#beyond nadir

[lethalfrogposting]

what? shut up and look at misusu for a moment

[haaaaaaaaaaaave-you-met-ted]

Nadir Kraken by Dan Scott

[mtg-cards-hourly]

Nadir Kraken

Artist: Dan Scott TCG Player Link Scryfall Link EDHREC Link

[catastrxblues]

the fact that i quoted so many of the guts lyrics wrong because i was basically keysmashing when i wrote them and i’ve only realized it now, a full 24 hours later, is going to do some damage to that small perfectionist part of myself. it’s like i can already hear her screaming

[apoemaday]

Lorelei

by Sylvia Plath

It is no moon to drown in: A full moon, river lapsing Black beneath bland mirror-sheen,

The blue water-mists dropping Scrim after scrim like fishnets Though fishermen are sleeping,

The massive castle turrets Doubling themselves in a glass All stillness. Yet these shapes float

Up toward me, troubling the face Of quiet. From the nadir They rise, their limbs ponderous

With richness, hair heavier Than sculptured marble. They sing Of a world more full and clear

Than can be. Sisters, your song Bears a burden too weighty For the whorled ear's listening

Here, in a well-steered country, Under a balanced ruler. Deranging by harmony

Beyond the mundane order, Your voices lay siege. You lodge On the pitched reefs of nightmare,

Promising sure harborage; By day, descant from borders Of hebetude, from the ledge

Also of high windows. Worse Even than your maddening Song, your silence. At the source

Of your ice-hearted calling -- Drunkenness of the great depths. O river, I see drifting

Deep in your flux of silver Those great goddesses of peace. Stone, stone, ferry me down there.

[starryeyed-seer]

What Lurks Within: 99 whispers and what they might mean

The 6th Coil of the Labirynth of Tigers is full of Mystery but some of the most intriguing are found in the rare occurrence of the sealed door. Investigating it reveals one of 99 texts depending on random chance. They're a mix of everything, from deep lore to literature references to invitations to join a monstrous polycule.

Below the cut, I'm going to look at all of them and some thoughts as to what they might mean.

Spoilers for everything.

I've sorted them by topic, aproximately, so we're starting with the coil and moving out from there.

---

The Story of The Sixth and Seventh Coil

A lot are clearly snippets from the love affair of the seventh coil, and the tiger keeper too. These get a shoutout for being unabashedly Pretty Horny in a perfectly monstrous, sensual way. Congrats whoever wrote those.

Once a tiger prince and a finger king fell in love, the tiger welcomed the fingerking to live inside him and they became a new entity, the Seventh Coil. Everything about the union was forbidden, and they were locked away out of fear in the Sixth Coil.

"—two kings apart and a king together and it is only right and proper that you kneel—"

The Tiger Prince+The Fingerking are both kings, of a sort. As the shared body of the Coil, they are still a king. Being in their presence causes an inclination to kneel.

"—amusing that they thought this a prison, and not a sanctuary—"

The Labirynth might be a prison, but it is also a safe place they may be together considering their union is Very Illegal. As much as the Coil is trapped, they are together (and not fully cut off from the outside world either)

"—presence is a joy at last, after time-outside-of-time spent with a recusant court—"

"—it would have been better if they knelt of their own free wills—"

The tributes sent into the Coil exist as the 'court', and seem lost in a dream-like haze, which the liminal Is and Not nature of the Sixth Coil causes.

"—o lover, I see thee only in mirrors—"

"—the labyrinth has been so very cruel to you, dearest—"

The Tiger Keeper encountered the Coil in dreams, and fell in love. Seeing one's lover only in mirrors also can refer to the Prince/FK affair.

"—Consort dearest, your eyes will fill with scales—"

Being possessed by a fingerking changes one's eyes, but this also reminds me of eyeless skulls: the change of the nadir, where skulls will grow plating to cover the eyes entirely from enough exposure. Considering the links between light and sight, I do wonder if this is related: your vision of the world will change forever, away from that of regular vision (and the way Judgements prefer you to see the world?)

"—your devotions reached us on the dreaming airs, so sweet upon our tongue—"

"—rest among my coils. You have travelled far to be here—"

"—show me your paws; let me test thine sharpness—"

"—claws of silver and eyes afire—"

"—and of your pelt I shall make my bed—"

—pierce me, run me through, let my blood wash over your fur—

"—sip my venom; let me into your vein—"

"—and in these knots what limbs are bound—"

"—do you shiver as I bind you?—"

"—tighter and tighter until your bones collapse—"

"—and with this knot, I take thee—"

"—nothing to fear but each other—"

"—of banded fur and speckled bands—"

"—for a tiger to change his stripes—"

"—do you love what you have become?—"

"—are you sated?—"

"—there exist no two hearts that cannot be joined—"

Do I need to say anything about these.

Parabola and Dreamin'

Parabola is the home of Fingerkings, and where Tigers conduct their sacred war against them to keep the waking world safe, a duty they were raised up for by Stone herself.

—those cold seas beyond the edges of Parabola, where dreams die—

Parabola seems to be only part of the 'Is-Not', or an aspect of it. For example, Irem isn't what Is, but isn't Is-Not either. I'm not sure what this means: perhaps a link to the Slow River.

—the weeping pus of dead dreams—

—the dense dreams of the extinguished—

There's a lot of focus on dead/th dreams, and I have a theory on that I'll get to. Let's just enjoy how many there are.

—the extinguished dreams of the one they drowned—

Oh this is easy, that's Mr E------ (violently silenced by the Masters)

 —the black dreams of flukes, the icy dreams of catankeri—

Many flukes are on a whole bitterly angry about the deal they made with the Bazaar long ago. While rubbery men, their creations, dream of the Sea of Spines, Lorn-Flukes (the pissiest ones) are probably in darker dreams. Cantankeri are from Sunless Skies, in the High Wilderness, very grumpy isopods creatures which attack anything they dislike (most things)

—the faceless dreams of Snuffers—

Snuffers were long ago exiled from the Garden after the first Snuffer, the Thief-of-Faces, stole diamonds from Stone's womb and created Mt. Nomad as a 'weapon to serve its hate'. We don't really know a ton about what went on here. The Thief-of-Faces made the Snuffers in the Garden, but seems to have come from outside it. What is it? What does it want? Unknown. Hate. Snuffers are shapeshifters who can remove people's faces and wear them, so their dreams being faceless is likely because they lack a 'true face'. Faces/lacking is a reoccurring theme in FL tied to identity, with one of the things the Sapphir'd King requires before consuming souls in SSkies being the removal of one's Face and Name.

