#humans-part of the earth. place the sun in their religions. their stories. anything to make the sun feel special.

[chill4234]

Things that I know.

1. Yaoi is the opposite of yuri

2. According to tumblr, yuri seems to be just about anything, but I have most commonly seen it take the form of two inanimate objects in close proximity to one another. Eg minecraft furnace and crafting table, trains crashing into each other, etc.

Therefore, we can conclude that Yaoi is two inanimate objects that are very far apart from each other. The sun and the earth are yaoi.

[gingermcl]

Resurrection means "the rising again of Christ after his death and burial," directly from resurrectionem "a rising again from the dead," from Latin resurgere "rise again, appear again: lift oneself, be restored” (see resurgent).

Resurgent means “rises again, revivification of animals," also from Latin resurgere (see surge).

Surge means "fountain, stream," of uncertain origin, probably from Latin surgere. This etymology akes me think about (watt-er) water being conscious and potentially “god” I also think of a power surge and it’s our eternal life force or soul that’s the power source.

Reincarnation is the same soul being put into a new body. Resurrection is where the original body is returned to a living state after death. You are in the same body as the same person. Reincarnation assumes that the body is just a container for the soul or the “real” you. Resurrection assumes that the body AND soul together make up one being - together they are ‘the real you’. Which I find interesting. Like demigods.. part demiurge or technology and part God or soul essence. We could reincarnate into a very similar looking body every time. We may have similar features and physical structure. We could literally look the exact same. The etymology doesn’t say anything about the body.

Reincarnation means "embodiment of God in the person of Christ," from Latin incarnationem "act of being made flesh" from in- "in" + caro "flesh" To me reincarnation and resurrection sound as if they mean basically the same thing when looking at the etymology.

“The Christian religion is a parody on the worship of the Sun,
in which they put a man whom they call Christ, in the place of the Sun, and pay him the same adoration which was originally paid to the Sun.”
-Thomas Paine

The message of Christ is what matters. It is ancient higher wisdom we all once possessed before we were devolved. If you live by the message of Christ you can get out of this prism or prison but you must actually read the whole message yourself and follow it. I’m not talking about going to a church and having someone else teach you lies. Biblical loyalty without literacy of the text is rampant in Christianity. Following someone else instead of finding out what’s going on for yourself isn’t wise when talking about the immortal soul.

The resurrection is actually talking about the annual procession of the Sun. It stands still for three days each year. Jesus Christ is the Sun of God. The Gospel of Matthew is regarded as the primary Solar Gospel for it tells the sun’s annual story and is most complete. The Christ as in frequency of truth and love is inside you. In the dna.

We are definitely reincarnated. I have a few memories and experiences with the dead. if you follow the light and end up meeting the “source” (that lovebombs you to the point you cannot think straight) you will give over your consent easily & end up in another human incarnation. In order to leave this realm a soul must know and exercise its sovereign authority. You avoid the light and go into the void. Your inner light will come out from there. The way out is within. Blindly following others will keep you cycling in the false gods reincarnation trap. Your power is put in another cell and surged again. I choose to follow the voice inside myself that was given to me by the creator. I am certain the light tunnel is NOT the way and I’m hoping to try something new this time. Even if we are tied to the body, earth may not be the only realm we could live in.

[scarletarosa]

Nergal

Mesopotamian god of death, war, and plagues

Nergal (Akkadian: Erra/Irra) is the god of the Mesopotamian Underworld, known as Kur (or Irkalla). As the King of Kur, Nergal is the husband of Queen Ereshkigal, the dark lady of death. Nergal and his wife were both known for being war-like, bringing death to mortals before they were even meant to die, as they delighted in the blood-shed and power of death. Nergal has another trait as well, which is his power of spreading pestilence, causing horrible disease wherever he wills it. Thus, he was known as the Lord of Plague by the Mesopotamians. Though despite these acts, neither Nergal or his Queen or evil beings, they simply view things differently and fully embrace their roles of causing death.

There are two separate mythical ideas of how Nergal became the husband of Ereshkigal. In one story, he spends seven passionate days with the goddess in her palace, but in another, Nergal attempts to kill her but spares her once Ereshkigal offers to be his wife and share her rulership with him. In either myth, Nergal becomes the co-ruler of Kur alongside Ereshkigal, but must return to the Earth after six months so he may attend to his other duties. In my workings with them, they state the first version to be closer to the truth. 

His Kingdom: The entire Underworld is an extremely vast place that is continuously growing in size. The kingdom of Kur alone is larger than ten Earths combined. Every kingdom of death known to humans exists in the Underworld; Kur is one of these kingdoms, and it lies beyond a long, empty desert. It is a subterranean domain which features a solemn city of bones. It is very dark here, without any sun. Their palace is majestic and gloomy, made of polished black stone and sits tall at the back-centre of the whole kingdom. Within Kur are very dark places and tall, skeletal warriors who guard the kingdom, among other chthonic entities. Mortals who go to their realm tend to be humans who follow the Mesopotamian religion, or are people of Mesopotamian descent. King Nergal and Queen Ereshkigal rule over all the dead sent to their domain, and task them with various challenges that they must overcome. These are for removing their limitations, making them face the wrongs they did during life, and to overcome anything else that restricts them from transcending into the rest of the spirit world.

Appearance: A tall and muscular man with short black hair, reddish-black skin, and eyes that are flaming yellow. He wears otherworldly black clothing that changes shape at will, manifesting appendages, mouths, and spikes. He also wields a scythe as his weapon. He is sadistic towards his enemies, and has booming laughter when he slaughters them.

Personality: Nergal is serious, confident, highly resilient, aggressive, dominating, and vengeful, with his wife being the only one he fully shows care for. He is also fiercely protective over his family and is territorial. He disregards the loss of life and loves death. He is a mighty and terrifying god, but is approachable towards those who respect him. If one truly seeks to understand death, Nergal and his Queen have great wisdom to share, and will illuminate the seeker in the mysteries of the dead. These teachings however are not easy, for death is always a sacrifice in one way or another, but they will make you stronger. Nergal states that ‘one cannot truly be wise if they do not “die” first, as you must kill your old self in order to be reborn’. 

One must also know how to overcome loss, pain, and loneliness, for these things are not only part of life, but will be experienced in the Underworld as well. If you seek to overcome the trials of death, you must first master your own mind, including any unnecessary fears. You shouldn’t be attached to things that are transient; many things that you hold precious in life, such as money, material objects, your appearance, pets, locations, and false beliefs will all be gone one day when you die. You should not be attached to these things, only the things which are eternal; only these are truly important. If one can understand this and accept it, then the Underworld will be easier for them to get through and they can move on to the spirit world beyond.

Day of Week: Tuesday (night)

Offerings: bitter lemonade, absinthe, grapefruit, pomegranates, almonds, garlic, bitter chocolate, animal bones, human skulls (made of obsidian), jet, obsidian, black tourmaline, black candles, scythes, dead scorpions, bat figurines, belladonna berries, thorn branches, lichen, Petri dish with agar gel and fungal blooms, corrugated iron, gas masks, and air raid sirens. Incense of amber + musk, or mugwort + calendula + lichen

See also: Ereshkigal

[chaos-has-theories]

Part 1: The Eye of John

You’ve heard of „Alecto is a Resurrection Beast“, „Alecto is Gaia“ and „Alecto is a seamonster“, you’ve heard of John’s sun symbolism, now get ready for:

John is Ra and Alecto is Mehet-Weret

or less specifically Hathor, or The Eye of Ra

[Image description: A picture in the Ancient Egyptian style. It shows a large blue cow with stars along its belly. There are nine people under it, keeping it steady. An empty boat floats by its back legs, and another boat by its front legs, this one with the god Ra as a passenger. A large red arrow points at the cow and is labelled “Alecto???”.]

(More under the cut, because this shit will get long.)

First, for the record, I am emphatically not a learned egyptologist, so I might be getting things wrong here.

Secondly, ancient Egyptian mythology is a gorgeous mess. You can’t ever just say that x is the child of y, because they’re bound to also be siblings, and spouses, and x is also a and b and y is also b and c and... yeah.

Anyway, let’s do this.

---

I was rereading Harrow the Ninth with my roommates and we got to this part:

"Your sword will not rend its armour”, he said, with his back turned to them. “It’s weapons will ruin your flesh. It will not stop until it has subsumed its quarry.” (HtN p. 329)

and I thought to myself, huh, that kind of sounds like the Eye of Ra.

So let’s talk about that!

Now, the main story of the Eye of Ra is that, long ago, when the gods were still like, living on earth with the humans, people started to criticize Ra, their ruler.

That pissed off Ra, so he sent off his „Eye“ to punish them. She did, killing almost all the humans, but then Ra couldn’t really get her to stop. So the gods made a bunch of dyed beer with some blood in it, and the Eye drank it all and became drunk and docile.

So far, so good. Technically, at that point Teacher is talking about the Sleeper, but we all know that there are heavy parallels between the Sleeper and the Body. Also, there’s more where that came from.

"My lord,” said Augustine formally, “you told us the truth about Annabel–about Alecto–because she knew the truth too, and you never could control her.” (HtN, p. 478)

”Annabel Lee... was not the dying kind,” said the Emperor. It might be more accurate to say that I switched her off.” “You came to us and we asked, Is she dead?” said Mercy. “And you said, As dead as I can make her... I remember, Lord, that you wept.” (HtN, p. 479)

Neither Alecto nor the Eye of Ra are stopped by death or reason but instead kept somehow subdued.

But it gets better, and weirder.

The most famous version of the Eye of Ra is probably Sakhmet, the lion goddess. Sometimes she's a cat, Bastet; but just as often she’s depicted as a cow, Hathor.

There's a specific version of this myth called „The Book of the Heavenly Cow“ or „The Destruction of Mankind“. Here’s a translation of it.

I just learned about this myth. I learned about it under the Name of „Mehet-Weret“. Hathor and Mehet-Weret are… the same goddess? Not the same goddess? Sometimes the same goddess? They’re both cow themed, and occasionally take the same roles. Mythology is confusing, y’all.

Here’s what Wikipedia has to say about it:

Hathor was given the epithets "mistress of the sky" and "mistress of the stars", and was said to dwell in the sky with Ra and other sun deities. Egyptians thought of the sky as a body of water through which the sun god sailed, and they connected it with the waters from which, according to their creation myths, the sun emerged at the beginning of time. This cosmic mother goddess was often represented as a cow. Hathor and Mehet-Weret were both thought of as the cow who birthed the sun god and placed him between her horns. Like Nut, Hathor was said to give birth to the sun god each dawn.

Since I remembered the name Mehet-Weret and was very proud of that, that’s where I actually started my research here, and…

Mehet-Weret or Mehturt (Ancient Egyptian: mḥt-wrt) is an ancient Egyptian deity of the sky in ancient Egyptian religion. Her name means "Great Flood". She was mentioned in the Pyramid Texts. In ancient Egyptian creation myths, she gives birth to the sun at the beginning of time, and in art she is portrayed as a cow with a sun disk between her horns. She is associated with the goddesses Neith, Hathor, and Isis, all of whom have similar characteristics, and like them she could be called the "Eye of Ra". Mehet-Weret is primarily known as being the "Celestial Cow" or "Cow Goddess" because of her physical characteristics, but she contributes to the world in more ways than that. She is also the Goddess of Water, Creation, and Rebirth; in Egyptian mythology, Mehet-Weret is one of the main components in the making and survival of life. (...) She was credited for the birth of Re, also known as the Sun God Ra; she is also the one who protects Re. (Wikipedia)

SHE’S (a version of) THE PRIMORDIAL FLOOD, Y’ALL.

You said, “Teacher, what destroyed the House of the First?” “Not much,” said the Emperor, and he tried to smile. It was awful. “Rising sea levels and a massive nuclear fission chain reaction...it all went downhill from there.” (HtN p. 346)

"Even the devil bent for God to put a leash around her neck (...) But when the work was done (...) they bade him kill the saltwater creature before she could do them harm...” (HtN p. 328)

Next to you, the body said quietly, “The water is risen. So is the sun. We will endure.” (HtN p. 294)

On this same read-through I snagged on „The water is risen, so is the sun“ because it sounds so much like a quote, but I couldn’t find anything. Yes, John has sun symbolism and Alecto all that water stuff, but where is the connection?

Well, here. It’s just Ancient Egyptian Creation Myths.

The different creation myths have some elements in common. They all held that the world had arisen out of the lifeless waters of chaos (…) The sun was also closely associated with creation, and it was said to have first risen from the mound, as the general sun-god Ra.

That makes Alecto literally the First One. It makes her John’s protector as the Eye. It gives her a connection to water and and even death and the underworld. (It also gives her a connection to the sky, which always fits in a Space Fantasy.)

Essentially,

I can see two figures in Egyptian mythology that fit what we know of Alecto. Those would be the Eye of Ra, an uncontrollable creature of rage and revenge; and the flood from which the sun god rises during the creation of the world. And Mehet-Weret fits into both.

But you’re not convinced yet? Alright then. Remember how Hathor/Mehet-Weret is a cow?

"Oh, singular,” said Dulcinea quietly, more to herself than to Gideon. “Lipochrome...recessive.” (GtN, p. 106)

When she spoke at last, she sounded frozen and numb. “I see. I understand. Lipochrome. Recessive. You are the evidence.” (HtN, p. 410)

I did not know what the fuck to say to her incoherent spew. She said, ragged, peevish: “What? No tongue in your head, you–you mutant, you mistake, you great big calf-eyed fuck-up?”

If you’re like me and know nothing about biology, you’ll hop over to Wikipedia  and find this:

A lipochrome (from Greek λίπος ("fat") and χρῶμα ("color")) is a naturally occurring, fat-soluble pigment. Lipofuscin—a product of fat breakdown in lysosomes—is a type of lipochrome that is associated with the decomposition of cell membranes. Beta carotene, a lipochrome, was found in the retina, pigment epithelium, and iris of cattle eyes.

This is the entirety of the article by the way.

…and I was wondering why Tamsyn didn’t just call the eyes „Amber“.

Now you might say, but Chaos, you know they’re not really her eyes…

Yeah.

They’re John’s eyes.

They are, you might say, the Eyes of John.

---

THERE WILL BE MORE PARTS because I am LOSING MY MIND OVER THIS but this post is already longer than it has any right to be.

In the meantime, here’s an article on Mehet-Weret that I think is actually well researched and probably does a better job explaining how all these different gods fit together than I ever could.

[robin-the-enby]

I've been wanting to request a Marvel one for a while now, but have just finally thought of something that I agreed on—

A oneshot with the avengers and the genderless reader celebrating their first birthday. Like where they came from, birthdays don't exist, the actual celebration and having a date of being born doesn't exist for them.

I'm also only familiar with the movies so I don't know what actually happened after Endgame— So spoilers outside that would be very appreciated if that's alright—

True meaning behind birthdays

Pairing: Avengers x gn!reader (platonic)

Summary: Reader comes from a planet where birthdays don't exist. The others decide to throw the best first birthday party ever for them.

A/N: I made this story so that it doesn't contain any spoilers. I really hope you like this, I tried my best.

Y/BD - your birthdate

Earth didn't have the best reputation among the other planets. Everyone you knew always told you it's a place not worth visiting. But that didn't stop you.

And oh wrong they all were. Sure, Earth didn't have the most impressive technology, but it compensated for it with many rich and diverse cultures. So many nationalities and religions, each celebrating their own holidays and traditions. Sure, some might say that it was impractical for so many cultures to live alongside each other, but you thought it was fascinating.

You've been on Earth for over half a year now and you already knew about many human customs, yet there was still so much more to learn, since they mingled with each other constantly, for example holidays typically celebrated in the U.S. migrated all the way to middle Europe.

However, there were some events that were celebrated by everyone. Like New Years Eve, when humans celebrated their planet's complete rotation around the Sun. Silly creatures. And the biggest catch? Different people celebrated New Years on different days!

You chuckled at the memory, focusing on your previous activity. You were relaxing in the compound's living room, since there weren't any missions that regular S.H.I.E.L.D. agents couldn't handle on their own.

