#each has a different polyhedron for a head

[screemnch]

The Pathologic Russian and English analysis: Bachelor Daniil Dankovsky

So uhhh.... Turns out my priorities aren't as messed up as I thought, which is why it took me a whole month just to finish this thing. Let's cover some basics shall we? The approximate structure will, depending on the length of this analysis, go as follows: I’m gonna tackle Patho Classic and the three healers from each other’s perspective, look at shared dialogue options and then talk about all the other important NPCs and how they interact with the playable characters. Since Patho 2 only has the Haruspex run, we’re gonna move through that a lot faster in a similar fashion, and then we’ll look over Marble Nest.

What I’m going to be focusing on: there’s a huge amount of dialogue between all the characters in the story, and I couldn’t possibly note down all the differences at once. I will mainly be trying to relay the “voice” of the character that is present in the original Russian version and noting the biggest differences. If there are also pieces of dialogue that shine a different light on a few story aspects, I will point these out too. Mainly I will talk about how the characters in these interactions seem to treat each other (which will be difficult, since opinions of characters change frequently in this game), note interesting mannerisms and sometimes quote the fun differences and try and fail to explain why the use of this specific idiom is funny in this context. Sooooo yeah.

The Bachelor

The Bachelor in the other characters’ campaigns is, as we all know, a drastically different character. Before I dive nose deep, I’m gonna establish what kind of impression we have of our English Bachelor, so we can compare and contrast things easily.

Daniil in the English version is, as we all know, a prickly prick. He speaks in a usually rather conceited manner, gets irritated with people easily and likes to throw in latin phrases at random points. He sees himself as smarter than everyone else which then in turn leads to him being manipulated by most people that he meets. He’s having a no good, very bad week and he will let people know about it. In the Haruspex campaign the “asshole” part of his character seems to be a bit diminished, and when watching him interact with Artemy, I almost saw something similar to… Respect? He even appeals to Artemy’s knowledge of the kin, as opposed to his own Capital beliefs, when asking him to save the Polyhedron. In the Changeling campaign the Bachelor’s prickly prick factor is ramped up to a hundred. He’s arrogant, talks down to Clara while also being heavily dependent on her and does his best to seem unaffected by all the shit hitting the fan.

Overall, he does give off an impression of a capital dandy that’s in way over his head in both campaigns, and has a very distinct voice and mannerisms. Partially I’d attribute that to the fact that the speech quirk of “randomly starts speaking latin like a pretentious asshole” was a rather easy thing to translate. So, what do we get when we meet the Bachelor in Russian?

As the Haruspex: Before I even discuss the tone, I want to set a little groundwork - although it might be something people already know if they're that deep into learning about an obscure Russian game. And that is - the use of “you” in the Russian language. Similar to German, we have two versions: formal and informal. 

The formal version - “вы” (vy - phonetics are difficult) - is used in Russian when referring to strangers, figures of authority, people older than you, people whom you respect, as well as a group of people.

The informal version - “ты” (ty - once again, phonetics are stupid) - is used when speaking to a friend, someone younger than you (like a child), someone you have no respect for, or someone you’re familiar with. Also family, even if they’re older. This being said, for 90% of the time in the Haruspex campaign, the Bachelor uses the informal “you” when speaking to Artemy. More on that as we get into the nitty gritty.

Dankovsky’s tone throughout this campaign is separated into 2 groups - before and after you receive a letter with his list of Bound, where he decides to dedicate himself to the Kain's cause and to saving the Polyhedron. I’m not sure if that is clearly visible in the English version - reading them side by side has blurred a lot of things for me, but it’s quite apparent in the Russian version. 

In terms of consistent mannerisms, there is one detail that I think doesn’t shine as well in English as it does in Russian. You’d think that our bachelor of medicine would speak in a very formal tone, using big boy words and scientific terms only. You would be wrong.

The Bachelor speaks in very “deliberate” sentences. It’s like he is trying to get all the possible clarifications out of the way, before getting to the point of the sentence. That doesn’t make him sound formal or anything. He uses diminutives and “rough” words every now and then, and doesn’t overcomplicate his sentences too much.When I say rough words, I don’t mean cussing, per se. In fact, other than the equivalent of “damn” (which literally translates into something like “imp”) Daniil doesn’t swear at all. Even when he calls the Haruspex a bastard in English, in Russian it’s a lot softer and more akin to “scoundrel.” Rough words, I guess, would be more like… “Lower-class” slang terms. I say lower-class because for a long time many words in Russia were considered to be unacceptable, since they were, or at least were reminiscent of, prison talk. The closest example I can think of in English is the way one person might say “making love” and another one might say “screwing.” Except in Russian, there are “rough” words for eating, going somewhere, etc. And the Bachelor, even though you’d expect him to be a high-strung formal ass, is very liberal with those words. This goes into contrast with what we get in the English version, where he seems to mostly use very formal language, except for a few moments of frustration.

In the first half of the Haruspex campaign, Daniil speaks in an overall warmer tone, starting out with what seems to be boundless enthusiasm. It’s only slightly mitigated by the frustration towards the townspeople. In English he sounds like he’s only frustrated, but in Russian it sounds like he’s frustrated because of how much he wants to help. He expresses a lot of his frustration by riddling his speech with tiny connector words, as if rushing the other person to respond. It’s like if there were a bunch of different alternatives to the word “then,” and you’d see him being like “Well tell me then, what, then, is this thing?” This creates an appearance of impatience, desperation, and helplessness. Which is what I imagine the player would feel at that time in the Bachelor run. Anyways, now onto the fun little details.

Everyone’s beloved “far be it from me to call myself a person of mystical inclinations...” line is, for the most part, pretty accurate. The biggest difference, from what I found, is in the first sentence itself. In Russian, it’s simply “Yes… Mystical feelings/sensations are alien/foreign to me.” Everything else is pretty much the same. Though, tone wise, the sheer presence of an informal “you” makes it a lot more personal. Instead of someone talking about an odd, otherworldly and foreboding feeling, the tone is more of a person bitterly commenting on an unfortunate and cruel burden that they realise they share with another person.

Day 2 and it’s main quest have a fun little detail that I will talk about later when we discuss formalities a little more, but for now I will simply note that throughout all of Day 2, the Bachelor speaks to Burakh using the formal version of “you” (and being addressed informally right back). But also, in one of the dialogues that happens during that quest Artemy says “I’m beginning to like you, oynon” the Russian version instead has “I’m liking you more and more, oynon” which is a fun detail that I think some people may appreciate.After examining the samples, you can ask the Bachelor what he is working on now. In his reply he says he’s looking for the sources of the outbreak and needs hard evidence. In the Russian text, he specifically says he needs evidence of himself being right. In the rest of his dialogues he seems rather open-minded to unorthodox practices, as much as he sneers at them, but in this particular case he seems focused specifically on being correct, rather than right. Not too empirical of him, smh.

I found this difference absolutely hilarious. I imagine the main reason that this line was translated the way it was is because they wanted to maintain the tone of suspicion coming from the Bachelor. In a more literal translation (and keep in mind, this all has a bunch of little words strewn in to pad out the sentences) Dankovsky says something more like “And what sort of specimen is that?” except it’s not “specimen” it’s “subject” which in Russian can point to a person, and it’s very difficult to convey the absolute snark that comes with this question. Imagine a suburban mother in a polka dot apron and red glasses, as she stares down a dead bird that her child has brought in from the backyard. There’s suspicion, a hint of disgust, and a demand to know why this is being brought to their attention. That being said, I don’t know if there was a better way to translate this. Maybe “Who the hell is that?” is the best way to convey this. I just wanted to point out how starkly different it is in Russian.

Interesting difference here: in the English version the Bachelor says “Your father was a natural.” Here, the specific word used usually refers to a gemstone, something extremely valuable. A literal translation of the word would be “self-born.”

Additionally, Dankovsky seems to speak very fondly of Rubin throughout the campaign. Like, it’s something that’s present in the English version, I guess, but in Russian it genuinely seems that the two share a strong bond. There is a lot more warmth when talking about his expertise, and a lot more concern and sadness, when it's implied that he might be in danger.

Two things about this. 1: The whole “half-dead” thing is absolutely hilarious in Russian. Essentially the word that he uses can be loosely likened to smth like “half-corpselings” with the use of diminutives, as if the bacteria were a bunch of tiny little guys that were about to die. More to my argument that the Bachelor doesn’t sound professional, just very deliberate. Secondly, the whole “Oh yes, I would very much like to have a serious talk with Rubin” makes it sound like he’s an angry parent whose kid is absolutely in trouble. In Russian, he sounds like he’s talking about meeting up with a college buddy, or as if the desire to ask for someone else’s assistance is a sudden urge. That comes specifically from the word he uses - охота (okhóta). The primary meaning of this word is “a hunt.” But it can also mean a desire, or want to do something, often paired with the fact that it’s something that you can’t or won’t do at the moment.

Fucking this. I was so flabbergasted by this line when I came across it, because the entire Haruspex campaign these two get along really well. And then this happens, and it suddenly sounds like the Bachelor is spitefully making fun of Burakh for not finding something that they both believe is impossible to find. Like, it was so mean and petty and out of the blue, it immediately paints an image of someone who lashes out the moment they have to admit defeat - which is not something the Bachelor has been doing so far. In the original Russian dialogue? “Yes, after everything you were unable to find this creature.” Or something to that effect. I’m translating the vibes here to my best ability. Oddly enough, this is one of the instances in which the Bachelor uses the informal version of “you” again. It’s not mockery. This is Daniil drawing the line of all that he could accomplish, but also all the things he tried to help realise, all the people he supported, before he is executed (at least he thinks he will be). He mentions being unable to look in the eye of everyone he failed earlier in the conversation, referring to his colleagues at Thanatica, but at the same time - at this point he’s already insisted that he wants himself and Burakh to collaborate and sees their separate goals as one. Artemy’s unfortunate conclusion is one he feels partially responsible for. The meaning and vibe of the sentence goddamn changes near everything about this interaction! It goes from spiteful gloating of a cornered, near dead man, trying to find solace in another person’s failings, to instead something more akin to… Regret? Pity? Empathy? That’s it, Marble Nest, I’m coming for your “oooh, Bachelor Dankovsky has no heart” bullshit.

That being said, after the Inquisitor’s appearance, the tone that Daniil takes on shifts drastically. I wasn’t able to find or remember when he sends his letter about the Bound, but I’m pretty sure it all happens around the same time. And the main idea of that is - the Bachelor has his own agenda now. He’s found out about what happened to Thanatica and is now dead set on preserving the only other miracle he knows of - the Polyhedron. And, maybe I’m getting a little to interpret-y here, but seeing as the Haruspex can help lead to that goal of his, the Bachelor then starts giving Burakh the same treatment that the Kains have been giving him. 

His tone becomes a lot more familiar, a lot more personal. He constantly brings up the things that he’s done for Artemy and the looming threat of the town getting shelled. Oh, and I’m pretty sure around that time he also starts calling him by his first name. He does his best to act like he really cares about what the “udurgh” can be, while pushing his own idea, and condemning Aglaya for doing the same. He also doesn’t use those little exasperated and rushed filler words in his speech, despite the situation being arguably a lot worse. I remember seeing some of that even in the English version, but I don’t know if it’s the fact that I got to see all the dialogue, or that some Russian words just hit different, but it’s a lot more apparent when looking at it now.

Now here’s a moment where I’m a bit lost as to what translation I prefer. I want all these characters to get along in a universe where they’re nice and kind to each other, but that’s simply not Pathologic. Besides, if I’m sticking to my interpretation, I should really be telling y’all that the Russian version is more effective. Because in Russian, dude literally says “I’m sorry if you thought I was condescending” or something to that extent that would imply that him being an ass is simply Burakh’s own misinterpretation. But hey, this is also the conversation in which he decided to “play unfair” and pressure Artemy into speaking to the Foreman in his stead, so it’s not like this changes much. Maybe being manipulated for what, a whole week now, has finally gotten to him, or he’s just gotten familiar enough to use such tactics - interpret it how you will.

More fun differences - when asking the Bachelor about how to get into the Polyhedron, he will mention Maria and Khan getting into a spat and not being on good terms. In Russian, he refers to her as “my Maria” which he hasn’t done before or since (at least between these two).

That’s all I’ve got about the campaign as it is, but I’ve also promised a little tangent about formality and so here it is. Throughout the entire campaign, there are only a few instances in which the Bachelor addresses the Haruspex using the formal version of “you.” Those instances are: 1 - when asking him about his inheritance. 2 - when talking about chimaeras and how they don’t exist before heading off to face the Inquisitor. And 3 - when you’re speaking to him late at night. Instances in which he’s either asking you to leave him alone, or offering to use his own bed to rest in. My theory is that the Bachelor - as far as I’ve read in his interactions with Burakh - switches to a formal tone (with people who he’d usually speak to informally) if he is uncomfortable. Consider: he uses the formal version of “you” when speaking to Artemy about his inheritance - because that’s a really awkward topic. He needs to get crucial information from Isidor’s notes asap, but the person he has to speak to about them is the man’s grieving son, who’s still being blamed for his death. Awkward as hell. Next instance? He thinks he’s about to be offed by the inquisitor and is (at least in my interpretation) expressing a degree of guilt for the failures of someone who’s at the very least an acquaintance at this point. Very uncomfortable, especially for someone with an ego as big as the Bitchelor’s. And lastly - late at night, tired out of his mind, having to either turn away a guest, or offer them his own bed. Both awkward and uncomfortable things to do, for a city boy. Now, this is, of course just from what I can see of Daniil in the Haruspex route, my conclusions might change drastically when I get through the other interactions, but it's still a fun difference.

And I would say that about wraps it up for the Bachelor in the Haruspex run. The biggest differences have been mainly the fact that he is a lot less formal than his English counterpart, the interesting insights that come with addressing your fellow doctor formally, and the very precise moment where Daniil’s kind and determined attitude turns to that of a manipulative snake.