—if the Sun has a skin, does the Moon—

The Parabolan sun is called The Skin Of The Sun, it was made during the second city and is a glass bulb of iron, glass, and Cosmogone light. The Moon in Parabola resembles a sleeping cat, but we know little else of it. It's never been called 'the skin of the moon'.

—the brass from which their sun was forged—

The Skin of the Sun was forged, but it's never been called brass. Brass is devil associated, you could also call the orange-ish colour of Cosmogone 'brassy', but this is an odd reference.

I FORGOT ABOUT THE SUN THE SUN THE SUN THESUNTHESUNTHESUNTHESUN---

(thanks to @barnabusbarnabus for noting the dawn machine is made of brass!!)

—our caught kin in their galleries and prisons—

'Serpent Galleries' are a way of containing FKs. In stone, I think, I'm not 100% on the specifics but it's certainly a way of trapping them.

—and what blood seeps from their Boil—

The Boil of Calamities is a notable Fingerking who guards the Dome of Scales and the Parabolan Sun, AKA The Skin of The Sun. I'm not sure about it bleeding.

—to knot, to boil, to conjoin, to grow, to blister— 

Fingerkings have a tendency to join together into Congregations, many FKs becoming one complicated knot-entity. The 7th Coil is knotted like this in a way.

It's notable how often this is a reoccuring theme in FL: rats have rat-kings, spiders have spider-councils, there's a lot of creatures out there who present power through unionizing into some form of joined/hiveminded entity.

—the sourceless source of the Writhing River—

The Writhing River is in Parabola, and made of snakes. (There's non-fingerking snakes in Parabola, FK may be more the 'royalty' of sneks). You travel to the source in becoming a Silverer, where you find a rock one snake at a time emerges from, silver trees, and cosmogone sap you made your glasses from.

—can tell you why the Hanging Mountains despise the Smoking Sea—

Places in Parabola, I couldn't tell you why they hate each other though.

—a banner of shed skin—

Parabola is dominated by war, banners and snakeskin, pretty straight forward.

—a hollow shell for hollow kin—

Hard to say exactly. FK can't exist in reality without a vessel, and part of their history with devils is the fact devils are hollow.

—seven marches for seven cats, along the borders of dreaming—

Stone gave cats (and tigers) a mission to protect humanity from FK and the Is-Not, watching over the borders of dreaming. Seven is the number. 7 cats specifically occurs in the dreams you get after drinking Hesperidean Cider, in the 'dreams of the Garden'

The woman stands, her work done. Seven holes in the rich, springy soil. Seven neat mounds. All seven together The woman whistles, and cats slink out of the trees. They play, tumble and purr. Seven cats. The woman is overjoyed. She embraces you. She starts gathering the cats, near the holes.

—she who gave them the spear—

—our spear went slither-slice—

—not come to bring a sword, but a spear—

Spears come up in two places, both might be related: There's the spear the cats have, which was 'liberated from the Sleeping King'. it's used in Light Fingers to crack the Skin of the Sun and is a sacred relic to them.

There's also "a sky-spear" which Might Be A Thunderbolt. I'll get to the Storm connection later but I'm mentioning it now.

Kings and reality and unreality

—Parabola, and the hypocrisies of its creation—

Oh boy!!! LET'S GO! you know how crazy I am about Judgement lore.

Parabola being a 'hypocrisy' is expressed a lot. With Judgements dictating existence and deciding what Is, they're responsible for the line of what Is-Not, and likely the reason Fingerkings aren't allowed to exist.

—admitted unreality so they would not have to fix reality—

So. In ruling reality, the Judgements may have exiled things which didn't belong in their vision of what Is, and created the idea of What Isn't as a way to deal with that. Parabola may be then a dumping ground, or aftereffect of how Judgements prune reality to suit their ideal, hidden away by Being Illegal so others won't realize the reality they control is innately flawed.

—the place where they bury their mistakes—

The Neath has been referred to as something like this a lot. The 'their' may again be Judgements, and Parabola could be where mistakes are buried.

—no king has ever made a law without wishing for exceptions—

Judgements are Kings. They present as infallible gods, but they aren't. They're definitely hypocrites.

—none live by their own rules. It is not only the Mountain's parent who sins—

An accusation that (likely) Judgements do not follow the rules they enforce on others. With that in mind, 'the mountain's parent' is almost certainly the Sun, Sol, rather than the other parent of the Bazaar. The Bazaar is a sinner, but the Sun is the one who still acts as a proper Judgement while having had a secret affair and hiding his daughter in the basement.

—the forsaken products of furtive experiments—

Similar to 'burying their mistakes'. The Neath has been referred to as the Sun's experiment, it's a hiding place of illegal Shames, it's not a far reach to suggest this might be talking about the Neath. It also may be the case Parabola is like this for Judgements.

—what Law forbids, and what dark abides—

The stars have strict laws, but you can get away with a lot in the dark.

—they war as they play, toying, feinting—

Part of other clues around the Sixth Coil is the suggestion the war between FKs and Tigers is a false one or unnecessary one. They're in an ancient, endless war serving ancient forces and grudges... but why must it be this way?

—of dream, they made a cage—

Calling the 'they' here to be Judgements. Parabola is a cage for the Is-Not. Dreams are a prison for what can never be.

—and shapes are dreams before they are born—

But where do dreams come from? What does this mean?

—the burning dreams of wayward words—

—the words afire and the words excised—

—sulphurous and thought-executing fires—

The Correspondance is a language of fire, and the language of reality-defining Judgements. There's three references here to words being forbidden, exiled, violently stopped.

There's been plenty of assumptions and guessing going on throughout this, but here's my big swing:

Thoughts, dreams, words which cannot be by Judgement law are what make up Parabola. Fingerkings themselves may be some aspect of those exiled ideas, or born of them. I keep thinking about the name Fingerkings and the fact Judgements are also kings.

Could they be at all, y'know... the fingers... of Kings...?

Stars burn without end, creating eternal light and in most cases eternal day. Do stars sleep? I doubt it. Do stars dream? Not in sleep.