You were soon joined by Tony, a very extravagant and bold man, but still a very friendly colleague of yours. He scooted over until he was sitting next to you and asked "So, how did you enjoy Nat's birthday party?"

Ah, birthdays, of course. Celebrating one's day of birth every year was something all humans did as well. The concept was very foreign to you, I mean, why would anyone celebrate being one year closer to death? Still, you could not deny that you enjoyed yourself very much.

"Are you asking just because you organized the thing?" you asked back with an arched brow. Tony looked at you as if you grew a second head "Y/N! You know I'm better than that!"

"But...did you like it?" he asked after a few moments of quiet. You laughed "Yes Tony, I really enjoyed the party." You could practically see his face light up like a Christmas tree (another thing you discovered during your time here) "Awesome! Say, when can we celebrate your birthday?"

Oh... "Uhm, well, I don't really have one..." you explained. Tony's eyes widened "What do you mean? Everybody has a birthdate!" he chuckled, but his tone was mainly confused. "Well, yes, of course I have a birthdate, but where I come from, birthdays aren't really a thing. We don't celebrate them or even really acknowledge them." you shrugged.

"Well, when is your birthday?" Tony asked. You thought for a moment, before replying "Well, we don't really divide our days the same way you humans do. You would describe someone's date of birth with the day, month and year, whereas we just describe it with the position a certain set of constellations has in the sky at that moment. You'd be surprised how accurate it is." Tony blinked a few times "Yeah, that doesn't clear it up much." You laughed again.

For the next couple of minutes you tried to explain to Tony how it all worked, using "your" constellation as an example, not knowing about the plan the genius playboy had in mind all along.

After he told you he finally understood what you meant, he promptly excused himself, saying he was actually just taking a break from something he and Bruce were working on. You said your "see you later"s and parted ways.

As Tony entered the lab, Bruce, who has been working on their project when Tony had his break, looked up to see who came in, before turning back to the machine set on the working table in front of him. "Hi Tony." he muttered "Did you enjoy your break?"

Tony walked over to his friend and leaned on the table he was working on "Yea yeah. Listen, I have an interesting idea..."

It took a lot of math and research, but after a few days, the two geniuses finally had it. They managed to convert your birthdate from your people's system to theirs and it was supposed to be on Y/BD.

Which was gonna be pretty pretty damn soon.

So they did the most logical thing. They called a secret Avengers meeting to get everyone in on the plan.

"Are you sure they even want a birthday party?" Steve asked, because the last thing he would want to is to make you uncomfortable.

"Of course, you know they like to be involved in everything." Wanda reassured him with a wave of her hand. "Still, I think we shouldn't throw a big party." Steve muttered. "I agree, it's their first birthday, we wouldn't want to overwhelm them." Vision nodded. Tony sighed and slumped in his chair dramatically "Ugh, okay then. You guys are no fun, I swear..." straightening up once again, he eyed everyone seriously "Okay, here's the plan..."

And what a plan it was. Wanda and Vision were in charge of making a birthday cake, Tony and Nat were in charge of the alcohol and your favourite drink. Thor was in charge of getting your favourite snacks, Bruce and Sam were in charge of decorating and that left Steve in charge of taking you somewhere nice until the others had everything ready.

It wouldn't have been that odd for someone from the team to ask you to hang out, but you couldn't help but notice Steve's eyes darting around almost as if in fear. He must've thought he was being sneaky, but that couldn't be further from the truth.

But once you were out of the compound, you could feel Steve relax as he took you to a restaurant that quickly became your favourite after a few weeks of staying with the Avengers.

You two had so much fun, talking about anything and everything. One thing you had in common with the captain was your love for exploring. Of course, he knew much more about Earth than you, but he still missed nearly seventy years. You two would often share your favourite music or artists you discovered, as well as movies or literature.

"What do you think about birthdays Y/N?" he asked you out of the blue. It caught you off guard a little. Just a few moments ago you were discussing if Disney was a good brand or not and now this...Especially when you discussed birthdays with Tony just a few weeks ago. Strange...

"I think it's fascinating how you humans find so many things worth celebrating. I mean, birthdays are a little hard for me to understand, why would you want to celebrate getting older? I thought that humans wanted to avoid that?"

This answer seemed to throw Steve off his rhythm for a bit. "Well, it's not really about that-" he wanted to explain, but was cut off by a buzzing sound. Steve quickly reached into his pocket, taking out his phone, the culprit guilty of disrupting your conversation, checking the text message he recieved, before putting it back and looking at you again "Sorry, Fury needs me for something. Do you mind if I drop you off and then go?"

You were a little sad that your good time had to end so soon, since you both were having so much fun, but you knew it couldn't be helped, so you just shook your head and smiled.

As you made your way back, you turned to Steve again "So, what did you want to tell me, back at the restaurant?" you tilted your head to the side.

Steve almost started talking again, but before any sound could escape his mouth, it seemed like he changed his mind "Would you believe me if I told you I really don't remember?" he chuckled awkwardly. You couldn't help but squint at him. He was acting very suspiciously... "Yeah..." you answered absentmindedly. Just what was going on?

You spent the whole journey back to the compound mulling it over in your head. Was it somebody's birthday? No, surely they would've told you if that was the case. Was it your birthday? But, nobody knew when that was. So what on Earth was going on??

You decided you were gonna confront Steve if he wasn't going o explain anything by himself. So as soon as you were about to pass the compound's living room, you quickly tugged him in, telling him you needed to talk to him before he had to go.

The room was darkened, somebody must've drawn down the blinds. That didn't matter to you in that moment, you wanted answers. Steve became a silhouette in front of you, so you couldn't see his exact expression. You looked into what you imagined were his eyes, and with the most serious look you could muster you said "Alright Steve, quit joking around. What is happening?"

But before your interrogation could progress, the blinds were drawn up and the room was suddenly bathed in light as people yelled "Happy birthday!!!"

You whirled around and saw everyone gathered in the living room, standing around the coffee table, upon which were various snacks that you grew to love during your stay here, complete with your favourite drink, and in the middle of it all sat a beautiful cake. The room was decorated with ornaments in your favourite colours and everyone had a big smile plastered in their face.

Well, you certainly did not expect that. After carefully looking around at everything, you couldn't help but laugh "So it's my birthday??" you asked, surprised.

"Wait, what did cap told you?" Tony asked, alarmed. "Well, nothing specific, but he wasn't subtle either." you smiled and looked at the now blushing Steve from the corner of your eye.

The rest of the day was great, possibly the best one you've had here. Good food, drinks and laughter all around. It warmed your heart to receive so many beautiful gifts, words couldn't express just how grateful you were. One thing still nagged in your brain though...

All of you were seated on the various sofas and armchairs around the coffee table, calmly chatting about beloved memories, exchanging funny stories and everything was heavenly peacful.

"I still can't wrap my head around why you would go throuh all the trouble for me." you shook your head, the disbelief still lingering in your mind.

"Well, that's simple. We like having you around." Tony shrugged. The others nodded. "Yeah, we appreciate having you with us. You're a great friend." Wanda added. "Celebrating birthdays is like showing gratefulness that the celebrated person is still with you." Bruce explained.

Their confessions were so heartwarming, you couldn't help but to shed a few tears. Sam, who was sitting next to you, put his arm around your shoulders, rubbing your arm comfortingly. So that's what birthdays were really about...

It was great to have friends.

[kuno-chan]

Worldbuilding: Writing Religious-Based Celebrations

For @flightfright! Thanks for asking!

Where To Start

So, worldbuilding in general is like a web. Everything connects to each other and nothing really, truly lives in isolation or a vacuum. My general rule of thumb is this: geography decides everything.

When I say this, I mean this: 

If the place this religion originated from had a lot of rivers with regular flooding, there will probably be a notion about rivers somewhere in there. If you live in a place with a volcano, a volcano god, goddess, spirit or otherwise is highly likely.

Even the flood talked often about in Abrahamic religions is probably a good reference to a massive flood that occurred or a series of floods (I am not a theologian or a geologist of any kind so don’t necessarily quote me there).

My point is, take a look at the surroundings where these celebrations occurred. This is where were going to start with the religion part:

What kind of theology do they have?

Is it a pantheon?

Monotheism? (one god)

Do they participate in ancestral worship?

Do they not have gods and believe in spirits primarily?

Animism? Shamanism?

First, figure out what kind of religion they have and what those beliefs entail. Are they a combination? In my original work, the people my main character hails from believe in a pantheon that evolved over time from something more like superhuman/supernatural spirits and they practice ancestor veneration.

Note: Your religion can evolve over time!

Once you kind of figure out what the religious base is, you have a few places you can go:

Celebration based off historical event

Celebration based off ritual rite

Celebration based off the seasons (which is very common, especially winter and summer solstice, assuming your world is mostly like earth)

Anything under the sun essentially that means something to your people.

Season-based celebrations are very common and they often intersect religion because religion is very entrenched in how we as people explain our world. Again: geology decides everything.

Example: Your people live next to a great river that branches out a bunch of smaller rivers. These rivers receive regular flooding and naturally lend their culture to an agricultural lifestyle. This agricultural lifestyle on a predictable timetable (if it’s unpredictable, this has a bunch of other implications) and leads them to a surplus of food that allows them to explore other lifestyle avenues: art, trade, mercantilism, expansionist warfar, etc. Therefore, every year one of their greatest celebration is the Festival of the King of the Gods and his many children.

King of the Gods is a god of rivers, water and a bunch of other attributes and his children are lesser gods of all the little rivers. His wife? The Queen of the Gods is Goddess of the ocean because from her all life comes from. The culture has a healthy respect for women’s place in the household because of their perception of the ocean as a life-giving force from which all come from.

Every year, there’s a massive celebration to give thanks. There’s good, dancing, drinking, etc because the entire thing is a festival of life and being thankful to the gods for that life.

Counterexample:

Same set of rivers, different worldview.

Your people believe it is their ancestors who allow the rivers to flow predictably an allow them their bountiful harvests and don’t believe in necessarily another afterlife. Rather, they practice nondualism of sorts and see the world as a single plane where the dead are still with them and helping their families in the world (this is actually very close to my own people, the Chamoru people in ancient times pre-Spaniard conquest. Such historical events can evolve your people’s beliefs over time. Now, Chamoru people are like 80% Catholic).

Your people stay at home and quietly celebrate their ancestors, asking them for a bountiful harvest every summer and winter solstice. They do not go out and drink because they believe this is a time to be spent at home with family. These beliefs also stem from their value on interdependenss?

Maybe the rivers aren’t predictable this time? That could change things!

Which leads me to my next point:

Worldview

Your people’s worldview affects how their celebrate and construct holidays. Some people believe the world is linear time goes on and events continue to happen in a linear fashion. People who passed go on to a better world. Gods or spirits live in other planes of existence, etc. Things are elsewhere.

Some peoples believe in a circular worldveiw where everything comes back to the same place. For example, referencing my own people again, the Chamoru people believed that when ancestors passed on, they remained on the same plane and continued to live alongside the living, but they were now just kind of in a different form of sorts. Very simplistically interpreted on my part, but essentially, nothing really ever just moves on.

Consider what your people have for a worldview (there are more besides the ones I’ve listed).

And lastly

Research

Research the influences of the culture of your people. A good place to visit for starts is @writingwithcolor if your people are PoC at all to help kind of know what pitfalls to to avoid. Their archives are quite large.

Conclusion

Decide what your people’s geographic location is.

What kind of religious sects, interpretations and anything else can sprout from that? What about their world are they trying to explain?

How does this manifest religiously?

With a working religious foundation, what are they trying to celebrate?

How do they celebrate it? Is it a revered holiday? One of loud celebration? One of gift giving? One of prayer? What is the reason they are ultimately celebrating and is that reason still intact or is it now a tradition that’s evolved over time? This can go a million ways, but the main thing you are trying to answer is why. When it comes to worldbuilding, ask why for everything. Even if it’s not in your story, you should know why things are. They make it easier to connect different worldbuilding aspects together and make things more believable.

When in doubt, go back to geography. I mean it. It’s the foundation for all things culturally. Everything we do is connected, in some way, back to where we are and how that helps us survive and thrive.

Is there a lot of sun? Sun god. Sun spirit. Appeal for a good harvest.

Are there a ton of earthquakes? Demons in the ground. God of earthquakes. Special jewelry the people make to ward off bad energy so earthquakes don’t happen or they believe it keeps them safe from those earthquakes.

Example

The people of Fantasmia live on the coast of a mountainous region where there are tons of waterfalls, well known hot springs and just a lot of freaking water. They practice a pantheon of primarily water-based gods. They even have a water-based goddess of love who is simeltanously the goddess of hot springs. They also practice a sort of animism and believe every object, animate and inanimate, has a soul and they believe that each of the gods takes care of a set of souls in the world. There are three main gods in charge of the pantheon and they are in charge of human souls. Therefore, they disperse spirits to guardian and keep track of humans, keeping them in line and such.

But some of these spirits go rogue and end up being evil, infecting souls and are known for drowning people in the known river to steal their souls. Coincidentally, this is the same river an infamous massacre occurred in ancient times.

As a counterbalance, the three main gods also send out spirits who are there to ward off the bad spirits and act as the human’s protectors from these spirits.

So, they have a holiday every year to appease to these spirits. They leave food to feed them and give them strength for their next fight. Ironically, this culture also has a well-known military due to their proximity to a rival in the south. You see, because of the mountains, these two peoples North and South are squished onto the coastline and have a history of fighting, taking and reconquering lands. Warrior culture is strong in them and that gives them a certain worldview in which even after death, warriors are still with them and eventually can choose to become these human guardian spirits after death.

And I could go on, but you get the picture!

Worldbuilding is about connecting the dots about why people do stuff.

Hope that helped!

[angelhummel]

once again i spent hours of my life answering >5000 questions in order to sort almost all of the glee songs ever (there’s 683 songs in the sorter when there’s over 700 on the show) anyway if you wanna see my rankings for those then check it out <3 [also here’s the sorter!]