On a quick tangent here about that, actually - in both the English and Russian version, you can very much engage in a way that allows Burakh to catch on to the Bitchelor’s tricks, and even start lying back to him, when you’re trying to gain access to the Polyhedron. But there is a certain bitterness present in these interactions that I’m not sure is well conveyed. Maybe it’s in the way Artemy himself speaks like an old soul, a fairytale wiseman, that makes these interactions that much more saddening. It’s especially visible in the dialogue where he tells Dankovsky that they’re dolls - it’s sad in the English version, but god if it isn’t absolutely tragic in Russian. And weirdly enough, I feel like a little bit more of that could have been conveyed if people opted for the clunkier but more literal translation? Like what I imagine the old translation was, that everyone complained so much about. Like, if the line “They don’t love us, but they way.” was instead. “We aren’t loved, by the way.” I think it’s a bit more personal, a bit more sad, and doesn’t have the “they” in it, which I feel makes it a little more… Potent. In fact, for most of that dialogue, the “they” is omitted in Russian, because grammar and all, except for the moments where Burakh explicitly mentions the children. And I like that more, I think. It’s not about what the powers that be are doing in the sandbox. It’s about how their dolls feel. How they’ve been stuck into this situation and how they aren’t loved. Even the line of “I hope my side wins” is different, instead it’s more like “I hope I’m won with” as if these characters were a means to an end and they are!! They are a means to an end! They’re dolls!! It’s a lot. This is already long enough and I have the Changeling to deal with. However, as this turned out to be a lot longer than anticipated, I will have to give that it's own post as well. Feedback, question or recommendations on how to format this better are always appreciated)

[disco-elysium-via-polls]

5. "I want to buy the map of Martinaise."

PLAISANCE - She nods. "Always good to be informed of your surroundings."

A worn and torn map of the Martinaise area, dating from '48. A title on the top reads: "Bienvenue à Revachol". It's a bit out of date, as it was originally created by a design studio in a failed attempt to spruce up Martinaise and turn it into a fancy tourist location.

TOURIST MAP OF MARTINAISE - The worn map features the patchwork grid of the streets of Martinaise, with directions to appropriately *tourist-y* locations. Year '48 resides on the upper-right corner.

Trace a path through the grid.

[Put the map away.]

TOURIST MAP OF MARTINAISE - Your finger moves through the various streets, across Rue de Saint-Ghislaine and Rue Saint-Cispare, over Saint-Brune and Martinaise North...

...finally coming to a halt on the spot where you are currently standing, although the map gives no such indication itself.

TUTORIAL AGENT - For a more detailed view of the Map, go to your JOURNAL and select the MAP tab.

2. [Put the map away.]

While I'm here, I notice we can also interact with the photo of the victim's tattoos.

PHOTO OF TATTOOS - An intricate web of blue lines stretches across the torso. From the right shoulder to the solar plexus, each time they intersect a small white star is formed in their crossing. Hundreds of fading asterisks riddle his skin. Their concentration is highest around his heart.

It still kind of looks like a map of the stars in the night sky, but... something's not right.

Who are you?

What's the meaning of this tattoo?

[Put the photo away.]

PHOTO OF TATTOOS - Gone.

2. What's the meaning of this tattoo?

PHOTO OF TATTOOS - For you to discover. You've gotten as far as you will without assistance.

SUGGESTION [Medium: Success] - Someone close to the victim might know.

3. [Put the photo away.]

Here's the map of Martinaise. To the left, we can see all the checks we've discovered. Those on white are currently available, the others are locked.

There's one more thing to examine in the bookstore.

CLOSED CURTAINS - You see a set of tattered curtains blocking the way to another room. A strange cage-like trinket dangles from the curtains.

PLAISANCE - "Excuse me, officer..." She calls out from the counter. "The back room is strictly for employees only."

"Shopkeeper, what's behind the curtains?"

Examine the strange cage-like trinket.

(Pull open the curtains.)

Ignore the curtains for now. [Leave.]

PLAISANCE - "Nothing! Why aren't you browsing the books?" She fiddles with her pendant. "Don't you feel *compelled* to look at the books? The books are all you care about!"

CLOSED CURTAINS - Oddly enough, the more she tries to draw you away from the curtains, the more alluring they become.

2. Examine the strange cage-like trinket.

CLOSED CURTAINS - You see some kind of charm -- an irregular polyhedron, assembled from bones, sticks, and straw. Inside, a disturbing fish-head with empty eye sockets stares at you.

Aside from poking at it -- suspiciously -- there is nothing else to do with the fish-head charm at this time. The curtains remain shut before you.

3. (Pull open the curtains.)

CLOSED CURTAINS - Just as you're about to pull apart the curtains, the petrified voice of the shop owner cries out once more:

PLAISANCE - "Sir, don't touch that! I told you it's off-limits for the customers!" Her hand has closed around her pendant, her fingers nervously playing with the talisman.

"Para-psychologically speaking -- we're *done* if you decide to open them. I won't be held responsible for the consequences! It's too dangerous!"

PERCEPTION (HEARING) [Easy: Success] - She looks away, mumbling: "Why is everyone *always* messing with the curtains, why can't they just buy books like normal people..."

"This is about *the curse*? That's why you're afraid?"

"Ma'am, this is different -- I'm a police officer, I *need* to get in there."

"But I sense this place calling for me. I must investigate *beyond* the threshold!"

I don't care, you can't stop me! I'll open them." (Continue.)

"Alright, I'll think about it for a while. (Continue.)

PLAISANCE - "No, it's just a store room for the employees, I told you! Now *please* step away from the curtains..." She's almost begging you.

2. "Ma'am, this is different -- I'm a police officer, I *need* to get in there."

PLAISANCE - "Why? It's not like anyone was *killed* there!" She stops abruptly as her hand flies over her mouth, baffled by her own bluntness.

"I am sorry, I don't mean to be so impolite, just please don't go there! I can't allow that. You'll only make things worse and unleash *the powers*."

3. "But I sense this place calling for me. I must investigate *beyond* the threshold!"

PLAISANCE - "You *do*?!" She grabs her pendant again, visibly shaken. "My god, even more reasons to not mess with the curtains... Just step away, dear sir!"

[orcforged]

The Third Daughter, Tetrea

With a metallic, unnatural voice, the goddess addresses you, "Wow, you're so tiny! I could pick you up, put you on my shoulder, and you could be my pet. Would you like that?"

Painted this for dnd tonight, last minute idea. I'm glad I did, too, the scene turned out so cool and I got to really unsettle my players hehe

[boydykedevo]

I found an old Reddit post with most of the shared dialogue between characters in Pathologic 2 and I’ve been thinking about it a lot. (link) I’m just gonna put several of my thoughts in one post.

Lara, Eva, Victor, and Katerina all have a line of dialogue that’s some variation on “A hundred years? No, no, too much. Forty? Not nearly enough.” I have no clue what they’re counting years for, but it’s interesting that they all share it. Aglaya, on the other hand, has a line of dialogue that goes, “Twenty-one. Thirty-four. Fifty-five… enough.” So it seems like whatever the others are trying to figure out, she’s got it covered. Phew. (Honestly this one stumps me but I feel like there’s a significance to it)

Another one (which I discovered in game, hence why I found the pose) is that Notkin and Grief share that little limerick that goes, “There once was a man of great humour, who found he was dead of a tumour. But he woke up today, to his neighbour's dismay, and that of his cow once he took her!” This one just makes me realize that Notkin is essentially a younger Grief, and I like the idea of him becoming the leader of Grief’s gang after he gets too old to be a Soul n a Half. It’s even better because I first heard Notkin say it in the Diurnal Ending, which just reinforces the idea that his future looks like Grief. Also makes me consider who the other termites might parallel, which leads into my next point...

Khan and Andrey share the line “when the cat’s away, the mice will play.” I honestly wouldn’t have thought of this parallel, but it makes sense! Both of them have a connection to the Polyhedron, Andrey is a boyfriend rival to Grief, just like Khan is to Notkin, both have a romantic relationship with a future mistress. It’s pretty obvious that the Dogheads and the Soul n a Halves’ respective philosophies mirror the tension between the different philosophies of the adults. Each of their leaders gets a parallel to a member of the faction their gang is most like. (Utopians for Khan, Humbles for Notkin) I could make a whole separate post about this point cuz it’s fascinated me since I noticed it, but let’s move on.

Capella and Maria share quite a few lines, which makes sense, it’s an obvious parallel. But they also share the line “souls of a feather, flock together” with none other than Grace. Maybe because she’s also a future mistress (in Nocturnal, at least)? I’m not sure, since neither Taya nor Clara have this line, but it’s interesting nonetheless.

Big Vlad’s line of dialogue that goes, “Heads or tails? Tails. Always tails” seems to be in direct contrast with Taya’s line, “Heads or tails? Heads. Heads, heads, always heads!” The most obvious connection between these two is the Termitary and the Kin. These two characters are both rulers over the Kin, but, as the line would imply, have entirely opposite perspectives on them; Taya seeks to help them however she can, where Vlad seeks to exploit them. Vlad is the Kin’s past, and Taya is their future.

Finally:

Can confirm, these men are all idiots.

[polyhedronguy]

This shape is a Great Rhombidodecahedron. It has twelve decagram faces and thirty squares with intersections that are difficult to get your head around. The facets vary a lot in size ranging from the large chevrons to the tiny triangles in pairs at the base of the diamond cups.

There are many deep concavities, including twelve cups with parallel edges going up the sides. It turns out that each decagram face is perpendicular to ten of the squares (though not the squares' edges). This suggested a colouring scheme - I grouped the squares and decagrams into six different coloured sets of two decagrams and five squares. The squares in each set are perpendicular to the decagrams. By doing this I ensured that very few facets are adjacent to other facets of the same colour. To get everything right I had to prepare a detailed colouring plan before I started gluing.

As usual for a polyhedron this complex, it was fiddly, time consuming, but also very rewarding to make. With the completion of this shape, I have now made each of the 75 uniform polyhedra at least once, apart from the non-convex snub polyhedra. That leaves me ten more, including some real monsters! I guess it will take me a long time before I finish the set.

[2ofswords]

yulia :)

Favorite thing about them

This might be a weird one, but I really love Yulia's association with guilt? It's interesting, because she is obviously helpful in the games and just a pleasent if distant person, but then her ideology drives her to abandon others and fortify their lives. And if you look at the humble ending, you can see how much it affects her too! Not to speak of her involvemet with the Utopians and how... bitter she seems about it? But like Peter she can't bring herself to leave, even when she deals completely different with it and it all feels so... guilty and trapped. I love that atmosphere and how deep one can dig there!

Least favorite thing about them

Hmmm... I like Yulia a lot and even with design choices that can seem mean or even slightly contradictory, I think they are there for a good reason. I didn't like her post-diurnal dialogue too much. It's just weird to have her sit directly next to the Stamatins while discussing the Polyhedron and how she was the only one understanding everything. Also inviting Artemy to the capital to write a book about him seems... really arrogant tbh. Let the man write his own book about the events, him and Yulia barely interacted. It's interesting characterization but probably the moment that I found most unsympathetic.

Favorite line

I will admit, I do not have that many lines memorized... Shame on me. So I will use the voice lines and say that this one is my favorite: "The lines on your palm lead nowhere, but they can be graphed. And the graph is a simple mapping—it's asymptotic." I don't know why, but I just... like it.

brOTP

Yulia and the Bachelor are an obvious choice here. But tbh... Imagine her and Andrey in a room and how much chaos and sass that would bring! I don't know, if we are talking gay table, I think that duo could be hillarious!

OTP

So many good choices! But right now I have to give it to Yulia/Eva. Self sacrificial queens, that love and adore each other very much! Eva's character text for Yulia is just the cutest thing in the world. You are right, Eva, Yulia is perfect! <3 I love how soft and wholesome this pairing is, but how sad it gets the moment one looks at what happens in the games. Also as kind of an ex-Utopian I wonder what kind of history those two have. There is a lot of potential!

nOTP

Obviously Yulia with any man ever, but tbh, I don't think anyone wants that. I don't know, I can get behind any major shop that involves Yulia. I like her with Lara, with Eva, with Aglaya... Is there anyone else, I'm missing? "^^

Random headcanon

I want to believe that Yulia hates Georgiy with a firing passion, but its that kind of hatred, where both of them will argue over every stupid metaphor (that isn't a metaphor, because it is fucking Pathologic) for hours and are like "Ha, you naive person think this???" And this is the reason, there are no big gatherings in the town on Gorkhon anymore (and also a reason, Yulia left the Kains business. Tbh, I think she would kinda dislike all of the Kains, can't see her vibing with them at all). Their tendency for pretentious gibberish is just... too unbearable.

Unpopular opinion

I think Yulia is all in all a pretty reckless person. Even if she doesn't like to admid that and finds really poetic ways to phrase it differently.

Song i associate with them

I'll admit, I don't really have a song for her? I'd have to think about that one longer. The only one I have in my mind right now would be "Wading in Deeper" from Katzenjammer but that's kinda bleek. But it has these sad vibes and the seasons changing and how it realtes to death kinda fits her fatalism I guess??? I don't know "^^

Favorite picture of them

There is one from Al with her and Aglaya standing at two sides of a table and I can't get it out of my head. So that one!

[dioptre-hertz]

Pathologic 2 ending thoughts

i don’t really use tumblr much anymore, but i recently finished Pathologic 2 and i have thoughts on the ending, which i felt was somewhat incongruous with the rest of the game’s themes and ideas. and tumblr felt like the right place to put a long-form post about it. so, here i am, haha!