Do you think stars might want things which cannot be? As much as they shape and dictate reality, they obey the law of each other (to some degree, what with the hypocrisy). What happens then, to daydreams? To forbidden desires? Perhaps those things are burned before they can be born, exiled to unreality before they corrupt the Is.

—a cracked and broken Curve—

Reality, the Is, is called the Curve. It's called this extremely rarely, with my first immediate source being one of the endings of SMEN. It makes sense though: if reality is a Curve, than the reflection is another Curve, forming a Parabola. It's not been called cracked and broken before, but especially with SSkies there's an idea of the cosmos failing and dying. The stars are dying. They can't keep this idea of reality together like they used to, no matter how hard they pretend.

I have another thought on FKs and Judgements, but it involves

Storm!?

—eldest brother, eater-of-aeons—

Storm is an Aeginae, a cosmic dragon which consumes time. He's dead. There's another aeginae in the Neath, but I doubt we're talking about Nook here. Dragons are 'mercenaries' of the stars, and specifically are said to have an 'ancient pact' with them, which is different to how most being who serve Judgements are referred to.

Eldest brother is not something I believe has ever been connected to Storm before though.

—the thunder speaks not to us, my love—

—the mouths of thunderheads—

—the invisible worm, that flies in the night in the howling storm—

The fact there's so many of these connected to Storm really interests me. Especially since I'm about to add a few more. Storm being dead makes him 'invisible', one could say, and language-wise there is very little separating Worm from Wyrm. In fact, you can extend that out a bit: Dragon=Wyrm=Worm=Serpent=Snake.

Aeginae have a shared mother, the Burrower Below, who is said to gnaw at the roots of the world, something which invokes Níðhöggr, a dragon/serpent from Norse mythology. Storm is connected to Norse motifs in other ways, like the urchin Valkyrie.

The use of 'eldest brother' above also means we can tie some of the whispers that refer to siblings and family potentially to Storm:

—pale and wriggling imitations of he who hatched first—

—a thousand thousand siblings— 

—do you see me, siblings? Do you hear— 

The latter is the Coil calling out to FKs, but the link between 'siblings' 'eldest brother' and 'he who hatched first' seems like... something. Especially when you consider what dragons do, which is eat time.

—a thing that eats is a useful thing, if its hungers can be directed—

In Firmament, at one point there's a bit of an illegal timeline hanging around, and it is consumed by Storm. Beyond eating time as a concept, dragon's role may be to eat forbidden timelines. What pact do the Aeginae have with the Stars? Perhaps it's a mutual one: the dragons eat and exile all timelines the stars do not approve of, leaving one Is, and dragons in turn get lots of tasty treats.

Perhaps then Fingerkings are related to this. Born of eaten timeline which can never be, meaning they can never be. Related to dragons, but never allowed to be them. Maybe up close an Aeginae is just a billion tightly wound serpents. They do have enough eyes for it.

Other Lore Bits

—clocks, maps, glass, breath, hearts—

Treacheries!! These are ways the Neath isn't quite Right, the way existence can be a bit unreliable. Basically. The treachery of maps is why distance and location are unreliable or inconsistent. The one of clocks is why you can do an action which the story says takes 3 weeks but still have it be Auguest 22nd at the end of it. There's said to be seven of them, and 'hearts' is new to the list.

—all shall be well and all shall be well and all manner of thing shall be well—

This is a common phrase that appears all across FL in a variety of ways. The Bazaar is often linked to it but so is everyone else. It's from Julian of Norwich

—Salt spoke to us before he left, but we do not remember—

Omg hiiii Salt!! The notion Salt spoke to the Seventh Coil is a mysterious one. How, when, and why did he stop by? Who's to say. After, he exited east out of the universe

—when the Nadir touched the Zenith—

The Nadir is the place of forgetting, full of irrigo, and part of what hides the Neath from Judgements so well. The Zenith is on the roof. I'd bet it's a place of remembering, but we haven't seen it yet. It's full of scribes. When they touched would be before the Neath was carved out of the earth.

—the cleaving-places where gravity is shorn—

Gravity is surprisingly consistent in the Neath, for being a rather lawless place. There's some idea of messing with and changing it using red science. The use of 'cleaving-places' calls to mind the roof to me, and the idea of the Nadir/Zenith once touching.

—needles to bind, bones to fold, glue to keep—

Very evocative of the Librarians in the Stacks, part of Firmament. There's much to the idea of people, timelines, realities as books, so there may be something to 'bind' and 'keep' here: laying down exactly what Is and Isn't by the process of archiving and defining it. Perhaps

—amalgamy that begat the Hound of Heaven—

Not totally sure still what happens when you 'Breed' monsters in the Labirynth, but this is how the Hound of Heaven is made: a snake that sniffs out devils. the amalgamy here is the act of creating a weird hybrid offspring, and similar to the creation of the 7th coil in that way.

—no mouth—

oh hey no-king :) This is a phrase related to the Discordance.

—from the First, a bronze mirror—

—from the Second, a dream of sunlight—

—from the Third, the taste of blood—

—from the Fourth, iron bars—

—from the Fifth, a craving of feathers—

The bronze mirror means 'the first mirrors' aka the entrance to Parabola. We didn't have perfect glass mirrors for a long time historically.

The dream of sunlight is the creation of the Parabolan Sun.

The third city is notable for being when the god-eaters and Mr Eaten occurred, though that's less Parabola related.

The fourth city was marked with a lot of conflict with Parabola. I'm assuming this is connected to that somehow.

I don't know what the craving of feathers means. I immediately think of flight, the desire to ascend, icarus, but how that links specifically to London and Parabola I'm not sure.

—pay with a little of the Will-Be rendered into the Might-Have-Been—

This is from if you take a certain Terrible Deal in Irem. Irem is 'will be',. 'What might have been' could be Parabola, could be the Stacks, could be something else.

—a lie, of course. But all lies can be made true, in time—

The division between true and false comes up often. What is true? Who decides it? A king can lie and that lie can become reality.

Literary references

Shoutout to house-of-mirrors for pointing out most of these. I. don't know my Old Proper English Literary references very well </3

—in that sleep of death, what dreams may come—

Hamlet. The dreams of the dead can be visited with Cardinal's Honey, or black honey, though those dreams seem to be unique to the honey rather than 'the dreams of people who are dead'.