1 Being Alive 2 Rose's Turn 3 Baby, It's Cold Outside 4 Le Jazz Hot 5 Maybe This Time 6 And I Am Telling You I'm Not Going 7 Come What May 8 To Sir, With Love 9 As If We Never Said Goodbye 10 Valerie 11 Somewhere Only We Know 12 Cough Syrup 13 Teenage Dream 14 Not The Boy Next Door 15 It's Too Late 16 It's My Life / Confessions Part II 17 Start Me Up / Livin' On A Prayer 18 When I Get You Alone 19 The Happening 20 The Boy Is Mine 21 Home 22 Don't You Want Me 23 How Will I Know 24 Bad Romance 25 Not While I'm Around 26 Scream 27 Shake It Out 28 On My Own 29 Hate On Me 30 Bills, Bills, Bills 31 4 Minutes 32 True Colors 33 There Are Worse Things I Could Do 34 Go Your Own Way 35 Jessie's Girl 36 Proud Mary 37 Tongue Tied 38 Last Christmas 39 Somebody Loves You 40 Back To Black 41 Sweet Transvestite 42 For Good 43 At The Ballet 44 Gloria 45 Blame It (On The Alcohol) 46 Like A Prayer 47 So Emotional 48 Misery 49 Nasty / Rhythm Nation 50 Toxic 51 Don't Speak 52 Born This Way 53 Dog Days Are Over 54 Defying Gravity 55 Last Name 56 Womanizer 57 I Will Always Love You 58 Broadway Baby 59 The Lady Is A Tramp 60 I'm A Slave 4 U 61 Centerfold / Hot In Herre 62 Thriller / Heads Will Roll 63 Bust Your Windows 64 Candyman 65 Brave 66 Boys / Boyfriend 67 The Scientist 68 The Scientist (Acapella) 69 Dream On 70 Hey Jude 71 I Lived 72 I'm Still Here 73 I Believe In A Thing Called Love 74 Me Against The Music 75 Like A Virgin 76 My Man 77 Everybody Wants To Rule The World 78 I Have Nothing 79 Blackbird 80 Got To Get You Into My Life 81 Animal 82 3 83 I Follow Rivers 84 Just The Way You Are 85 Constant Craving 86 Don't Stop Me Now 87 Hung Up 88 Let's Have A Kiki 89 Love Shack 90 Marry The Night 91 Hit Me With Your Best Shot / One Way Or Another 92 It's Not Right, But It's Okay 93 I Want To Hold Your Hand 94 All You Need Is Love 95 Getting Married Today 96 Don't Rain On My Parade 97 Don't Stop Believin' (Regionals) 98 We've Got Tonite 99 Smooth Criminal 100 Uptown Girl 101 Sway 102 If I Die Young 103 No One Is Alone 104 Look At Me I'm Sandra Dee 105 No Scrubs 106 Mamma Mia 107 Papa Don't Preach 108 Teenage Dream (Acoustic Version) 109 Santa Baby 110 We Found Love 111 Roar 112 She's Not There 113 Spotlight 114 The Way You Look Tonight/You're Never Fully Dressed Without A Smile 115 Some Nights 116 Rumour Has It / Someone Like You 117 You Make Me Feel So Young 118 You Keep Me Hangin' On 119 I'll Stand By You (Amber) 120 Hand In My Pocket / I Feel The Earth Move 121 Crazy / U Drive Me Crazy 122 Funny Girl 123 Cold Hearted 124 Keep Holding On 125 Bye Bye Bye / I Want It That Way 126 I Know Where I've Been 127 I Kissed A Girl (Season Six) 128 Hopelessly Devoted To You 129 Homeward Bound / Home 130 Into The Groove 131 Hold On 132 Tell Him 133 Nutbush City Limits 134 Because You Loved Me 135 Perfect 136 Cherish / Cherish 137 Do You Wanna Touch Me (Oh Yeah) 138 Ding-Dong! The Witch Is Dead 139 You Are The Sunshine Of My Life 140 Tik Tok 141 The Safety Dance 142 Oops!... I Did It Again 143 Run Joey Run 144 Time Warp 145 Something's Coming 146 Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go 147 The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face 148 Vogue 149 Downtown 150 Diva 151 Dancing With Myself 152 Rockstar 153 Wrecking Ball 154 We Are Young 155 I Saw Her Standing There 156 Jumpin', Jumpin' 157 Just Can't Get Enough 158 Take Me To Church 159 Wannabe 160 It's All Over 161 Take Me Home Tonight 162 If I Were A Boy 163 Landslide 164 Pompeii 165 The Bitch Is Back / Dress You Up 166 Christmas Wrapping 167 Buenos Aires 168 Call Me Maybe 169 You Can't Stop The Beat 170 Seasons Of Love 171 Safety Dance 172 Dream A Little Dream 173 Alfie 174 I Want To Break Free 175 Baby One More Time 176 A House Is Not A Home 177 Daydream Believer 178 I Don't Know How To Love Him 179 Hungry Like The Wolf / Rio 180 Suddenly Seymour 181 People 182 Silly Love Songs 183 Love Song 184 Shout It Out Loud 185 Some People 186 One Of Us 187 Sing! 188 Up Up Up 189 Torn 190 Popular 191 This Is The New Year 192 Paradise By The Dashboard Light 193 Let It Snow 194 Let It Be 195 Never Can Say Goodbye 196 Touch A Touch A Touch A Touch Me 197 La Isla Bonita 198 Tightrope 199 My Love Is Your Love 200 Love Is A Battlefield 201 Losing My Religion 202 Total Eclipse Of The Heart 203 This Time 204 I Dreamed A Dream 205 Leaving On A Jet Plane 206 Locked Out Of Heaven 207 Chandelier 208 Girl On Fire 209 Telephone 210 Don't Cry For Me Argentina 211 Human Nature 212 Halo / Walking On Sunshine 213 Anything Goes / Anything You Can Do 214 Make You Feel My Love 215 Stronger 216 Nowadays / Hot Honey Rag 216 Pumpin' Blood 218 Papa Can You Hear Me? 219 Summer Nights 220 Sweet Caroline 221 Superstition 222 We Will Rock You 223 Alone 224 Hello, I Love You 225 Against All Odds (Take A Look At Me Now) 226 A Hard Day's Night 227 Mine 228 My Prerogative 229 Beauty School Drop Out 230 My Lovin' (You're Never Gonna Get It) 231 Extraordinary Merry Christmas 232 Every Breath You Take 233 Express Yourself 234 Everybody Talks 235 Everytime 236 Marry You 237 Moves Like Jagger / Jumpin' Jack Flash 238 My Favorite Things 239 Santa Claus Is Coming To Town 240 River Deep, Mountain High 241 My Life Would Suck Without You 242 Be Okay 243 Applause 244 Cool 245 All I Want For Christmas Is You 246 American Boy 247 Cell Block Tango 248 Breakaway 249 Don't Dream It's Over 250 Let Me Love You (Until You Learn To Love Yourself) 251 Whatever Happened To Saturday Night? 252 Without You 253 Science Fiction Double Feature 254 Loser Like Me 255 I Kissed A Girl 256 I'm Not Gonna Teach Your Boyfriend How To Dance With You 257 I Can't Go For That (No Can Do) / You Make My Dreams 258 Don't Stop Believin' (Season 5) 259 Empire State Of Mind 260 Old Time Rock & Roll / Danger Zone 261 Take My Breath Away 262 You Get What You Give 263 Take On Me 264 Beautiful 265 It's Time 266 ABC 267 Afternoon Delight 268 Don't Stand So Close To Me / Young Girl 269 Don't Stop Believin' (Season 1) 270 Colorblind 271 Cool Kids 272 Dancing Queen 273 Songbird 274 Somebody That I Used To Know 275 Singing In The Rain / Umbrella 276 I Feel Pretty / Unpretty 277 Borderline / Open Your Heart 278 In My Life 279 I'm Still Standing 280 Blow Me (One Last Kiss) 281 Do Ya Think I'm Sexy? 282 Do They Know It's Christmas? 283 Mustang Sally 284 Pinball Wizard 285 Anything Could Happen 286 America 287 Any Way You Want It 288 Higher Ground 289 Flashdance... What A Feeling 290 My Life 291 Let It Go 292 If I Can't Have You 293 L-O-V-E 294 Closer 295 Addicted To Love 296 Heroes 297 A Boy Like That 298 Diamonds Are A Girl's Best Friend / Material Girl 299 Holding Out For A Hero 300 Dinosaur 301 Disco Inferno 302 Party All The Time 303 Raise Your Glass 304 Push It 305 Lean On Me 306 Pure Imagination 307 Lovefool 308 Lovin', Touchin', Squeezin' 309 Americano / Dance Again 310 All Of Me 311 At Last 312 Promises, Promises 313 Hair / Crazy In Love 314 Happy Xmas (War Is Over) 315 Chasing Pavements 316 Don't You (Forget About Me) 317 Love Child 318 School's Out 319 Poker Face 320 Boogie Shoes 321 Bootylicious 322 I Love New York / New York, New York 323 One Less Bell To Answer 324 Signed, Sealed, Delivered I'm Yours 325 Rehab 326 I Don't Want To Know 327 Shout 328 I'm The Greatest Star 329 I Love It 330 Never Say Never 331 Juke Box Hero 332 One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer 333 Glad You Came 334 For Once In My Life 335 Here Comes The Sun 336 Baby It's You 337 Drive My Car 338 Last Friday Night 339 Roots Before Branches 340 The Only Exception 341 Survivor / I Will Survive 342 All Or Nothing 343 Time After Time 344 You're The One That I Want 345 Yeah! 346 Starships 347 You've Got To Hide Your Love Away 348 Story Of My Life 349 Something 350 We Need A Little Christmas 351 Gold Digger 352 Beth 353 Fighter 354 Forget You 355 How To Be A Heartbreaker 356 Get Back 357 Love You Like A Love Song 358 There's A Light (Over At The Frankenstein Place) 359 We Got The Beat 360 Make 'Em Laugh 361 Sing 362 U Can't Touch This 363 Try A Little Tenderness 364 Pony 365 On Our Way 366 Lucky Star 367 Loser 368 Over The Rainbow 369 Outcast 370 Stop! In The Name Of Love / Free Your Mind 371 What Makes You Beautiful 372 Will You Love Me Tomorrow / Head Over Feet 373 Wide Awake 374 Wishin' And Hoping 375 Yesterday 376 Out Here On My Own 377 You're All The World To Me 378 Somethin' Stupid 379 Someday We'll Be Together 380 River 381 The Longest Time 382 Somebody To Love 383 The Edge Of Glory 384 The Most Wonderful Day Of The Year 385 Lucky 386 Memory 387 Mary's Boy Child 388 Longest Time 389 My Dark Side 390 Taking Chances 391 The First Noël 392 Smile 393 Celebrity Skin 394 All That Jazz 395 A Thousand Years 396 Big Girls Don't Cry 397 Ain't No Way 398 Don't Sleep In The Subway 399 Doo Wop (That Thing) 400 Don't Stop 401 Uptight (Everything's Alright) 402 New York State Of Mind 403 Turning Tables 404 Vacation 405 Fire 406 Hold It Against Me 407 I've Gotta Be Me 408 Endless Love 409 Run The World (Girls) 410 Saving All My Love For You 411 Give Up The Funk 412 I Am Changing 413 I Melt With You 414 I Could Have Danced All Night 415 Fat Bottomed Girls 416 Hot For Teacher 417 Never Going Back Again 418 Imagine 419 Jolene 420 Arthur's Theme 421 Damn It, Janet 422 Control 423 Barracuda 424 Copacabana 425 Barely Breathing 426 I Look To You 427 Come Sail Away 428 Jump 429 Clarity 430 Friday I'm In Love 431 Jar Of Hearts 432 It's Not Unusual 433 Footloose 434 Here Comes Santa Claus 435 Happy Days Are Here Again / Get Happy 436 Help! 437 Greased Lightning 438 Hell To The No 439 All Out Of Love 440 (You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman 441 Candles 442 All By Myself 443 Hello Goodbye 444 It's A Man's Man's Man's World 445 I Say A Little Prayer 446 It Must Have Been Love 447 Just Give Me A Reason 448 Come See About Me 449 Born To Hand Jive 450 I Want To Know What Love Is 451 I Wish 452 I'll Remember 453 Get It Right 454 (I've Had) The Time Of My Life 455 I'll Stand By You (Cory) 456 Forever Young 457 A Change Would Do You Good 458 Smile (Charlie Chaplin song) 459 Best Day Of My Life 460 An Innocent Man 461 Dreams 462 All About That Bass 463 Home (originally by Michael Bublé) 464 Black Or White 465 Baby 466 Bad 467 Problem 468 Oh Chanukah 469 What Kind Of Fool 470 Wings 471 You're My Best Friend 472 You're All I Need To Get By 473 White Christmas 474 Whenever I Call You Friend 475 Wanna Be Startin' Somethin' 476 What Doesn't Kill You (Stronger) 477 Wedding Bell Blues 478 More Than A Feeling 479 More Than A Woman 480 Our Day Will Come 481 P.Y.T. (Pretty Young Thing) 482 Here's To Us 483 Honesty 484 Hall Of Fame 485 It's All Coming Back To Me Now 486 Teach Your Children 487 Night Fever 488 What The World Needs Now 489 Listen 490 Let Me Love You 491 Live While We're Young 492 Light Up The World 493 Trouty Mouth 494 Werewolves Of London 495 Kiss 496 Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas 497 Movin' Out (Anthony's Song) 498 Mickey 499 Mean 500 Mercy 501 Merry Christmas Darling 502 Let's Wait Awhile 503 Man In The Mirror 504 Rather Be 505 Rise 506 Good Vibrations 507 Faithfully 508 Firework 509 How Deep Is Your Love 510 Fix You 511 Fire And Rain 512 Give Your Heart A Break 513 Rockin' Around The Christmas Tree 514 Little Girls 515 Cry 516 Bust A Move 517 Bridge Over Troubled Water 518 Bring Him Home 519 Cheek To Cheek 520 Break Free 521 As Long As You're There 522 Big Ass Heart 523 Bitch 524 Bamboleo / Hero 525 Away In A Manger 526 Deck The Rooftop 527 Christmas Eve With You 528 Angels We Have Heard On High 529 Creep 530 Crush 531 Make No Mistake, She's Mine 532 Lose My Breath 533 Look At Me I'm Sandra Dee (Reprise) 534 What I Did For Love 535 Wake Me Up 536 Thousand Miles 537 Take A Bow 538 Still Got Tonight 539 The Music Of The Night 540 Stereo Hearts 541 The Chipmunk Song (Christmas Don't Be Late) 542 Take Me Or Leave Me 543 I'm The Only One 544 Isn't She Lovely 545 I Just Can't Stop Loving You 546 I'll Never Fall In Love Again 547 Unchained Melody 548 You're A Mean One, Mr. Grinch 549 You Have More Friends Than You Know 550 You Should Be Dancing 551 I'm His Child 552 You Learn / You've Got A Friend 553 Somewhere 554 So Far Away 555 Uptown Funk 556 The Winner Takes It All 557 They Long To Be Close To You 558 Tonight 559 Being Good Isn't Good Enough 560 You May Be Right 561 To Love You More 562 Don't Wanna Lose You 563 Do You Hear What I Hear? 564 Ice Ice Baby 565 Don't Go Breaking My Heart 566 Don't Make Me Over 567 I Won't Give Up 568 I'll Be Home For Christmas 569 I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For 570 I Still Believe / Super Bass 571 I Wanna Dance With Somebody (Who Loves Me) 572 I Want You Back 573 Father Figure 574 Everybody Hurts 574 Gangnam Style 576 We Are The Champions 577 Stayin' Alive 578 Superman 579 The Rose 580 Don't Stop Believin' (Rachel) 581 Fly / I Believe I Can Fly 582 Gives You Hell 583 I Love L.A. 584 Mr. Roboto / Counting Stars 585 O Holy Night 586 Only The Good Die Young 587 One 588 Silent Night 589 Piano Man 590 Sexy And I Know It 591 Sgt. Pepper's Lonley Hearts Club Band 592 Pretending 593 Physical 594 Danny's Song 595 Stand 596 The Final Countdown 597 You Can't Always Get What You Want 598 You Are Woman, I Am Man 599 You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin' 600 Your Song 601 Say 602 No Air 603 Need You Now 604 No Surrender 605 Piece Of My Heart 606 Thong Song 607 Blurred Lines 608 Another One Bites The Dust 609 I Was Here 610 Bella Notte 611 I Know What Boys Like 612 God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen 613 Glory Days 614 Friday 615 More Than Words 616 Waiting For A Girl Like You 617 Welcome Christmas 618 You Spin Me Round (Like A Record) 619 You Give Love A Bad Name 620 We Built This City 621 Whistle 622 Who Are You Now? 623 You And I / You And I 624 Take Care Of Yourself 625 Tell Me Something Good 626 The Rain In Spain 627 Can't Fight This Feeling 628 Jingle Bell Rock 629 In Your Eyes 630 Hello 631 Good Riddance (Time Of Your Life) 632 I Only Have Eyes For You 633 Jingle Bells 634 Joy To The World 635 I Wanna Sex You Up 636 Fight For Your Right (To Party) 637 Feliz Navidad 638 I'm So Excited 639 Uninvited 640 The Living Years 641 The Fox (What Does The Fox Say?) 642 O Christmas Tree 643 One Love (People Get Ready) 644 Ohio 645 Only Child 646 Hello Twelve, Hello Thirteen, Hello Love 647 My Sharona 648 Dance The Night Away 649 Poison 650 My Cup 651 Not The End 652 What It Feels Like For A Girl 653 Listen To Your Heart 654 Little Drummer Boy 655 One Hand, One Heart 656 Bein' Green 657 Big Spender 658 Billionaire 659 Ben 660 Gimme More 661 Burning Up 662 Hey Ya! 663 Hey, Soul Sister 664 Baby Got Back 665 Blue Christmas 666 Bohemian Rhapsody 667 Far From Over 668 The Trolley Song 669 Starlight Express 670 Whip It 671 You're The Top 672 Red Solo Cup 673 Next To Me 674 Rolling In The Deep 675 Rainbow Connection 676 La Cucaracha 677 (You're) Having My Baby 678 A Little Less Conversation 679 Happy 680 Highway To Hell 681 Same Love 682 Rock Lobster 683 Girls Just Want To Have Fun

[antialiasis]

Worldbuilding June (Pokémon edition), Days 8-12

Whoops forgot to post these for a couple of days, too busy with a load of Things as always.

