani says that the first gate of the Duat was guarded by the Vulture Goddess, whose “tearing beak” could admit the dead to the place whence they rose again. Amulets of vultures were buried with the dead, especially royalty. Egypt’s oldest oracle was the shrine of Nekhbet at Nekhen (modern Al-Kab), the original “necropolis” or city of the dead. [...] Nekhbet was described as “she whose wings are open, whose breasts are pendulous.” She was usually depicted as a vulture hovering with her wings spread, clutching an ankh or the Shen Ring in her talons. When pictured as a vulture, Nekhbet's colors are rarely true-to-life - instead she is symbolically red, blue, green, black, and white, the colors of life, the sky, regeneration, and holiness.

I've always found the reference of Malenia as a Valkyrie interesting because purely in the base game, she doesn't have any role actively acting as a guide of the dead. Rather, her role is as a protector, an undefeated champion and Miquella's blade - a role she obtains after studying with the mentor who led her to learn the "waterfowl dance" and gave her "wings of unparalleled strength". The main relation she has to death is to those she defeated in battle or inflicted with the Scarlet Rot, and her place in the roots of the Haligtree next to Miquella's cocoon.

The Bennu bird was the mythological phoenix of ancient Egypt. It was associated with the rising of the Nile, resurrection, and the sun. The sacred Bennu bird was thought to be a heron, and [...] were thought to lead the spirits of the dead through the dangers of the Duat.

The context is more interesting, in my opinion, when considering her as trying to be a guide through the underworld - specifically for Miquella. She knows her brother's plan to divest himself of his body and be resurrected (regardless of if you're considering base game lore or SotE lore) as she states clearly she "awaited his return". It's also clear that those who served Miquella knew he had also "died" in some capacity, killing themselves in flashes of light in the hopes to "guide his return". Personally, I think this was a missed opportunity to have her take on this role in Miquella's plot directly but that's neither here nor there.

The Hymn of the Bennu says: “I am a blue heron, pure as bone. I know the stirrings of the Nile, the source where water rises overlapped by trees, where ibises dip and wade, where the fish are plentiful. I fly beneath an arch of trees straight into the eye of heaven. I make a long journey amid mud houses, singing. I know the cool mind of the sky and the hot mysteries of earth. I am a blue heron, the messenger, a reborn and dying god. By day I exist because I exist. By night I sail above the river, a single star wise in the darkness.”

Likely incidental but another fun coincidence is that it is specifically a blue heron and Malenia has the association with the blue dancer charm and her mentor's blue robes. There's also obviously the water imagery, flowing water never rotting, but also water again being representative of death and rebirth, specifically associated with the phoenix in this case. We know for Malenia to reach her state as the Goddess of Rot, she has to die and bloom three times.

The Hymn of the Phoenix says: “I flew straight out of heaven, a mad bird full of secrets. I came into being as I came into being. I grew as I grew. I changed as I changed. My mind is fire, my soul is fire. I am the seed of every god, beautiful as evening, hard as light. I am the last four days of yesterday, four screams from the edges of the earth – beauty, terror, truth, madness – the phoenix on his pyre. I will live forever in the fire spun from my own wings. I destroy and create myself like the sun that rises burning from the East and dies burning in the West. To know the fire, I become the fire. I am power. I am light. I am forever. This is my deliverance. I am the fire that burns you, that burns in you. To live is to die a thousand deaths, but there is only one fire, one eternity.”

I don't really have anything profound here other than I love the visuals of this passage in relation to how they might reflect on Malenia's character. Malenia upon blooming in the scarlet aeonia is strikingly reminiscent of a phoenix being reborn from the flames, but there's also the interesting role fire plays in regards to rot, supposedly being able to burn it away to hold it at bay. In a sense by rejecting rot and embracing it only when the situation is desperate enough, she is continually welcoming her own repeated decay and rebirth. But perhaps this duality is intentional, if we consider the following passage:

Trapping waterfowl in a net is a common tomb scene since the Old Kingdom, although the representation of bird-trapping in a hexagonal net occurs already on an item found in a 1st Dynasty tomb. The scene is said to entail two aspects: one positive, related to the duck as a symbol of fertility linked to rebirth, and one negative, the birds as enemies of the dead, necessitating their being trapped to re-establish order in the cosmos. The birds, as a collective sign, refer to two contrary meanings by condensation.

I think where I ultimately fall in tying these three concepts together is Malenia's own fractured sense of purpose. I think her rot affliction and influence of the Rot God can be seen in some aspects of the Bennu Bird, her desire to be helpful and to achieve a better world can be represented by the Waterfowl/Heron, but the role she ultimately serves is as a protector of the dead (Miquella's cocoon) and represented in Nekhbet.

Heron, Nekhbet, and Bennu Bird Sources [x][x][x][x]

Shed, Protective Child God | Miquella the Unalloyed

Which deity better to compare to Miquella the Unalloyed than Shed, the child god, a deity who also has ties to the god Horus which I'll be discussing below in relation to Miquella the Kind.

Shed was pictured as a young man with a child’s Sidelock of Youth, wearing a kilt and an aegis, with a quiver of arrows across his back, riding in a chariot pulled by griffins.

We can largely see this exact imagery in the picture above and I found these interesting for a few notable reasons. The foremost is in his hunt of creatures, specifically snakes and scorpions as depicted above. We know from the earlier analysis there's the connection between Malenia's rot and the scorpion form of the Rot God - a nice parallel to Miquella fighting against her rot. There's also the bow and arrow, since it's strongly implied that Miquella invented both the pulley bow and crossbow, this also ties in well. But most curiously was the reference to griffins, given the only place in the entire game I can recall seeing griffin motifs is in the Haligtree. (Feel free to correct me if there's more elsewhere!)

Sure that may just be a Berserk reference, but that's so boring in comparison.

A protective god, Shed was pictured on many plaques and pendants. He was believed to guard against illnesses and wild beasts, and made sacred weapons of war.

Unlike the strong implication that Miquella made the pulley bow, we do know for a fact that he made the Hand of Malenia, which is inscribed with an incantation of Unalloyed Gold to make it resistant to rot, aka a sacred weapon of war.

Shed was often shown grasping serpents and other dangerous animals, and standing on the back of one or more crocodiles, to indicate that he had power over them. In some instances Shed was pictured as a mongoose.

Despite being a child god, Shed is clearly depicted as having power over the most dangerous creatures, not unlike how Miquella is referred to as the "most powerful" and "fearsome" Empyrean, and we can see this power through his charm ability and how he makes docile those who would otherwise prove to be a threat.

Over time, Shed was absorbed into the god Horus, as “Horus the Child.”

As we know, Miquella the Unalloyed eventually becomes Miquella the Kind which I'll get to soon, but first let's talk about the body, death, and souls.

Shed Sources [x]

Death and the Soul | Godwyn, Trina, Dreams, and Spirits

Rather than the concept of a single body and a single soul like much theology that came after, there's different facets of the soul that ultimately came to represent a person and each plays a different role in a person's life both while they are alive and after death. Understanding the nuance of each I think helps shed an interesting perspective on the Trina and Miquella situation in particular.

There are 5 main parts I will be focusing on: Khat (Khet), Ka, Ba, Akh, and Ab (Ib)

Khat (Khet) - The Body

Also called Khet, Khat was the physical body of the deceased, or mummy. On the day of a funeral, special prayers were recited over the mummy to aid in its transformation into a spiritual body, Akh, that could rise to heaven to dwell with the gods. The outer coffin often had a pair of eyes and a false door. This was so that deceased could "see" out, and their Ka (another part of the soul) could come and go.*

The physical body is the easiest, but we can also see in the description related to the coffin that the body still has a role to play in relation to the other parts of the soul, specifically the Ka. This is something to keep in mind when thinking about specifically Miquella's cocoon husk, Ranni's dead body, and Godwyn's soulless body.