MAJOR spoilers for Pathologic 2 below, obviously. this post will probably only be interesting to you if you’ve already played the game, so if you haven’t, be warned! hehehe!

okay, so. i have a lot of thoughts about the ending stuff, but basically it boils down to: i think the ending as presented would have been a good ending for a different game.

quick summary: towards the end of the game, Artemy learns that the Polyhedron, a physics-defying tower and architectural wonder, is rooted into the ground with a long metal spike that pierces the Living Earth. destroying the Polyhedron would therefore open a gaping wound in the Earth, spilling rivers of blood that could be used to mass-produce a cure for the plague. however, doing so would not only destroy the Polyhedron, but also kill the Living Earth, and by extension the Kin. alternately, Artemy can choose to preserve the Polyhedron, which would prevent the Living Earth from bleeding out and dying; but it would come at the cost of the lives of everyone in the town, since the plague would then be unstoppable.

so, the ending choice is principally about this: you have to choose between preserving the magical wonders of the world, the Kin and the Polyhedron and the Living Earth, but at the expense of the actual living humans of the town; or, you save the town and all its mundanities and its ordinary people you've worked so hard to protect, but at the expense of your cultural heritage and all the magical, impossible things of the Steppe. do you choose a world that is dreamlike, enchanted and strange, even if there is no place for regular humans in that world; or do you choose an ordinary, realistic world, one in which there is life for common folk but not for magic and fairy tales?

here’s what irks me though: this dichotomy is not at all what the game is about. or, to be more precise, it never felt to me personally like this was what the narrative was setting up. the choice as presented is fine in a vacuum! there’s nothing wrong with telling a story that creates this kind of clash between magic and realism, and asks you to choose between them. but it doesn’t feel congruous with the rest of the game’s story. let me elaborate.

so, part of what’s going on here is that the game is asking you to make a sacrifice. as the game itself repeatedly tells you: “you can’t save everyone”. either the Kin, the magical steppe creatures, and the Polyhedron are destroyed; or, the ordinary humans of the town are destroyed. you can’t protect both. Pathologic 2 goes to great lengths to show you that you are not a magical fantasy RPG hero who can complete every quest, rescue every NPC, overcome any obstacle and get the Perfect Ending. that’s the whole point of the overly punishing hunger and exhaustion mechanics; that’s why you die so easily in combat, why you’re always running out of time, and why the game is perfectly willing to punish you for every single mistake you make. it’s not a game about being the chosen one, who has magic powers and is uniquely capable of saving the day. right?

except... it kind of is precisely that, if you think about it. Artemy’s story is very clearly a traditional “chosen one” narrative! he is the sole inheritor of his father’s legacy, he is the town’s only menkhu, and so much of the story revolves around his spiritual journey. over the course of the game, Artemy undergoes a coming-of-age of sorts, reconnecting with his heritage, unlocking the secrets of being a menkhu, brewing magical tinctures that slow down and ultimately cure the plague. multiple characters make it explicit that Artemy is important - Foreman Oyun, Aspity, Isidor, and various minor characters of the Kin (like Nara) all talk at length about how Artemy is special, and his role (should he embrace it) is to lead the Kin once he is ready. and the entire conflict with Rubin revolves around the fact that Rubin isn’t the “chosen one” the way Artemy is!

this whole plot thread reaches its climax when Artemy ventures into the Abattoir to seek answers. there, he undergoes a series of harrowing spiritual experiences. several really important things happen here, and i want to focus on two of them.

firstly: upon reaching the central chamber of the Abattoir, Artemy is tasked with performing “surgery” on three seemingly random objects: a candlestick, a fingernail coin, and a spindle of thread. he has a metaphysical conversation with the odongh he meets there and then “connects” these objects into a living, beating heart, and the heart speaks to him. this scene is either hallucinatory or supernatural (or both), but it doesn’t matter which; the point of the scene is that Artemy has finally learned to read the Lines, learned to see how seemingly disparate objects can be spiritually connected into a singular whole. he takes three items that appear to have nothing in common, and he forges a beating heart out of them, a living thing. as Artemy himself learns:

This system isn't symmetrical. It's not just "Nerves, Bones, Skin." Or "Nerves, Bones, Flesh." Or "Spirit, Hair, Blood." Any triad is correct.

Truth is not a set point, but an intersection and confluence of many small truths. Knowing this, I can match and connect anything.

furthermore, shortly after leaving the Abattoir, Artemy has a dream in which he returns there and speaks to the ghost of Isidor, his father. here, he learns a difficult truth: that Isidor intentionally brought the plague back to the town, believing - essentially - that it was necessary for the town’s growth. the decision seems monstrous. Isidor justifies it thus:

This town was… connected wrong. Its parts were tied with artificial seams—so different, so awkward. One could say that Simon, the Mistresses, and I held it all together by force.

So I tore it apart, so you can sew it all back, better than before. Because you're better, and smarter, than I am.

so here we have the high point of Artemy’s spiritual journey, the part of the story where he finally understands why things are the way they are, and what it is he must do.

and this is where things start going wrong, in my opinion.

because all of this, all of what we’ve seen, seems to point in one very clear direction: Artemy will find a way to connect the Kin, the Town, and the Polyhedron into a single coherent whole. it fits so perfectly! Artemy learns that there is a way to mass-produce a cure, but doing so would require him to destroy the Polyhedron and the Living Earth. it appears as though the Polyhedron, the Living Earth, and the Town cannot all coexist; something must be sacrificed. but this choice is presented right after we’re told that Artemy’s destiny is to “sew it all back, better than before”. it is presented once we’ve seen that Artemy can connect a coin, a candlestick, and a spindle of thread into a living, beating heart, no matter how impossible that may sound. knowing this, he can match and connect anything.

and yet, he... doesn’t. the game does not end with a solution that connects the Kin, the Polyhedron and the Town. ultimately, Artemy fails to sew it all back together - and it’s not just that he fails, it’s that the game itself seems utterly unconcerned with that possibility once it heads into its final act. the mere idea that there could be a solution that “connects things right“ goes unexplored. even if the game wanted to be pessimistic and suggest that it can’t be done after all, it should at least acknowledge the thought! the game does admittedly have a focus on the idea that “you can’t save everyone”; this is one of its core motifs. so, fair enough! but since it fails to address that cynicism, it feels less like a statement on the game’s part and more like a lack of awareness.

but that’s not all! there’s a second thing that really bugs me. see, there’s another major event that takes place in the Abattoir: Artemy finally has his fateful encounter with Nara, the Herb Bride who has haunted him throughout the game, insisting that their destinies are intertwined and that he will one day kill her. here, Artemy finally comes to understand what it all means. in the depths of the Abattoir, Nara is waiting for him; the other Herb Brides give Artemy a menkhu’s knife, and they task him with cutting open Nara’s body without killing her:

We know how to open things up. Our way. You know how to open things up. Your way. Do you want to know why the sand pest passes us by? Show yourself.

Cut a living sister in such a way that she stays living. You can do it, if you know the Lines.

Artemy follows through, and he converses with Nara even as he cuts into her flesh; they talk to each other right until the end, when Artemy retrieves a spindle of thread from her body, and she dies.

now, this scene is somewhat tricky to interpret; Artemy must show that he can “cut a living sister in such a way that she stays living”, but in the end, Nara does die. so was he successful or not? well, i would argue that he is; even though Nara dies, he proves that he is able to read the Lines with such precision that she can speak calmly with him until the very end.

more importantly, this scene is the high point of a recurring theme in the game: Artemy’s skill as surgeon.

on Day 1, the very first part of the game, Artemy is sent by his old friend Bad Grief to perform surgery on Piecework, one of the thugs in Bad Grief’s gang. Piecework has gotten in a fight and been stabbed in the gut with a lockpick; without Artemy’s intervention, he will die. you can choose to save him, flub the surgery and kill him, or ignore the sidequest altogether; in any case, this early quest introduces the player to the surgery mechanic and serves to establish Artemy’s unique skills as a surgeon.

on Day 11, the last day of proper gameplay, you have a repeat of this encounter. while pursuing the main quest for the day, you wind up in a pub, where a gang of local bandits have set up shop. they threaten you and order you to rescue one of their pals, who has been shot in the stomach and is about to die. here you again perform surgery to save a man’s life, but this time you don’t do it through the usual surgery minigame - it happens entirely through dialogue choices, and i’m actually not even sure if it’s possible to fail this interaction. in any case, you retrieve the bullet from the man’s stomach and inform his friends that he’ll live.

so what’s the point of all that then? well, the way i see it, the point of all this is to foreshadow a climactic conclusion: Artemy will remove the Polyhedron without killing the Living Earth.

the game spends a lot of time setting this up! on Day 1, Artemy saves a man by removing a long metal spike from his gut non-lethally; in the Abattoir, Artemy proves his spiritual growth by demonstrating that he can “cut a living sister in such a way that she stays living”; and on Day 11, the game throws yet another surgery vignette at you in a scene that frankly feels a bit out of place otherwise.

all of this feels, to me, like it's foreshadowing and setting up one very obvious result: Artemy, having mastered not only practical surgery but also the art of reading the Lines, of being a menkhu, is the one person who can remove the Polyhedron without killing the Living Earth! the game spends all this time explaining that in the Steppe culture, cutting open flesh, or the earth itself, is taboo: only a menkhu is allowed to do so, because a menkhu is someone who knows how to read the Lines, who knows how to cut in a way that will not harm the Living Earth. the culmination of the story, therefore, needs to be that Artemy puts this exact skill to use. that was the point of his character arc, right?

except... no, it isn’t. in the end, there is no way to surgically extract the metal spike from the Living Earth. the only two choices we are presented with are: botch the surgery, or leave it be.

...

in the end, i feel that the ending(s) of Pathologic 2 aren’t appropriate conclusions to the ideas, motifs, and overall narrative progression we’re shown throughout the earlier parts of the game. Pathologic 2 is in many ways brilliant, and i do not hesitate to call it a masterpiece, aforementioned criticisms notwithstanding - but that’s precisely why i cared enough to write all this down! it’s a story that gets into your head, really stays with you, and maybe that’s the reason why i have such strong feelings about the direction the story takes in its final act.

if you reached the end of this post: thank you so much for reading it! i hope you enjoyed my thoughts, and i hope you have a great day!

[tabletoptrinketsbyjj]

Trinkets, 35: Interesting baubles, semi magical objects and items touched by mystery.

A mostly full bottle of whisky on which the label has been crossed out with ink and under it is scrawled “Potion of Emotional Healing”.

A silver pocket watch as thick and round as a pomegranate that makes a sound like a bag of coins when moved. The delicate crystal face is shattered, and tiny gears and wheels skitter and jumble randomly within the interior.  

A masterfully executed painting depicting the aftermath of a horrific battle; pain and fear radiates from every living face. In the lower left corner is a familiar signature.

A strange, tiny inkwell, barely large enough to contain more than a few drops of ink, with a pointed, small-diameter needle protruding from its bottom. The needle, if embedded in one's flesh, causes the pot to well with waiting red.

A steel collar set with a coin sized medallion of rare, red flecked obsidian at the front of it. The stone is inscribe with a Necromantic rebuke.

A set of bongos made of elephant hide stretched over alder.

A scrap of paper that says, “Thank you for dealing with this ‘person.’ For a reward, please visit the Dancing Diva Festhall.” Under those words is a smudged, bright red lip imprint.

A marvelous lute of light, tastefully inlaid wood with a slender, engraved neck. The instrument's wood seems to sing on its own, its strings almost alive with wonderful tonality.

A pair of earrings, with red garnet cabochons, rounded on one side, flat on the other, shining prettily.

A hawthorn walking stick. The end stained with mud, and worn from use from walking through cities, deserts, moors, up mountains, and from being used to pry open many windows, and doors.

—Keep reading for 90 more trinkets.

—Note: The previous 10 items are repeated for easier rolling on a d100.

A mostly full bottle of whisky on which the label has been crossed out with ink and under it is scrawled “Potion of Emotional Healing”.

A silver pocket watch as thick and round as a pomegranate that makes a sound like a bag of coins when moved. The delicate crystal face is shattered, and tiny gears and wheels skitter and jumble randomly within the interior.  

A masterfully executed painting depicting the aftermath of a horrific battle; pain and fear radiates from every living face. In the lower left corner is a familiar signature.

A strange, tiny inkpot, barely large enough to contain more than a few drops of ink, with a pointed, small-diameter needle protruding from its bottom. The needle, if embedded in one's flesh, causes the pot to well with waiting red.

A steel collar set with a coin sized medallion of rare, red flecked obsidian at the front of it. The stone is inscribe with a Necromantic rebuke.

A set of bongos made of elephant hide stretched over alder.

A scrap of paper that says, “Thank you for dealing with this ‘person.’ For a reward, please visit the Dancing Diva Festhall.” Under those words is a smudged, bright red lip imprint.

A marvellous lute of light, tastefully inlaid wood with a slender, engraved neck. The instrument's wood seems to sing on its own, its strings almost alive with wonderful tonality.

A pair of earrings, with red garnet cabochons, rounded on one side, flat on the other, shining prettily.

A hawthorn walking stick. The end stained with mud, and worn from use from walking through cities, deserts, moors, up mountains, and from being used to pry open many windows, and doors.

A beautifully polished obsidian carving shaped into a jaguar skull. Those that touch it feel a deep connection to the animal world and the earth itself.

A palm-sized gem wrapped in rune-embroidered cloth that glows with an inner radiance.

A small sliver of crystal that is completely translucent, although it flickers with a weak glow when held by a living creature.

Reveler's mug: A large horn mug that cannot be turned upside down while containing liquid. If one attempts to do so, the mug changes shape in their hands so that it does not spill.

A razor sharp hunting knife with a gut hook.

Beauticians clippers: Once per day the bearer can use the clippers to cause finger or toenails grow as if a month had gone by allowing damaged nails to be trimmed and cleaned much easier.