8. Who rules in your world?

TQftL never brings up government, but each region has its own human government, generally just standard representative democracies similar to what we have in the modern world. Ouen has an elected parliament and president. It's a fairly utopian world with little scarcity and politics play kind of a background role - they keep things running, they have some different parties, but there's low polarization and usually they work pretty smoothly together and have little conflict. The situation in other regions is similar - movement is very free and conflict between them is rare and minor in the grand scheme of things.

QftLverse Pokémon, once again, have their own societies and are not subject to human rule except in a limited way while they're with a trainer, as per the Agreement, an all-encompassing contract dictating how the relationship between humans and Pokémon should work. Different Pokémon species govern themselves differently, but their societies are generally based on smaller self-governing groups. The Scyther society has a single leader, who is meant to be the simply strongest in the swarm, and anyone can challenge them to a duel to the death to take their place at any time.

The Morphicverse is once again close to Earth, with different countries having different modes of government. The Poké-USA's politicical climate resembles the actual USA's political climate in ~2007, but if I ever wrote references to the current president I wouldn't make him an outright Bush expy or anything, beyond being from the conservative one of the two highly polarized parties.

9. What religions and myths/legends exist in your world?

The QftLverse's human society is basically post-religious. Legendary Pokémon are revered, but not worshipped - people don't pray to them, ascribe natural phenomena to them, expect them to watch over them personally, perform symbolic rituals associated with them, etc. That said, humans do have myths concerning them - not always accurate ones. The story describes the human myth behind one set of legendaries early on before the reality much later turns out to have been fairly different, for instance.

QftLverse Pokémon have their own myths, legends, religions and beliefs. The Scyther society explored in the spin-offs has a bit of a vague mythology going on explaining the sun, moon, stars and clouds, but it's not very important to them, more of a just-so story. Meanwhile, they live by a system of ethics known as the Code that they consider sacred and all-important, though it doesn't have a godly figure behind it as the source of it, only a philosophy. Other Pokémon might variously have straight-up religion (whether worshipping legendary Pokémon or something else), be entirely areligious, or something in between; most will have myths and legends in some form, though.

The Morphicverse has a form of Christianity, which is functionally a lot like ours; this also means they had a version of Judaism. Other specific religions don't come up, but they'd at the very least be as varied as real-world religions. Like in real life, there are many sects and variants, and as many individual interpretations of faiths as there are people. The villain cult in particular has fringe views that in no way resemble the mainstream. And like in real life, many people nominally believe but don't really practice their religion, and many are agnostic or atheist.

Legendary Pokémon in the Morphicverse are cryptids - there are myths and legends about them, and people think they're neat, write fiction and make movies about them all the time, but in the modern day, actually-for-real believing that they exist out there ranges from mildly eccentric to entirely unthinkable. Worship of legendary Pokémon exists, but in the way that modern neo-Paganism does. It's not remotely mainstream, generally seen as a weird hippie thing, and the notion of Arceus appearing in the flesh one day and declaring he created the universe is about as fantastical to most people as the notion of the Norse pantheon doing the same in our world.

10. What traditions are observed in your world?

QftLverse human traditions are mostly just secular holidays - commemorations of important days in the region's history, etc. It's tradition for most children to go out on a Pokémon journey the spring after they turn ten years old, and participate in a First-Timers' League in the autumn if they manage to stick it out for the whole journey and collect all the badges - there are kids who don't, but it's rare for them to not want to, and other kids may see them as no fun.

Every year in Green Town, there is a Pokémon Festival originally built around the legendary Pokémon Chaletwo's yearly brief visit to the outskirts of the city (which may or may not be ditched in the next revision); it hosts a number of Pokémon-themed events over several days. One of them is a starter Pokémon giveaway, where most kids go to get official starter Pokémon, who have specifically volunteered and been trained to work with beginning trainers - though many kids have had Pokémon as pets/partners since they were young and journey with them instead, or their parents otherwise get them a Pokémon who's up for a beginning trainer. (Many Pokémon kind of like the idea of journeying with a beginning trainer, in the way that many people like the idea of getting a kitten rather than an adult cat - just something special about having been with them from the start. Though getting a starter who's actually been trained to deal with kids is recommended over just finding any random enthusiastic Pokémon.)

Pokémon have all kinds of different traditions. The Scyther society as explored in the spin-offs has a number of traditions and rituals, including a sort of blood baptism of new hatchlings, the leader of the swarm teaching all the adolescent Scyther about the Code, and First Prey, where each of the adolescents is sent out to hunt prey on their own for the first time, with a male and female witness following, so they can prove their ability to kill and to feed themselves. Afterwards, they're expected to publicly offer a symbolic piece of the meat of their first prey to some members of the swarm, and doing so signals respect; you don't technically have to, but in practice everyone always offers it to the leader and not doing so would be taken as outright disrespect.

The Morphicverse is once again culturally similar to the real world and has mostly similar sorts of traditions. Pokémon training is less culturally ingrained there, but still a very common hobby for kids.

11. What are some ways people communicate with pokémon in your world, or pokémon with each other?

In the QftLverse, humans learn to understand Pokémon speech as a mandatory subject at school. Pokémon inherently understand human speech, but they speak anime-style, usually in syllables of their species' name (which is what the species are named after). They share one language, which is not based on exactly what the syllables are but the tone and the way they're combined, hence why it works regardless of the species.

In the current version of the fic, this is pure handwave worldbuilding: it's established that it happens at school at the beginning, and then we just move on to the story, where every human simply understands what Pokémon are saying at all times. In the next revision I'd give a bit more proper worldbuilding attention to it - let the language barrier be a little more present, humans vary in exactly how good they are at it (luckily it's already the main character's best subject at school), and otherwise treat it less like it's just an excuse to act like Pokémon speak English.

In the Morphicverse, Pokémon do communicate but they don't do complex communication - instead, it's closer to the sort of communication most animals do in the real world. They can express how they're feeling, draw attention to something interesting, sound the alarm about something scary, ask another Pokémon to follow, and can do this in a somewhat more efficient and intelligent way than most animals generally do. But one way or another, they don't communicate complicated abstract ideas, neither to humans nor to one another. Pokémon don't automatically understand human speech here, though they're very quick learners when it comes to commands, and they can pick up a fair amount just by being around humans, allowing them to get the gist of basic statements and requests without being explicitly taught them, though anything abstract would still be entirely lost on them. You could tell a Pokémon you've lived with for years "I lost my hat, can you help me find it" and they'll go look for your hat, but they'd be lost if you tried to ask them for anything much more complicated than that.

12. What is the gym circuit or adventuring organization like in your world?

In the QftLverse, gyms are meant to be taken on in a specific order and gym leaders are accordingly expected to keep their Pokémon below a certain level. To be officially sanctioned by the League, a gym needs to have a theme - usually a type, although Rick got away with a legendary theme because he gets away with everything because he is hypnotizing League officials with his Mewtwo super-clone I was twelve years old. Every year there's a First-Timers' League in the autumn in each region, where new trainers who have collected all eight badges of their region face off (except for the bit where I somehow made a guy who'd been training for years be part of it without thinking about it properly). There's also a global Old-Timers' League for more experienced trainers, which crowns a world champion; this doesn't involve badges and is just a tournament. Trainers are advised to stick to official routes, while Pokémon who want a trainer seek out the routes and others avoid them; going off-route has the potential to lead to run-ins with Pokémon who are more hostile to humans. It's not forbidden but it's drilled into kids' heads that you're not supposed to.

The Morphicverse's gym circuit is not too dissimilar to that, but gym leaders are expected to carry a variety of Pokémon teams to take on challengers of different skill levels, who can take on the gyms of their circuit in any order. Kid trainers are strictly meant to travel only along official routes, which are thoroughly monitored to be safe, and often take public trainer transportation; when they're eighteen they can get an adult trainer license with which they can take their Pokémon anywhere they like, at their own risk. Mostly kids do it as a hobby, and many young children dream of being professional trainers, but only a fraction are actually good enough to make money off it, so most either quit it after a few summers on realizing it's not for them (they might release their Pokémon or keep them as pets, depending on how high-maintenance they are), or continue to do it as a side hobby. There exist college-level training schools for those who really want to dedicate their lives to it, but by that point in time most people will have dropped their pro trainer dreams.

[mallowstep]

I’m thinking about writing a short OC piece about Windclan and I’d love to see your notes about its culture and the hymns you’ve written so far, everything you’ve done for Windclan appreciation month has really inspired me :)

hello anon!

alright, first things first: please send me ur piece when ur done if you're comfortable doing so! i will publish it from you, or if you don't want to be associated with it in Any Way, i will also just read it and add it to the queue with no indication why it's there. or if you don't want me to share it at all, i'd still like to read it.

as for your ask,

hymns?

i'm working on it. however, underneath the read more, i'll include a few snippets for u.

culture

alright, i'm just going to post links with some commentary as i go. feel free to ask any more questions you have.

windclan (search) | windclan (tag) | wcam tag | five clans (narrative essays)

i would link the elders den, but there's no windclan stories in there ATM.

moving on, i'm just going to go through posts in reverse chronological order.

tallstar taking a mate admittedly, this is more about cats and sexuality than windclan, but i provide the commentary that windclan...has a particular view on sexuality and fluidity. one thing i haven't explored but should is the role visiting cats have in windclan.

whoops that's a code word, my plug for solacefruit has been activated. okay, as you may be aware, based on the fact that i have a whole tag for it, i'm obsessed with solacefruit. now, i love everything they do, but i would like to point you particularly to "make a mighty sound" for a fantastic exploration of this idea.

i don't want to spoil anything, but i do think windclan, and maybe cats as a whole, but windclan has a certain view towards relationships that very much breaks them into pieces. i'm a "love is a verb" person, so the idea that you can grow to love someone romantically by going through the actions of love makes sense. not to say you will, but you can.

(to be clear i'm not out advocating for arranged marriages just saying that they can work, they're not destined to be bad, and there's a difference between forced marriage and arranged marriage.)

anyway.

this was a lot of words to say, cats do not have a human (and particularly, western/american) understanding of relationships, which makes analyzing them in those terms difficult.

early hymn talk i'll probably say more below, but it is here.

general ibtwicm notes might get you into the headspace for some of my choices in ibtwicm.

i don't have a ton to say because this pretty much all holds, but uh, yeah.

poetry and language this isn't strictly about windclan, but it does explain some of what i think about when writing hymns.

obviously, i'm writing english translations, but these general themes are what i have in mind. it's also part of why i say i don't think i'll ever release a "full hymnal" for windclan, because i don't know if my weak worldbuilding heart could take it if i only had translations.

names part two very much not about windclan, but just some thoughts on names. as i've said before, i support all names and worldbuilding equally, but if you want my thoughts on names, go buckwild.

clan culture fic rec list just stuff i think does a good job, if you want other sources of inspiration.

general clan culture notes this is really old, but it mostly holds.

i've obviously expanded a lot on windclan since i wrote it, so shrug? idk man.

alright, i'm going to move into hymn discussion below the cut, but best of luck! and i hope u have a good time. it makes my brain shut down to read that i inspired you, straight up got brain juice pouring out of my ears, but i'm really, really happy to hear that.

windclan holds a special place in my heart. (i know my oc avatar is from skyclan shhh it's because of the backstory he sees ghosts.) but i grew up in this super sporty household as a lil asthmatic klutz, and running was a sport i couldn't mess up, so of course windclan appealed to me.

they're actually third on my list of favorite clans, but they. it's a special place in my heart that they hold, especially after reading dawn of the clans and moth flight's vision, where i got an asthmatic cat and an adhd cat, both in windclan.

god i should reread dotc it's good.

alright, here's the deal on hymns: i am not going to fight to get duets to post correctly. there's a 0% chance i can in tumblr's wonky ass new editor with no markdown, not to mention how difficult it would have been in the old editor. so i'm going to talk a lil about what i've got, and post some stanzas that i think don't get explored a lot in ibtwicm.

we're discussing these in the order that they go in. a reminder that these are all sections of one epic poem. that said, i don't know where the gaps are. like, i don't know what's between these, if that makes sense.

the wind

the wind, the very first hymn. this is an ode to, well, windclan. it's a song about everything that makes them them. it's filled with poetry about the wind, about the seasons, and it's just...well, it's a bit of a genesis, in a way.

The wind — like the rain, like the river — calls the name of each star in its breath. The wind — like the earth, like the stone — anchors us to our home. The wind — like the sun, like the sky — is knowable only by name.

i wanted to share this stanza because the last line doesn't show up in ibtwicm (at least so far, i cut the reference), and it really, really, makes a difference imo.

anyway, windclan is basically tying the wind in with every other fundamental part of their life here.

they are the wind, and that's that.

the hare

okay, this one has a line that comes up a lot in ch1, but i already talked about that, so instead, i'm going to talk about this stanza

Speak of the earth and the dens, and you will be answered: By the call of the howling gales, the open earth singing in response. But speak of that which grows above, of the grass and field, And you will be answered by the softness of the buds and the roots.

okay, we get deadfoot thinking about this when he's talking to yellowfang.

i like this stanza because it really tells us what the hare is about. now, hares are not something windclan catches. hares are huge, y'all, there's no way they take one down. i take liberties with ecology, but not that many.

(i.e., a team of cats definitely could take one down, but i know too much, and would prefer letting team hunting stay a plot thing, and not fundamentally alter the environment in the way it would.)

now anyway, all of these hymns come from the time of the tunnelers. and the point of this is, even though the work of tunnelers and moor runners is disconnected, they fundamentally affect each other.

a moor runner must trust the hollows of the earth beneath them won't collapse, and a tunneler must trust that the prey they chase up will be caught.

it's all very symbiotic and is, well, in a way, a love poem. plus i really like the line "the open earth singing in response"

of the warrens

so this has one line, one you might not even know is a hymn, in ch1, but i'll share the whole stanza.

And as for the subject of fallow fields: Fallowed fields make for hungry prey, Yet hungry prey makes desperate rabbits, Who leap into our claws.

and ig my big point is, the hymns are a cultural artifact. just like many of the rules in the old testament have to do with hygiene things being codified into religion, this whole hymn is about hunting advice.

the moon on the river

okay, out of all the hymns, this is the most complete, and because ashfoot and deadfoot sing it together, and deadfoot discusses it, i only have one stanza to share.

Under the coldness, you shine back at me, And I do everything to keep the clouds from threatening you.

now, this poem is about love, grief, and being separated. it's a particular kind of grief, and windclan discourages grief, so this is one of only a few ways to really, fully express it.

and this section, in particular, is about love in times of hardship.

i don't have. a lot to say here. but the way hardship changes how you love someone can be particular and intense.