[* Note: There is a heated debate in the community with regards to the specific role of the ka being able to return to the body and which resides in the Field of Reeds]

Ka - The Life Force

The hieroglyph for the Ka is two arms raised as if mirroring each other. The Ka is perhaps one of the most difficult concepts to describe, for there is no modern translation for this word. Essentially it appears to mean "double" as well as "vital force" and is a clear reference to a part of the individual that transcends the death of the physical body. Egyptologist Richard Wilkinson explains that "in all periods it is used as a term for the creative and sustaining power of life."

This concept of the Ka representing the part of the soul linked to the body I believe ties in well with the concept of multiple deaths that characters in Elden Ring can experience. Now we know when any of the Remembrance bosses die, they're hewn into the Erdtree, taking their shape.

The Ka was something handed down from one's parents, grandparents, and ancestors, like spiritual DNA, traceable in the very remote past to a creator god by way of lesser deities. The Ka was not only one's double but also a guide and protector, imbued with the spark of the divine. According to pictures drawn during the 18th Dynasty, the Ka came into being when a person was born, often depicted as a twin or double, but, unlike the body it belonged to, it was immortal provided it received nourishment.

We see here that it is also believed that under certain circumstances a Ka can be potentially immortal.

The gods themselves were felt to possess a Ka. Egyptologist Dimitri Meeks explains that the vital force that the ancients ascribed to the Ka acts in such a way as to give each deity the ability to take creative form infinitely. Because of this ability, it was this essence, the energy of the deity's Ka, which was felt to temporally inhabit statues and other magical images during ritual, or sacred animals.

In essence, a Ka can vary in shape (when associated with a deity) and is closely bound to the body. It is also able to be imbued in statues or other images - think puppets, or dolls in Ranni's case. Essentially as long as there is something in the realm of the living for Ka to inherit, it can continue to exist in some regard.

The Ka of the pharaoh was thought to be the collective life force of all his subjects - crucial to their well-being, indeed to their very existence. The term "By the Ka of the pharaoh" meant "by the good grace of the pharaoh."

This gives and interesting twist to the concept of the Erdtree which we know is used to facilitate life and rebirth in the Lands Between by returning the bodies of those who perished to it, as well as giving a unique perspective on the concept of grace since only those granted grace by Marika technically "belong" in the Lands Between.

Dying was referred to as "going to one's Ka." Upon the body's demise the Ka rejoined its divine origin, but always remained in close proximity of the body.

One way to potentially conceptualize the Ka is any manifestation of the soul or spirit of the deceased that remains in the land of living rather than the underworld: Spirit Ashes, Puppets, Ranni's Doll(s), Sellen's Primal Glintstone, etc. In Godwyn's case, this implies that his body (Khat) may live, this part of his soul (Ka) was killed and Ranni's was the inverse which is how she's able to continue living.

Ba - The Ego

The personality or alter ego of the deceased. The Ba was said to be able to fly from place to place during the day and is often shown hovering over the mummy or resting on a shrine. Migratory birds were regarded as nations of the Ba, flying freely between tomb and underworld. Supposedly the Ba could assume any form it chose, and the Book of the Dead has many spells to assist the Ba in its transformation. Some of the most common transformations of the Ba were into rams, a lotus, and other birds such as swallows.

Now of course, I read this and immediately thought of Trina, and while I don't think the concept of the Ba in how it functions here is a one to one for the manifestation of Trina, I believe it provides a very unique framework for how to conceptualize her existence. SotE made it abundantly clear that there is a very clear overlap between sleep/dreams and death and if we take the freedom of movement the Ba has literally this makes sense. In the context of Miquella and Trina, this makes Trina an aspect of Miquella that is able to traverse the underworld, able to walk death.

Though the Ba seems to have been essentially nonphysical, it nevertheless could be viewed as a separate physical mode of existence for its owner, even prior to death. Hence, the sun was the Ba of Ra, the wind was the Ba of Shu, water was the Ba of Nun, and crocodiles were the Bas of Sobek. Deities often had multiple Bas - Ra was thought to have seven Bas, and it was claimed that Amun had ten Bas.

It's the line "even prior to death" that caught my attention and I think this mostly applies to Miquella and Trina but could also be applied to Marika and Radagon - though I believe the alchemy concept suits them better. If a Ba is a form of the soul that can exist prior to death and manifest in some way, traversing to the underworld, well that sure does sound like Trina doesn't it?

Every evening the Ba returned to the body, reuniting with it and thus ensuring the body's continued existence in Sehet Aaru (the Field of Reeds). The body had to be recognizable to the Ba, hence the careful mummification and elaborate mummy masks.

Revisiting the concept of Godwyn again, we know without his soul and with the Rune of Death corrupting his body, it begins to mutate and transform. It provides an interesting explanation for why the eclipse ritual may not have worked even if the eclipse did come to pass: his body in its mutated state, spread far and wide across the lands between is no longer recognizable. He cannot come back to life because of how his body was desecrated. It also provides an explanation for why Ranni was able to continue living: we find her body, still reflecting her form, at the top of her Divine Tower.

The ram was the animal symbolic of the Ba, a major aspect of the Egyptian notion of the soul; the Egyptian word for “ram” was “ba.”

Now this is purely a parallel I purely enjoyed thinking about when considering the Ancestor Spirits and specifically the concept of Torrent being a juvenile Ancestor Spirit.

Calling Back the Ba of Osiris says: “My Ba is a restless bird that leaves to seek itself. For the falcon who breaks the confines of the shell, even the sky it not enough eternity. He may be tossed by storms of whirling sand or ride a hot wind above dunes. Far from here his voice may ring though the forests from the branches of a fruit tree. By the Nile he may wait silent among the reeds, fish spawning as he sleeps, his head tucked in his wing. Burn saffron; remember my prayers. The smoke of incense will bring him home. Though far and sailing, my Ba comes back to me. In his copper beak he carries my thoughts. On his back my starry dreams fly over mountains, over seas, over villages. Above the grape arbor it is I sailing with the falcon, triumphant. Perhaps now he hovers near, flurry of dark wings beating the door; or he follows the rivers and canals of gods, leading them through mountains; or he binds the souls to the rags of mummies, filling dry hands with perfume. Old ones grasp their scepters and rise barefoot in the burning sand. Perhaps he twitters above boats with their cargoes of amethyst, sailing home. Ah, my Ba's a restless bird. On dark wings he flies from yesterday, love in his throat, the warmth of light among his feathers, the risen sun in his hard, amber eye. If you see him, send him home to me. The heart is uncertain country."

Nothing profound here, again, I just really love the way this passage presents the concept of the Ba.

Akh - The Enlightened Spirit

The Akh was the immortal, transformed self, which was a magical union of the Ba and Ka. Strudwick writes, "once the Akh had been created by this union, it survived as an 'enlightened spirit,' enduring and unchanged for eternity." [...] The Akh could return to earth, however, and it was an aspect of the Akh which would come back as a ghost to haunt the living if some wrong had been done, or would return in dreams to help someone they cared for. Letters and offerings were left at the deceased's tomb in hopes that the Akh would watch over those still on earth.

