#all mother mountain

[gentlyrowan]

welcome to

THE EMBRACE

The heart and most secure enclave of the Nora tribe is All-Mother Mountain and the surrounding valley, known as All-Mother's Embrace. It's located southwest of Devil's Thirst, which we know from a Vantage Point to be Colorado Springs. I don't know whether any official sources confirm it, but I am strongly of the opinion (and the Horizon Wiki agrees) that All-Mother Mountain is

CHEYENNE MOUNTAIN S.P.

The mountain and park are named for the indigenous people group forcibly removed from Colorado's Front Range in the 1860s.

A hundred years later, as a part of Cold War defense efforts, NORAD constructed a hardened facility inside the mountain – specially designed to be resistant to earthquakes, EMP, and nuclear explosions – for use as its command and control center. More recently, the Cheyenne Mountain Complex has additionally become a United States Space Force installation.

Fans of Stargate SG-1 will recognize the iconic entrance to the facility in which the show set the secret location of Stargate Command.

The Cheyenne people's history stretches from the Great Lakes to the Great Plains, with a large and influential role amongst the tribes of North America. Today, they make up two nations: the Northern Cheyenne in Montana and the Southern Cheyenne in Oklahoma.

The Cheyenne language is in the Algonquian language group, but the name Cheyenne derives from a Dakota Sioux exonym (a name given to a people, place, or language from outside that culture).

Learn more about the Cheyenne people here:

The complex is not open to the general public, but you can visit Cheyenne Mountain State Park if you're feeling nostalgic for the beautiful landscape of the earliest sequences of Horizon Zero Dawn.

Bonus "Personal Touch" Tour Guide Anecdote

My favorite thing about this location is how quickly my mom (not a gamer, but a Stargate fan and a word nerd) put it together when I told her this post-post-apocalyptic people group made their home atop a bunker in a mountain and were called the NORA.

1968 Public Domain Photo

[chlobody]

mountain muse

[stil-lindigo]

ashes to ashes.

a short comic about the day Ash was born.

Ash's story

Red and Wolf's story

notes:

--

all my other comics

store

[gentlyrowan]

Continuing our tour of the homeland of Aloy Despite the Nora, let's circle back to

All-Mother's Embrace

I've got a lot of good posts to reblog for you, from Horizon Zero Dawn fan art, to virtual photography from the game, to experiences shared by real world visitors of this beautiful land... like this one!

Thank you for the beautiful wind-in-the-grass clip, @theaurahunter!

If you missed my previous post about Cheyenne Mountain, you can catch up here to learn about its real world history and significance.

[faaun]

what draws you back to your country what draws you back to your land when i was a kid i told myself if i ever left iran i'd never go back 2 years into living in the UK i started looking at news on iran again 10 years in and i visited it for the first time again and today i heard an iranian mother talk in farsi to her child on the train to london the way my mother used to and i wanted to cry i wanted to ask her whether they're still cutting the mountaintops whether the lakes are still drying today i showed the person i was with pictures of waterfalls and palaces and forests and snow-white north something odd pulls me back with increasing force i can't ignore it ever again

[robo-dino-puppy]

horizon zero dawn (remastered) | all-mother mountain

[abluescarfonwaston]

Sorry just thinking about Phoenix and Iris. How he swallowed glass for her. How she didn't know. Turned away from it and covered her eyes. Couldn't bare to see what she knew her sister was going to do. Do to him. She knitted a sweater for him. It fits just right. He swallows glass and stares at her as she stands over a charred and smoking body. As she screams and points at him. Watches as he is hauled away. Can't even fathom what's going on. Why.

He swallows glass for her.

And I just can't help but think what would have happened if she'd asked him to leave instead. That last night before Dollie became Dahlia. If her shaking hand had reached for the necklace one last time. Shaking and pale. If he'd caught her hand then and asked what was wrong. How the words would clog in her throat but if she begged- if she asked- that they run away together, he would have.

He swallows glass for her.

Surely he'd have been willing to run away.

[serpentface]

FAMILY TITLES AMONG THE HILL TRIBES

(ft. various linguistic notes and tangents)

In-universe Brakul’s self-given title of ‘Red-Dog’ is Brakul 'ne-Dainh' in his native language (Bict-Urbinnas dialect of the Highland language group) and Brakul 'Chin-Reyla' in Wardi. Ne-Dainh/Chin-Reyla is not something he treats as or considers an actual surname or identity, just a self-styled nickname. He already has a title.