—to break one's staff; bury one's book—

The Tempest. Very evocative of giving up power and leaving it behind, as it is in the original context.

—blow, winds, and crack your cheeks! rage—

King Leer. Also about storms and raging, like a certain dragon we know!

—vaunt-couriers to oak-cleaving thunderbolts—

King Leer again, from the same scene. Few notable words to FL here: thunderbolts for Storm, but also courier relating to the Bazaar. (I doubt in this case courier means the bazaar though, just pointing out)

—shall I compare thee to a moonlit night—

Sonnet 18, originally is 'summer's day'. Moonlight represents possibility and dreams.

—but a walking shadow—

Macbeth.

—you have but slumbered here—

Midsummer night's dream. Link obvious.

—did he who made the Lamb make thee—

The Tyger, by Willaim Blake. Poem was referenced with the reoccurring dreams had during the Estival. Lamb like this usually means Jesus, it in full context of the poem is a line like 'did god who made the goodness of the lamb also make the ferociousness of the tiger? why?'. The poem also has a line of 'When the stars threw down their spears' which might be relevant to the several mentions of spears already covered.

EDIT:

"—of banded fur and speckled bands—"

Sherlock Holmes short story!

—the invisible worm, that flies in the night in the howling storm—

The Sick Rose by William Blake!

Other dregs

—what you think is a labyrinth may be a maze—

A labyrinth is traditionally actually a singular winding path, where a maze has branching paths and dead ends. Is the labyrinth of tigers a maze after all, with wrong ways? Or perhaps reality is not a singular winding path but one with many branches, constantly being sheared off...

(lost it when this hint came out because the labyrinth/maze idea of reality and judgements is something I'd just written into the latest chapter of my suncrab fanfic lol)

—see your heat, little mouse—

The 7th Coil is talking to us directly here as we search the coil.

—the heart is the heart is the heart— 

Also the name of the play the bohemians put on during the Estival! Hearts are important. There's a lot of em out there.

—yes yes yes yes yes—

Similar to the want want want want want want text you get for Temptation's presence within the coil.

—animal that you are, little more than squirming fluid—

Probably just the Coil watching us.

—writhing in the shadow they cast—

Hard to extrapolate much specific meaning here beyond the fact the FKs exist in the shadow of reality (and the Neath does too). The use of 'they' in this has often been suggestive of Judgements, so yeah: light is needed to cast a shadow, a shadow is a place without light, certain things writhe and live there

—those things which preceded them—

I try not to be stuck with my head in the stars but also another case where I think you could read the 'them' here to be Judgements. But it's been put here in the dregs because it's another very vague one that could mean anything.

With the idea of Judgements as unjust-kings who claim to be truly divine but are as fallible as their subjects, you have the idea of what there was before Judgements. Was there a before? If the Judgements truly aren't all-gods who have always dictated reality, then there must have been. Probably.

—and I shall not climb upon the scaffold they have made for me—

A very evocative phrase I can't confidently sort!

I think it could be related to the rejection of power and the way of kings: both the Tiger Prince and the Fingerking who became the 7th coil rejected their elevated places to commit the sin of love and chose each other. 'I will not stand up there above all, though they say it is My Place'

---

Anyway! These have been my many thoughts. I'm sure I'm missing stuff or a bit off or anything else... Please, feel free to talk about it with me! I want to know people's thoughts. I've held a torch for the Storm/Dragons/Snakes link for a while so seeing a bunch of hints that back me up was really exciting, but I also know I can be a bit blinded by how open to interpretation a lot of FL lore is. I see that crab everywhere....

[billie-black]

Thread of odd connections between Ikora, Elsie and Eris

I was scrolling through concept art when I noticed that, despite not being so in-game, The Stranger's rifle is Branded as a Cassoid weapon. This wouldn't mean much, bungie tends to use decals at random, except-

The curse of osiris variant, The Machina Dei 4, is also branded with a slightly altered version of the Cassoid logo, which I think proves that it has been upgraded with components from the foundry.

But let's put a pin on that and talk about another Cassoid weapon, The Invective shotgun, Ikora's signature weapon. The Invective has an ornament called Iconoclast, a word which here means "Destroyer of images used in religious worship." This nomenclature is very similar to-

The Vex Mythoclast, a weapon which, thanks to its sister weapon, The Worldline Zero (which coincidentally also has a prophecy variant), we know to be made by Elsie Bray. Canonically, we earn the Mythoclast as part of-

the "Not forged in light" quest, which ends with Elsie gifting us the No time to explain. A weapon which eventually ends back up in her hands and she gifts to us again earlier in the timeline as-

The stranger's rifle, which hangs around until it becomes the Machina Dei 4 (later Adhortative). And the prophecy attached to the Machina Dei 4 desribes Eris Morn and the events of Shadowkeep, when Eris discovers stasis and starts using the darkness.

A charnel but effulgent orb.

beacon in a loathsome dark.

Fêted, fetid corpses rise.

a too-long-absent gibbous spark.

Now, it's generally accepted that No time to explain (and all it's variants by proxy) was created at some future point in a distant timeline, this is incorrect. Ghost specifically points out that "parts" of it shouldn't exist, because the rifle itself is a common suros frame.

Going back to The Invective, you're probably more familiar with its legendary sister, The Comedian, and its D2 counterpart, Deadpan Delivery. The Comedian's flavor text reads "A. A ha. A ha ha ha. A ha ha ha ha ha ha ha" In D1 the joke wasn't really clear, but with the addition of a lore tab in D2, the joke has become the vanguard's falling victim to a hive god's deceit. Now, let's take a little trip to The dark future.

In The dark future, Beyond light never happened, Eramis was allowed to grow her armies and master stasis, which led to a massive attack on the city by Cabal remnants, Savathûn, and the glorious House Salvation, all masterminded by Eris Morn, who up to that point was believed to be an ally, but had been corrupted by stasis and the darkness.

Coming back to our timeline, let's look at differences between our case exotics and their variants. Elsie's rifle has undergone many more modifications than Invective. Matter of fact, Invective has barely undergone any changes from its default. It's painted red, AND It has tape wrapped the handle and the grip, just like No time to explain. (I know I'm talking about grip tape right now but please don't go, it gets better, I promise)

It's a weak link, many weapons have grip tape, but I think many of these small details add up and point to The Iconoclast being one of Elsie's gifts. Let's review the similarities between Iconoclast and other gifts from Elsie.