No image for this one, but I believe the Akh represents the process of ascension well, though in Miquella's case it would imply he has achieved a bastardized form of ascension given that rather than joining his Ka and Ba, he discarded (at least one) of his Ba: Trina. Perhaps some form of it was achieved through the chopping and mashing up of the souls of his family, especially if we think back to the concept of a Pharaoh's Ka encompassing all it's subjects - in this case, all of Marika's childen could be considered part of her Ka.

The Egyptians thought the Akh was a radiant light, something like a star. The Pyramid Texts tell us that when a man dies, his Akh goes to the stars to dwell with the gods - "the Akh belongs to heaven, the corpse to earth."

I love the idea of a version of godhood or ascension being represented by the stars given we know in Elden Ring, the stars are also represent primordial life just like the Crucible.

Ab (Ib) - The Heart

The most important part of the Egyptian soul was thought to be the Ab, or heart. The Ab was believed to be a drop from the heart of the mother of the child at conception. The heart was thought to be the source of good and evil within a person, the moral awareness and center of thought that could leave the body at will. [...] To the ancient Egyptians, it was the heart and not the brain that was the seat of emotion and thought, and was the key to the afterlife. To lose one's heart was a terrible fate, and to prevent such a calamity no less than seven chapters of the Book of the Dead were dedicated to help prevent this from happening.

This summarizes the tragedy of Miquella's ascension through discarding his love in the form of Trina better than I could. I'll leave you with one final passage I adore when thinking about the tragedy of the heart:

A spell called Giving the Heart to Osiris says: “My heart sleeps. My heart dreams. Give me a mouth. I want to talk. Give me my legs and I'll rise. Give me my hands and arms and I'll fight. I'll crush the skull of the snake. Open my blind eyes, straighten my bent feet. I know my heart. It stirs within me. It throbs in my right hand. Blood quickens beneath my skin. Give me my heart. Let it pump again life's power in me, infuse my hands and feet with spirit. Give me my heart. Let me rise and walk. I am quickened. No more sleep. No more dreams. No more death."

Death and Soul Sources [x][x][x]

The Acacia Tree | The Erdtree & Haligtree

Another botanical reference that is common to a lot of religions is the concept of a Tree of Life, in ancient Egypt this is referenced by the Acacia Tree.

Sometimes called the "Tree of Life" in Egyptian mythology, the first gods were said to have been born under the sacred acacia tree of the goddess Hathor, and Horus was also said to have emerged from it.

I think there's some very interesting parallels as well between Hathor and Marika as well as Horus and ascended!Miquella which I'll get into below.

According to myths, the acacia protected the body of Osiris, and the acacia was known as Nht Hnmt Ntr ("The Tree That Encloses the God.")

Again, another interesting parallel to the function of both the Erdtree and Haligtree in how they are presented in Elden Ring. The Erdtree houses the form of Marika/Radagon while the Haligtree - designed to be a replacement to the Erdtree - which housed Miquella's cocoon at one point and is actively where Malenia is when she ascends to her "Goddess of Rot" form.

Acacia Sources [x][x]

Horus | Miquella the Kind

While not a perfect parallel, I think in relation to Shed who later becomes the precursor to Horus as "Horus the Child", looking at the deity Horus in relation to specifically ascended Miquella can provide a unique perspective.

Egyptian texts paint a dazzling picture of Horus: "when he opens his eyes he fills the universe with light, but when he shuts them darkness comes into being." When the Osiris myth became popular, Horus became the patron of young men and was often described as the perfect example of the dutiful son who grows up to become a just man. Weak as a child, Horus was nurtured by his mother Isis and grew into manhood. Mythologically, the sun and the moon represented the two eyes of Horus.

Perhaps not the most insightful, but interesting with the knowledge that Miquella's eyes hold eclipses in them, representative of his goal to bring the state of Godwyn to one where he could provide him a true death.

Early hospitals at Alexandria were under the protection of Horus - Horus was thought to have become a doctor on account of the many illnesses he suffered as a child. Consequently, the Eye of Horus amulet was thought to have healing powers, and to ward off the evil eye and protect against all sorts of illnesses.

We know that Miquella cast so much aside in his effort to heal Malenia, and I still firmly believe was one of his primary goals and reasons for seeking ascension. So while not his own illnesses he suffered as a child, it would thematically still fit.

Lastly, here's two other interesting passages:

The Speech of Horus says: “I am Horus, the Great Falcon. My flight has reached the horizon. I have passed by the gods of Nut. I have gone further than the gods of old. Even the most ancient bird could not equal my very first flight. There is no god who has achieved what I have achieved. I am Horus, whom Isis bore and whose protection was made inside the egg. I am Horus, Son of Osiris.”

The Hymn of Horus says: "I come to the room where the sun rose. A falcon flies in and settles on my wrist. In his mouth hangs the skin of a snake. ‘I am Horus,’ he cries. ‘From the land of kings I come, riding through the hot winds on the back of a jackal. Where priests murmured in crumbling temples, I flew through their sacred fires dropping feathers. I come to shout the wisdom of air. I’ve come with a sycamore seed in my beak. By the river we’ll sow it and watch it grow through the years. You will die there, Osiris; and I will sit nine thousand years in the tree’s white branches, one eye on each horizon, waiting for your return. I am life rushing on, born from the egg of the world, born from the belly of a magic woman, born of my father’s dreams. I am the screech of wind, the rush of falcon wings, talons sharp as knives. I came after you. I stand before you. I am with you always. I am the power that dispels darkness. The seed laid into the void must grow. The candle’s only purpose is to shine in the darkness. Bread is meant to be ground to pulp in the teeth. The function of life is to have something to offer death. A man forgets, but his heart remembers – the love and the terror, the weeping, the beating of wings.'”

Horus Sources [x]

Hathor | Marika the Eternal

While I think Isis can be an interesting deity to consider for pre-God Marika, I find Hathor slightly more fitting for her ascended godhood.

Hathor is understood to be the deity who welcomes the worthy dead, offers them refreshments of food and drink, and leads the way into the blessed beyond. One of the desires of the deceased was to be in the following of Hathor - "I tread the stars and climb the sunbeams in the retinue of Hathor, I rise to the sky."

Despite the Land of Shadows canonically existing, I believe that's just another realm where death manifests while the Lands Between represents another, and in a sense could be considered something like "the blessed beyond" for those granted her grace. It also explains how those like the Tarnished could be cast out and only permitted back once she returned the vision of grace to them.

Hathor's attributes as a mother goddess were exalted - it was she who gave birth to gods, shaped animals and people, and brought greenery into existence. Hathor repelled the shadows and illuminated all creatures with her light. The inundation of the Nile happened on her command, and the winds drew near on her orders.

Quite a literal parallel to both her removal of Destined Death and sealing away of the Land of Shadow, also bringing light to the land in the form of the golden shine of the Erdtree.

In one Egyptian tale, Hathor was charged by Ra to punish humankind. So great was the slaughter that Ra feared people would be wiped out, and ordered the goddess to halt. But blood-mad, she ignored him. These two aspects of Hathor - violent and dangerous versus beautiful and joyful - reflected the Egyptian belief that women, as the Egyptologist Carolyn Graves-Brown puts it, "encompassed both extreme passions of fury and love."

I hadn't expected to find something like this when first reading about Hathor but obviously this is reminiscent to how Marika lead her genocidal wars.

Hathor Sources [x]

Conclusion

This is all I plan to cover but there's a lot more I could have such as Apophis; gold, silver, and ivory; hair, braids, knots, and power; and so much more. But this is already super long so I encourage anyone interested to take a stab at looking into it yourself if you're curious. If you made it to the end, thanks for reading and let me know your thoughts!