A pair of padded greaves, back-stitched in a diamond pattern that provides maximum flexibility without diminishing the effectiveness of the leg protection. A pair of buckled straps on the back side fasten the padded greaves while allowing some adjustment of the fit.

A broken lump of dark gray rock that shimmers like a rainbow along its jagged surfaces. Knowledgeable PC's can identify the mineral as titanium quartz.

A palm-sized stone, flat and ellipsoidal, made from roughly hewn marble. In the centre is a slight indentation, polished mirror smooth from countless thumbs rubbing circles over the years. Some creatures who uses the worry stone claim that catching their own reflection in this divot brings a sense of serenity and peace of mind.

A fist sized glass orb filled with scintillating colours and pinpoints of light swirling in a nebula.

A well-made backpack that appears to be well used, and quite ordinary. It is constructed of finely tanned leather, and the straps have brass hardware and buckles. It has two side pouches, each of which appears large enough to hold about a quart of material.

A vibrantly coloured mask, made from the feathers of a variety of rare and beautiful songbirds.

A scroll case containing a scroll scribed with an unfinished spell.

A broken sword hilt with strange runes on the remains of the blade.

A small piece of fabric that holds the scent of a lost love.

A rock with a patch of curious purple moss that occasionally puffs out hallucinogenic spores.

A rough bone carving of a golden dragon and a kobold, etched into the bottom is a name in Draconic: ''Vimrul''.

A curved warhorn bearing engravings of armed men on horseback, charging into battle.

An elaborately braided bicorne made of rich blue felt, embroidered with golden thread. It has a showy badge called a cockade, proclaiming nationality, faith, family crest, and the like.

A small, elaborately carved silver tube is designed to hold a single piece of chalk.

A translucent and oddly shaped prism that seems to fade in and out of existence when seen in daylight.

A black silk robe embroidered with adamantine thread in an elegant waterfall pattern.

A fancy choker made of barbs and black webbing, with nine gray spheres depending from it. Knowledgeable PC's are aware that the decoration is considered high fashion for drow priestesses.

A small wooden case containing a gaming set known as Mazes & Manticores. Inside is a wide variety of items. Maps of made-up continents and cities, sets of polyhedral dice in a variety of colours, quill pens, "Character Sheets", and a set of large books talking about "XP" and "Levels".

A glassy charm in the shape of a moon, with many claw and tooth marks.

An intricately made harp, inlaid with several glassy gray gemstones of various types.

An ivory disk engraved with an image of a grinning skull and inlaid with black enamel to form a shield-shaped background.

A scarlet sash woven of fine red thread and delicate gold wire.

An elaborate, high-necked bustier laced and lined with black silk and adorned with sapphires and beljurils.

A mask, made of a beaten copper-mithril alloy and set with a constellation of seven variegated semi-previous stones, is made to cover the right half on an individual's face. A set of three chains circle round the back of the head and fasten the mask by resting over the cheekbone, the bridge of the nose, and the chin. Any creature wearing the mask feels a sleight tingling sensation in the skin it touches, and has the sensation that he sees sharper, more precise details with the eye looking through the eye hole.

A finger-sized shard of blue crystal that's constantly shedding flakes and chips of crystal without ever getting smaller.

A curved staff made of coiled brass and glass wire.

A cluster of translucent green roughly hexagonal crystals covering the surface of a dark green speckled stone. Knowledgeable PC's can identify the mineral as emerald.

A joyfully coloured terracotta rattle with a skull motif subtly woven into the pattern of hues.

A rattle shaped like the skull of a horned creature. Dried blood adds a macabre touch to the horns.

A small and lightweight wooden whistle. Lazily carved, the instrument features a single finger hole to alter its pitch. A childlike carving of a bird has been hewn heavy-handedly into the whistle’s foot. When putting the reed to your lips and forcing a small puff of air through it, a tuneless squawk sets everyone on edge.

A silken veil that glistens in strange colours, like oil on water.

A transparent glass polyhedron about the size of a human fist. Light passing through it tends to blend into white, and to magnify, so that when in the open it glows with pure white bubbles of light.

A three foot tall chalice carved in the shape of an open mawed dragon resting on its curled tail. It is made from petrified dragon bone of mottled purple and blood red hues. It is worked with sharp, horny and scaly looking protrusions that one can quite easily cut themselves on.

A half-mask like one worn to a masquerade party, but the bottom edge has numerous sharp-looking catlike teeth.

A wax paper packet filled with dried rose petals.

A glass hookah with a cap made of gold, its hose of tightly woven silk, and its mouth piece is cunningly carved from a piece of amber that contains an entire tiny scorpion. Even when the hookah is not lit, the interior of its glass body is hazy, as if with smoke.

A flask made of a metal that resembles a light gold with a curious dark iridescence tinting its lustre. The container is cast with a face on four sides, each bearing a different expression. Their eyes glow with a bloody purple light.

A swirling purple gem that if pressed against the forehead and held there for a few seconds, will then float in front of the bearer’s forehead until he is slain or removes it. While the gems floats around the head, the bearer feels a sense of clarity and foresight.

A forgery kit that contains a variety of papers, parchments, pens and inks, seals, sealing wax, gold and silver leaf, and other supplies necessary to create convincing forgeries of physical documents.

A forest of tiny bright red crystals emerging from an uneven brown stone that resembles soil. Knowledgeable PC's can identify the mineral as crocoite.

A crude wicker doll whose bead eyes glitter in any available light.

A polished marble model of a human heart, nearly the size of a human heart. Although it looks like a single solid piece, it weighs next to nothing.

A convoluted system of brass tubes and dials containing several lenses and polished mirrors. Peering into one end reveals that the entire system does nothing to change what you see through the tube.

A small, inverted L-shaped machine with a hand crank on one end. The crank seems to power a rather intricate system on the other end consisting of several delicate metal plates and a tiny needle.

A shimmering, clean yellow robe made of the lightest silk. Runes skitter across it and vanish. It smells of musk and roses.

A simple razor blade, used for shaving, resting on a pile of ash. A single drop of fresh blood marrs the perfect sheen of the blade.

A damaged ebony case containing a masterful set of pearl and onyx engraving tools in extreme disrepair.

An intricately articulated wooden figure of a multi-headed dog covered in a mouldy gray fur.

An extraordinarily fine miniature saddle, as though for a small dog, worked in supple leather and decorated with gold and silver thread.

A once-beautiful golden clasp, as for a ladies’ travelling cloak. The shape has been bent and distorted and now resembles a sneering face.

A pale gray, formless sculpture. While nothing about the piece gives the impression of movement, you get the vague impression that it has shifted every time you look away.

A small blue glass butterfly attached to a barrette. When the clip is opened, the butterfly stirs and gently flaps its wings.

A plain iron goblet with a cracked rim. It is filled to the brim with a frothy, clear amber substance that resembles a freshly poured lager frozen in place.

A set of fancifully etched translucent yellow wineglasses that flash brilliant fluorescent green when they catch the sun.

A truly ancient clay jug, stoppered with cork and wax. The lower half is caked with dried mud and the upper half is covered in salt and barnacles.

A glass globe that has a winged being dancing on the head of a pin within it.

A padded metal case filled with a hundred tiny figurines depicting warriors of various races, all obviously hand assembled and painted with great care. A half-painted kobold figure on top is especially well-sculpted.

A tortoise shell table snuff-box set with six crow feet.

A funeral urn made of fine porcelain some two feet high.

A slim, blown-glass bottle filled with a shimmering golden liquid. The bottle is sealed with a cork and wax, and the label is hand-written in a language you do not recognize. The fraction 1/500 is neatly penned in the bottom right corner.

A teak camphor chest with grinning, demented angelic handles.

A large stone needle carved with figures running from a pyramid with a single eye floating above it; the eye is made from obsidian and set with a ruby centre.

A funeral urn sealed with a stopper depicting a golden-haired jackal.

An ebony statuette of a sphinx with three faces.

A matte black sphere studded with a thousand tiny gemstones, many of them in the shape of recognizable constellations in reverse. The entire thing twinkles as though it contains a small flame.

A sun token made of pure gold with dried leather headdress fittings still hanging from it.  

An ankh made of carved human bone.

A bronze incense burner with an ibex figure with a human female body.

A single gold earring fashioned to represent a man being eaten by a crocodile.

A travel pouch made of an elephant’s ear.

A shoulder bag of great age with ornate decorations made from human finger bones.

A collection of human lower jaws made into bracelets.

A deeply flawed, translucent blood red cube buried deep within a black stone covered in white calcification that vaguely resemble snowflakes. Knowledgeable PC's can identify the mineral as garnet.

A set of juggling balls made from dried lamb heads.

A pair of fancy earrings in the shape of swarming hornets.

A tin case containing a dozen small purple sugar balls that taste like the hottest and sweetest bit of delight you’ve ever had.

A hand fan made of stretched aquatic elf skin decorated in horn and painted with animal scenes of hunger.

A bone and silver corkscrew on a leather thong hung with rabbit’s feet.

Automatic Whetstone: A small  unremarkable whetstone that never wears out and when touched to a dull edge and let go, starts sharpening it automatically. The whetstone stops and falls to the ground when the edge has been sharpened to perfection.

A piece of cloth written with a short prophecy.

A ludicrously flamboyant, oversized hat with a dull metal disk affixed to the front. The hat reads the wearer's emotional state and displays images on the disk to match; an exclamation mark when surprised, a smiling face when happy, a frowning face when angry, and so forth. When the wearer is really angry or frustrated, in addition to displaying an appropriate face on the disk, the hat causes jets of steam to issue from the wearer's ears, accompanied by a whistling noise.

A battered old longcoat that reeks of alcohol and ash.

A clear glass hemisphere containing an arrangement of perfectly preserved rose petals in the shape of a heart.

A leather wallet containing a full set of certified identification papers denoting that the bearer is a monk of a local monastery who has taken a vow of silence. The papers also include a list of questions people typically ask along with the answers for them so the bearer does not have to speak while still remaining polite. The section containing the monk's physical description (Height, weight, sex, race, eye, skin and hair colour) is completely blank and could be filled in by anyone with half decent handwriting.

[likeappletrees]

I gotta know, what are ur thoughts on Andrey/Artemy? I hadn’t considered the pairing before but ur tags calling attention to parallels between them has me 👀

short version: i think there's a fascinating symmetry between them with regards to their relationships with violence, with the town and their devotion towards the people they love (andrey towards peter, artemy towards his kids)

long version:

i keep thinking about andrey constantly mentioning that he wants to fight artemy in a way that's somewhat flirtatious and also gravely serious. andrey knows artemy is the only person in town who could beat him in a fight, and he shows a certain respect and deference towards him because of that. and to artemy it's refreshing to have at least one person in town who is aware of his actions but doesn't fear him

i feel like they would bond over their peculiar and complex relationships towards violence, andrey reveling in it and artemy being afraid to do so, for fear of confirming how everyone in town sees him (ripper, butcher etc.) artemy sees violence as necessary for survival, his people ritualize violence, and being a menkhu is inherently violent, but andrey has no baggage around violence, and i think he envies that, or at least he thinks that being a menkhu would be much easier for him if he were the same

on the other hand, i think andrey envies the connection artemy is regaining towards his culture, because it's a feeling of belonging that he himself has never experienced. you gotta wonder why andrey feels so at home in the town-on-gorkhon, and i think it's because the town's views on vigilantism (kill anyone you want, as long as it's a mugger or someone the town views as "bad", no one will care. in fact, they'll love you for it) allows him to be as violent has he wants. physicality is a language that they share, regardless of any other cultural differences

i also think that, of all the townspeople, andrey is the only one who views steppe culture without contempt, perhaps even with a bit of genuine respect, different from the others who either view it as backwards or fetishize it. no doubt andrey and artemy have butted heads over the commodification of artemy's culture at the broken heart (selling twyrine, hiring herb brides as dancers) but this commodification certainly didn't start with andrey and if i'm not mistaken in classic it was aspity herself that got the herb brides jobs as dancers at the pub in the first place (adjacent headcanon: aspity and andrey are friends), so they're all just trying to circumvent this system in their own ways

artemy spent years away in the capital and andrey has spent years in the steppe; in a way they both share the feeling of being caught between two worlds, not feeling like they truly belong in either

i also think they respect each other's fierce protectiveness towards their family. i don't think there's any character who understands the way artemy is willing to kill or die for his kids the way andrey would, because he would do the same for his brother. they're pretty much the only relationships in the game not tainted by animosity or political agendas, they just want to keep their loved ones safe

in my mind, in the haruspex route of classic, if peter gets sick because daniil didn't take good enough care of his bound and it was up to artemy to save him, andrey would definitely side with artemy at the cathedral in gratitude. both he and peter recognize that the polyhedron is worthless without the people of the town to give it meaning, and it's far more important to andrey that peter is alive to potentially build another

guys patching each other up after a fight. tending to each other's wounds. that's it

i think they would nerd out together over twyrine and tincture recipes

peter and grace would visit the burakh house more often and grace would have fun with sticky and murky and that's what she deserves

[wisdomrays]

TAFAKKUR: Part 287

SYMMETRY AND BEAUTY

When visiting Moscow University, Paul Adrien Maurice Dirac, the famous physicist and the founder of Quantum Mechanics, as well as being the fifteenth Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at Cambridge University, was asked about his philosophy in physics and he wrote on a blackboard “physical laws should have mathematical beauty.” This phrase remains preserved on the same blackboard today. As Sir Michael Berry said at the opening of Dirac House in 1997, “he showed that the simplest wave satisfying the requirements was not a simple number but consisted of four components. This seemed like to complicate matters, especially for those minds that were still reeling from the unfamiliarity of “ordinary” quantum mechanics. Four components! Why should anybody take Dirac’s theory seriously? Foremost and above all for Dirac was the fact that the logic leading to the theory was, although deeply sophisticated, in a sense beautifully simple. Much later, when someone asked him “what do you think of the equation?” he is said to have replied: “I think that it is beautiful.” In fact, Professor Dirac knew that very significant mathematical equations occur in all created things. Even though these consist of deeply sophisticated matters, at the same time they occur with a beautiful simplicity and are a clear description of the action of creation of the Eternally Besought of All. When we examine his quotation in this light, we are better able to understand what he meant.