(temporarily, this happens sometime before "Spare for my chosen few / All I have is given towards the distant ground.")

the gorse in the wind

oh shit! i have so fucking much to say okay first.

the series title does not come from this hymn.

second, this is a challenging hymn okay. fuck. i have so much to say. where to start so! moors are actually relatively wet. think british countryside, not, like, a cool desert.

this is something i always knew? i read the secret garden a lot as a kid. but. i've seen stuff about moors being dry, and it's just one of those things that really...starts to eat under your skin. anyway.

okay, so. gorse is a dry plant. it does not like rain. it grows in sandy soil, etc etc, and yet. aside from everything we know about gorse and warriors, it also grows in this moor. because i say so.

okay, so. so so so. the lines quotes here are really deceptive, and i bet no one understood why, and that makes me just a little sad, but i couldn't find a good way to explain it in text, so uh, yeah, anyway. there's an exchange between ashfoot and deadfoot: "THE GORSE: You called me the heather and I grew stronger. / THE WIND: I called you the heather and brought rain for you to grow."

so...so do you see? do you see the point? it's about communication, needs, challenging each other. fadskj;l i love this. okay, so. the point is that heather is fragile, soft, pretty, and gorse is the opposite. the part of the wind is trying to be kind and complimentary, but the gorse is saying, fuck that, you are not being kind to me by undercutting my strength.

anyway, this passage is sung by the gorse:

In what good company have I set down roots, That even through snow fall I flower. You called me the heather and yet I've weathered, Far more than your sweet-named love.

so uh, yeah, this adds context. gorse! gorse is a hardy plant that continues to flower basically all season round. it's cool. it's cool. gorse is super cool. fuuuck y'all it's such a small thing and i've contained talking about it until now, but now it's too much. the floodgates are open, and i thought about this small detail too much.

okay. deep breath. gorse is a really easy plant to grow, but it's still adapted for dry environments. so the "even through snow fall I flower" part is a little tongue in cheek: gorse itself will flower in the cold, but snow is a type of precipitation, which as we've covered, is not gorse friendly.

then we have some rhyming and puns in the next line, and finally, "yet I've weathered, / Far more than your sweet-named love." like. yes. love as a form of softness is not necessarily helpful.

i mean, consider the damaging "soft trans boi" problem. same energy.

right. okay. so we've got all that? now if you remember, this is sung when deadfoot thinks ashpaw doesn't respect him, and ashpaw says she'll sing with him if she can sing the gorse, so in essence, she's telling him...not to back off, per se, but that...she is the "hard part" of the relationship. like, okay, i refuse to even bring up gender roles in human relationships, but uh, her point is very much, "i am the gorse, and you are the wind," and it's a very monumental moment.

it's anchored, i believe, in the other scenes, but this is a small thing that matters a lot to me.

like a lot.

okay, now that i've talked about like four lines for the length of this entire post, moving on.

the heather and earth

okay, this is the last hymn i have in concrete terms, and i cut a bit of it from the latest chapter, so yeah. it's also, uh, okay everything i have for it is only a line or two, but i wanted to share this closing line (sung together):

Sing a song of forgiveness, of growing together, and we will make madness, And madness from hence will everything beautiful grow.

and i just like these lines. they got cut, it was initially part of an exchange between ashfoot and deadfoot, but i can't share the part of it they talk about, because i'm reusing it for a later chapter and i'll 100% spoil shit if i try to talk about it.

but these lines? mmm they speak to me.

i don't have a ton to say about them, but i just. i like it.

if we apply the same ecology discussion from the gorse and the wind, we see heather is a plant that grows in acidic, infertile soil, and heath (which is not the same as a heather, but also kind of is) is a defining quality of heathland, which is...i'm not kidding, it's hot discourse about the difference between moorland and heathland.

i'm not getting involved, but my point is, if the gorse in the wind is a hymn about finding a working relationship, about mutual respect, etc., then the heather and earth is a hymn about working well together in a terrible situation.

god.

uh, wow! can you tell i like plants? because while parts of my ecology are dubious (see: everything regarding the rabbits in ch1), the plants part are well thought out. this shit is carefully detailed metaphor.

and that's why i won't be releasing a full hymnal. it's hard to as on top of this as i want to be. i'm not kidding, writing even four lines of a hymn usually takes me about twenty minutes, because i pull up a lot of research about how things work, how they interact with each other, etc., and then there's wordsmithing, cat worldview filter, etc.

but i hope this overview of what i've got is a good insight into my general thoughts. and i will eventually release more and more of the hymns i've got written.

[mukuaruuze]

African Myths and Creation stories

According to many African myths, the creation of heaven precedes the creation of earth and man was created before the animals. The sun and the moon are given high status, even seen as gods in some cultures and because all African societies depend on rain, it is also held in high regard.

The earth is a very important element in the many myths. It is regarded by many as a mother goddess who rules all people and gives birth to new generations of all beings. It is believed that earth conceals life, protecting it from drought and reviving it when the rains come.

All creatures are earth and none can live without her. Even the elements come from the earth, yet the earth itself is seldom worshipped. She is regarded as a powerful spirit, ruling over life and death, moving mountains, forests and all when angered. It is said that animals understand and obey the earth but that man does not.

Some African peoples believe that the spirits live in the sky and control the rain, while others believe in water spirits that control the rivers, lakes and oceans. There also exist African myths of spirits that inhabit rocks, mountains and trees, such places are considered sacred.

It can be good or evil....

In African mythology, Jok is the concept of the divine; it can be good or evil, one or many. Unlike Europeans, who believe spiritual beings must be separated, African mythology believes Jok is the unified spirit of all supernatural beings: God and the spirits, the gods, the holy ghost and beings from the otherworld.

African Religion believes in the existence of good and evil spirits and rituals play a very important part in African culture. Bad spirits are believed to cause misfortune and illness and many societies have spiritual professionals who communicate with ancestral spirits to protect against evil. Mediums enter into trance-like states, allowing a spirit to possess their body and use them to communicate or prophesy.

African religious practitioners undergo intense training and there are different roles of spiritual professionals including priests, rainmakers and healers, also known as diviners or herbalists.

Some African Religions even distinguish more than one spiritual essence residing within a person. In Nigeria, the Yoruba people believe that a person has at least three spiritual beings. Emi (meaning "breath"), is a vital force that keeps man alive. It resides in the heart and lungs and is fed by the wind. Ojiji is a shadow that follows its owner and awaits his return in heaven when he dies. The third being is Eleda, or spirit, which must be fed by sacrifices. These spiritual beings flee the body at the time of death and all await his return in heaven.

African Myths on Destiny

The Yoruba people also believe that a man's success or failure in life depends on the choices he made in heaven before his birth. Ori is the Yoruba god in heaven who supervises people's choices. Ori means "head" or "mind".

Even the gods themselves depend on Ori to direct their personal lives. Gods and men alike consult their sacred divination palm nuts daily in order to receive direction from Ori.

African Creation Stories

These stories are adapted from The Origin of Life and Death: African Creation Myths. London: Heinemann, 1966.

A Fulani story (Mali)

HOW THE WORLD WAS CREATED FROM A DROP OF MILK

At the beginning there was a huge drop of milk

Then Doondari (God) came and he created the stone.

Then the stone created iron;

And iron created fire;

And fire created water;

And water created air.

The Doondari descended a second time. And he took the five elements

And he shaped them into man.

But man was proud.

Then Doondari created blindness and blindness defeated man.

But when blindness became too proud,

Doondari created sleep, and sleep defeated blindness;

But when sleep became too proud,

Doondari created worry, and worry defeated sleep;

But when worry became too proud,

Doondari created death, and death defeated worry.

But when death became too proud,

Doondari descended for the third time,

And he came as Gueno, the eternal one

And Gueno defeated death.

A Nupe story (Nigeria)

God created the tortoise (turtle), men and stones. Of each he created male and female. God gave life to the tortoises and men, but not to the stones. Noen could have children, and when they became old they did not die but became young again!

The tortoise, however, wished to have children, and went to God. But God said: “I have given you life, but I have not given you permTortoiseission to have children.”

But the tortoise came to God again to make the request, and finally God said:

“You always come to ask for children. Do you realize that when the living have had several children they must die?”

But the tortoise said: “Let me see my children and then die.” Then God granted the wish.

When man saw that the tortoise had children, he too wanted children. God warned man, as he had the tortoise, that he must die. But man also said: “Let me see my children and then die.”

That is how death and children came into the world.

Only the stones didn’t want to have children, so they never die!

An Efe story (D.R. Congo) :The Forbidden Fruit

God created the first human being with the help of the moon. God kneaded the body out of clay. Then God covered it with skin and the end God poured blood into it. God called the first human Baatsi.

Then God whispered into his ear telling him to beget many children, but to impress upon the children the following rule: from all trees you may eat, but not from the Tahu tree.

Baatsi had many children and he made them obey the rule. When he became old he retired to heaven. His children obeyed the rule and when they grew old they too retired to heaven.

But one day a pregnant woman was seized with an irresistible desire to eat the fruit of the Tahu tree. She asked her husband to break some for her, but he refused. But when she persisted, the husband gave in. He crept into the forest at night, picked the Tahu fruit, peeled it, and hid the peel in the bush. But moon had seen him, and she told God what she had seen.

God was so angry with humans that he sent death as a punishment to men.

A Nyamwezi story (Tanzania) :The Plant of Life

Shida Matunda created all things. After making the earth and water and plants and animals, he created two women and took them as his wives.

His favorite wife, however, died. Then Shida Matunda buried her in her house and remained at her grave watering it every day. After some time, a little plant began to grow from the grave. Then he was glad, because he knew that the dead woman would rise again. He did not allow his other wife to come near the grave.

But one day when Shida Matunda had gone out, the wife was overcome with curiosity and she stole into the house. When she saw the plant, she was jealous and cut it down with a hoe. The blood of the dead woman poured out of the grave and filled the house.

When Shida Matunda returned and saw the blood, he was much afraid and said: “You have killed your co-wife and thereby caused all men, animals, and plants to die.”

From Shida Matunda and the surviving woman descended all other humans.

An African-Cuban Creation Story:How Truth and Falsehood Got So Confused.

Olofi created the Earth and all things in it. He created beautiful things and ugly things. He created Truth and he created Falsehood. He made Truth big and powerful, but he made Falsehood skinny and weak. And God made them enemies. He gave Falsehood a cutlass [large knife], unbeknownst to Truth. One day, the two met and started fighting. Truth, being so big and powerful felt confident, and also very complacent since he didn’t know that Falsehood had a cutlass. So Falsehood cunningly cut off Truth’s head. This jolted and enraged Truth, and he started scrambling around on the ground for his head. In his scrambling, Truth stumbled unto Falsehood, and knocking him down Truth, felt the head of Falsehood, which he took to be his own head. His strength being truly awesome, a mere pull from Truth yanked off the head of Falsehood. Truth then put the head on his own neck. And from that day what we have had is a horrible mismatch: the body of Truth and the head of Falsehood.

African Bushmen Creation Myth

People did not always live on the surface of the earth. At one time people and animals lived underneath the earth with Kaang (Käng), the Great Master and Lord of All Life. In this place people and animals lived together peacefully. They understood each other. No one ever wanted for anything and it was always light even though there wasn't any sun. During this time of bliss Kaang began to plan the wonders he would put in the world above.

First Kaang created a wondrous tree, with branches stretching over the entire country. At the base of the tree he dug a hole that reached all the way down into the world where the people and animals lived. After he had finished furnishing the world as he pleased he led the first man up the hole. He sat down on the edge of the hole and soon the first woman came up out of it. Soon all the people were gathered at the foot of the tree, awed by the world they had just entered. Next, Kaang began helping the animals climb out of the hole. In their eagerness some of the animals found a way to climb up through the tree's roots and come out of the branches. They continued racing out of the world beneath until all of the animals were out.

Kaang gathered all the people and animals about him. He instructed them to live together peacefully. Then he turned to the men and women and warned them not to build any fires or a great evil would befall them. They gave their word and Kaang left to where he could watch his world secretly.

As evening approached the sun began to sink beneath the horizon. The people and animals stood watching this phenomenon, but when the sun disappeared fear entered the hearts of the people. They could no longer see each other as they lacked the eyes of the animals which were capable of seeing in the dark. They lacked the warm fur of the animals also and soon grew cold. In desperation one man suggested that they build a fire to keep warm. Forgetting Kaang's warning they disobeyed him. They soon grew warm and were once again able to see each other.

However the fire frightened the animals. They fled to the caves and mountains and ever since the people broke Kaang's command people have not been able to communicate with animals. Now fear has replaced the seat friendship once held between the two groups.

The Bushmen of Africa believe that not only are plants and animals alive, but also rain, thunder, the wind, spring, etc. They claim:

What we see is only the outside form or body. Inside is a living spirit that we cannot see. These spirits can fly out of one body into another. For example, a woman's spirit might sometime fly into a leopard; or a man's spirit fly into a lion's body. (Fahs and Spoerl 6)

[daikini-in-the-twilyhtmist]

Oracle of the White Rabbit

I was recently quite excited to learn about the newest Matrix movie, which was kind of weird for me, as I haven't been much into tv & movies for quite a while now. To my surprise, it was the soundtrack to the preview that immediately captured my attention - almost more then the preview itself... and then it got stuck in my head - for DAYS, on repeat. 

**Cue the Morpheus voiceover: "What you know you can't explain, but you feel it.... You don't know WHAT it is, but it's there - like a splinter in your mind, driving you mad."** Yeah, that song was dead set on getting my attention.

When I finally got rid of it, I started realizing a few days later that I understood it beyond the surface meaning; and basically, I decoded the story that it was telling - it turns out to be all about right NOW. Is it prophetic? Subconscious social engineering? Quantum entanglement between the life and the art, so that they mirror and reflect each other? Who knows...  

It appears to me to be a sort of trigger, or a reminder of what to do when the time comes, of what you NEED to do - and yes, I realize that this sounds very MK ultra secret agent-y; but it is what it is. I assumed it was probably just a message for me, but then I had 2 separate YouTuber's basically confirm the message in their own unique way, and then supplied additional info that is... quite compelling and pertinent to keep in mind, and utilize. So I'll link those two vids below the song decoding portion, but please watch them as they have some VERY helpful info in them - especially the 2nd half of Naughty Beav's vid, the Alba Weinman part. Anyways, here's the song with lyrics, and the decode I got for it:

https://youtu.be/YE3ZXm92CJ0

Preface: The story overall is describing the multidimensional aspects of the human being, and how certain "controllers" have manipulated the general population into thinking that we are only ONE SINGLE aspect (i.e. this linear 3D realm template of a human) of our various extended selves - and have waged war (and still are) to maintain that control over us to keep their positions power.

Song: White Rabbit by Jefferson Airplane

ONE PILL MAKES YOU LARGER AND ONE PILL MAKES YOU SMALL These “pills” are alternate dimensional perspectives - the actual embodiment of them from a larger and smaller POV - Annunaki are generally around 10-16 feet tall, and the Fae are considered to be tiny little elemental beings; BOTH sizes make you visit WONDERLAND though! You can SEE & FEEL that there is MORE beyond just this vessel and life viewpoint, more to YOU that goes on to other places where this particular body-ego cannot. AND THE ONES (pills) THAT MOTHER GIVES YOU DON'T DO ANYTHING AT ALL The world perspectives and programs installed in our parents are for a different agenda, time and place - they've since expired and are therefore useless to us... those POV's just don't do anything, except stagnate you. GO ASK ALICE (<your inner child, direct connection to Source Creator) WHEN SHE'S 10 FEET TALL (<in her Annunaki 5th dimensional or above form) Oh yeah, I'd LOVE to see you try and argue those belief systems with THAT version of her/YOU, that'll be fun! Good luck with that, BwahahaaHaahaaa!!!