#Elden Ring Lore #cinder rambles #long post tw #malenia blade of miquella #miquella the unalloyed #whatever i spent too much time on this i might as well put it in the tags #its also SO long like buckle up if you're going to read this #obviously not perfect parallels but there's enough that it made me go “HMM” and deep dive so here you go #if nothing else it's interesting food for thought

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qalbofnight · 1 year ago

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Majnoon noon ral aashiq kaeenday All the amorous ones said to Majnoo

Way teri Laila rang di kali Your Laila (beloved) is dark

Majnoo replied He says

Way ja teri akh naeen wekhan wali Your eye is not worthy of seeing this

Ab daleel kia deta hai And how does he justify this

Quran Kareem day warq nay chitay The pages of the Quran are white

Uttay likhi eh siahi kali But the writing in it is in black ink

Way Bulleyah jithay dil ar jaway O Bulleyah when it comes to what the heart wants

Fer ki gori ki kali way

then black or white doesnt matter

source : piya ghar aya - Fareed Ayaz Sahab, coke studio

#bulleh shah #urdu poetry #shayari #urdu literature #urdu stuff #hindi poetry #hindi shayari #nfak #literature #nusrat fateh ali khan #amir khusro #fareed ayaz #punjabi poetry #sufimusic #sufism #sufi quotes #sufi wisdom #sufi

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425599167 · 4 months ago

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In need of allies able to coordinate strikes against the Empire on a galactic scale, Ahsoka expands the Fulcrum network by recruiting CIS veterans and holdouts into its ranks. Promises to reveal weaknesses in the Empire draw the Fulcra to a cunning Separatist engineer, imperialized droid forces, and a mysterious bunker left hidden and abandoned by Count Dooku. Pulled back to the start of the Clones Wars, back to Geonosis, Barriss recalls where all her guilt began.

Breath flowed in and out of Barriss slowly, meditatively, though she didn’t close her eyes or otherwise shut out the cockpit around her. She only stared straight ahead, taking it all in. “How are you feeling?” asked Ahsoka. Geonosis approached, and the Eclipse passed over its rings as Ahsoka avoided several of the outlying rocks. The world revealed little of its surface, but Barriss recognized a few mountain ranges rising above the dust storms, enough landmarks to remember where she’d already been. “I feel unwell.” “Anything I can do to help?” It all became more detailed as they flew closer. North of the E’Y-Akh Desert was the arena where she nearly got overrun by battle droids and fought her way alone through the underground caverns as two hundred Jedi died or got rescued by gunships. Then southeast along the neighboring mountain range was where she landed with Luminara and later witnessed Ki-Adi-Mundi burning Geonosians with flamethrowers. Then there was the now-ruined factory she’d reduced to rubble and then nearly suffocated underneath with thousands of Geonosians buried deeper below her. Then the makeshift landing area from where she finally departed the planet, flying away in a medical frigate infested with parasites which would be burrowing into her brain shortly after. “No. No, I don’t believe there is. Thank you for offering.”

Fantastic news, I discovered even more ways to make Ahsoka and Barriss narrative foils! This story formed throughout a sleepless night during which I woke up every ten minutes to write down all my ideas so I wouldn’t forget anything. It's really coming together, I think it might overtake Obsolete Products as the story I’m happiest with.

#star wars #barriss offee #ahsoka tano #barrissoka #barrisoka #my writing

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gemwolfz · 5 months ago

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totals really good visual au and postcanon au, ba 𓅽 yami and akh 𓅜 atem, They are based on simplified versions of ancient egyptian conceptions of the soul but unfortunately i am not well versed enough to explain it personally. and total has not used tumblr in years so it can't explain either. I can throw you the wikipedia page for now also totals rudimentary explanation is somewhere in the live gem reaction tag

actually total offered to write its own explanation so that'll be under the cut along with its art hooray!!!

okay hi so basically:

ygo doesny seem to give a shit about how souls work in egyptian myth but. basically, it would be funny if yami was a ba while appearing to yugi (not while possessing him obv). hes comically small and unintimidating but still a force to be reckoned with. its pretty much just a visual au and im genuinely surprises no ones done it yet?

akh-atem is different, i havent watched dsod yet so maybe that would fuck with canon compliance but. if you dont know, an akh is a complete, elevated soul created by a special union between the ka and the ba. i dont believe everyone in egypt got this treatment (it was a very specific and lengthy process) but atem is a cool guy he deserves it. Mildly fucks with canon but i imagine some of the remaining tomb keepers perform the necessary rituals until the creation of his akh is complete.

though atem was already chilling in the afterlife as a ba, now hes like. one with the gods. a being of pure light with insane amounts of power that can travel between earth and the afterlife (bas can already do this but shhh). what is he going to do with this? probably pay the living he knew a visit. sometimes. domino city is a bit far from egypt and atem is really trying to relax now. still, he is watching over yugi in this state and trying to keep him safe even if yugi has no idea. he can also appear in dreams! and i think he can make himself known when he is visiting earth though 1. he is scary 2. he is selective so he doesnt ever do it unless he has to. i have a scenario in my head where yugi visits atems tomb and tries to give him something (cards maybe) abd then hes like. damn i miss him. and atem flies down from the heavens as bright as the sun and jyst shows up in front of yugi and is like HOLY SHIT YUGI HI and yugi is reasonably horrified at first. luckily being a powerful ascended spirit doesnt change your personality

INFO on the akh design in question:

- i had to make my own buuut it resembles an ibis (has a human head of his likeness too). However akhs can take any form they desire. atem can look like his old self if he wants. you just csnt really fly around like that ykno

- usually, only his two Main Eyes arw open. his forehead eye opens if hes doing some scary magical spirit shit (his other two will be closed).

- his wing eyes only open if he is showing himself to someone (letting them be able to see him, making himself known), or threatening someone (im sure he has his reasons). each individual wing eye produces INSANE amounts of light and when all are open van give him the appearance of being a pure white glowing being. It will also burn your retinas right off. he is one with the sun after all

- atem is human in the afterlife. he only becomes a fucked up shadow bird if he needs to travel down and hang out on earth and stuff

#yugioh #yami yugi #pharaoh atem #etc etc i love attention #gem art #FUCK you (turns your pharaoh into a funny bird)

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inspofromancientworld · 30 days ago

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Legendary Creatures: Ghosts

A belief in a spirit or soul that exists after a person or animal dies goes back as far as the written record and likely has origins in prehistory. Funerary practices seem to indicate a belief in the continuation of life by burying a person with objects that were used in daily life as well as practices like ritual feeding or clothing of ancestors. Since the belief in a continuation of some kind after death exists in so many cultures, we know that this belief goes far back in human history, perhaps even before modern humans expanded out of Africa. Many experts think that the awareness of mortality gave rise to a belief that some part of humans continues beyond death.

In cultures that didn't develop writing, or those whose written history was destroyed by colonizers, it's difficult to know what they believed about ghosts, spirits, or what happened to a person after death. We rely on more modern records by people who might view them as 'exotic' or might genuinely respect them and more recently by the people themselves. With that in mind, let us explore what we know about what people thought about ghosts in antiquity around the world.

Africa:

Among the Igbo people, man is both physical and spiritual in nature and the spiritual is eternal. The Akan see humans as having five parts, the Nipadua (body), Okra (soul), Sunsum (spirit), Ntoro (character from the father), and Mogya (character from the mother).