Family names/surnames are not a native practice among the Hill Tribes (though some clans or individual families have adopted this practice), and all traditionally use titles that designate immediate ancestry, clan and tribe. These full titles are officially given when one comes of age and are spoken aloud in ceremony (with the entire direct male and female lines listed by name, with most traditions expecting 12 generations of each being named).

The function is to cement one’s sense of place in the world, and their place in a direct ancestral line, which puts the person under the full watch and guidance of their ancestors. It's also a critical method of recording lineage- the long held practice of each person memorizing at least 24 total direct ancestors allows for very long, largely accurate records of family history to be kept, with some people able to trace their ancestry all the way back to initial settlement of the Highlands (or even beyond).

Brakul’s full title is:

“Brakul virsum Kuligan et Borunil an Briyonis ne-Taig an Bict-Urbinnas”

Which dead literally translates to “Brakul son of Kuligan and Borunil of the Foothills (of) Red-Cattle, of the North (Urbin/Erubin) River Valley” but has a much richer meaning in the original language.

"BRAKUL VIRSUM KULIGAN ET BORUNIL"

The actual meaning here is closer to ‘Brakul, son of Kuligan and his father’s fathers, and Borunil and her mother’s mothers’.

“Virsum” means ‘child (son/daughter) of’ (the gender is contextual), but implies the person’s status as a descendant of a full male and female line of ancestors. A different word is used if you’re just saying ‘I’m so and so’s son”. The title describes him as a son of his father Kuligan and of Kuligan’s male line, and of his mother Borunil and Borunil's female line.

All ancestors (within this particular system of kinship, divided into one direct male line from the father and one direct female line from the mother, and not including husbands from the female line or wives from the male line) are invoked and credited with the word ‘virsum’. Speaking it as part of the personal title is part of the routine and necessary honoring of one’s ancestors, who watch over their descendants from the afterlife and can temporarily return to the land to guide and protect (and sometimes punish, or teach sharp lessons to) the living.

"AN BRIYONIS NE-TAIG"

The actual meaning here would be understood as ‘clan/people of the foothills where cattle are lit red by the setting sun'.

‘Briyonis’ is the word for ‘foothill’, citing his clan’s specific location being the foothills that form the slopes of the north Urbin river valley. He is of a lesser clan within the powerful North Urbin River tribe. His clan benefits from close affiliation to their more powerful ruling clans located directly in the river valley, which grants them access to a greater variety of cultivated foods, but their actual position in the foothills still renders them predominantly reliant on cattle for subsistence. Clan names referencing cattle or horses are very common, given their frequent centrality to life.

The ‘ne-Taig’ literally means ‘red cattle’, but the ‘ne’ color word for red specifically invokes shades of red seen in and cast by a rising/setting sun. This red cast is culturally regarded as a unique beauty and evocative (and part of the name) of the solar god Hraighne. The foothills his clan is physically located on are a vantage point from which the western horizon is not fully obscured by mountains, and they experience very striking sunsets and are directly touched by the light. This is fairly unique to this location, and is invoked in the clan name and identity. ‘Ne-Taig’ here suggests a visual of grazing cattle illuminated red by the sun as it crosses the horizon.

‘Ne-Dainh’ carries the same implication, a dog illuminated red by setting sunlight. The Wardi language does not have a comparable word for a sunlit red and ‘Chin-Reyla’ really does just mean ‘(orangeish) red dog’ (‘reyla’ is specific to orangey-red colors, which is the closest match he could get. There’s no way to impart the meaning of ‘sunlit-red dog’ in Wardi that is non-clunky enough to be appropriate for a name).

"AN BICT-URBINNAS"

‘an Bict-Urbinnas’ is fairly simple, Bict means ‘north’, and 'Urbin' is the name of the specific river that stems from a northern and eastern tributary. This river has a very ancient name (or a derivative of one) that predates settlement by the Hill Tribes, and its exact meaning is lost.

The root -(n)nas designates a river valley, but has strong implications of being an esteemed and bountiful place, rather than solely a literal geographical descriptor (as the river valleys are centers of power and trade in the highlands). It may be a loanword from the Wardi language family, as its usage is VERY similar in form and function to the Wardi -(n)nos, which also suggests a place of esteem and bounty (more specifically having connotations of a kingdom).

’An’ literally means ‘of’, but in the specific sense of describing the place and identity of a collection of people. ‘an Bict Urbinnas’ would be understood in speech as ‘of the north Urbin River Valley (people)’. The clans historically settled in and around the valley of the North Urbin River form the totality of the Bict-Urbinnas tribe.