AND IF YOU GO CHASING RABBITS This "You" ISN'T YOU - it's a hypothetical scenario. As in: If YOU were part of a group of dark, nefarious beings, who CAN'T timeline jump to higher realms on their own, but wanted to... wouldn't YOU chase those 'rabbits', to sneak in after them, (or somehow piggyback on them) to go thru the (portals) tunnels that they naturally create? Well... wouldn't you?!!! AND YOU KNOW YOU'RE GOING TO FALL These beings know their time is limited; as the energetic  frequencies of the earth raises - LITERALLY - we have to ELEVATE with Earth (or die, as it’s not compatible); but they can only FALL since they cannot follow us - their heavier energies & choices aligned with that vibe basically anchor them down. When the Earth sheds those lower energies, they appear to “fall’ - Earth rides a sine wave up and down in a continuous cycle; right now the rollercoaster is ascending. TELL 'EM A HOOKAH SMOKING CATERPILLER HAS GIVEN YOU THE CALL Say it with me: COVER STORY!!! So just tell them that you've contacted extraterrestrials, or "Ashtar Command" in a higher dimension, who relays "guidance" to you while you're in a channeling state of mind... exchange your religious/guru worship programming (it’s SO last year) for an unvetted channeled source to worship and obey blindly instead. Pick your poison, ‘cuz dying is fun (whether that be literal, spiritual or otherwise).FYI: I am anti-establishment regarding religions; your connection to Source Creator is meant to be direct & personal, always growing - those outside things are GUIDEPOSTS for consideration and participation when you deem it useful. Not necessary, though, and CERTAINLY not mandatory... they can be helpful though, nevertheless. CALL ALICE WHEN SHE WAS JUST SMALL No doubt they WOULD try to contact you while you were young and vulnerable (and they might have already) - train a child up in the way they should go, and all that. It applies whether it be physically done or in the astral/dream state - it's also prime alien abduction time, in both cases, too: it happens most often around the 3-10 years old timeframe, generally. **Alternatively, this could mean that YOU need to recall your inner child/younger self, when you were more pure - and RECONNECT to (the true you, prior to life’s enforced programming) yourself from there, as a means of counteracting and recognizing any false “messages of light”.**

WHEN THE MEN ON THE CHESSBOARD This is the Masonic, Illuminati and other controller group factions (alphabet agencies included) - The chessboard is primarily associated with the Masonic lodges, though, like the ladder - it's their way of bypassing the middle path (opening the 3rd eye, spiritually evolving through kundalini awakening and such), but still attempting to climb up to 'higher planes'... through magickal rituals and workings of one sort or another, I think. The Sun and Moon pillars are on either side, the battle of fire and Ice. THEY are the ones that "play the game" with humanity, as it were, and “set the stage” on the gameboard in many ways.

It’s like this in their art and iconography...

But it’s like THIS in the physical body structure, see:

Side Note: I learned this and wrote it down/drew it up by watching and following Lavette's channel on YouTube - her channel is under this (her real) name, so if you want to understand & decode the esoteric symbology and all that, check her out, she has a wealth of knowledge to share...  it's great stuff!!!

Anyways, moving on with the decode...

>> when the men on the chessboard << GET UP AND TELL YOU WHERE TO GO Or where you CAN'T go, or things you can’t go DO - lockdowns, anyone? AND YOU'VE JUST EATEN SOME KIND OF MUSHROOM Or taken some kind of drug, to check out (with alcohol, pharmaceuticals) as a means of coping; or perhaps just a medically coerced and/or forced untested injectable... that shall remain unnamed. (a la Voldemorte)  AND YOUR MIND IS MOVING LOW Because your consciousness and/or interdimensional capacities are capped, having been anchored down into lower frequencies due to your choices. ASK ALICE I THINK SHE'LL KNOW Ask your inner child/spiritual connection WHAT TO DO

WHEN LOGIC AND PROPORTION HAVE FALLEN SLOPPY DEAD That's RIGHT NOW, with the media, the actions of the government, corporations & the alphabet agencies - everything from them is WAY out of proportion, (they're self contradicting) and illogical...  it's “fallen sloppy dead” is about as literal of a description as you can get. AND THE WHITE KNIGHT IS TALKING BACKWARDS Is this Biden? Maybe Trump? Could be whomever you deem to be our hero, or fixate on as a knight "in shining armor" charging to our rescue, I suppose. AND THE RED QUEEN'S "OFF WITH HER (THEIR) HEAD!!!" The red queen is the sentient A.I. computer located under the airport in Colorado from what I understand... so this could be indicating the weather warfare or DEW, the internet consciousness battlefront, or a whole host of other things that could be directed by that (besides the jabs), which seeks to kill off a great swath of humanity. The Red Queen could also be a means to direct the jib-jabbed peoples like zombies when they're "turned on" like antennas, once the graphene in the injectables does its work. It would certainly explain all the “zombie apocalypse” protocols and policies that have been made by certain corporations and agencies - all of which was done in a serious manner... so here’s that.

So, now THIS is where it gets interesting (for me, anyways).

Every. Single. Time. That I hear this next verse, I hear it spoken a DIFFERENT way, like a glitch that simultaneously layers a different version on top of the other one, so that they are both communicated at once. This is the 'secret key', the ANSWER - remember, this part of the song says: When this & that happens, and when this person and that ‘person’ are acting THIS WAY - THEN:

REMEMBER WHAT THE DORMOUSE SAYS Dormouse - a tiny squirrel-like mouse, that is rather famous for being able to HIBERNATE for EXTENDED PERIODS OF TIME - sometimes 6 months of the year, or more, if the temperatures stay cold enough. The lower the frequency, the cooler the temperature, usually. (The Sleeper MUST Awaken! ~ Dune) << This word - Dormouse - transforms into DHARMA. So the verse: "Remember what the Dormouse said" turns into "Remember what the DHARMA SAYS". For more on dharma, see here:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dharma

The dormouse speaks of the head - waking up and remembering mentally; but when it morphs into dharma, it speaks of the heart waking up; and returning to it’s inherent wisdom, returning to the spirit-soul self. So that is the key message that keeps coming thru on this:

Remember what the dormouse/dharma Says: FEED YOUR HEAD-HEART CONNECTION (and stack your dharma)!!! Spiritual GAINS, baby!

The final verse is repeated twice; I believe this indicates that the areas to apply it to are your outward actions here in the outer world, and your inner realm locals: your thoughts and feelings. FEED the CONNECTION on each level, to be and do good, and to stand up in integrity and defend that sacred space on EACH LEVEL whenever it's needed. The mind-heart connection and coherence part is actually mentioned specifically in The Naughty Beaver video linked below, too... but there will undoubtedly be internal emotional and mental attacks that only you can recognize and shield against, or fight back against to maintain your inner calm and wholeness of spirit. The stronger the mind-heart coherence is, though, the higher you vibe naturally; so it grants you a certain level of protection automatically - I feel that's why they push the jab-berwocky so hard through social/economic pressure, and emotional guilt and gaslighting; to block that potential before you ever reach it, so you can still be "hacked", or locked down, energetically. 

Feed your head = higher mind = higher perspective. Maintain THAT, then ACT FROM THERE. (Faith without works is dead, yo) See the other two vids below, and thank you for reading thus far. You/We’ve got this - Be Excellent to (yourself and) Each Other... and Party On!

The “Naughty Beaver” confirmation, perspective & guidance on this: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wHeDnhc8Jfg

The “YellowRoseforTexas” standpoint and confirmation:

https://youtu.be/tmYdSFj3WYE

As a final thought... look how unbelievably FREAKING CUTE dormice are IRL! ! ! ! KAWAII ! ! !

[wincestisasincest]

The Green Book (Thorin’s Company x Reader, Part 1)

Hello all! This is something of a rewrite for an idea that I had when I was like, 13, but I started it and it was a hot pile of ass, so we’re taking another crack at it. Basically, sort of like how Bilbo and Fordo recorded everything in the Red Book of Westmarch, this is a book where (y/n) records all of her adventures after falling into Middle Earth.

I have no idea how long this is going to be, nor if there’s going to be any more specific pairings, so feel free to shoot me one if you’d like to see something play out!

A quick note! This story is in first person, not in second person, but it is still about the reader. It is the reader’s later account of their adventures. I’m sure you’re all smart people and can figure this out, but I wanted to make that clear. 

Summary: (Y/n) falls into Middle Earth. Shocker. Somehow, she gets recruited to join a party of dwarves on their kinda crazy mission to reclaim their home of Erebor. 

Part: 1

Words: 1593

Warnings: Plot clichés, getting lost, fainting

To whom it may concern: This book is a project by myself, (f/n) (l/n), to record an official account of both my voyage through the land of Middle Earth, how it intertwined with the quest to reclaim Erebor, and what happened in between. All information here has been directly experienced by me and has been corroborated by other living peoples in Middle Earth, which shall be credited in the after section if any reader seeks to verify.

I write you, the person reading my Green Book, this letter at the beginning of the book because I want to make clear my intention. While this book shall certainly be used for historical record, and I am honored to have it serve that purpose, that is not my primary intention in writing it. I feel that, in the case of historical record, we tend to miss out on a very important element in the stories of our ancestors. Their humanity. 

Or dwarf-manity. Or hobbit-manity. Or wizard-manity. 

The point is that I have scoured many manuscripts in my years, and all of them treat those of the past as though they are sculptures created purely of dates, epithets, and conquest, and that is simply not the case. The deeds of this company are not going to be forgotten for a long time, but their personality, individual quirks, fears, loves, hopes, dreams, and heart, may fade into obscurity as their time comes to an end. 

That it what I wish to eliminate with this book. Above all else, I want you, the reader, not to remember them as historical icons, but as the caring, brave group of adventurers that I have come to love. 

No, I cannot completely fix a disconnected view of the past, but I can sure try.

***********

I got my start in adventuring at the same time I got my start in Middle Earth. And both of them were complete accidents. 

The land that I come from, just Earth, is wholly different from its Middle counterpart. There are no species besides that of the human race, which have ruled the planet for many centuries and divided into their own cultures with individual languages, practices, religions, and such. As humans are quite non-magical, however, this does also mean that there is no magic in this world. Instead, humans have conquered it through different applications of knowledge, through which they have created many a valuable devices that replace the need for magic. These devices may do things such as heal the sick, communicate over long distances, defend oneself, light up dark rooms, and so on. 

The only common trait that it shared with its counterpart was that it had no idea that there was any Earth besides itself. 

So, you can imagine that my stumble into Middle Earth was by no means intentional. 

I was a dreamy young lady of (your age) years. I had things to do that would take up most of my day’s energy, but when I did have a minute of downtime or two, I could always be found wandering in the woods. Something in its peaceful nature, in which I could not hear the hustle and bustle of the rest of society, was very relaxing to me. 

More often than not, I would recline on a large, flat rock deeper into the forest and go about leisure activities such as reading or drawing. Such leisure activities were exactly what I was occupied with on that very day that would change my life. 

I looked up from the pages of a very gripping read at an odd sound coming from the woods. Now, the woods are full of odd sounds, and to try to put a name on all of them would do the terrain a disservice, but something in particular about this sound woke up something in me. My curiosity could only be quenched by an exploration.

The sound itself mirrored that of language, as though some mysterious force were whispering words but were hidden from sight, however, the words were not from any language that I understood or recognized. Even after I had come to learn of languages particular to the land of Middle Earth, such as Elvish and Khuzdul, I still cannot specifically attribute any one of them to this whispering. 

I shoved everything that I was doing into my bright red backpack (or just pack, as they are more commonly called) and slid off my rock, walking towards the sound. One could almost say I was hypnotized, as it just dragged me in. Deeper and deeper I trailed into the woods.

At some point the whispering stopped, and I was snapped back to reality. I had completely lost track of time. I peered around, and realized that I could not recognize where I was. I whipped out my phone (a cellular device used for communication which I will expand on in later chapters) to check what time it was, only to be confronted with the fact that five hours had passed. 

This news was even more distressing, because, if five hours had passed, then the sky should be occupied by the moon and not the sun. I ran the numbers in my head. I had been on the rock at about six, and my phone now read that it was eleven at night. But the birds still tweeted, and it was still sunny, as though it was but a pleasant afternoon. 

I attempted to use my phone to possibly communicate with someone, or find out my location, but the technology failed. Resolving to save battery, I put it away and continued to observe my location. It did seem like this part of the world had been completely claimed by nature, with no sign of any sort of civilization in sight. I would’ve found it beautiful it it did not signal my possible demise. 

In my world, a common piece of advice for those who are lost is to wait in one place. This advice is most commonly given when one is traveling with a group, which makes sense, as a group would not only quickly realize that you were lost, but could easily fan out to search for you, which would only be made easier if you were prevented from getting any farther from where you had strayed from. 

However, I was not traveling with a group. I was alone. I quickly weighed the pros and cons of staying in once place, before deciding that, when combined with how big this forest apparently was, to how long it would take someone to realize I was gone, to how long it would take them to conclude that I was in the forest, to how long that it would take them to search the forest, to the fact that I had no concept of time anyway, that I would surely die before this technique yielded any results. 

No, my best bet was to continue forward and hope to come across something eventually. If not civilization, then food or water. Either way, I would not die in the forest.

Gathering all my resolve, I continued to trek forward. 

Slowly, but surely, night overtook this strange forest-land as well, and there was no sign of any civilization in sight. I had no food or water with me, which was only made clearer by my parched throat and growling stomach. 

Against my terrible luck, a heavenly smell (or perhaps a nasty smell that simply came to me when I was hungry) wafted over the trees and to my location. I had no choice but to follow it. 

It wasn’t something that I recognized, like beef or chicken, but was definitely a sort of meat. Regardless, I would eat anything at this point. My hope was only increased when I heard what sounded like conversations passing around a campfire. Perhaps, I thought, it was a group of campers that would be able to help out a very lost and confused traveller. 

I grew more desperate. I pulled leaves and branches out of the way and nearly tripped over rocks. Though I still couldn’t make out the words that were being said, they sounded oddly aggressive and simplistic. It was intermixed with the neighing of horses, sounding very distressed, though my animalistic impulses at the time elected to ignore that. 

“...and if it don’t look like mutton tomorra!” So that’s what the meat was. Mutton. That sounded delicious.

Finally, I could see the campfire peaking through the trees. I hopped out into the clearing, not even taking the time to think of what I would say or do, just following the food. 

In front of me were three of the biggest and ugliest creatures that I had ever seen in my life. You and I now understand them as trolls, but I had never seen a troll before, though, if you had told me at the time that that’s what they were called, I would not be surprised. Their bodies were large and their heads were tiny, with layers and layers of fat making up their bulging stomachs, around which was a loosely tied loincloth. Whatever was under that, I didn’t want to think about. Their faces had crooked teeth, large noses, sloping foreheads, and very stupid looks plastered on them, though as it happened, all of those stupid looks were looking directly at me. 

“Lads, we’re eating human tonight!” The middle one shouted gleefully, raising his arms and looking at me menacingly while getting up out of his chair. 

I fainted on sight.

******

Ahhh, I just negged y’all. We’ll see the gang in the next chapter, don’t worry, but I gotta tease it first. 

Next chapter will be out soon, by the way, because that’s what quarantine is for.

Also, if you’re interested, shoot me an ask/suggestion for what the reader has in her bag! I have a few ideas, but I’m really open to anything, whether it’s a specific book, a cool trinket, a sentimental object, whatever you guys have!

You can also shoot me pairings if you’d like though I may or may not have a very unpopular one in mind already

[backslashdelta]

Glee Soundtrack Rating Project Results: anndie

@anndie

Favourite character: Kurt Hummel

Least favourite character: Will Schuester

Favourite season: Season 3

Least favourite season: Season 4

Mean song rating: 5.49

Mean song rating for favourite character's songs: 7

Mean song rating for favourite character's solos: 7.36

Mean song rating season 1: 5.59

Mean song rating season 2: 5.27

Mean song rating season 3: 5.56

Mean song rating season 4: 5.18

Mean song rating season 5: 5.92

Mean song rating season 6: 5.46

Songs rated: 702

[ID: A bar chart titled Number of songs assigned each rating by Anndie, illustrating the number of times each score was assigned to a song by Anndie. 10 was assigned 9 times, 9 was assigned 27 times, 8 was assigned 70 times, 7 was assigned 116 times, 6 was assigned 120 times, 5 was assigned 143 times, 4 was assigned 112 times, 3 was assigned 67 times, 2 was assigned 27 times, 1 was assigned 11 times, and 0 songs were not rated.]