By Shyamal - Own work, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=5710972

The most well known in Africa is likely the Ancient Egyptian mythology because they wrote down their belief systems. They believed that a person was made of eight parts, the Khet (physical body), the Sah (spiritual body), Ren (name/identity), Ba (personality), Ka (double/vital essence), Ib (heart), Shuyet (shadow), Sekhem (power/form). The collective name for the spirit of a dead person once they entered the afterlife is the Akh. This idea was likely well developed early in the Old Kingdom (2700-2200 BCE). One of the ceremonies performed by priests after death, which was thought to happen when the Ka left the body, was to open a person's mouth to release the Ba to join the Ka, which creates the ꜣḫ (akh).

The afterlife was thought to be like the the mortal life but more resembling the journey of the Sun as it descended into Duat (underworld), meeting the mummified body of Osiris. Often, the mummified body was addressed as 'Osiris'. The ba, depicted as a featureless shadow as it left the body at dawn, would go about its work during the day and return to the body at night, as they believed the Sun returned to Osiris at night. Those who completed some form of quest or task were thought to become stars. The Book of the Dead, which was called the Book of Going Forth by Day by the Ancient Egyptians laid out how to avoid a second, permanent death. As written in the tomb of Nekhen of the Eighteenth Dynasty had written on his tomb as translated by James Peter Allen, American Egyptologist, 'Your life happening again, without your ba being kept away from your divine corpse, with your ba being together with the akh … You shall emerge each day and return each evening. A lamp will be lit for you in the night until the sunlight shines forth on your breast. You shall be told: "Welcome, welcome, into this your house of the living'.

During the Twentieth Dynasty (1189-1077 BCE), the idea of a roaming ghost, which could cause nightmares, guilt, or illness, began to be recorded. These arose when tombs weren't taken care of by prayers and offerings. The ghost could also be asked for benefits or to inflict punishments by making specific prayers and offerings.

As other areas of Africa didn't really have written records that we can decipher or find today, it's difficult to know what was the difference between gods and ghosts.

Mesopotamia:

Ghosts of the dead were known as gidim (𒄇) in Sumer, which became eṭemmu in Akkad. This word means something like gig (to be sick) and dim (a demon) or maybe gi (black) and dim (to approach). Sumerian is an agglutinative language, so different syllables can mean different things and were written differently and could be written differently when they were joined together and their endings were changed.

By Gennadii Saus i Segura - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=126738193

The memory and personality of the person went into the gidim, which was created at the death of the person, which then went to the Irkalla, the underworld and realm of Ereshkigal (𒀭𒊩𒌆𒆠𒃲), 'Queen of the Great Earth', goddess of the underworld with her husband Nergal (𒀭𒄊𒀕𒃲). To reach Irkalla and Anunnaki (𒀭𒀀𒉣𒈾), the gods of judgment who gave the laws of the dead and assigned fates to the dead. In addition to this, the sun god Utu would visit the neatherworld nightly and punish those who harassed the living and share offerings with the forgotten.

Offerings to dead relatives of food and drink by surviving family was said to comfort the dead. The forgotten would suffer and be able to cause physical and mental illnesses on their relatives who don't remember them if there are relatives that remain. Those who died in ways that their body was unrecoverable would have no ghost.

China:

By Unknown artist, Ming Dynasty - http://www.鹿山會館.tw/EastCapital/viewthread.php?tid=419&sid=ZzXrihhttp://www.shanximuseum.com/collect/topic/shuiluhua.html, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=138953197

Among the Chinese, with the widespread culture of ancestor worship, they believed that ancestors could be reached through a medium for aid in many areas of life. The still celebrated Hungry Ghost Festival (Zhongyuan Festival in Taoism, Yulanpen Festival in Buddhism) is also a part of ancestor worship as it's believed that on the day of the festival, spirits are able to cross from the underworld to the mortal world. Ghosts in Chinese cultures have many terms, generally related to guǐ (鬼 in Mandarin) such as guilao (鬼佬) for a ghost man, which is used as a pejorative for foreigners. Even nightmare (魇 yǎn) is related to the idea of ghosts.

Part of the belief encompassed in ancestor worship is the concept of the spirit being comprised of yin and yang, which was called hun (魂) and po (魄). Po, the yin component, is related to the grave and hun, the yang component, is related to ancestral tablet. When the person dies, the spirit divides into three, the po component remaining with the grave, the hun component going to the ancestral tablet, and the third component goes to judgment. The hun and po components can only survive as long as they are remembered and nourished. Eventually, the hun and po move on to the underworld, a neutral place, though the hun visits heaven first. Chinese ghosts are able to affect the mortal world, even to the point of murdered people could exact revenge on those who killed them.

Taoism became the majority religion during the Han dynasty (206 BCE- 220 CE) and Buddhism during the Tang Dynasty (681-197 CE). For a long time, these two belief systems were accepted together, syncretism (the mingling of beliefs) leading to a more complex system of beliefs with the ancestor worship of Taoism and traditional Chinese religion blending together with the belief in reincarnation found in Buddhism to create something unique with ten types of ghosts, one of which, the hungry ghosts (饿鬼, èguǐ), can be further divided into nine types.

Mediums were called mun mai poh (simplified 問米, traditional 問覡) which means 'ask rice woman' and is a pun for 'spirit medium' with different inflections. because the people coming to her would bring a cup of rice from their home so the ghosts could find and identify their family members. The medium helps to find out what the ancestor needs for the family's request (winning the lottery or getting into government housing). These needs are then burnt as paper effigies.

Japan:

By Sawaki Suushi (佐脇嵩之, Japanese, *1707, †1772) - scanned from ISBN 4-3360-4187-3., Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=5510196

Japan's concept of a spirit or a soul is called a reikan (霊魂) that enters a holding place until they recieve a proper funeral and funerary rites so they can then join their ancestors. Those who are murdered, die of suicide, don't have a proper burial, or are consumed by revenge, love, jealousy, hatred, or sorrow, the reikan becomes a yuurei (幽霊 meaning faint or dim soul or spirit), which can interact with the physical world if they are fueled by strong enough emotion. These spirits remain until proper rites are performed for them or they are able to resolve their emotional issue. The yuurei tend to haunt only at the 'midtime of the hours of the Ox', which is 2:00-2:30am and tend to be bound to certain locations.

Another type of ghost, one who had stronger emotions and are capable to causing physical harm in the mortal world, is the onryou (怨霊) which means 'vengeful spirit' (alternately wrathful, hatred, resentful, ruthless, envious, dark, fallen, or downcast). There are three notable people who became onryou so revered that they became known as the Three Great Onryou of Japan (日本三大怨霊), Emperor Sutoku (July 7,1119-September 14,1164), Taira no Masakado (early 900s-March 25, 940), and Sugawara no Michizane (August 1, 845-March 26, 903) who reportedly caused a lot of death and destruction after their deaths because of the resentment and anger they died with. They were elevated to kami (gods) and a Shinto shrine in an effort to appease them.

India:

By Roboture - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=18747046

In India, the Sanscrit word bhoota (भूत) usually referred a to the ghost of a deceased person. Exactly what they are, though, varies by region, community, and time period. They are usually seen as those who were too hung up on something that keeps them from moving on through to the next phase in existence, which also varies by tradition. The belief in bhootas is an important and deeply ingrained part of the culture of the Indian subcontinent

Bhootas avoid touching the earth because the earth is held to be either sacred or semi-sacred, have feet that face backwards, are able to shape-shift though they tend to be human shaped most of the time, cast no shadows, and speak with a 'nasal twang'. There are some bhoota that haunt houses, which then become 'bhoot bangalas' (bhoot bungalows), usually where they died or are emotionally attached to. Stories with bhootas in them tend to select the traits to create the most suspense. Bhootas are capable of haunting milk, to the point of seeking it out. If someone drinks that milk, they can become possessed, which is another frequently used trope in the stories.