>It's sourced from one of the city foundries and later received Cassoid upgrades (Invective and it's variants are nadir products)

>It has grip tape where the original does not.

>Mythoclast and Iconoclast are very similar terms and could point to a connection.

>It has a perpetual ammo function, like No time to explain and The Mythoclast.

But we should also look at Iconoclast within it's own context. Invective being her weapon, what does it mean for Ikora? She's never been been known to combat or really oppose any sort of religion, at least that I can find. And let's make it clear, the gun is not the Iconoclast. Just like the Mythoclast is not The Mythoclast. The weapons, in this case, are named for the wielder. You kill Atheon and so you become the Mythoclast, the gun is more of symbol. So, what religious figure is Ikora supposed to kill in order to become the Iconoclast?

Well, just this season, the hive have come out with a brand spanking new god, one very close to Ikora. Now I don't think Ikora is going to kill Eris. Eris would need to do something completely heinous for her to even consider that. Like, idk, bombarding the last city with House Salvation and the shadow legion... i. e., what happens in the dark timeline.

Look, I really don't believe Eris is going to turn evil all the sudden, that would be character assasination of the highest magnitude. But from Ikora's point of view? She has a supposed time traveller yelling at her that she's letting everything go sideways.

So my theory is that Elsie took Ikora's Invective from some other failed timeline (possibly the one where they smooch) and gave it to Ikora as the Iconoclast, along with the idea that alternate Ikora ruined everything because she failed to act and put Eris down when she could.

And this is where Deadpan Delivery comes in. You see, Ikora doesn't use invective anymore, and she doesn't use the Comedian. She exclusively wields Deadpan Delivery. Now, I know this was probably just the animators being faithful to her character, seeing how she prefers shotguns-

But the retroactive additions to the Comedian's lore, outside my crazed theories, implies a statement from Ikora. The Comedian's joke is the vanguard falling victim to a hive god's deceit, and in the dark timeline that god, the Savathûn figure, is Eris morn. And so-

By maining Deadpan delivery Ikora is subtextually saying "It's not funny. I'm not laughing. I don't subscribe to the narrative put forward by the comedian or Elsie. I trust Eris". And by rejecting the Comedian she's additionally disavowing it's older sister, The Invective, which is a symbol of the gung ho attitude which defined her in her youth. And wether my Iconoclast theory is correct or not, we can definitively say: Ikora is against what it represents , she is a guardian, and she will make a new fate no matter what.

[ascendingaeons]

Set As a Champion of Mental Wellness

One of Set’s most prominent domains is that of a Storm God. Ancient Egypt was the most far-reaching civilization known to history, to the point that less time has passed between the life of Cleopatra and the present day than the construction of the Great Pyramid. Ancient Egyptians had archaeologists and engineers to study and repair structures that were already millennia old. For much of its history, life along the Nile was homeostatic and predictable, so much so that Set came to embody all that was disorderly and unexpected.

Think about the scene in the Book of Coming Forth by Day where Set plunges His spear into the throat of Apep. Set is fighting for Ra when He is incapable of defending Himself. During a time of mental crisis, we are not unlike the linen-bound Sokar, our greatest nature suppressed during the nadir of drastic, catalytic transformation. And Who is there for us in our darkest hour but the very Eye of the Storm?

I recently drew a connection between storms and the release of stress hormones during traumatic moments. When we are in a dangerous or intense situation our adrenal glands release a chemical called cortisol which is essentially the “fight-or-flight” hormone. The release of cortisol is meant to ensure our survival until such time that the danger we’re facing passes, much like the role performed by Set on the Solar Barque.

Here’s the funny thing about that: danger always passes and, in that moment, a new kind of self-care is required. There comes a time when our bodies no longer need those stress hormones. Even though they once helped us survive during hardship they inevitably become armor that is otherwise detrimental and must be set aside. Consider that maybe the parts of you that are making life so hard are the remnants of those survival habits and that, even now, they are doing everything they can to keep you safe. They have no awareness that they’re making things worse. The key to healing, then, is loving the parts of you that are trying to kill you.

Set is a many-faced Netjer. The aspect of His nature I’m proposing is but one of many both within and beyond us. Set is simultaneously the tempest, the ship, and the very heart of the sailor. Were He much less than that He would not have been worshiped since before the dawn of the written word. That’s the funny thing about the perception of value: it is most prone to change depending on where we’re standing.

Mental illness is a multifaceted battle fought every single day. Some days offer ceasefires. On others, a violent storm can bring a reprieve. Many days can simply blend into one long continuum. Imagine this as a mountain, if you will, or the long hours of night mentioned in Ancient Egyptian papyri. Regardless of the imagery you choose, the implication remains the same.

This too shall pass.

I write this as I struggle with my own hours of night, from a place where it is easy to feel my prayers go unheard. Set is a bastion of the greatest form of strength – that which is self-begotten. Set is the one Netjer I do not have to pray to during hardship or crisis for one very simple reason: He is already and always there. It doesn’t matter whether you believe in the existence of Set or the Netjeru. What I offer you to take away from this is that no matter who you are or where you find yourself, you possess exactly what you require to take just one more step. That is what recovery and healing are, essentially, just taking one step at a time.

I offer you this lesson much as I offer my experience of it to Set. May it serve you well, my friends.

Dua Set!

Image is credited to Joan Lansberry.

[lethalfrogposting]

various froge doodles from the past week or so since i forget to upload OTL shtupid frogs...

[wishsparkleemoji]

Sky iceberg tier 4: Cat hair

Full iceberg

Remembrance fanart controversy: When the remembrance spirits were first revealed, one Sky fan artist popped up and said that the spirits were near-identical to some fan-spirits they had created years prior and accusing TGC of stealing, and in the middle of this someone else popped up claiming their fan spirits were used for sanctuary, and it was overall a huge mess I WISH I had gotten to see, and eventually it was revealed that in TGC/Sky’s TOS, TGC has full right to use fan creations (shoutout to “skykid-nadir” for correcting me on this entry btw! I thought it was something different).

meditate_night_night_2: One day, the daily quest was to meditate on the Vault’s second floor, but instead of the usual meditation question, the “question” was “meditate_night_night_2”. Likely just a weird error on TGC’s end, but it was surreal getting it.