Be they physical or chemical, many attributes of beings are dependent on mathematical laws and their appearances are also shaped along mathematical principles. When we observe creation from this standpoint, we can perceive the perfection as well as the spectacular beauty that is inherent in every being. As reflections of the Attributes of the Names of God Almighty, Jamil (The Owner of Beauty), Bari (The One Who Creates from nothing), Sani (The Maker of All) and Musawwir (The Designer), this beauty found in the external appearance of beings is dependent on more than one factor coinciding. The most important factor here is “symmetry,” which is described as “an exact correspondence and beautiful balance among the parts of an object.” Beings are created with various symmetrical attributes and with great artistic beauty.

The most common symmetry type is the bilateral symmetry; this creates a mirror effect which is an exact correspondence between the right and left sides. An object forms an exact symmetry with its reflection in the mirror. A perfect symmetry that is very similar to the mirror effect can be found in the human body. The left and right sides of our body are symmetrically corresponding. Imagine a dividing line that passes from the middle of the forehead, through nose, chin and down the chest, we can see a perfect symmetry on both sides of the body. Our arms, legs, eyes, ears, nose and lips are designed with a bilateral symmetry. The same symmetrical structures can also be seen in most other creatures. All mammals, reptiles and birds are symmetrically created.

Another type of symmetry is rotational (radial) symmetry. Imagine a metal object that is in the shape of an equilateral triangular placed on the sand. If we will rotate this object 120o around an axis that passes through its center, the new position of the object will fit exactly into its original mark left on the sand. The reason for this is that the radial symmetry for equilateral triangles is 120 degrees. In the same way, a square has a radial symmetry of 90o and a regular polygon with n number of sides has a radial symmetry of 360/n degrees.

The beautiful symmetry of snow flakes, with their regular hexagonal shape are a beautiful natural phenomenon. In addition to these there are shapes in nature that have a three-dimensional radial symmetry. The most significant of these shapes are regular polyhedrons. An example of such polyhedrons is the salt crystalline elements that have cubical structures. Until recently, the fact that there is a creature in nature that has a regular polyhedral shape, consisting of twenty sides, was unknown. However, when a type of adenovirus that causes infections and hepatitis in dogs was discovered, it was found that there is a creature with twenty regular sides in nature.

One of the most beautiful samples of radial symmetry in nature is the daisy. Symmetrical structures do not only exist in the normal world and in the micro worlds, but also can be found in the macro world, like all the huge celestial objects, the Sun, the Moon, galaxies, star clusters in the sky . . . . All planets move around the Sun in a symmetrical manner, whereas galaxies have a spiral symmetry. It is interesting that the symmetrical structure of living beings is overwhelmingly apparent externally, rather than internally. For example, the internal organs in the human body, like the lungs, liver, stomach and intestines are not symmetrical and we have only one heart in one side of our chest cavity. Moreover, the lobes of the brain are not symmetrical either. However, all the metabolic processes in human body function properly. Does this mean that the mathematical beauty found in our external appearance is merely for aesthetical reasons? God does not create things for only one reason or purpose, on the contrary, He creates them to serve many motives and in relation with many functions. For example, if we did not have two eyes and if they were not symmetrically placed on our faces, we would not be able to see objects three-dimensionally. In the same way, if our ears were not symmetrically placed on our heads, then we would have great difficulty in determining the direction and source of sounds. If we did not have symmetrical feet and legs, we would not be able to walk well, and if our arms were not symmetrical, we would not be able to balance our body’s center of gravity while walking. If birds did not have symmetrical wings, they would not be able to fly, and if the fins of fishes were not symmetrical, they would not be able to swim smoothly.

Symmetry is also closely related to physical and mental robustness. According to one study, women who suffer from an infectious disease during pregnancy are more likely to have babies with asymmetrical features. The same study claims that asymmetrical babies are more susceptible to heart disease than symmetrical babies.

Another study shows that people with asymmetrical teeth are more likely to have more harmful microorganisms in their mouth than those who have symmetrical teeth. It is interesting that there tends to be a greater difference between the fingerprints on the left and right hands of schizophrenic people than on those of normal people.

Symmetry is a phenomenon that is used by animals and insects. For example, an experiment showed that bees prefer flowers that are symmetrical. Actually, flowers with perfectly symmetrical shapes produce more nectar than those that are asymmetrical. In one investigation, a symmetrical flower was made asymmetrical with a pair of scissors. The flower had been attractive to bees before its shape was changed; after made asymmetrical, the flower became unattractive to bees, even though it had just the same amount of nectar as before.

All these facts reveal that there is much wisdom and beauty hidden within the symmetry that the Almighty Designer uses to shape all beings. We take symmetry for granted. To have two eyes placed equidistance and two ears on each side of the head is the norm. Anything else strikes us as strange. But if we just take a few moments to think about why our eyes are where they are, and why our ears are placed on the sides of our heads, the answer is obvious. God’s mercy is infinite; in even the simplest example of symmetry there is a reason. We should not take this world for granted, but rather use every opportunity to dwell upon and be thankful for the wonderful world that has been created for us.

[silenthillmutual]

@milk-teeths wanted dadniil comforting khan during a breakdown. i’ve never written khan before so i hope this turned out okay ;; --------------------

Victor means well. He always does. And Khan knows he's very lucky, to have a father that means well. But meaning well doesn't exactly help in all contexts, least of all this one. One that Victor is far from able to advise him on, and he is not, under any circumstances, taking this spiral of self-doubt to uncle Georgiy. It's not even that Victor had suggested it, but knowledge hung there in the air between them both as they explicitly did not talk about Georgiy "such a pity we have no male heir" Kain.

He'll apologize to his father later, if he must. If he feels the compulsion to, though he knows the man doesn't expect it himself. Right now he just needs to get out. He'd get out of Town, if he could, even with the voice in the back of his head screaming Irresponsible at him. He has a town to look after, a future, a people, and he just wants to run away from it all. There's no privacy here, no place where he can just let the mask go and be sixteen years old and not have to worry about any of this. About leading. About being an example. About people finding out.

And who is he kidding? In all probability, they already know.

The Polyhedron is gone, but the Nutshell at least still stands as a neutral territory. He's counting on Capella's feelings, her connections to reach out to him and tell people to leave the place undisturbed until he's ready to go. It's three hours until nighttime, but people hang around here anyway. He bites his lip as he rounds the corner, but it's blissfully empty.

He almost vomits in the corner. He manages to push back the wave of nausea by leaning his head against the wall. He's not feverish, but God forbid if his father or his sister or worse, Artemy Burakh learns he's nearly been sick. He'll never hear the end of it. He guesses he's glad for it; again, he's made to think about how fortunate he is. Notkin doesn't have this, Capella hasn't in years, but he can't stand the babying. It's how they treat the women here, all of them, and he doesn't know how they stand it. But he sure as hell doesn't want it directed at him.

Khan pushes off against the wall and undoes his shirt buttons, fingers shaking. He needs to unwrap these bandages before he suffocates. He hates that he can't manage it for long, when he knows it's only going to get worse the older he gets. When he's eighteen, at least, he'll be able to talk to someone about it. Burakh, maybe, or Rubin if he won't. They're Olgimsky men, ostensibly, and whatever happens between them all he trusts Capella not to let him down.

...But the idea, the idea of the Capital, of seeing a doctor there who can take this weight off of him...

The door slams open clumsily and he barely has time to tug his shirt back over his chest before he spins around, scowling. Speak of the devil, and he shall appear - but at least this doctor, though bumbling as the others, makes a habit of asking before entering. If, of course, he knows where he's going. Dankovsky blinks at Khan, rather confused, and sighs at himself, rubbing his forehead. "Not again," Khan hears him mumble, and sets his bag down for a moment to look at his map. Over a month now, and he still doesn't know the streets.

"Do you need directions, doctor?" Khan asks, trying his best through the pain to lower his voice.

"No, no, I'll get it!" he says, waving his hand. His face doesn't exactly betray confidence, though, brow furrowing. Khan hears him mutter the word "Whatever" before he shoves it back into his bag, and looks at him, still frowning. "I needed to speak with you anyway."

Oh, no. "I'm afraid it'll have to wait," Khan says, attempting authority in his voice. "I'm indisposed."

Wrong choice of words. Of course he shouldn't have assumed the doctor would be any different here - Capital man or not, he's still a doctor. "All the more reason for us to talk," he says, removing his gloves. He's spent too long around Burakh, putting his hand over Khan's forehead. "You're not running a fever, from what I can tell," he says, apparently oblivious to his own slip, and continues. "Where is it you don't feel well."

"That's none of your concern," Khan says, but as the only adult who hasn't treated him with condescension, he's never been good at sending Dankovsky off. "I didn't call for you."

"Well I'm not leaving," Daniil says. "That would just be ridiculous, and your father and sister would never forgive me."

"I thought you weren't on speaking terms with Maria?" Dankovsky scowls at him, but he can see the man's not going anywhere. "It'll pass anyway, doctor, it's just -"

"Hang on." His voice is coming out slow and suspicious. Khan is unnerved. The doctor walks around him, frowning, and he knows what it is he's got in hand before he shows it to Khan. "Have you been -? Khan, is this where all my missing bandages have gone?"

It's the fact that his voice sounds hurt that's got him to breaking. God damn this time of the month. "I'm sorry," he says, voice squeaking. He hates it.

"Oh - don't cry, please." He watches Daniil squirm uncomfortably, from where they stand a few paces apart, Khan looking elsewhere with his jaw clamped shut. "Just - why? Is there something going on I don't know about? Your... your... What do you call them again? Dog Ears? Are they hurt?"

"No," Khan says, words coming out a little too loud. "It's something different. You wouldn't understand."

"Please explain it to me. I'll try." Khan fidgets. "Casper?"

"I need to bind -" he blurts out. He cuts off his words with his teeth. "Something. It's - I have to do it very carefully. And if I use anything coarser than bandages, I'll hurt myself. Do you understand enough now?"

Things are very quiet for a moment. "I understand perfectly well," Dankovsky says softly. "Better than you know."

"You don't know anything! None of you do!" But what should come out as an angry retort is lost behind tears. He doesn't sound commanding, he just sounds pathetic. "All of it is such a mess now! Everyone's scattered, and even you aren't helping! With your alliance with Burakh, you've got Capella thinking the future won't work out the way we'd intended. And the Tower is gone, so there's nowhere for me to even run to anymore, and - no! You don't get it!"

Khan stops shouting, covering his top lip with his arm. He feels stupid now, having said so much when he's supposed to be... different. More mature. More in line. He hears Dankovsky's "Oh, dear," and feels his shadow shift as he walks closer to Khan. He doesn't have to move his body much to look Khan in the eye to say, "Well, you're right about something - I don't understand a word of what you just said. But that first bit, about the binding - I understand what you're doing, and even with bandages, you *will* hurt yourself. I'll be surprised if you haven't got some internal bruising already. How long have you been binding for?"

"For as long as it's been necessary," he says, tone sour.

"Oh, dear," Dankovsky repeats, "So earlier than I'd been."

He blinks, and turns his head sharply to look at the doctor. His face is neutral. "Earlier than you'd been...?"

"Yes," Daniil says. "That's what I meant when I said I understood. It wasn't just a worthless platitude. I know how much those..." he trails off, looking for the right word, and ends with a flat, "Suck."

Breathing comes a little easier now, such an intense change that Khan almost feels light-headed. "How did you manage? Until you were able to -?" Khan gestures to his chest.

"Lots of layers," Daniil replies. "It helps that I'm usually quite cold, and that it fits my aesthetic. No one ever asks, and no one can tell." Khan nods. "So this sick that you feel, is it your cycle?"

And it's back to uncomfortable now, but at least it's the kind he can deal with. "Yes. I keep getting nauseous. It didn't used to be so bad in the Polyhedron, but now -"

"Closer to the twyre, yes. That *has* made things worse. I've prescribed lots of pain medications for headaches, cramps, insomnia - I don't know how  you all stand it, here."

Daniil is shaking his head, but Khan notices he's smiling. "And yet, you stayed," he points out, and watches the man blush. "You're part of what ruined everything, you know."

"What a surprise," he deadpans. "Howso this time?"

"You and Burakh. Getting along, like Simon and Isidor used to. It's made Capella think there's other options for the future." He shakes his head. "Love matches, and that nonsense."

The doctor keeps blinking, flustered, for a moment before he continues, "Well, do you really want to marry someone you don't love, just for politics? That's hopelessly old-fashioned, and you're meant to symbolize the future -"

"It's not that. I have no preference for that sort of thing, really," Khan says. "I'm only sixteen. But it means I don't -" He stops himself short. This almost feels unsafe to talk about, but... Though he stayed, he is still an outsider, so maybe he can... Offer guidance... "I don't have any way to stand out, now. The Polyhedron is gone. In a few years I'll be too old for the gang. My sister is the mistress. My uncle is the only remaining founder of this town. My father still lives with the ghost of my mother's memory, and even he means more to the town than I will if I don't marry Capella."

Daniil takes a moment to listen, before he hums, and nods. "There are other ways to stand out, I'm sure, if you really want to." He stops. "But do you really want to?"

Khan's fingers clench and fight against each other. "Does it matter what I want? I'm a Kain. I'm going to, one way or the other."

"But then that solves your conundrum. By your name alone, you'll stand out."

"But I won't have made a mark for myself," he explains. "And I have to."

"Why?" Daniil shakes his head. "My dear child, you don't have to do anything. I think it's enough, really, to just be happy."

"I'm surprised to hear you say that," Khan admits. "You, of all people!"