To protect themselves, people could use water, iron, or steel at hand since bhoota fear these things, as well as the scent of brunt tumeric, the fibers of an herb called bhutkeshi (bhoota's hair), holy figures, and the sprinkling of dirt.

Kingdom of Israel and Judah and diaspora:

By Ephraim Moses Lilien (1874–1925) - Book of Job, appearing in Die Bucher Der Bibel, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=19447366

In the Hebrew Bible, there is a type of ghost called the owb (אוֹב) that's mentioned a few places. It relates to both mediums, with their connection to the dead and necromancy, such as when King Saul consults with the Witch of Endor to summon the spirt of Samuel, the prophet. Other places, it relates to shades, the spirits of those in the underworld.

In Jewish mythology and folklore, there is another type of ghost, that called in Yiddish a dybbuk (דיבוק), which comes from the Hebrew verb dāḇaq (דָּבַק), which means 'to cling' or 'to adhere'. These spirits are believed able to possess someone and to be the soul of a dead person. This type of ghost is first written of in the 16th century. The mezuzah (מְזוּזָה a specially inscribed parchment kept at doorways) is supposed to protect against dybbuk, a well hung one actually preventing a dybbuk from forming.

Greece:

By Eumenides Painter - User:Bibi Saint-Pol, own work, 2007-07-21, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=2453109

The ancient Greeks viewed ghosts 'as a vapor, gibbering and whining into the earth' as Homer wrote in the Odyssey and Iliad in the 8th century BCE. By the 5th century BCE, in classical Greece, ghost became something that could haunt people or places, for either good or ill, and were capable of interacting with the mortal world. They also performed ceremonies and sacrifices, including the pouring out of drinks, to make sure the spirits of the dead, which they viewed as shades, would not return to haunt their families. Shades (σκιά) were usually the spirit of the dead in the underworld and could be speak through oracles and could have divinity confirmed on them, like the Oracle of Ammon did to Hephastion, 'by far the dearest of all the king's friends' when Alexander the Great was 'inconsolable' after he died.

Rome:

By Henry Justice Ford - http://www.postershowcase.info/i1862812.html, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=11733112

Ancient Romans saw ghosts as a method of revenge by way of a curse being written on pottery or lead placed in a grave. They believed that ghosts could haunt locations, such as when Pliny the Younger wrote around 50 CE about the Stoic Athenodorus (who lived 100 years earlier) renting a house in Athens that was haunted. He deliberately sat up writing late. He saw a ghost wrapped in chains, which he then followed outside until the ghost pointed out a particular site. Athenodorus excavated the location and found a skeleton bound in chains. Once the skeleton was buried properly, the haunting ended.

One of the first skeptics to write their lack of belief was Lucian of Samosata, who wrote in the 2nd century CE. He wrote about Democritus (who lived about three hundred years earlier) lived outside the city of Abdera in Thrace deliberately to prove that ghosts didn't exist, even in the face of practical jokes, such as the young men of the city dressing up in 'black robes with skull masks'.

Central America:

By Vassil - Own work, CC0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=17841631

Aztecs believed that after death the soul moved on to one of three places, Tlālōcān (a Paradise reigned over by the rain deity Tlāloc), Mictlān (where the dead travel with Xolotl through nine levels, passing several challenges) and the Sun. Fallen warriors and women who died in childbirth became hummingbirds.

The Maya believed in a pair of collective ancestors, the '(grand)fathers and (grand)mothers' which inhabited particular mountains where offerings were meant to be given.

The Purépecha believed that monarch butterflies symbolized the movements of the dead to their afterlife as they migrated to their winter habitat in what is now Michoacán, near where they lived. Theyalso had a story of the ghosts of a princess Mintzita and her fiancé go to a particular cemetary every Noche de Muertos as the Spanish called it. On that night, now, people float candles on Lake Pátzcuaro as well as others. Michoacán is even now called el alma de Mexicho (the soul of Mexico).

#ghosts #ghost #ancient egypt #igbo #afterlife #akh #gidim #gui #guilao #reikan #yuurei #onryou #bhoota #owb #dybbuk #shades #ancestor worship #legendary creature

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professional-termite · 1 year ago

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Do you have any Jed and Octy couple headcannons? You probably do, I just wanna hear more about your fun headcannons!

- NATM anon

YESYEYS i tried not to turn my last hcs ask into all jedtavius but oooh boy

- they have "movie dates" watching stuff on larrys computer, but they only ever watch the same 10 movies so it usually just dissolves into them yelling at the screen. how romantic

- they both literally have no idea what theyre doing in their relationship. octavius is always way overly formal and makes every date announcement like theyre going to war or something. jed doesnt even try, he just drags octy to random places like "yep, were on a date now"

- teddy and larry are usually the ones that jed and octy go to for advice in their relationship. teddy because hes actually good at advice, and larry because his advice is usually terrible and they can laugh at him (larry tries to give good advice but he has literally never been in a lasting long term relationship. he has no idea what hes doing)

- if they ever get married, octy is wearing a skirt. not like a long one, probably a suit-skirt that goes down to his knees. i need to draw this at some point but ehh im too lazy

- larry got the suits by going through a bunch of different websites and scouring the entire internet. larry is in charge of planning food and outfits for the minis, akh plans the decorations and seating, and teddy is there to make sure the entire project does not go down in flames (need to write a lil fic about this sometime but im too lazy)

i would write down some more but i cant remember them because my head feels like its about to implode. sorry

#ask #asks #natm anon #natm #night at the museum #natm jedediah #natm octavius #natm jedtavius #jedtavius #headcanons #natm headcanon

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tachimichishrine · 1 year ago

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Okay sooooo I’ve been reading your stuff for a couple of days now and IM OBSESSED I love the way you write tachi so if it’s okay, could I request an x reader where the reader is a weapon’s engineer? bonus points if she’s a chemical engineer by profession IF YOU WRITE THIS THANK YOU SO MUCHHHHH have a great day

"blown away"

⫭◦⨝◦⫬

tachihara michizou x fem! chem eng! reader

warnings: none :) just fluff n plot, slight cursing n intended lowercase

a searing sting, ringing in ears, ash fluttering all in the surroundings; the world has become a wasteland, and you were nestled warmly in the safety of a suit designed to handle the radiation from the outside. you watched the blocks of metal melt lopsidedly, a displeased tsk accompanying your scowl at the failure. they were not meant to come apart so easily.

"goddamn it!" you yanked the zipper that lined your chest, tearing it off until the oversized suit was open enough to slump off. with a fury that caused every man watching you to clear their throats, become incredibly interested in a speck on their shoes or take a step back out of fear, you pulled off the costume and threw it to the ground. you even spat on it, grumbling vexedly, "that should've worked."

the admiral looked at you with a raised brow, clearly not impressed by your childish reaction. you couldn't care less; this was your one chance of hitting it big. you were hired by the government to create a chemical similar to sleeping gas capable of only targeting the enemy, except they didn't quite want their enemies to take a nap. you had a logical solution, and worked on it with your team for months; today was the demonstration to show all the important men what their money had been funding.

yes, what you did was despicable. you created weapons of mass destruction, turned simple assortments of molecules and rearranged them in a way that could turn a solider inside-out. however, the scope was beyond you; you simply made the tools, and their use was not up to you. many of your colleagues knew about the kind of iron stomach needed to work in this field, and no one ever said a word. you had a cadaver which you mutilated during trials of reactions with the flesh, and not a single person looked each other in the eyes during the tests. yet you all knew that you were more powerful than those who wielded the codes, those who held the guns and those whose whispers into a phone could turn an entire city to rubble. all because you had the ability to create such horrifying devices.

this one had been working up until today's demonstration. it was a highly pressurized container that, when detonated, would slowly disperse in the air and corrode everything except the metal blocks you coated in the other substance that would negate its effects, cancel out the reaction and subsequently keep the bearers intact. however, something seemed to have happened and the bearers were very much not intact.

you were now stripped of the protective gear, walking in the toxic chemicals freely like it was a breath of fresh air. the colonels and officials gawked at you from behind their protective screen, to which you snapped out of your fury and chuckled, seeming almost embarrassed. you didn't know which ones were up to date on abilities, but you decided that it wasn't your job to explain to them that you have the gift of immunity to toxic substances. the suit was a decoration, more than anything, designed to be worn by the rest of your team who were sulking behind you at the disappointing results.