About the Project | Results Masterpost

Ranking:

1. (10) - S2x03 - I Want to Hold Your Hand

2. (10) - S2x12 - Silly Love Songs

3. (10) - S2x16 - Blackbird

4. (10) - S2x18 - Somewhere Only We Know

5. (10) - S2x18 - As If We Never Said Goodbye

6. (10) - S2x18 - Born This Way

7. (10) - S3x06 - Rumour Has It/Someone Like You

8. (10) - S5x03 - Seasons of Love

9. (10) - S5x15 - I'm Still Here

10. (9) - S1x01 - Don't Stop Believing (Pilot)

11. (9) - S1x11 - Imagine

12. (9) - S1x11 - True Colors

13. (9) - S1x15 - Vogue

14. (9) - S1x18 - Rose's Turn

15. (9) - S1x20 - Bad Romance

16. (9) - S2x03 - One of Us

17. (9) - S2x04 - Le Jazz Hot

18. (9) - S2x04 - Happy Days Are Here Again/Get Happy

19. (9) - S2x05 - Sweet Transvestite

20. (9) - S2x05 - Time Warp

21. (9) - S2x05 - Science Fiction Double Feature

22. (9) - S2x06 - Teenage Dream

23. (9) - S2x10 - Baby, It's Cold Outside

24. (9) - S2x15 - Animal

25. (9) - S2x16 - Raise Your Glass

26. (9) - S2x22 - For Good

27. (9) - S3x01 - It's Not Unusual

28. (9) - S3x09 - Let It Snow

29. (9) - S3x14 - Stronger (What Doesn't Kill You)

30. (9) - S4x15 - Come What May

31. (9) - S5x01 - Help!

32. (9) - S5x01 - All You Need Is Love

33. (9) - S5x03 - I'll Stand By You

34. (9) - S5x18 - Story of My Life

35. (9) - S5x20 - American Boy

36. (9) - S5x20 - Pompeii

37. (8) - S1x05 - Somebody to Love

38. (8) - S1x06 - It's My Life/Confessions Part II

39. (8) - S1x06 - Halo/Walking On Sunshine

40. (8) - S1x07 - Keep Holding On

41. (8) - S1x09 - Defying Gravity

42. (8) - S1x10 - Lean On Me

43. (8) - S1x12 - Jump

44. (8) - S1x19 - Safety Dance

45. (8) - S1x19 - Dream a Little Dream

46. (8) - S1x20 - Poker Face

47. (8) - S1x22 - Bohemian Rhapsody

48. (8) - S1x22 - Don't Stop Believing (Regionals)

49. (8) - S1x22 - To Sir, With Love

50. (8) - S2x03 - Bridge Over Troubled Water

51. (8) - S2x06 - Stop! In the Name of Love/Free Your Mind

52. (8) - S2x06 - Start Me Up/Livin' on a Prayer

53. (8) - S2x09 - Hey, Soul Sister

54. (8) - S2x09 - Dog Days Are Over

55. (8) - S2x09 - Valerie

56. (8) - S2x11 - Thriller/Heads Will Roll

57. (8) - S2x16 - Misery

58. (8) - S3x02 - Something's Coming

59. (8) - S3x03 - Run the World (Girls)

60. (8) - S3x06 - I Can't Go for That/You Make My Dreams Come True

61. (8) - S3x06 - Hit Me with Your Best Shot/One Way or Another

62. (8) - S3x07 - Perfect

63. (8) - S3x08 - Control

64. (8) - S3x08 - Man in the Mirror

65. (8) - S3x08 - Survivor/I Will Survive

66. (8) - S3x08 - We Are Young

67. (8) - S3x08 - ABC

68. (8) - S3x09 - My Favorite Things

69. (8) - S3x11 - Bad

70. (8) - S3x11 - Smooth Criminal

71. (8) - S3x13 - I Will Always Love You

72. (8) - S3x15 - Rio/Hungry Like the Wolf

73. (8) - S3x15 - Somebody That I Used to Know

74. (8) - S3x18 - Shake It Out

75. (8) - S3x21 - Paradise By the Dashboard Light

76. (8) - S4x03 - The Way You Look Tonight/You're Never Fully Dressed Without a Smile

77. (8) - S4x04 - Teenage Dream (Acoustic)

78. (8) - S4x04 - Don't Speak

79. (8) - S4x05 - Hopelessly Devoted to You

80. (8) - S4x07 - Holding Out for a Hero

81. (8) - S4x09 - Don't Dream It's Over

82. (8) - S4x10 - White Christmas

83. (8) - S4x13 - Girl On Fire

84. (8) - S5x02 - Hey Jude

85. (8) - S5x02 - Let It Be

86. (8) - S5x06 - Just the Way You Are

87. (8) - S5x10 - The Happening

88. (8) - S5x10 - Hold On

89. (8) - S5x10 - Gloria

90. (8) - S5x14 - You Make Me Feel So Young

91. (8) - S5x15 - No One Is Alone

92. (8) - S5x16 - Love Is a Battlefield

93. (8) - S5x17 - Lovefool

94. (8) - S5x19 - Werewolves of London

95. (8) - S5x19 - Memory

96. (8) - S5x19 - Lucky Star

97. (8) - S5x19 - Take Me Home Tonight

98. (8) - S5x20 - All of Me

99. (8) - S6x01 - Suddenly Seymour

100. (8) - S6x02 - Take On Me

101. (8) - S6x03 - It's Too Late

102. (8) - S6x03 - Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow/Head Over Feet

103. (8) - S6x03 - You Learn/You've Got a Friend

104. (8) - S6x12 - Pony

105. (8) - S6x12 - Don't Stop Believing (Pilot/2009)

106. (8) - S6x12 - I Kissed a Girl

107. (7) - S1x01 - Mr. Cellophane

108. (7) - S1x01 - Respect

109. (7) - S1x01 - I Kissed a Girl

110. (7) - S1x01 - Rehab

111. (7) - S1x03 - Bust Your Windows

112. (7) - S1x07 - Ride Wit Me

113. (7) - S1x09 - Dancing With Myself

114. (7) - S1x09 - Proud Mary

115. (7) - S1x12 - Smile (Charlie Chaplin)

116. (7) - S1x12 - Smile (Lily Allen)

117. (7) - S1x15 - 4 Minutes

118. (7) - S1x15 - Like a Prayer

119. (7) - S1x17 - Physical

120. (7) - S1x18 - Jessie's Girl

121. (7) - S1x20 - Beth

122. (7) - S1x21 - Another One Bites the Dust

123. (7) - S1x22 - Any Way You Want It/Lovin' Touchin' Squeezin'

124. (7) - S2x03 - Losing My Religion

125. (7) - S2x04 - Sing!

126. (7) - S2x05 - Whatever Happened to Saturday Night?

127. (7) - S2x05 - There's a Light (Over at the Frankenstein Place)

128. (7) - S2x08 - Just the Way You Are

129. (7) - S2x08 - Marry You

130. (7) - S2x09 - Don't Cry for Me Argentina

131. (7) - S2x12 - P.Y.T. (Pretty Young Thing)

132. (7) - S2x13 - Somebody to Love

133. (7) - S2x14 - Blame It (On the Alcohol)

134. (7) - S2x14 - Don't You Want Me

135. (7) - S2x18 - I Feel Pretty/Unpretty

136. (7) - S2x20 - Dancing Queen

137. (7) - S2x21 - Pure Imagination

138. (7) - S3x01 - Anything Goes/Anything You Can Do

139. (7) - S3x01 - You Can't Stop the Beat

140. (7) - S3x02 - I'm the Greatest Star

141. (7) - S3x05 - Uptown Girl

142. (7) - S3x07 - I Kissed a Girl

143. (7) - S3x11 - Scream

144. (7) - S3x11 - Black or White

145. (7) - S3x11 - Wanna Be Startin' Somethin'

146. (7) - S3x11 - Never Can Say Goodbye

147. (7) - S3x11 - Human Nature

148. (7) - S3x11 - I Want You Back

149. (7) - S3x13 - Love Shack

150. (7) - S3x14 - Fly/I Believe I Can Fly

151. (7) - S3x14 - Glad You Came

152. (7) - S3x15 - I'm Still Standing

153. (7) - S3x15 - Fighter

154. (7) - S3x17 - I Have Nothing

155. (7) - S3x17 - I Wanna Dance With Somebody (Who Loves Me)

156. (7) - S3x18 - Not the Boy Next Door

157. (7) - S3x19 - Big Girls Don't Cry

158. (7) - S3x21 - It's All Coming Back to Me Now

159. (7) - S3x21 - Edge of Glory

160. (7) - S4x01 - It's Time

161. (7) - S4x03 - Everybody Wants to Rule the World

162. (7) - S4x04 - Barely Breathing

163. (7) - S4x04 - The Scientist

164. (7) - S4x06 - You're the One That I Want

165. (7) - S4x07 - Heroes

166. (7) - S4x08 - Whistle

167. (7) - S4x10 - Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas

168. (7) - S4x11 - No Scrubs

169. (7) - S4x13 - Don't Stop Me Now

170. (7) - S4x13 - Bring Him Home

171. (7) - S4x14 - Just Can't Get Enough

172. (7) - S4x14 - Anything Could Happen

173. (7) - S4x14 - We've Got Tonite

174. (7) - S4x15 - Old Time Rock & Roll/Danger Zone

175. (7) - S4x15 - Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend/Material Girl

176. (7) - S4x16 - The Bitch Is Back/Dress You Up

177. (7) - S4x16 - Bye Bye Bye/I Want It That Way

178. (7) - S4x17 - Against All Odds (Take a Look at Me Now)

179. (7) - S4x17 - Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go

180. (7) - S4x17 - Mamma Mia

181. (7) - S4x20 - Longest Time

182. (7) - S4x20 - At the Ballet

183. (7) - S4x21 - Signed, Sealed, Delivered, I'm Yours

184. (7) - S4x21 - You Are the Sunshine of My Life

185. (7) - S4x21 - Superstition

186. (7) - S4x22 - All or Nothing

187. (7) - S5x01 - Got to Get You Into My Life

188. (7) - S5x01 - A Hard Day's Night

189. (7) - S5x02 - Here Comes the Sun

190. (7) - S5x03 - Make You Feel My Love

191. (7) - S5x04 - Roar

192. (7) - S5x06 - Piano Man

193. (7) - S5x06 - My Life

194. (7) - S5x06 - Movin' Out (Anthony's Song)

195. (7) - S5x09 - I Believe in a Thing Called Love

196. (7) - S5x10 - Don't You (Forget About Me)

197. (7) - S5x12 - Raise Your Glass

198. (7) - S5x12 - Defying Gravity

199. (7) - S5x12 - Keep Holding On

200. (7) - S5x12 - Valerie

201. (7) - S5x13 - Loser Like Me

202. (7) - S5x13 - Don't Stop Believin' (Season Five)

203. (7) - S5x13 - Just Give Me a Reason

204. (7) - S5x14 - Best Day of My Life

205. (7) - S5x14 - Downtown

206. (7) - S5x15 - Broadway Baby

207. (7) - S5x17 - I'm the Greatest Star

208. (7) - S5x17 - Pumpin Blood

209. (7) - S5x19 - I Melt with You

210. (7) - S6x02 - Home

211. (7) - S6x03 - Hand in My Pocket/I Feel the Earth Move

212. (7) - S6x03 - So Far Away

213. (7) - S6x04 - Bitch

214. (7) - S6x05 - All Out of Love

215. (7) - S6x06 - Arthur's Theme

216. (7) - S6x06 - What the World Needs Now

217. (7) - S6x07 - You Give Love a Bad Name

218. (7) - S6x09 - Uptown Funk

219. (7) - S6x10 - Rise

220. (7) - S6x12 - Popular

221. (7) - S6x13 - Daydream Believer

222. (7) - S6x13 - This Time

223. (6) - S1x02 - I Say a Little Prayer

224. (6) - S1x02 - Gold Digger

225. (6) - S1x04 - Tonight

226. (6) - S1x07 - You Keep Me Hanging On

227. (6) - S1x08 - Bust A Move

228. (6) - S1x10 - I'll Stand By You

229. (6) - S1x11 - Hair/Crazy In Love

230. (6) - S1x13 - You Can't Always Get What You Want

231. (6) - S1x13 - My Life Would Suck Without You

232. (6) - S1x14 - Gives You Hell

233. (6) - S1x15 - Like a Virgin

234. (6) - S1x15 - Express Yourself

235. (6) - S1x16 - Home

236. (6) - S1x16 - One Less Bell to Answer/A House Is Not a Home

237. (6) - S1x16 - Beautiful

238. (6) - S1x17 - U Can't Touch This

239. (6) - S1x18 - Pink Houses

240. (6) - S1x19 - Dream On

241. (6) - S1x19 - I Dreamed a Dream

242. (6) - S1x21 - Give Up the Funk

243. (6) - S1x21 - Loser

244. (6) - S1x21 - Good Vibrations

245. (6) - S1x22 - Faithfully

246. (6) - S2x02 - Stronger

247. (6) - S2x02 - Toxic

248. (6) - S2x03 - Only the Good Die Young

249. (6) - S2x04 - River Deep, Mountain High

250. (6) - S2x04 - Lucky

251. (6) - S2x05 - Damn It, Janet

252. (6) - S2x05 - Planet, Schmanet, Janet

253. (6) - S2x07 - Singing In the Rain/Umbrella

254. (6) - S2x11 - Bills, Bills, Bills

255. (6) - S2x12 - When I Get You Alone

256. (6) - S2x12 - Fat Bottomed Girls

257. (6) - S2x12 - Firework

258. (6) - S2x12 - My Funny Valentine

259. (6) - S2x13 - Take Me or Leave Me

260. (6) - S2x16 - Candles

261. (6) - S2x16 - Loser Like Me

262. (6) - S2x17 - Ain't No Way

263. (6) - S2x19 - Go Your Own Way

264. (6) - S2x19 - Don't Stop

265. (6) - S2x19 - Songbird

266. (6) - S2x20 - I'm Not Gonna Teach Your Boyfriend How to Dance with You

267. (6) - S2x22 - I Love New York/New York, New York

268. (6) - S2x22 - Light Up the World

269. (6) - S3x01 - Ding-Dong! The Witch Is Dead

270. (6) - S3x01 - We Got the Beat

271. (6) - S3x02 - Somewhere

272. (6) - S3x03 - It's All Over

273. (6) - S3x05 - Tonight

274. (6) - S3x05 - One Hand, One Heart

275. (6) - S3x07 - Girls Just Wanna Have Fun

276. (6) - S3x07 - Constant Craving

277. (6) - S3x09 - Santa Claus Is Coming to Town

278. (6) - S3x10 - Moves Like Jagger/Jumpin' Jack Flash

279. (6) - S3x10 - We Found Love

280. (6) - S3x11 - Ben

281. (6) - S3x13 - Cherish/Cherish

282. (6) - S3x14 - Cough Syrup

283. (6) - S3x14 - Here's to Us

284. (6) - S3x15 - Up Up Up

285. (6) - S3x16 - You Should Be Dancing

286. (6) - S3x17 - It's Not Right But It's Okay

287. (6) - S3x17 - How Will I Know

288. (6) - S3x18 - Cell Block Tango

289. (6) - S3x19 - What Makes You Beautiful

290. (6) - S3x19 - Take My Breath Away

291. (6) - S3x19 - Love You Like a Love Song

292. (6) - S3x20 - Mean

293. (6) - S3x20 - I Won't Give Up

294. (6) - S3x20 - Flashdance...What a Feeling

295. (6) - S3x20 - Because You Loved Me

296. (6) - S3x21 - We Are the Champions

297. (6) - S3x22 - I'll Remember

298. (6) - S3x22 - You Get What You Give

299. (6) - S3x22 - In My Life

300. (6) - S3x22 - Glory Days

301. (6) - S4x02 - 3

302. (6) - S4x05 - Blow Me (One Last Kiss)