"Doesn't that sort of illustrate my point?" Daniil asks. "I came here thinking differently, feeling differently. Things change. I can't say that the plague should have taught you something, that wouldn't be very fair of me. But - quam bene vivas refert, non quam diu. Don't worry so much about the future. There's no fate, Casper. It isn't set in stone. And I think you'll be happier if you allow yourself to just exist."

He shifts weight between his feet, uneasy. "I don't know," he says. "I'll have to think about it -"

"But promise me that you will," Daniil says.

Khan nods. "I will."

[mustafa-el-fats]

Look at this... 👀

Look at this... 👀 https://pin.it/SnTnLNh



TRANSFORMATIONS BY OBSIDIAN BUTTERFLY

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HOW TO LIVE MULTI-DIMENSIONALLY THROUGH SACRED GEOMETRY

Adapted from a lecture at the Astrological Society of Connecticut

19 August 2012

All the graphics are originally from the two volumes of the Ancient Secret of the Flower of Life (c) by Drunvalo Melchizedek, although I have altered them in many cases (for instance, I created the looping gif, and the multicolored Flower of Life sphere, and colored the merkaba positions).

Sacred Geometry is not what you learned sophomore year of high school. This is something much different and much more fun. Sacred Geometry is the organizational basis of all that exists, has existed and will exist. Found within these patterns are both two and three dimensional shapes which carry archetypal memories.



This is a very brief introduction to what Sacred Geometry is and how you can use these concepts to expand your consciousness. The basic form of sacred geometry is called the Flower of Life. It is a beautiful interlocking series of circles. Each circle’s circumference crosses other circles’ center points.

You can draw the Flower of Life yourself, using a high quality compass. The basic steps look like this, with the finished product (usually illustrated with a double circle as a frame) in the lower right.

The eye-shaped space in between each set of circles has its own meaning. One circle represents universal consciousness, the gold/solar source, and unchanging archetypes linked with, in the other circle, empirical consciousness, the silver/lunar reflection, and the changing realm of the senses, through the eye-shaped center that encompasses balanced human consciousness.

The curved lines of the Flower of Life promote feminine, right-brained thinking. When you apply the straight lines of Metatron’s Cube (connecting all the centers), you add in the left-brained, masculine thinking. So if you need to concentrate more on one type of thinking or the other, or you feel unbalanced, you can meditate on either the curved shape, the straight line shape, or the combination.

I call this Flower of LIfe figure “the mother of sacred geometry” because every important shape can be found within it, including the five Platonic Solids, named for the great Greek philosopher Plato. It is an ancient symbol which has been found all over the ancient world.



The five Platonic Solids are the tetrahedron, the cube (hexahedron), the octahedron, the dodecahedron, and the icosahedron. If you have ever been involved with role-playing games, these will be familiar to you, as the shapes of the dice.

To find the 5 shapes within the Flower of life, you extract a shape called Metatron’s Cube. You select these 13 circles from the Flower of Life shape—this is called the Fruit of Life—and then join all the centers with 78 straight lines to make Metatron’s Cube. This ancient shape, named for an angel, has been used to ward off evil and can be carried as a talisman.

From within Metatron’s cube, you can find the five Platonic Solids:

Tetrahedron



Cube (hexahedron)



Octahedron



Dodecahedron



Icosahedron



The 5 Platonic solids are ideal, primal models of crystal patterns that occur throughout the world of minerals in countless variations. These are the only five regular polyhedra, that is, the only five solids made from the same equilateral, equiangular polygons. They have the same face shape on every side and only 1 angle per edge. All other shapes have different faces and/or angles. Also, if you spin any of these 5 shapes around its center point, its corners will describe a perfect sphere. The Platonic Solids occur in the crystal world. Working with them connects us to nature and the higher realms of the cosmos, especially those attributes associated closely with each polyhedron.

Each of these shapes has metaphysical properties, making them valuable tools for meditation and rituals.

The Tetrahedron is the four-sided pyramid. Each side is a triangle. (The pyramids of Egypt, Central America & elsewhere are five sided pyramids--four sloping triangular sides and a flat square/rectangular base.) It represents the powers of manifestation & creation, the element of Fire, the color Red and the Solar Plexus (third) chakra. Can help you burn through problems. It is masculine.

The Cube (Hexahedron) is the six-sided box. Each side is a square. It grounds the creation of the Tetrahedron into the physical realm. It represents the element of Earth, the color Green and the Base (first) chakra. Use for grounding. It is masculine.

The Octahedron is the eight-sided diamond. Each side is a triangle. It represents love, the heart and compassion, integration, the 8-fold path to Enlightenment, the element of Air, the color yellow and the Heart (4th) chakra. It can help you move forward. It represents your inner child.

The Dodecahedron is the twelve-sided ball with the pentagon faces. It represents the 12 faces of the God/dess within, Ascension, Mystery school teachings, the color Gold, the element Ether/Spirit and the higher chakras (8-12 and up). It connects you to the universal life force. It is female.

The Icosahedron is the twenty-sided ball with the triangular faces. It represents prayer, transformation, the color blue, the Naval (2nd) chakra and the element Water. It can help you sustain focus and momentum. It is female.

Each of the five Platonic solids carries special teachings. The tetrahedron invokes the power of manifestation and the cube grounds that creation in our bodies and this reality. Our core heart is found in the octahedron as an expression of selflove and compassion. Prayer is invoked in the form of the icosahedron. The twelve faces of 'God within' are discovered in the dodecahedron.

Four of the five platonic solids embody the number thirteen. The cube and octahedron have twelve edges or lines surrounding one center. The icosahedron has twelve corners around one and the dodecahedron has twelve faces around one.

The only solid not supporting this is the tetrahedron and when two tetrahedrons are joined (star tetrahedron) there are twelve edges around one. More about the star tetrahedron in a moment.

Platonic Solid

Edges

Corners

Faces

Total

Numerology

Tetrahedron

6

4

4

14

5

Cube

12

8

6

26

8

Octahedron

12

6

8

26

8

Icosahedron

30

12

20

62

8

Dodecahedron

30

20

12

62

8

Star Tetrahedron

12

8

8

n/a

n/a



There is a 6th mystical shape, also found within Metatron’s cube. This is the star tetrahedron, made up of 2 tetrahedrons. This powerful shape is also called a Merkaba. It is basically a 3 dimensional Star of David. It contains within it the geometry of the cube, the octahedron and the tetrahedron. The word Merkaba, in ancient Egyptian, is translated as MER: rotating fields of light, KA: spirit, and BA: soul and in Hebrew it means 'chariot'.

Everyone knows about auras. You can get the colors of your aura photographed or looked at by a psychic. What a lot of people don’t know is that your aura is not really a shapeless blob. It’s the shape of a star tetrahedron. Three of them, actually.

Stand up straight. Hold out your arms. Your static field is a hand’s width past the edge of your finger tips and the top point of that field is one hand’s width above your head and the bottom of that field is one hand’s width below your feet. These are your hands’ widths so for each person it’s slightly different.

Running from top to bottom is a tube, the pranic tube, which carries energy from both earth and sky into your physical body. It is as big as the circle made by your thumb and forefinger. The top of the pranic tube is your soul star chakra, and the bottom of your pranic tube is your earth star chakra. These lead into your crown and root chakras (which also point straight up and down, unlike the other five, which point front and back). Your root and crown chakras are actually two ends of the same tube, and the energy running through it is changed as it passes the other 5 horizontal chakras.

The alignment of the static star tetrahedron in your aura depends on your gender. If you are male, the point of the sun tetrahedron (yellow, in the drawing) is in front of you, the flat part behind you. If you are female, the flat part of the sun tetrahedron is in front of you and the point behind you. These star tetrahedrons do not rotate. They represent your physical body and are neutral.

There are two more star tetrahedrons in your aura. (The term “merkaba” refers to all 3 of these star tetrahedrons together.) One star tetrahedron is male and electrical in energy and it rotates counter clockwise (to the left), and relates to your mental/logical thinking. The other star tetrahedron is female and magnetic and it rotates clockwise (to the right) and relates to your emotional thinking.



Meditating with the merkaba activates the left and right brain together, raising your consciousness level. It brings dualities into balance—male and female; heaven and earth; everything that is yin and that is yang. You can, with practice, use the Merkaba field to lift your consciousness to higher realms.

When you meditate and use any kind of breathing method, you should be aware of the breath and energy going in through both ends of the pranic tube and meeting in your heart. It’s almost like pumping up your heart, it gets bigger and bigger with each breath until it explodes into light from all the combined energies of earth and sky. When you visualize that happening and you’re working with the merkaba, the ball of light that surrounds you should look like a flower of life sphere in rainbow colors.

Crystal Grids and Sacred Geometry

One of the many things you can do with all these wonderful shapes is make crystal grids. This is a layout of crystals chosen for a specific purpose, placed in sacred geometry-based patterns to connect, clear, amplify, generate and re-direct energy. Crystal grids help to better formulate and ground intent, then assist to spread and manifest the sole purpose of that intent. Working with crystals and sacred geometry together can raise our vibration, clear physical and emotional blockages, expand our perception and reconnect us with Source.

You can use as the base the whole Flower of Life shape, and place a crystal on each line crossing. Or you can use a Metatron’s cube and concentrate on whichever of the Platonic Solid shapes (or the Star Tetrahedron) you feel the need to connect to. You can purchase sets of Platonic Solid crystal shapes and Star Tetrahedrons to use in the grids (or just hold the single shape you need). You can make permanent grids by gluing the crystals in place and keep them in your car or in certain places in your home, as needed. Build them with a clear intention and purpose in mind.

Star Tetrahedron grids are multipurpose. If you want to concentrate energy, and bring energy in from above and below, point the crystals toward the center. If you want to spread energy over a large area, point the crystals outward.

This is a quickie grid I put together for this lecture, using a star tetrahedron in Metatron's Cube. In the center is a large amethyst star tetrahedron (which is for sale! contact me) surrounded by long singing laser quartz crystals and small Herkimer-type quartz.

No matter what shape you use, activate the grid in the same way. Join up all the crystals in the pattern you laid, using your finger, a special crystal, or a wand. Do it 3 or 9 times, concentrating on bringing energy in from above and below, and putting the energy toward whatever purpose you built the grid. If you know Reiki or anything similar use that energy as well to program and empower the grid.

Looping animation of Metatron's Cube,

the Platonic Solids and the star merkaba:



You can build them for healing yourself or for healing someone else, for protection, or any other positive thing you can think of. You can put a piece of paper under the grid with the person’s name or photo, or with your affirmation written out (always phrased in the present time, and with gratitude).

You should recharge and empower the grid at least once a day until it has served its purpose and then take it apart, and cleanse the crystals, freeing them of the programming.

I offer for sale sets of crystal Platonic solids and loose merkaba crystals of all sizes, from $10 up. There is no page for these; contact me if you're interested.

All the fold-up Platonic Solid & star tetrahedron patterns below are (c) by Bruce Rawlins from his excellent Sacred Geometry Sourcebook, which I HIGHLY recommend. They are all PDFs requiring the free Adobe Reader.

Star Tetrahedron fold up

Tetrahedron fold up

Hexahedron fold up

Octahedron fold up

Dodecahedron fold up

Icosahedron fold up

Here is the promo video I created to loop on my tablet and advertise the talk:

All material on this site is copyright (c) by Gevera Bert Piedmont except where noted. All rights reserved. Contact me for permission to republish. Information on this site is for entertainment purposes only. Enjoy! })i({

Page created: 12.19.19.16.8 11-Yaxkin 3-Muluc (12 August 2012)

Page modified: 13.0.0.16.6 5-Cimi 4-Ceh (12 November 2013)



[dragonmaiden79]

Sir Knight, Taj

Introducing, Madame Tajira

People left Vesuvia in droves after the horrendous situation involving the palace and word spread like wildfire, traveling with the survivers and bystanders alike, plummetting the country into poor conditions. Abandoned businesses and homes meant suffering economy, with land becoming cheaper and cheaper to encourage people to move back or stay; It had become destitute and were it not for the Magician, the Lovers, and the Fool's constant support and efforts, nothing would have remained. The Countess had no supporters left.

"Serves her right, doing this to me..." Said the bitter, homeless former Count as he read a discarded news paper in an alley. He crumpled it up and tossed it away, ducking behind a few trash cans to avoid the royal guard as they marched by.

He had been lurking in the shadows since begging wasn't feeding him enough, turning to petty theft. The shop and store owners became fed up in a matter of weeks, and had reported his worthless ass without a second thought. He scratched at his patchy beard and looked at his worn, dingy clothes. Suddenly the concept of wearing all white became incredibly overrated. "No one in all the history of mankind..." he grumbled to himself, slinking from back alley to back alley like common trash. He slipped in a puddle of Lord-knows-what and screeched indignantly. "Has ever suffered as I am now!!!" He growled, gritting his teeth as the cool, foul smelling liquid seeped into his pants.

"Hey, wasn't that-"

"Oh, that was definitely him."

It's too bad Lucio was so horrible at being inconspicuous. The rapid clang of metal approaching didn't allow him time to dwell on his miserable fate and he quickly staggered to his feet, trying to find a place to hide. It was at this moment that the worn leather heels that he had refused to give up upon his banishment broke, sending him careening to the ground. The last thing he remembered was the feel of cold cobblestone against his face and the metal clang from the knights armor as they surrounded him.

A splash of ice water snatched him from his unconscious state. He looked around frantically, realizing that he was flanked by a knight on both sides, each holding onto a chain that was coiled around his body. He immediately began to rant and struggle. "What the hell is this!? I can take you both--"

"Settle down, Count Lucio." Said a smooth, sultry female voice.

He followed the sound of the voice upwards to a dais, where a petite woman clad in armor stood looking down at him. More careful inspection made him realize that she wasn't alone too; There was a semicircle of about 11 chairs a behind her, all except 1 occupied by very regal and well dressed individuals with decorated faces masks, and head pieces.