"[_____], knock it off," one of them placed a hand on your shoulder and tried to bring you back to reality. "we were monitoring the conditions, so we'll just have to take a look to see what caused the error."

you scowled, not wanting to admit that they were right. with a shrug to get rid of their hand, you excused yourself and walked over to the pressurized door that separated you from your clients. you threw it open, your clothes starting to fray at the exposure (quite slowly, given that your sweat was doing a pretty good job at protecting them from the chemicals), and stormed inside. the man who'd initially approached you for this job - a nameless colonel, a man whose face you could barely remember - was walking away, disappointed. you didn't like the feeling of failure, but this added insult to injury.

yet, you barely had a choice to follow him and explain that this was a one-off, that your process and methodology was sound and would be peer-reviewed if it wasn't highly politicized and you could publish your work. you left everyone behind as you walked the hallways of the facility to find him.

of course the place was a maze. every hallway looked identical, every door and every room the same and god forbid you put a map somewhere. soon enough, the layout had engulfed you whole and there was nothing you could do to stop it except continue walking and hope you would get out, never mind find the admiral.

you caught a glimpse of a strongly built man, tuffs of white sprouting out the back of his head and you called out to get his attention, given that the way he was walking made it appear that he knew where he was going. he turned around; it was a living legend.

a chance encounter led to you babbling like a fan girl about how incredible the fukuchi ochi was, and he seemed to be enjoying the praise because he walked you down to his office and offered you hard liquor at 2 in the afternoon. you told him that alcohol didn't affect you (your body treated it like a toxic substance and isolated it from your system), but he thought you were exaggerating and challenged you to a drink-off. your day was already ruined from what had just happened, and you figured that this kind of opportunity doesn't come around every day.

you told yourself that it didn't matter and pulled yourself a seat with a grin.

turns out you were one lucky bastard.

even though you clearly beat him at his challenge, he seemed to take a liking to your spirit and heard you out when you explained your current situation. he must've made some calls or talked to some people, because your funding had not only not vanished the next day, but you were told it was tripling. you had a hard time convincing your coworkers that you didn't give the admiral one hell of a blowjob to make this happen.

you didn't dare venture through the facility and risk being locked out in an area where you didn't have clearance, so you just politely asked around for fukuchi's location in order to properly thank him.

it took a while, but you were told to head to some kind of training grounds at the back of the building. the place itself was mostly underground, given that most of the research happening was highly classified or highly controversial, so you were slightly surprised to find out people actually used the first floor. your clearance didn't let you get in, but you laundered around the door pretending to be on a phone call long enough for someone who did have clearance to open it and be careless enough to let you waltz in behind them.

once you reached what amounted to the backyard of the government facility, you saw fukuchi sitting down lazily, a hand waving around messily while he energetically said something at the two men who were doing alternating pull ups on a bar and a little girl who was doing one-handed push ups while smiling widely at him.

you stepped outside, a little uncertain of what you were intruding on given that it seemed like they were soldiers, but the entire group seemed to be painfully unorganized. despite this, you were set on thanking the old man for what he did, so you took another step.

a man was running towards you on the left, the sweat dripping down his arms and face signaling that he's been running for a long time, and you only heard his footsteps too late. he was zoned in and you were zoned out; your bodies collided and soon enough you were laying on the ground while he teetered on one foot and managed not to follow you downwards.

however, he looked pissed. "who the fuck are you?" he held his hand out, and a pistol levitated from who knows where to snap into his grasp, then pointed at your face.

an ability user. you put your hands up in a sign of innocence, reaching to your government id and pass to explain to him that you worked here and were just looking to talk to fukuchi in regards to your project. he didn't seem convinced.

"look," you sighed, slowly getting yourself up and dusting off the dirt from your clothes, "I didn't mean to run into you, so why don't you just let me walk on over there and talk to the guy?"

he glared at you as you did, and the other three soldiers (you presumed they were, even though you couldn't explain the little girl) noticed your presence and gave you about the same reaction as the redhead did. you regretted coming here, and told yourself that you would just thank fukuchi and get the hell out of here.

you waved at him cautiously, and began to thank him for getting you your funding.

he didn't know who the hell you were.

you knew he was drunk, but it was a logical assumption that he would at least remember your face vaguely, or would've made those calls while sober. apparently this wasn't logical, and right now you were ready to evaporate into the atmosphere and never return.

your brows were furrowed in confusion, and you stammered your way out while trying not to provoke the other people watching you. "I'm so sorry for disturbing you... ahem... hey, how's it going... I'm just gonna walk 'round ya ahah... uh... sorry..."

you ran out nervously before the redhead could point his gun at you again.

"oh my god, it was awful," you blabbered to your colleagues, recounting the story in vivid detail while burying your face in your palms and bending your torso onto the table. you had a chalkboard up with your new data, and screens were displaying models and atomic structures, since you were three days after the disastrous demonstration and still couldn't figure out what went wrong. "he looked at me like he'd never seen me in his life."

"you sure you didn't just hallucinate the whole encounter?" someone snickered, and you threw your empty coffee cup at them.

"yeah, it happens to me all the time when I forget to sleep for a few days. trust me, it's a sign of greatness."

"oh, shut up," you chuckled, glad you were taking your mind off of things. you all collectively decided to pick up another project in the meantime to show that you were indeed real engineers and could actually do your jobs properly. it was some kind of rocket launching mechanism, and you couldn't do your part until the basic concepts were made so you were just lounging around with the rest of your team, making paper airplanes and throwing them around.

so, you were doing absolutely nothing when the same man from yesterday walked in through the door.

he was wearing a uniform, unlike previously when he was wearing some more breathable clothes for training. he wasn't sweaty and breathing heavily either; in fact, he seemed to clean up quite well. you barely registered his face last time given the circumstances, but it didn't take very long for your posture to fix up and for you to try and fluff your hair in a reflexive response to how nice he looked. the solider seemed to be evaluating the room, your coworkers and you, then cleared his throat.

"your id said you worked in the weapons manufacturing division," he stated as some kind of greeting. you shot looks to the people sitting next to you, who got the hint that this was the guy you were talking about from before. you smiled at him as to not seem like you were guilty of something.