Corrupted mantas: In treasure reef, the underwater mantas have black tints. This is likely because of the extraction of their light in the creation of darkstone.

Crabs help flipped crabs: Try this in shipwreck— deep call to flip some crabs, and watch how the non-flipped crabs react. They help up their flipped buddies! How cute!

Higher planes of existence beyond space and time: There are many planes of existence in Sky’s world: The normal layer, spirit layer, Eden, Vault floors 3+, the elder cutscene rooms, the trials and ancient memories, and finally the death room. Each layer slowly breaks down the laws of physics, until there is nothing.

Dreamlike vault: The vault is noticeably dreamlike; with the purple ambiance, starlight desert (which I still count as part of it), cosmic mantas, and the whole breaking down space and time thing.

Dreams hat controversy: The hat worn by the dancing performer is pretty clearly inspired by some culture; specifically the Korean gat. Chinese players thought it was inspired by Chinese culture though, and TGC was trying to be neutral by saying “it’s fantasy, not real life” or something along those lines, and people were hurt. I don’t really know what happened.

Eden not the only way to Orbit: Seen in the Aurora concert. She ascends with all the skykids to Orbit after Eyes of a child. Eyes of a child seems to take place somewhere in wasteland, so dying in Eden must not be the only way to reach Orbit.

[sakebytheriver]

Community is a Chekhov play and the gun that foreshadows the ultimate tragedy of the Greendale study group is in the Dean's first speech with his missing card,

"Many of you are halfway through your first week here at Greendale, and as your dean, I thought I would share a few thoughts of wisdom and inspiration. What is community college? Well, you've heard all kinds of things. You've heard it's a loser college for remedial teens, 20-something dropouts, middle-aged divorcees, and old people keeping their minds active as they circle the drain of eternity. That's what you heard... However, I wish you luck! ... Okay, you know... Oh-oh. Okay, there's more to this speech. There's actually a middle card that is missing."

That middle card is Community's equivalent of Chekhov having a character hold a gun in the first act. The card is never found just the same way the study group never really escapes Greendale as anything but what the dean describes them as in his speech, the missing card is their potential, lost to time, lost to incompetence, lost on the Greendale campus never to be found again. Troy never really graduates instead becoming the epitome of remedial teens running from the world by literally floating through it on a boat, Britta remains stuck at Greendale a twenty something dropout unable to get a degree but also unable to leave and in the original draft of the pilot the dean even adds an aside that the dropouts are "crawling their way back to society" an acomplishment Britta never reaches by the end of the series, Shirley never becomes more than a middle aged divorcee with a husband that came crawling back only to leave her once again losing herself in Louisiana to play nursemaid to a man she just met, and Pierce dies the same way he lived depressed, gross, broken, and alone. Jeff, Annie, and Abed don't have equivalencies in the speech that appears in the pilot, but Annie is given an aside in the original draft in the same moment as Troy, being labeled "a young person who couldn't get into a university" and she never does make it to a real university. In the end, Annie and Abed are the only two given endings that can be read as happy, she leaving for the FBI Academy and he leaving for film school in Los Angeles, the only two able to escape the Greendale purgatory for supposedly greener pastures, but Annie's ending is to become a cog in the system, a cog that would have happily sent her younger self to jail for the rest of her life for an addiction beyond her control finally reaching the lofty goal she thought she must reach as the small overachiever Annie came to Greendale as, finally able to grow up and be a big girl. Maybe her ending was happy or maybe it was just another form of corruption. Perhaps Abed Nadir is the only one whose ending is truly everything he ever wanted, but he goes to film school alone, he reaches his dream far away from all of the people who loved him, the only people who ever loved him, Abed Nadir ends the series the same way he entered it, the same way they all entered it, alone. And of course, Jeff Winger, the man who wanted to stay at Greendale for the shortest timeframe he could possibly achieve is now stuck there, dedicated his life to teaching there, to fixing the broken school that somehow fixed him and broke him even more left watching everyone else leave him behind.

The missing card, the one that could have told them all what they could be, what they could have acheived at Greendale is never found, but it comes back in the third act in the form of Season 7, the cutaways the group comes up with in the finale of what their season 7 could look like, the missing potential that notecard used to have now inside they're own minds and as Jeff pulls the trigger, fires the only bullet left in the chamber and begs the others to please just stay with him, to stick around and make the idealic season 7 he has created in his own imagination, the gun backfires and explodes in his own hand as reality comes crashing down to steal that last bit of hope he had left

"The plays that Chekhov wrote were not complex, but easy to follow, and created a somewhat haunting atmosphere for the audience."

This quote from Chekhov's wikipedia stands out to me in a way that perfectly describes a modern sitcom and I feel it especially fits with the atmosphere Community created. It was funny, it was broken, it was irreverent, and it was goofy, but it's a show that has haunted me for years, has haunted the entire fanbase for seven years demanding a movie until the powers that be finally gave in

E. J. Dillon thought "the effect on the reader of Chekhov's tales was repulsion at the gallery of human waste represented by his fickle, spineless, drifting people" and R. E. C. Long said "Chekhov's characters were repugnant, and that Chekhov revelled in stripping the last rags of dignity from the human soul".

And these quotes, while they were striking at Chekhov's work in a disparaging way, they just make me think of the characters from Community. Is there a better description for the Greendale 7 than a group of fickle, spineless, drifting, repugnant people stripped of their last rags of dignity? Chekhov was known for being able to capture the specific sadness of an ensemble of depressed codependents trapped in the utter monatony of a working class sedentary life and his popularity was credited to his, "unusually complete rejection of what we may call the heroic values." There are no heroic values in any of the Greendale 7, they are a group of flawed indivudals who come together to create a flawed Community. The Greendale 7 don't have a perfect happy ending, the last moments of Community don't fall into place the way you want a feel good sitcom about a group of friends to end. The ending is bittersweet and broken, a show that shambled on for more seasons than anyone ever believed it could hemoraging cast members along the way feeling like it had died many years before it actually ended, but Abed delivers a speech about the nature of TV and you're crying and you're smiling and when they all leave for the last time with a tight hug that feels like the earth is shattering you're launched into one last self aware fourth wall breaking gag that jolts your emotions before credits roll and they're the last credits that play for the entire show and you don't know if that was an ending or if you should wait for something else.