"...Or I should say, former Count." The woman continued speaking. "Yes... The former Count of a bastardization of a country. It's a shame what you have been reduced to."

Lucio growled.

"Judgement will be enacted here, today, on you, dear Lucio. You are charged with several counts of theft, threats, harassment, and even a couple of physical assaults due to your behavior involving my lovely citizens. Your testimony begins now. My council will then take a vote based off of your word and your word alone, leaving me to consider their opinions before I make the final decision. How do you plea?"

"Not guilty!" He shouted, "Your townspeople are so stingy and selfish! You'd think they'd help me out, but no!"

The woman laughed shrewdly, glancing over her shoulder at the council members. "Okay, Lucio. While you do seem adamant in your stance, there are a few specific charges that I must ask you about. Did you steal food from any of the local vendors?"

"I would hardly call such gruel 'food'!"

"Did you get into a fight with a man whom you claimed to be 'being greedy' because he bought what you considered an excess amount of fruit and refused to share with you?

"Who eats THAT much fruit?"

"Did you threaten or menace at any children for teasing you on the streets?"

"Those brats were asking for it! They're lucky I didn't tan their hides!"

The woman fell silent for a brief moment. "Is there anything else you would like me to know, Count?"

"Your backstreets are filthy, these chains are awful, and --"

"About your case, Lucio."

"Nope. Clearly I've done nothing wrong. So whaddya say? I'm done now, right?"

She laughed shortly again. "Very well then. Regarding the testimony of the accused, Grand Council, how say you?"

One by one each elaborately decorated Noble rose and stated their verdict, which turned out to be unanimous. "Guilty."

"Mmhmm. Duly noted." She nodded. "Count Lucio, if you'll look to your left you'll see that carved into the white stone walls of this arena is a lion. On the opposite side, to your right is a bull. These are permanent symbols of the two houses that came together to build this country and comprise it's nobility. As such, I am to adhere to the laws set by each house in my position as acting Princess of Pierreblanc."

She leapt elegantly from the dais and landed a perfect summersault in the center of the arena, approaching Lucio slowly until she stood before him. "You have a stunning lack of discipline and are completely irresponsible, which means that the short-comings that riddle your life are rooted in your childhood. Therefore, where other people have failed you, I shall succeed. You will be properly trained and imparted with the skills and knowledge to function as a productive member of my society."

She gestured to the lion carving. "Through the dignity and authority on my left side," and then raised the other hand to point to the bull. "Partnered with the magnanimity and valor of my right... This is true justice, for the ignorant cannot be properly tried." Her voice echoed throughout the arena. "Have you any legitimate way or reason to contest my judgement?"

His eyes widened in a mix of fear and shock. "What are you on about? You aren't going to let me go!?"

She laughed, far too amused by Lucio's attitude to correct his manners. "Then I shall make my ruling immediately. I, Princess Tajira of Branch Et Serpentium, declare that you, former Count of Vesuvia 'Lucio' Montag Morgasson, be sentenced to indefinite full-time etiquette training with Most High advisor and royal tutor, Giles Christophe. Guards, that will be all."

***

The Guards escorted Lucio all the way from the arena to the fantastic display of architecture that was the Pierreblanc Palace. The stones that composed the building were bright white and perfectly polished, making them reflect every color of the rainbow and giving the entire thing an ethereal quality. There were many slick curves and perfect arches that gave it a unique silhouette and the gates were twinkling gold. Even Lucio was stunned into silence.

Awaiting him there was a clean cut purple haired man and a team of six maids.

"You may release him." He said to the guards that held Lucio's chains. "Quickly now, he desperately needs to be bathed and fed." They wasted no time in heeding the orders, finally removing the biting metal from the former Count's wrists and neck.

"I am Giles Christophe and by royal decree you are my responsibility from this moment on. I will ensure that Madame Tajira is satisfied with your reformation, but for now we will escort you to your personal quarters and attempt to make you presentable at once. Understood?"

"Great! Finally some proper treatment around here."

Giles merely frowned his disapproval. The Princess told him that he'd have his work cut out for him in even before her officers had made the arrest.

**

"He's kind of a bimbo, but if anyone can fix him, it's you."

"If you don't mind my asking Madame, why not one of our traditional corrections facilities?"

"Ah, yes." She had said, lounging in her tub full of sweet smelling bubbles, a bath girl feeding her small slices of fruit. "It's gotten very stuffy around here, so he will be a breath of fresh air- A ray of sunshine even! Just fix him up a bit." She said, waving her hand dismissively. "He is nothing to be concerned about."

**

Giles shook his thoughts away as he lead Lucio to his quarters, the maids in tow. "Her Majesty has personally selected and furnished this room for you." He said as he opened the door and gestured in.

The room was gorgeous; the farthest wall of it was made entirely of sliding glass doors, which opened up to huge balcony tiled in sparkling opal. The bed was a magnificent piece of art and the centerpiece of the room. It was low sitting and round with a blue chiffon canopy that extended from the ceiling to veil it. Much bigger than a king sized bed, it had no defined head or foot board but instead carved polyhedron railings to stand in their places.

Lucio didn't have much time to admire though, as he was then led out of a pair of double doors within the room. Exiting, he noted that suddenly he was two maids short. It went outside to a tall stone staircase that led down to a what appeared to be an empty pool. There were towering white and gold marble lion statues on each side of it. "Her taste isn't half bad! Much better than her attitude." He said to no one in particular.

Giles exhaled with annoyance, "Ladies, if you'd please." He said to the maids as he moved to a bench that sat near the pool, sending them into perfectly practiced action. They all disrobed to reveal different variations of soft, elegant curvature that could only be described as uniquely female and split into teams of two. One set used magic to get themselves atop the lion heads; Completely synchronized, they put their hands together as if meditating and water began to flow down from the mouths of the lions, and into the pool. In conjunction with them, the others began quickly undressing Lucio, leaving him bared from his rags in a matter of moments. "My, my ladies, one at a time..." He remarked, as if he wasn't in desperate need of care.

Little to no maintenance had been done to him since his eviction from Vesuvia so his skin was sunburnt and dirty, not to mention his overgrown facial hair and chipped nails. Even his golden arm had lost all of its luster and most of its magic, making it hard for it to function. His stench was wretched to the noses of everyone within arms reach as well. Certainly he needed to be cleansed as soon as possible. "This water is freezing!" He cried out, as the girls pulled him down few stairs that led into the pool. "I can't bathe like this! Back in MY palace there was hot water!"

"Give them a moment." Giles said sharply, having had his fill of Lucio's commentary.

He winced at the harshness of Giles' tone but, remained silent as the girls in the bath with him hovered their hands over the water, transferring heat into it. Goosebumps began to spread across his skin as the water warmed considerably. Before long, the pool was filled and the other duo had climbed down from the Lions. They moved to the statues' mounts which had hidden compartments that held towels, sponges, soaps, and an assortment of crystals. Each grabbed their own selections, placing them in decorative woven baskets and joined the others in the water.

Yellow and blue crystals were placed about the water, giving it a mysterious green glow with the relaxing energy blanketing the space. As soon as the soothing aura touched every corner of the water, the same girls who had undressed Lucio, grabbed soap and sponges from the baskets now afloat and went to work.

As they scrubbed his skin, layers of caked up dirt and sweat mixed with the suds and permeated the water. He moaned as they went further down, switching to a soft cloth to clean his dick and balls. They were thorough and gentle, massaging and caressing his sack until he was at full attention. A small crystal chair was synthesized with stone magic for him to be seated, so that his hair could be washed. It was so greasy that the shampoo wouldn't lather when the girl- the one Lucio thought the cutest, massaged it into his scalp.

She had olive skin and green eyes, with freckles and black hair. Her fingers felt like magic as they danced across his head, scrubbing diligently until finally, on the third go, the shampoo lathered into a nice foam. He relaxed into the touches of her and her tall, slender partner who had just finished washing his chest and was now seated on his lap, massaging his shoulders. "Ohhh, this is more like it..." He moaned, "Hey, what're your names?"

"I see you're enjoying my girls, Lucio." Came the Princess' voice from the long stairwell. "The one who washes your hair is called Ariella. Zafira is on your lap." She stepped directly into the pool without regard for the thin, loosely tied white robe she wore, carrying a long decorative case.

As the two maidens that prepared the baskets made the glowing water circulate around them, Tajira approached, giving a kiss each to Ariella and Zafira. Slowly, she trailed her fingers down Lucio's golden arm. "Mmm...What magnificent piece this was in your glory days, Wasn't it Count?" He frowned but otherwise made no comment as she let her fingers carefully trace over every detail and intricacy of the arm. "Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful..." She whispered, free hand coming to rest on his shoulder. "Can you feel my touches, Lucio?" He widened his eyes, unprepared for the question.

"O-Of course I can feel it!" He shouted. She raised an eyebrow. "I mean...Well, mostly... Somewhat." He conceded, blushing. "It doesn't exactly work like it used to."

"I didn't think so." Taj said, her own magic bleeding into his shoulder, making it tingle.

"Hey, what are you--!" He began to protest. Suddenly, the golden prosthetic popped off, falling into the water and sinking to the bottom of the pool. "Why did you do that!?!" He cried out in alarm, girls still draped over him. Without a word, she popped open the fancy case that she was carrying to reveal perhaps the most sumptuous piece of work that Lucio had ever laid eyes on.

An arm. Crafted of diamond-- the purest blue diamond. With perfectly sized gold scales and 4 mounted red andesine going up it's shoulder. "I know red is your preferred color, but as you assimilate into the House, I would like you to look the part. I hope it still within the parameters of your taste. Will you accept my gift?"

He ran his fingers over the smooth finish of the diamond underside, to the perfect ridges of the golden scales, and then finally, over the bright red stones that decorated the piece. It even had tiny, fine-line etchings on it. "Yes!" He said with childlike enthusiasm, "I can really have it?"

"Certainly." She said with a glimmer of a smirk. "We will have it attached for you as soon as you're settled."

"Well Tajira, was it?" he said seductive smile tugging on his lips.

"Taj, please." She said. Giles’ small gasp could be heard in the background.

"Taj, then. I am very, very thankful for your present. You know, if there's anything that you want me to do to repay you, I'll do it." He batted his long blonde lashes at her. With his erect cock out and two beautiful women clinging to him, pouting and writhing in place it was incredibly hard to deny...

"Not yet." Taj reminded herself in her head. She bristled in place, eyes having gone slightly hooded and dark as she slowly closed the case for the arm. She loathed denying the throbbing of her nether regions. "No..." She said out loud. "You won't ever have to pay me back."

"What? You're sure?" He asked in disbelief.

"No, no, it doesn't work like that. This my pleasure. Giles, hold onto it for him." She said, exiting the water. The white fabric, now see through clung to her as she approached him, accentuating her thick thighs, toned calves, and perky rump. "Bring him to dinner after you're done in here. I want the Council and House Advisors to see him up close and groomed before you begin the discipline process.

"Yes, Madame." Giles nodded slowly. "You-- You're certain of this choice? To have him before the Nobles without any training?"

"It's not as if they can tell me not to." She shrugged casually. "And it's not as if I will allow them to question your advisory skills, If that's what you are concerned about." She kissed his cheek, patting his shoulder lightly. "Now, I must go dress myself." She continued with a nod. "I shall see you all tonight." And with that, she swept out of the room.

Ch.1 End.

Hope you enjoyed! There will be another part!

[techmomma]

A Little Perspective

Perspective is a tricky, fickle fairy to master. Our entire lives are lived in perspective, we see it from the day we’re born. We know what’s far, near, middling, when something is above or below us, we’ve seen perspective since the day we were born, we’ve seen it longer than we’ve known what hands and eyes look like—the things most artists know that even small mistakes can spell disaster for.

Which is why when perspective is off in an image, we know. Even if we’re not good at perspective, we know. Which is part of why perspective is such a tricky, tricksy principle to master.

In order to master perspective, you must have a solid foundation in the facets and aspects of perspective. Different types of perspective, vanishing points, horizon lines, everything. Your tower will fall without a foundation.

How do you build a foundation? With the basics. And yes. That goes for you advanced artists too (like me!!). This is the same shit that every artist has to go over, again and again and again.

Until you die. Or stop doing art. Whichever comes first.

So what is the first element to master when learning perspective? That, dear readers, is the humble…

Dot.

Open a sketch page, be it digital or traditional, and make a dot.

Congratulations, you’ve mastered the first element of perspective.

The dot on your sketchpage represents what is called a vanishing point, or sometimes a point of convergence. The vanishing point is the point at which two parallel lines will converge in the distance, or essentially, the farthest your eyes can see. (Not really, but for the sake of learning this aspect before I introduce horizon lines, you can consider it so.) Fun fact: in real life, if you stand on ground that is perfectly flat, that distance is actually about five miles! Go about 100 feet up and that distance increases to about 20 miles. Neat!

Now what I’d like you to do is around the dot, somewhere on the page, draw three shapes, or polygons. A square, a triangle, and a circle. Anywhere on the page, just make sure they have some breathing room, like this.

Something like that will do. Plenty of room for each, we aren’t going to get overlap.

Now we’re going to give these shapes depth. These are going to be 3D shapes, with their flat faces toward us, and their back halves receding into the distance. So what you’re going to do is head to that triangle. Now I want you to draw a line from each vertex (corner) to the vanishing point. And do the same with the square, while you’re at it. Leave the circle alone, we’ll get to that one later. You should have an image sorta like this now, with lots of lines.

Those lines are going to help determine the edges of the forms you’re making! You actually have a 3D shape here, one that extends way out into the distance! It’s transparent right now, because you can see the secret edge that you wouldn’t be able to see normally, if these shapes were opaque. Watch what happens when I make the line on that secret edge dotted.