The ‘Urbin’ word predates the contemporary Wardi name ‘Erubin’ for the river, the latter of which invokes the semi-mythological founding figure Erub, who himself was of a Wardi tribe located downriver to the south of the Highlands. The real historically extant ‘Erub’ was most likely named Urub after the river, with his cited name shifting over the centuries in folklore, and the Wardi name for the river shifting with it.

‘Erubin’ as a corruption of ‘Urbin’ functions very well in Wardi language due to ‘-bi/bin’ denoting something as a ‘gift’, usually in a more metaphorical sense. ‘Erubin’ is understood as meaning ‘(The river that is) Erub’s gift’, and the Erubin/Urbin river is a key tributary to the much larger Black river, one of the key rivers that feeds the region's wetter and more fertile west. This 'gift' meaning also occurs in the name of the southeastern Imperial Wardi city-state Erubinnos, which is understood as meaning ’((The kingdom that is) Erub’s gift’. He is considered to have conquered and taken the land (from the core city's actual founders, the Wogan people) and established a kingdom there in the early days of warring Wardi tribal monarchies.

[a-god-in-ruins-rises]

i miss everything so much

[swan2swan]

Thinking about the claim that "Nightsisters don't raise younglings", and wondering if it--oh right, I have a whole game to play with a Nightsister, don't I?--is another classic Star Wars example of "Well, we saw one example of this, so now that's just the Default."

[newpathwrites]

My mom made an offhand comment on the phone about how we have to do things that scare us.

I responded, “Why? Why should I traumatize myself for something that doesn’t improve or benefit my life in any way?”

I think I broke her brain. She did not have an answer for that.

Btw, the context of this conversation was ridiculous, but I think I caused her a philosophical crisis.

[opens-up-4-nobody]

...

[pinkrosealice]

What is a Bell if not an inverted Grail? ........... aka I think there must be some sort of connection Between The Red Grail and Ys.

[unionizedwizard]

randomly remembering that i spent like. 10 years? 5/6 to 15/16 yo. wearing literal 19th to early/mid 20th century nightgowns on a daily basis in the warmer months (april-september). for some reason. like floor-length white gowns with embroidered collars and all. there were various models and colors and lengths and shit. they were passed on to my mother by the 10000000000 Ancient Italian Ladies she was learning her italiaboo ways from and like, all of these gowns were genuine period pieces their mothers and aunts and even grandmas (!) had worn when they were my age. (you know like. the eternal condition of "children's clothes get less worn down than adults' clothes since they usually grow them out pretty quickly"). and since they ALL had heaps of Old Unwanted Clothes in their attics (acute case of "never throw anything away" syndrome) they were ELATED to have found a victim period clothing enthusiast and dumped entire suitcases worth of various Ancient Attire on my mother (and, relatedly, on me). and then i wonder why everyone thought i was WEIRD!!! i was talking like urianger AND dressing like him too!!!

[robo-dino-puppy]

horizontober 2023 | 3: recognize

greetings, dr. sobeck. you are clear to proceed.

[mishy-mashy]

Given the way BNHA genetics work, where the kids look the most similar to their mothers, Shinomori might have been Bruce's nephew

Y'know, I didn't think about that, but yeah- a lot of characters look like their moms (Midoriya, Bakugo, Uraraka, Jiro, Koda, etc)

I actually think they might've been cousins. Subscribing to the idea of [most kids take after their mothers], maybe they're cousins through their mothers?

Having OFA for 18 years and dying at 40 means Shinomori received it when he was 22. Shinomori being 22 years old seems close to how old Bruce actually could've been when he was alive himself.

Shinomori being Bruce's nephew is a cute idea though. I still think they'd be close in age, but Hikage can call Bruce "Uncle" to mess with him

Hikage: Uncle-

Bruce: Please don't make me feel old.

An adult that's a few years younger than you, calling you uncle. So like. Bruce could've been the babysitter / older cousin / uncle to weirdo Shinomori and he's just so used to babysitting that it automatically translates over to patiently dealing with Kudo and being protective over him (+ anyone in his care)

(Bruce gave OFA away before he went to go fight, so he really was protecting what was put in his care [Yoichi + Kudo] so they didn't disappear with him. Even if it was just a responsibility and basically their last organ that happened to manifest consciousnesses)

Bruce has Kudo. Shinomori has Banjo. Both are shorter, more risk-taking people that lead the way, but need someone level-headed by their side because they might charge in otherwise.

If they're related, that means Bruce probably also ages well too. And it means Bruce also might have a baby face like Shinomori-

(They look alike. They're also very so cute)