Virginia Woolf mused on the unique quality of a Chekhov story in The Common Reader (1925):

"But is it the end, we ask? We have rather the feeling that we have overrun our signals; or it is as if a tune had stopped short without the expected chords to close it. These stories are inconclusive, we say, and proceed to frame a criticism based upon the assumption that stories ought to conclude in a way that we recognise. In so doing we raise the question of our own fitness as readers. Where the tune is familiar and the end emphatic—lovers united, villains discomfited, intrigues exposed—as it is in most Victorian fiction, we can scarcely go wrong, but where the tune is unfamiliar and the end a note of interrogation or merely the information that they went on talking, as it is in Tchekov, we need a very daring and alert sense of literature to make us hear the tune, and in particular those last notes which complete the harmony."

Community ends not with a bang but a whimper and a broken note that makes you question what happens next, where do they go from there, what scene fits here in the script, is this truly the end or just where the writer put down his pen. It's a Chekhov play written in six seasons and soon to be a movie

In the end, the tragedy of Community is literally written on the cards

[anghraine]

Sometimes, people suggest that Elizabeth is not truly romantically in love with Darcy towards the end of P&P, but just has a rational respect for his character (and property). Here are my three favorite pieces of evidence against it:

1- The coffee scene

When Darcy returns to Hertfordshire, there's a delightful period of frustrated pining between Darcy and Elizabeth. My personal favorite moment is at a gathering where Elizabeth is assigned to pour the coffee. She follows Darcy with her eyes, resents any not-her people he talks to, etc, and then gets mad at people for interrupting her by wanting coffee.

Absolutely top-tier content.

2- I do, I do like him; I love him.

Yeah, she does outright say she loves him.

There is something incredibly endearing about Elizabeth's struggle to defend her choice to her father—a choice that in this context represents many things, but IMO a big one is that she's both physically and emotionally moving beyond him.

It's also pretty funny that she has to wrangle with the legacy of Past Elizabeth's hot takes, it's bittersweet, it's a lot of things. But, ngl, my favorite part is when Mr Bennet concedes that the marriage is okay with him if she likes Darcy despite his pride and unpleasantness, and Elizabeth replies that she does like Darcy and she loves Darcy (both are important!) and it upsets her to hear him described that way. Just a lovely moment.

3- Lady Catherine v. Elizabeth

During Elizabeth's confrontation with Lady Catherine, she wonders how she could ever have thought Lady Catherine was similar to Darcy. I find this hilarious, honestly.

I mean, seeing Darcy's traits writ large in Lady Catherine is a perfectly natural and reasonable thing to do, even if it also flowed out of Elizabeth's prejudices at the time. Anyone would see the resemblance. But Elizabeth has got it so bad at this point that she's just like "how!!! could I have thought such a wrong and unfair thing." <3333

Honorable mention - Lydia aftermath

Elizabeth privately feels like she could have loved Darcy after he leaves her at the Lambton Inn post-Lydia disaster. It's only afterwards, out of scene and as the Lydia situation hits its nadir, that she realizes what her feelings for Darcy already are. It's a hellish time anyway, but she still owes half her sleepless nights to Darcy.

...out of dispassionate respect, I'm sure.

[grizzlyofthesea]

Plan of Attack

ATTENTION, DONNIE NATION:

As most of you know, Donnie lost in the @autismswagsummit semifinals poll against Shigeo "Mob" Kageyama. However, he has a chance at redemption via the Wheel of Doom. We're going up against Shadow the Hedgehog, the other semifinals loser, on Monday, March 13th, 2023. Shadow is a tough opponent, but I think we can do it if we just keep up the enthusiasm from the semifinals.

What we really need to brace for is the rematch against Mob--and Papyrus--if we do beat Shadow and earn a spot in the finals.

Our loss in the semifinals was a close one, but it was still a loss. Evidently, we need to make some changes. I don't have a guaranteed path to victory. Heck, I don't even have a lot of experience with these things. But I have some ideas.

Expand beyond Tumblr. I think this was one of our weak points in the finals. From what I heard, the Donnie vs. Mob poll really blew up on Mob-favoring Twitter circles, giving him a lot more votes than we anticipated. We need to close that gap. Infect Twitter. Infiltrate YouTube. Invade TikTok. Immerse every social media site in Donnie propaganda.

Appeal to previous Papyrus voters. Mob voters are probably going to stick with their previous decision; it was a choice specifically between Donnie and Mob. We may get a few on our side, but don't count on it. There weren't any barriers keeping Donnie voters from also picking Papyrus last time, though. We might be able to sway a decent number of people toward picking Donnie over Papyrus.

Keep up the propaganda. We're already strong in this department, but we can't afford to lose steam just because we had a minor setback. Keep making awesome videos and great artwork to promote the cause.

Be on time. A few people in the comments on the semifinals said that they would have voted for Donnie, but they were too late. A vote only takes a tap/click, and every vote counts. Make time to vote if you can.

Again, this isn't guaranteed to give us our desired result. It is fun, though, and I feel like it gives us a sense of solidarity--both within our own fandom and with other fandoms. Don't get in over your head, but do your best.

Good luck, everyone.

UPDATE---

As of March 14th, 2023, Donnie has conquered Shadow. Now he must face Abed Nadir in the Wheel of Doom Finals. It will be a tough battle, but as with the vote against Shadow, I think we can do it.

Stay strong, and good luck.

UPDATE 2---

As of March 16th, 2023, Donnie has defeated Abed. We're officially moving on to the finals!!! Get ready to face Mob again, as well as Papyrus. WE'VE GOT THIS!

[charlottedabookworm]

#12 - Quarry

feat Nadir

i started writing like three different fills for this one before this finally stuck

poor nadir, prettyboi auri, meets ishgardians

which yeahhhhhh

Nadir has never been so cold.

Coerthas is beautiful, he can admit to that, and the seas of endless white and green had fascinated in the beginning, before the snow had began to melt into his robes. Even wearing more layers than he’d known he owned, he is shivering. His scales ache.

And the Ishgardians…

“Mayhap t’would aid our cause if I remain beyond the limits of the settlement,” he offers through chattering teeth, resisting the urge to summon flames to his palms to warm himself.