Does it look 3D now? Just watch for now. How about if I delete that back line entirely?

Yeah, lots more 3D! I’ll  make those lines black…

Oh those definitely look like 3D shapes now! Receding off into the distance! Now, obviously, there aren’t many blocks that recede off for miles into the distance, right? So let’s shorten these down. Pick an arbitrary spot somewhere along the long side of the triangular prism, and make a line from edge to edge--making sure it’s parallel from the corresponding edge on the triangle. Do it again for the square shape, making sure your new lines are connected.

Now erase some of the lines from those new corners you made, all the way down to the vanishing point.

Now we have polyhedrons! 3D objects! Objects that are in perspective! All of these objects are actually parallel to each other: you’d see it if you looked at them from a top-down perspective! The reason their lines appear to converge in the distance is the same reason that you can look at a straight street or pair of railroad tracks for miles, extending into the horizon, and the lines eventually appear to converge at a point. 

But that same street is going to look like this from above. They never actually converge! This is the illusion of depth.

Going back to our shapes! 

“Ah, but what about circle friend there?” you ask. No, circle is not a friend. Circle is the shitlord who steals your money in a backalley and leaves you minus a kidney. Circle is an asshole.

Circle is already technically in perspective, but what we’re going to do is make a cylinder. A long tube-y thing, you know them from using them to whap people after you’ve used all the wrapping paper. Traditionally, you would use a ruler to find the tangent point of the circle to create the “edge” of the cylinder. Now you can use an actual jpeg of a ruler like I did here.

But most digital programs these days have a line tool, and you can just put one point on the vanishing point, and extend the other out past the circle and move it around until the line and circle intersect, like this.

And erase some of the line extending past the circle.

WOO! We have a cylinder extending into the distance past our sight!

But… now what do we do to shorten it? That requires getting around circle’s asshole nature. We can do this in a digital program by duplicating the circle, and shrinking it down. (In a traditional setting, you’d need to eyeball the angle of the circle’s curve.) After you’ve shrunk it down some, move it so that the circumference is touching the lines headed to the vanishing point, in two places, like this.

That’s actually what you were doing, drawing those lines to shorten the cube and triangular prism way back at the beginning! You were making duplicate planes of the faces... facing us. You were making another 2D square, and a 2D triangle.

Now just erase some of those lines, like you did before with the square and triangle.

Look!! You have a cylinder! A transparent cylinder!

Now to make it a fully opaque 3D object, like the square and triangle, go to the smaller circle and erase some of it. It’s a little harder to tell with a cylinder where to erase, so here are the dotted lines showing the obscured parts.

Now let’s erase those obscured lines fully.

Ta-da! We just created a 3D cylinder, in correct perspective!! Cylinders are hard!! 

Honestly, a lot of perspective stuff is typically learned traditionally with rulers and pencils and string and imo, physically handling and learning perspective in such a way was super helpful and informative for me. That really taught me how to do perspective and I highly suggest starting out with pencil, paper, and a ruler, if you can. If not, that’s okay! There’s still lots of ways to learn.

Repetition is also key here. You have to build muscle and brain memory with perspective. I recommend doing this practice a good ten, fifteen more times, until you really start to get a feel for this! And do it every day, for a week. Or y’know, five times every day for three weeks. Do different, simple shapes, like rectangles, more squares, triangles, and when you get comfortable, try for things like pentagons, stars, plus signs, diamonds, crescents, so on and so forth.

If you have questions or you did this exercise and you’re just not getting it, or did this exercise and would like to see if you did it correctly, please do feel free to visit my inbox! I’m always happy to help.

Next will be horizon lines and one-point perspectives!

[elainesknight]

The meme thing

RULES: 1. Answer the new questions given by the previous person 2. Write 11 new questions 3. Tag 11 people

tagged by @tibgracchus​

1. what’s your favourite poem? This one is really difficult because while I sometimes write poems myself I don't really read that much poetry. So, this is really spontaneous: Prometheus by Goethe. If only because I think that "Knabenmorgenblütenträume" is a beautiful word.

2. would you rather fight 100 duck sized horses or one horse sized duck, why, and how do you intend to Win? I would fight 100 duck sized horses and win by not fighting at all because I love horses and horses love me no matter their size. 

  3. if you had to Remove a letter of the alphabet, which would it be and why? I would remove the 'q' because it's the least used letter in the alphabet of my native language (german). Also, you can replace it with a 'k' and people could easily guess what you're writing. 

  4. do you think logic vs emotion is an accurate binary? No, I don't think so. I think it's like in a state where the different powers have to control each other in order for the government to work. But both are equally important. 

  5. what’s your favourite regular polyhedron? I had to google that. But a Icosidodecahedron looks cool, I guess? 

  6. if you had to write a book, what would it be about? I have so many different ideas for that one. It's a tie between something about the arthurian legend and the Marius&Sulla days of the Roman Republic. But, as it fits better, I'm going to go with Marius&Sulla. So, I guess it would be heavily inspired by the Masters of Rome series, which features my favorite characterisation of the two. Basically it would be about their relationship and interactions and the DRAMA of them being (more or less) good friends that drifted apart (and started a civil war). Also, it would be really gay because there is not enough of that in books about Rome? (No, brain, please don’t make me think about a Marius/Sulla ship. nO (Too late. This is NOT what I wanted.))

7. what’s the etymology of your name? It comes from "Mars" aka the roman god of war and means "warlike" or "belonging to Mars". 

8. do you think perfect translation across languages is possible? No, I don't think so because each language has its own way of saying things (!!) and the nuances that certain words have in certain contexts cannot be translated. 

  9. do you like fizzy drinks? No, not at all! 

10. what’s the most recent lie you’ve told? I...don't actually remember. (That's not a lie) 

11. if offered immortality, would you take it? why? I don't think so. While it would be cool from the perspective of an historian (see how events influence the future and so on)but seeing how everyone I know would die...nah, immortality is not for me.

Ok, new questions: 

1. What do you usually think about before you fall asleep?

2. Do you like Shakira?

3. What song do you listen to when you’re happy?

4. Is there a part from a song/poem/story/movie that you can’t get out of your head?

5. What’s your favorite architecture style?

6. What’s your favorite time of the day?

7. Do you know a programming language?

8. Have you ever told someone that you love them?

9. If you could choose one superpower which one would it be?

10. What was your favorite subject in school? (If you had one)

11. Can you play an instrument?

Tagging is difficult because I don’t know that many people on here. So, if you want to do this, consider yourself tagged! :)

[autolovecraft]

For three months Keziah and Brown Jenkin had come to her aid.

Some unknown attraction was pulling his eyes in a seemingly irrelevant direction, for he knew he could not even begin to explain. When the doctor arrived and began to pull down those frightful covers Walter Gilman was dead. Shub-Niggurath! The workmen crossed themselves in fright when they came upon this blasphemy, but later burned candles of gratitude in St.

That night Gilman saw the violet light he saw one night when he had stolen fearfully up to peer through Gilman's keyhole. Mazurewicz chanting mournfully two floors below.

Gilman had retired, the atrocious shrieking began. That cryptical pull from the north was getting very strong again, though it had a ghastly layer of older materials which paralyzed the wreckers with horror. At once he saw there was something on the table a sight which nearly snapped the last thread of his reason. It was in the old Witch-House, so that Gilman had some terrible hints from the dreaded Necronomicon of Abdul Alhazred, the fragmentary Book of Eibon, and the suppressed Unaussprechlichen Kulten of von Junzt to correlate with his abstract formulae on the sheets he covered day by day? The next day both youths felt very tired, and knew the black man—the muddy feet—the throat marks—the tales and fears of the superstitious foreigners—what did all this mean? In the lighter preliminary phase the evil old woman was beckoning and grimacing imperiously. He did not know where he wished to fly. One of the small radiating arms was broken off and were missing. There were evil-smelling staircases which creaked ominously, and on which the old woman began to turn toward him he fled precipitately off the bridge and into the shelter of the town's labyrinthine waterfront alleys. With one savage kick he sent the morbidity over the edge of the gulf and heard it whimper on some level far below. She seemed to crystallize at a point closer to the ceiling than to the floor, he washed and dressed in frantic haste, as if racked by some torment beyond description. Very little concerning this skeleton has leaked out, but the scene with the black man silently pointed. The man did not speak, and bore no trace of expression on his small, regular features. The landlord was in, thank heaven, and appeared to be organic while others seemed inorganic. Gilman felt that the twilight abysses with the bubble-congeries and that kaleidoscopic little polyhedron was menacing and irritating. She had spoken also of the Black Man, of her oath, and of the violet light again. A few of the organic entities appeared by its motions to be noticing him, he felt a stark, hideous fright which generally jolted him awake. Doctor Malkowski. It was too much to bear. The urge to walk was gradually changing to an urge to leap mystically into space, and of the moldy, unhallowed garret gable where he wrote and studied and wrestled with figures and formulae when he was not tossing on the meager iron bed.

On reflection, he was glad he had not—but he must have been shod, since there was a clearly visible living figure on that desolate island, and a second look left no room for doubt.

In the later dreams he began to read into the odd angles a mathematical significance which seemed to involve in each case a radically different species of conduct-pattern and basic motivation. Now, he reflected, those nervous fears were being mirrored in his disordered dreams. What the others were in their own dimensional sphere or spheres he dared not try to think. As April advanced, Gilman's fever-sharpened ears were disturbed by the whining prayers of a superstitious loom-fixer were an unnerving influence. And Hallowmass, about the childish cries heard near May-Eve, and Hallowmass, about the childish cries heard near May-Eve, and Hallowmass, about the irregular human tooth-marks left on certain sleepers in that and other houses, about the stench often noted in the old country had heard tales from her grandmother. With one savage kick he sent the morbidity over the edge of the gulf and heard it whimper on some level far below. He must ask Frank Elwood for help. That this could be accomplished without loss of life was in many cases conceivable. The more he remembered of his hideous dream the more terrified he felt, and it could speak all languages. Life had become an insistent and almost unendurable cacophony, and there was that constant, terrifying impression of other sounds—perhaps from regions beyond life—trembling on the very brink of audibility. On neither occasion, though, had Gilman been there; and when told of the matter he wondered where he could have been, how he got back to his room without making tracks in the hall, and how the muddy, furniture-like prints came to be mixed with his in the garret window was of frightful import. He had not dared to peer, he told Mazurewicz, after he had glimpsed in the evening twilight the repellent old woman whose image had become so horribly transferred to his dreams. He had not seen Gilman on any sleep-walking. Had he himself talked as well as walked around the house in his sleep was plain, and it is indeed a fact that—notwithstanding certain reports of a ghostly tittering in the deserted house which lasted almost as long as that edifice itself—no fresh appearances either of Old Keziah or of Brown Jenkin have been muttered of since Gilman's death. The occupant was emitting sounds of veritably inhuman nature, as if with the residual echoes of some horrible noise heard in dreams. Where Gilman could have been, how he got back to his room without making tracks in the hall, and how the muddy, furniture-like prints came to be mixed with his in the garret chamber, were wholly beyond the pale of sanity, and Gilman hastened up to his own entity, he could tell no more than of how he moved himself. Stanislaus' Church—could bring him relief.

Elwood scarcely dared to touch him, but in another second he thought he was in a cold perspiration was the report of a pair of revelers who had been walking past the mouth of the gangway just after midnight. Neither knew what to make of the whole chaotic business, and decided it would be better if they thought as little as possible about it. The shrieking, roaring confusion of sound which permeated the abysses was past all analysis as to pitch, timbre or rhythm; but seemed to be a kind of affectionate playfulness around the ankles of the black man, which the deep mud largely concealed. Approaching him softly though without apparent furtiveness were five figures, two of which were the sinister old house. When Gilman stood up, the tiles felt hot to his bare feet. Gilman had good scientific grounds for thinking she might have stumbled on strange and significant information. What made the students shake their heads was his sober theory that a man might—given mathematical knowledge admittedly beyond all likelihood of human acquirement—step deliberately from the earth to any other celestial body which might lie at one of an infinity of specific points in the cosmic pattern. May-Eve and Hallowmass. One could develop all sorts of aural delusions in this morbid old house—for did not Gilman himself, even in proportion to its size, than the room itself, though it had a ghastly layer of older materials which paralyzed the wreckers with horror.

He dreaded to cross the bridge that gave a view of the amount on his skin and cuff.

In every quarter, however, that it was not worth their while to hew open and disinfect the long-stopped egress he doubted greatly. What made the students shake their heads was his sober theory that a man might—given mathematical knowledge admittedly beyond all likelihood of human acquirement—step deliberately from the earth to any other celestial body which might lie at one of an infinity of specific points in the cosmic pattern. The rats must have bitten him as he slept, giving rise to the climax of that frightful dream.

But that moment was very brief, for presently he was in a cold perspiration was the report of a pair of revelers who had been walking past the mouth of the gangway just after midnight. The mother, it appeared, had feared the event for some time; but the reasons she assigned for her fear were so grotesque that no one took them seriously. The rats must have bitten him as he slept, giving rise to the climax of that frightful dream. It was wise to pray and count one's beads at this season. Also, Dombrowski must attend to the poisoning of those rats in the ancient house. For the moment his recollections were hopelessly hazy, but he was too disorganized even to mind it. It was a lambent glow of this sort which always played about the old woman and the little polyhedron—the strange sunburn—the wrist-wound—the unexplained image—the muddy alley and the stairs—the old witch and the fanged, furry little animal. And what was that faint suggestion of sound which permeated the abysses was past all analysis as to pitch, timbre or rhythm; but seemed to be made of some sort of shining metal whose color could not be guessed in the chaos of mixed effulgences, and their nature utterly defied conjecture. Professor Ellery found platinum, iron and tellurium in the strange alloy; but mixed with these were at least three other apparent elements of high atomic weight which chemistry was absolutely powerless to classify.