"yeah, I'm [_____]," you restated, hesitating between getting up and offered him your hand or just staying where you were. the latter felt safer, and you just gave him a short introduction of your team and what you did. "once again, I didn't mean to barge in yesterday, it was a misunderstanding. sorry about that."

he shook his head, a little relieved once he confirmed that you weren't some kind of spy or something. you noticed that he was a little more mellowed out while in uniform, almost like he was just angry yesterday because of all the running he did. you stared a bit too long at his features and let him say something you barely registered, turning around to leave.

your body acted alone and you sprouted up to your feet to follow him. "wait, your clearance isn't going to work here, let me-"

the door unclicked on its own and he shot you a coy smirk before leaving.

your leg bounced nervously as you sat down at an empty desk in an office that wasn't yours. weeks had passed, and the admiral was starting to value your team a bit more now that you had a few concept designs that proved valuable. for some reason, though, he called only you to come and meet him face to face.

that was nearly 30 minutes ago.

you didn't care much for punctuality, but people like him typically did so why on earth were you waiting so long? you couldn't leave, not when you had no idea what the meeting was about. so, you waited patiently and tried your very best not to explode out of your skin.

finally, a knock at the door that was ajar behind you. your head whipped around, and it wasn't the man you were expecting.

"commander fukuchi," you stated, shocked. "I thought my meeting was with..."

he laughed heartily as he took a seat, throwing himself onto the chair so vigorously you thought it would snap in half. "oh, don't mind him. I was told that since I left such a strong recommendation for you, I should hand-deliver this message."

you addressed the first part before the second. "you were told, sir? so you really don't recall us drinking together in your office?"

he laughed again, and you smelled the faint sweetness of alcohol on his tongue. figures. "another thing you shouldn't worry about, [_____]. I'm sure I meant what I said," he added with a nonchalant wave of his hand in the air.

trying not to let your 'don't meet your heroes' moment show too much, you mimicked his laugh and asked the second part of your question. "you mentioned hand-delivering a message?"

the message was actually an assignment: his military division called the hunting dogs were having trouble with their transportation pods. you thought this meant they had a car or something that was totaled, but no, it was an actual transportation pod. he led you out of the room to bring you up to some hangar where you saw the metal contraptions.

he did a really bad job at explaining how they worked, but the concept felt pretty self explanatory when you inspected it. fukuchi told you that some higher-ups are on his back to stop destroying these every mission, and he admitted with a chuckle and rub of the back of his neck that he and his subordinates don't take very well to having it malfunction.

you told him that you would take a look at it, and he burped as an affirmation and strolled out rather happy.

the project lasted a few weeks.

it was a hinge and wiring problem, things anyone with half a brain could fix in less than a day, but something stupid happened on your first day walking into the hangar to take a look at it.

the man from before was there.

he didn't seem like he wanted to be here, but it was just him so you assumed he was here on some kind of assignment, just like you. you greeted him with the same smile at the previous time, and he didn't bother to return it. he explained that he was here to help you get this thing fixed.

"are you... an engineer?" you raised a brow, careful with your words given that you knew nothing about him except that he was part of the deadliest military division in the country.

his reaction was hard to decipher, a scoff accompanying it when he flicked his wrist upwards and the transportation pod floated up in the air. "no, that's why I'm here."

ferrokinesis. you'd be lying if you said the ease with which he controlled such a large mass wasn't impressive, but it wasn't your place to irritate him even more by talking. you nodded an apology then got back to assessing the device.

you asked him to flip it onto its side, and he did. after you asked, you paused, realizing you still didn't have a name to call him. tachihara, he told you. your lips curled up and you told him that it was nice to finally put a name to his face.

the next day, you tried to speak with him more as you took down measurements in order to create the model and reprint the defective parts. only, he didn't seem to want to talk to you about himself at all, and you hit a dead end.

you kept trying.

it was a mission within a mission, a side quest to this assignment if you will, but you were determined to get to know him. you considered every time you got him to mildly chuckle to be a huge victory, and every word he said was another point for you. you still spent every other day working with your team on the defective toxic gas device, but this project was hand-delivered to you by a man who didn't give you a deadline or a budget, so you considered it a freebie to do anything you want for as long as you wanted. you decided just to redesign the entre thing, and the bonus of spending time with tachihara made it even sweeter.

instead of flat out asking him on a date, you settled for hanging out in the huge hangar, just you and him for hours. he admitted once that it was a nice break from all the weirdos in the hunting dogs, and you just laughed and told him that you liked the little escape too. sometimes you got him to give you feedback about your designs since he would be using these pods, and other times you just tried to scooch your body as close as possible to him while he told you about his most interesting spy missions.

by the time you couldn't stretch out the project any further, you got him to bend the metal plaques into the final shapes you needed and decided that maybe you really should ask him out.

you didn't. you just dropped the final designs onto the desk of your boss and went home regretting your decision.

you and your team finally got your device to work.

it was something about the concentration, about how you failed to account for the room pressure and how it would vary with the consumption of one substance into another, and you felt triumphant when, this time, you left your protective suit on and watched certain blocks of metal stay intact while others melted into nothingness. you walked over to the ones that were dissolving to run your fingers through it, what was once solid turning into butter as you raked your fingers through it. you gave your coworkers, who were watching from behind the screen this time, a thumbs up which they barely caught from the way they were jumping up and down and hugging each other from glee. the government officials seemed impressed, and it was hard not to burst from the feeling of pride at your success.

they greeted you once you traversed from one side to the other, telling you just how much this will serve the country and save millions. honestly, you knew that they couldn't care less about saving millions, and so did you; you were just happy your product worked.

you were even happier when you saw tachihara watching the entire thing from the corner, smirking at you with his arms crossed over his chest.

almost floating over to him, you asked him about a thousand questions about why he was here, how he knew that you'd be here, what he thought of the demonstration and if he'd want to go out on a date with you.

you had a whole lot of wins that day, but the one that had you smiling into your pillow that night was a three letter word.

"sssh, shut up, we're gonna get caught!"

you giggled even as you sealed his mouth shut with the palm of your hand, bodies pressed up against each other as you hid inside a janitor's closet.

tachihara was showing you around the entire facility, since you kept asking him about how he had clearance to go anywhere and everywhere without needing a badge. the first date, you took him out, but ever since then he's been showing you spots around the facility that no one ever goes to, ranging from the inaccessible roof to a very sketchy basement spot in which he said privacy was needed before kissing you for hours on end.

this time, you were venturing around a spot where neither of you were allowed and you'd heard footsteps coming from around the corner. you pulled him with you into the closet and could barely contain all of your giggles. he whispered that you were doing this on purpose, and you just pressed a kiss to his forehead as a response.

"you know," you said softly while waiting for the footsteps to disappear, "I never asked how the pods went."

"oh, teruko and tecchou destroyed it anyways," he chuckled. "you were given an impossible task, we all knew it from the start."

"well, thanks for letting me know now," you giggled and your hands rested gently at his hips.

you never thought you'd fall in love for any of the heartless government pawns that worked in the building, but no one could build a weapon so powerful over your heart than him.

#THANK YOU FOR BEING MY SECOND ASK AAAAA MORE ARE COMING IN WELCOME TACHI LOVERS #i want this blog to become tachi central that is my goal #SORRY THIS TOOK SO LONG BTW #omg i love writing for academic readers im tired of all the y/ns having no job no education no wonder you're getting kidnapped 24/7 hun #i personally have beef with chem eng but that's just me personally (and every other eng major) /lh #grumbles why did this not come out how i wanted it to #ending felt so RUSHED i may try to re-write or do a pt 2 bc i wanted to shove more fluff in it #real issue: tachi fluff is weirdly hard for me to write bc i keep almost creating smut #ok enough rambling in the tags #tachihara michizou #bsd tachihara #tachihara x reader #bungo stray dogs tachihara #tachihara michizou x reader #bsd x reader #bungou stray dogs #bsd #tachihara bsd x reader #tachihara #tachi fics #im unwell for them

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