Something tells him that the Ishgardians who watch him like a beast would not be understanding.

“Why would you do that, Nadir?” The child at his side says, utterly oblivious. “We need all three of us asking questions if we hope to find the Enterprise in good time.” Or perhaps he is just overly determined to find their quarry to the exclusion of all else.

He glances over to the Ishgardians.

The Ishgardians glare back, unashamed.

“I will not be of much help.”

“Of course, you will! You-”

“Alphinaud,” Cid says quietly. He is also looking at the Ishgardians, at their focus on his scales and horns, barely visible beneath the layers of his robes.

He shivers again. This time, it has very little to do with the chill against his bones.

The child- Alphinaud - falls silent. “I- Perhaps you are right, Nadir. It may be best if I go and make inquiries and you stay here, with Cid.”

Nadir would protest, except he does not doubt that if he is alone the Ishgardians will do something. He can defeat them, of that he has no doubt, but it would be a political nightmare and would only complicate their hunt.

Instead he sighs, his teeth chattering. “I mislike it here,” he murmurs below his breath.

Gods above, he misses his home.

[stormsfell]

𝘶𝘯𝘣𝘰𝘸𝘦𝘥,  𝘶𝘯𝘣𝘦𝘯𝘵,  𝘂𝗻𝗯𝗿𝗼𝗸𝗲𝗻.

˚  ❛  oktay  cubuk  ,  nonbinary  &  he/him  ,  twenty  -  eight  —  the  king  had  summoned  NADIR  MARTELL  of  HOUSE  MARTELL,  PRINCE  of  SUNSPEAR  to  be  judged  upon  their  BRAZEN  and  APATHETIC  nature,  under  his  justice  as  the  ruler  of  the  seven  kingdoms  and  protector  of  the  realm.  while  they  are  notably  EQUABLE  and  INTUITIVE,  many  at  court  are  at  odds  when  it  comes  to  their  true  nature  and  place  in  king’s  landing,  especially  as  they  remind  them  of  SHARP  EYES  GLITTERING  IN  SUNLIGHT  &  A  NEEDLE  THAT  WON’T  ALIGN  ;  A  COMPASS  ALREADY  BROKEN.  in  another  universe,  far  beyond  the  realms  of  the  red  keep,  they  would  have  been  comparable  to  NIKOLAI  LANTSOV  (  grishaverse  )  &  TARTAGLIA  (  genshin  impact  ),  of  whom  they  share  an  almost  uncanny  resemblance  to.  as  their  true  loyalty  lies  to  HOUSE  MARTELL,  when  told  of  robert’s  first  rebellion,  it  was  unsurprising  how  they  were  IMPARTIAL  WITH  the  insurgence  against  the  crown.  with  the  tides  rapidly  shifting  throughout  the  realm,  there  is  no  telling  what  fates  have  in  store  for  them,  as  when  you  play  the  game  of  thrones,  you  live,  or  you  die  —  (  k,  any  pronouns,  twenty6,  aest.  )

i.  chronicles.

some  say  that  king  trystane  and  queen  ornella  martell  lifted  their  second  child  out  of  the  ocean  itself,  right  between  the  ebb  and  flow  of  the  tides,  just  after  the  sea  spat  him  out  and  before  the  waves  swallowed  him  again.  all  legends  have  some  semblance  of  truth  to  them.  the  water  beat  against  the  shoreline  just  outside  the  tower  of  the  sun  the  night  you  were  born  —  prince  nadir  nymeros  martell,  welcomed  by  your  father,  mother,  and  the  sea.

you  never  understood  why  it  was  only  many  moons  ago  since  the  sea  last  was  a  friend  to  the  forces  at  sunspear.  growing  up,  as  your  family  looked  inward  to  the  great  lands  of  dorne  and  the  rest  of  westeros  beyond  it,  you  turned  to  the  shore  and  never  looked  back.  your  toes  first  sunk  into  the  sand,  then  the  water  came  ankle-deep,  and  then  you  go  under  —  you  drown  in  it,  in  the  tender  embrace  of  the  violent  waves.

the  call  of  the  sea  was  to  thank  for  what  you  became:  brutal,  strong,  almost  wild.  but  make  no  mistake,  you  were  born  a  child  of  the  great  desert  of  dorne.  the  sun  you  wear  well,  eyes  glittering  and  white  teeth  gleaming  under  its  rays  even  as  you  march  north  past  the  red  mountains  to  see  the  rest  of  the  kingdom  of  westeros.  the  shore  says,  you  may  part  with  us,  for  the  sun  will  follow  no  matter  where  you  lead.  with  it  beating  at  your  back,  you  are  free.

this  far  away  from  the  imposing  towers  of  the  red  keep  and  the  iron  throne,  the  targaryen  crown  feels  nothing  more  than  a  mere  trinket,  a  story  of  fire  and  blood  and  dragons  with  three  heads.  it  is  only  now,  when  the  whispers  of  the  ravens  have  reached  even  the  farthest  corner  of  sunspear,  that  you  turn  your  head  and  look.  there  is  a  storm  brewing  on  the  horizon,  and  you  cannot  run  to  the  sea  forever,  no  matter  how  endless  it  looks  from  shore.

so  you  reminisce  of  the  first  time  you  fell  into  its  embrace  and  you  turn  to  it  once  more.  be  my  friend,  you  say.  be  my  lover.  at  sunspear  you  seek  those  who  wish  to  live  a  life  out  at  sea,  and  together  you  build.  a  fishing  boat,  a  ship,  a  naval  battalion  —  who  can  say?  all  you  know  is  that  it  is  time  for  house  martell  to  remember  their  roots  in  the  ten  thousand  ships.

ii.  headcanons.

nadir  has  a  small  ship,  one  not  nearly  enough  to  lead  a  naval  battalion,  but  it  is  his  all  the  same.  it  is  aptly  named  nameless.

he  is  not  shy  of  making  his  distaste  for  most  westerosi  fashion  known.  even  far  from  the  desert  lands  of  dorne,  he  will  only  wear  dresses  in  the  style  of  his  homeland.

iii.   links.

pinterest  board.

[lethalfrogposting]

oops! all novava 😁 hi uglyyy

(more various doodles ft an expression sheet wip from the past week or so because ive been developing his lore... shtuuupid novava)