303. (6) - S4x06 - Beauty School Dropout

304. (6) - S4x07 - Superman

305. (6) - S4x08 - Live While We're Young

306. (6) - S4x12 - This Is the New Year

307. (6) - S4x12 - Love Song

308. (6) - S4x14 - Getting Married Today

309. (6) - S4x15 - Shout

310. (6) - S4x15 - Footloose

311. (6) - S4x16 - Closer

312. (6) - S4x18 - Your Song

313. (6) - S4x21 - For Once in My Life

314. (6) - S4x22 - Hall of Fame

315. (6) - S4x22 - I Love It

316. (6) - S5x01 - You've Got to Hide Your Love Away

317. (6) - S5x02 - Get Back

318. (6) - S5x03 - Fire and Rain

319. (6) - S5x03 - If I Die Young

320. (6) - S5x07 - Nasty/Rhythm Nation

321. (6) - S5x07 - Into the Groove

322. (6) - S5x09 - Every Breath You Take

323. (6) - S5x09 - Brave

324. (6) - S5x09 - Breakaway

325. (6) - S5x10 - Barracuda

326. (6) - S5x10 - Jumpin' Jumpin'

327. (6) - S5x11 - I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For

328. (6) - S5x13 - I Am Changing

329. (6) - S5x14 - Rockstar

330. (6) - S5x16 - Addicted to Love

331. (6) - S5x16 - I Want to Know What Love Is

332. (6) - S5x17 - NYC

333. (6) - S5x18 - Piece of My Heart

334. (6) - S5x18 - The Rose

335. (6) - S6x01 - Dance the Night Away

336. (6) - S6x01 - Let It Go

337. (6) - S6x04 - Thousand Miles

338. (6) - S6x05 - It Must Have Been Love

339. (6) - S6x06 - Wishin' And Hoping

340. (6) - S6x07 - Somebody Loves You

341. (6) - S6x08 - Our Day Will Come

342. (6) - S6x08 - At Last

343. (5) - S1x01 - On My Own

344. (5) - S1x02 - Take a Bow

345. (5) - S1x03 - Mercy

346. (5) - S1x07 - Hate On Me

347. (5) - S1x08 - I Could Have Danced All Night

348. (5) - S1x08 - Sweet Caroline

349. (5) - S1x08 - What A Girl Wants

350. (5) - S1x10 - Endless Love

351. (5) - S1x11 - Bootylicious

352. (5) - S1x11 - Papa Don't Preach

353. (5) - S1x13 - And I Am Telling You I'm Not Going

354. (5) - S1x14 - Highway to Hell

355. (5) - S1x14 - Hello, Goodbye

356. (5) - S1x15 - What It Feels Like for a Girl

357. (5) - S1x15 - Borderline/Open Your Heart

358. (5) - S1x15 - Burning Up

359. (5) - S1x16 - A House Is Not a Home

360. (5) - S1x17 - Total Eclipse of the Heart

361. (5) - S1x17 - Run Joey Run

362. (5) - S1x18 - The Boy Is Mine

363. (5) - S1x20 - Funny Girl

364. (5) - S1x22 - Over the Rainbow

365. (5) - S2x01 - Empire State of Mind

366. (5) - S2x01 - Every Rose Has Its Thorn

367. (5) - S2x01 - Getting to Know You

368. (5) - S2x02 - I'm a Slave 4 U

369. (5) - S2x02 - Me Against the Music

370. (5) - S2x02 - The Only Exception

371. (5) - S2x06 - One Love (People Get Ready)

372. (5) - S2x07 - Nowadays/Hot Honey rag

373. (5) - S2x09 - (I've Had) The Time of My Life

374. (5) - S2x10 - We Need a Little Christmas

375. (5) - S2x11 - She's Not There

376. (5) - S2x11 - Need You Now

377. (5) - S2x13 - Sing

378. (5) - S2x13 - I Know What Boys Like

379. (5) - S2x13 - Baby

380. (5) - S2x15 - Landslide

381. (5) - S2x20 - Jar of Hearts

382. (5) - S2x20 - Rolling in the Deep

383. (5) - S3x03 - Out Here On My Own

384. (5) - S3x03 - Fix You

385. (5) - S3x04 - Last Friday Night

386. (5) - S3x05 - America

387. (5) - S3x09 - Christmas Wrapping

388. (5) - S3x09 - All I Want for Christmas Is You

389. (5) - S3x10 - Without You

390. (5) - S3x10 - The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face

391. (5) - S3x12 - Don't Wanna Lose You

392. (5) - S3x12 - Sexy and I Know It

393. (5) - S3x13 - You're the Top

394. (5) - S3x14 - Stand

395. (5) - S3x17 - Saving All My Love For You

396. (5) - S3x17 - My Love Is Your Love

397. (5) - S3x17 - So Emotional

398. (5) - S3x18 - The Music of the Night

399. (5) - S3x18 - Cry

400. (5) - S3x21 - Starships

401. (5) - S4x02 - Boys/Boyfriend

402. (5) - S4x02 - Hold It Against Me

403. (5) - S4x05 - Everybody Talks

404. (5) - S4x05 - Born to Hand Jive

405. (5) - S4x06 - Greased Lightning

406. (5) - S4x06 - There Are Worse Things I Could Do

407. (5) - S4x07 - My Dark Side

408. (5) - S4x07 - Some Nights

409. (5) - S4x08 - Home/Homeward Bound

410. (5) - S4x08 - Come See About Me

411. (5) - S4x09 - Something Stupid

412. (5) - S4x09 - Being Alive

413. (5) - S4x09 - Being Good Isn't Good Enough

414. (5) - S4x09 - All That Jazz

415. (5) - S4x10 - The First Noel

416. (5) - S4x11 - Locked Out of Heaven

417. (5) - S4x11 - I Only Have Eyes for You

418. (5) - S4x12 - A Thousand Years

419. (5) - S4x12 - Torn

420. (5) - S4x13 - Make No Mistake (She's Mine)

421. (5) - S4x15 - In Your Eyes

422. (5) - S4x16 - I Still Believe/Super Bass

423. (5) - S4x16 - How to Be a Heartbreaker

424. (5) - S4x22 - Clarity

425. (5) - S4x22 - Wings

426. (5) - S4x22 - To Love You More

427. (5) - S4x22 - Rainbow Connection

428. (5) - S5x01 - I Saw Her Standing There

429. (5) - S5x02 - Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band

430. (5) - S5x02 - Something

431. (5) - S5x04 - Marry the Night

432. (5) - S5x04 - Wide Awake

433. (5) - S5x04 - Applause

434. (5) - S5x05 - You Are Woman, I Am Man

435. (5) - S5x05 - If I Were a Boy

436. (5) - S5x06 - Honesty

437. (5) - S5x06 - You May Be Right

438. (5) - S5x06 - An Innocent Man

439. (5) - S5x07 - You're My Best Friend

440. (5) - S5x09 - Whenever I Call You Friend

441. (5) - S5x09 - My Lovin' (You're Never Gonna Get It)

442. (5) - S5x09 - Don't Rain On My Parade

443. (5) - S5x10 - Danny's Song

444. (5) - S5x11 - Vacation

445. (5) - S5x11 - America

446. (5) - S5x11 - More Than a Feeling

447. (5) - S5x11 - Mr. Roboto/Counting Stars

448. (5) - S5x11 - I Love LA

449. (5) - S5x12 - Happy

450. (5) - S5x12 - Toxic

451. (5) - S5x13 - Party All the Time

452. (5) - S5x13 - Be Okay

453. (5) - S5x14 - People

454. (5) - S5x15 - Not While I'm Around

455. (5) - S5x15 - Colorblind

456. (5) - S5x17 - Who Are You Now

457. (5) - S5x18 - Wake Me Up

458. (5) - S5x18 - Doo Wop (That Thing)

459. (5) - S5x20 - Shakin' My Head

460. (5) - S6x01 - Sing

461. (5) - S6x02 - Problem

462. (5) - S6x02 - Mustang Sally

463. (5) - S6x02 - Viva Voce

464. (5) - S6x06 - Promises, Promises

465. (5) - S6x07 - All About That Bass

466. (5) - S6x07 - Time After Time

467. (5) - S6x07 - I Know Where I've Been

468. (5) - S6x08 - Hey Ya!

469. (5) - S6x08 - I'm So Excited

470. (5) - S6x09 - I Want to Break Free

471. (5) - S6x09 - Break Free

472. (5) - S6x09 - Lose My Breath

473. (5) - S6x09 - Cool Kids

474. (5) - S6x09 - Friday I'm in Love

475. (5) - S6x10 - Far From Over

476. (5) - S6x10 - Rather Be

477. (5) - S6x10 - The Trolley Song

478. (5) - S6x10 - The Final Countdown

479. (5) - S6x11 - We Built This City

480. (5) - S6x11 - Mickey

481. (5) - S6x11 - Listen to Your Heart

482. (5) - S6x11 - Take Me to Church

483. (5) - S6x13 - Someday We'll Be Together

484. (5) - S6x13 - I Lived

485. (5) - S6x13 - The Winner Takes It All

486. (4) - S1x01 - Sit Down You're Rockin the Boat

487. (4) - S1x01 - Can't Fight This Feeling

488. (4) - S1x02 - Push It

489. (4) - S1x05 - Cabaret

490. (4) - S1x13 - Don't Rain on My Parade

491. (4) - S1x14 - Hello

492. (4) - S1x16 - Fire

493. (4) - S1x17 - Ice Ice Baby

494. (4) - S1x18 - Lady Is a Tramp

495. (4) - S1x18 - One

496. (4) - S1x20 - Shout It Out Loud

497. (4) - S1x21 - It's a Man's Man's Man's World

498. (4) - S1x21 - Tell Me Something Good

499. (4) - S2x01 - What I Did for Love

500. (4) - S2x02 - Baby One More Time

501. (4) - S2x03 - I Look to You

502. (4) - S2x05 - Touch a Touch a Touch a Touch Me

503. (4) - S2x07 - Forget You

504. (4) - S2x07 - Make 'Em Laugh

505. (4) - S2x08 - Ohio

506. (4) - S2x08 - Sway

507. (4) - S2x09 - The Living Years

508. (4) - S2x10 - Last Christmas

509. (4) - S2x10 - Welcome Christmas

510. (4) - S2x10 - Merry Christmas, Darling

511. (4) - S2x16 - Hell to the No

512. (4) - S2x16 - Big Ass Heart

513. (4) - S2x17 - Turning Tables

514. (4) - S2x18 - I've Gotta Be Me

515. (4) - S2x19 - I Don't Want to Know

516. (4) - S2x20 - Isn't She Lovely

517. (4) - S2x21 - Try a Little Tenderness

518. (4) - S2x21 - Back to Black

519. (4) - S3x04 - Candyman

520. (4) - S3x04 - Waiting for a Girl Like You

521. (4) - S3x04 - Take Care of Yourself

522. (4) - S3x07 - Jolene

523. (4) - S3x07 - I'm the Only One

524. (4) - S3x09 - Do They Know It's Christmas?

525. (4) - S3x09 - Extraordinary Merry Christmas

526. (4) - S3x10 - Summer Nights

527. (4) - S3x11 - I Just Can't Stop Loving You

528. (4) - S3x12 - La Isla Bonita

529. (4) - S3x12 - Bamboleo/Hero

530. (4) - S3x13 - Home

531. (4) - S3x13 - L-O-V-E

532. (4) - S3x16 - More Than a Woman

533. (4) - S3x16 - Stayin' Alive

534. (4) - S3x16 - How Deep Is Your Love

535. (4) - S3x16 - If I Can't Have You

536. (4) - S3x16 - Boogie Shoes

537. (4) - S3x16 - Night Fever

538. (4) - S3x18 - School's Out

539. (4) - S3x19 - Dinosaur

540. (4) - S3x21 - Pinball Wizard

541. (4) - S4x01 - Call Me Maybe

542. (4) - S4x01 - Chasing Pavements

543. (4) - S4x01 - New York State of Mind

544. (4) - S4x02 - Crazy/U Drive Me Crazy

545. (4) - S4x02 - Womanizer

546. (4) - S4x04 - Give Your Heart a Break

547. (4) - S4x04 - Mine

548. (4) - S4x05 - Juke Box Hero

549. (4) - S4x06 - Look At Me I'm Sandra Dee

550. (4) - S4x06 - Look At Me I'm Sandra Dee (Reprise)

551. (4) - S4x09 - O Holy Night

552. (4) - S4x10 - Jingle Bell Rock

553. (4) - S4x11 - Tell Him

554. (4) - S4x11 - I Don't Know How to Love Him

555. (4) - S4x12 - Centerfold/Hot in Herre

556. (4) - S4x12 - Let Me Love You (Until You Learn to Love Yourself)

557. (4) - S4x13 - Diva

558. (4) - S4x13 - Hung Up

559. (4) - S4x14 - You're All I Need to Get By

560. (4) - S4x15 - You're All the World to Me

561. (4) - S4x16 - Cold Hearted

562. (4) - S4x17 - Creep

563. (4) - S4x18 - Say

564. (4) - S4x18 - More Than Words

565. (4) - S4x19 - Fight for Your Right (to Party)

566. (4) - S4x19 - You Have More Friends Than You Know

567. (4) - S4x19 - Outcast

568. (4) - S4x19 - Next to Me

569. (4) - S4x20 - We Will Rock You

570. (4) - S4x20 - Everybody Hurts

571. (4) - S4x20 - You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin'

572. (4) - S4x20 - Little Girls

573. (4) - S4x21 - Uptight (Everything's Alright)

574. (4) - S4x21 - I Wish

575. (4) - S4x21 - Higher Ground

576. (4) - S5x01 - Drive My Car

577. (4) - S5x01 - Yesterday

578. (4) - S5x02 - Revolution

579. (4) - S5x03 - No Surrender

580. (4) - S5x05 - On Our Way

581. (4) - S5x07 - The Fox

582. (4) - S5x07 - Cheek to Cheek

583. (4) - S5x08 - Here Comes Santa Claus (Down Santa Claus Lane)

584. (4) - S5x08 - Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree

585. (4) - S5x08 - O Christmas Tree

586. (4) - S5x14 - Don't Sleep in the Subway

587. (4) - S5x20 - No Time At All

588. (4) - S5x20 - Glitter in the Air

589. (4) - S5x20 - Girls on Film

590. (4) - S6x04 - Whip It

591. (4) - S6x05 - Father Figure

592. (4) - S6x05 - You Spin Me Round (Like a Record)

593. (4) - S6x06 - Baby It's You

594. (4) - S6x06 - They Long to Be Close to You

595. (4) - S6x06 - I'll Never Fall in Love Again

596. (4) - S6x06 - Alfie

597. (4) - S6x07 - Same Love

598. (3) - S1x05 - Last Name

599. (3) - S1x05 - Alone

600. (3) - S1x05 - Maybe This Time

601. (3) - S1x11 - Don't Make Me Over

602. (3) - S1x14 - Hello Twelve, Hello Thirteen, Hello Love

603. (3) - S2x01 - Telephone

604. (3) - S2x01 - Billionaire

605. (3) - S2x01 - Listen

606. (3) - S2x04 - Don't Go Breaking My Heart

607. (3) - S2x04 - With You I'm Born Again

608. (3) - S2x10 - The Most Wonderful Day of the Year

609. (3) - S2x13 - This Little Light of Mine

610. (3) - S2x15 - Kiss

611. (3) - S2x16 - Get It Right

612. (3) - S2x16 - Trouty Mouth

613. (3) - S2x17 - All By Myself

614. (3) - S2x17 - I Follow Rivers

615. (3) - S2x19 - Dreams

616. (3) - S2x19 - Never Going Back Again

617. (3) - S2x20 - Friday

618. (3) - S3x03 - Spotlight

619. (3) - S3x03 - Cool

620. (3) - S3x04 - Bein' Green

621. (3) - S3x05 - A Boy Like That/I Have a Love

622. (3) - S3x08 - Red Solo Cup

623. (3) - S3x09 - River

624. (3) - S3x09 - Blue Christmas

625. (3) - S3x10 - Wedding Bell Blues (Bill)

626. (3) - S3x12 - A Little Less Conversation

627. (3) - S3x13 - Let Me Love You

628. (3) - S3x13 - Stereo Hearts

629. (3) - S3x13 - Chapel of Love

630. (3) - S3x16 - Disco Inferno

631. (3) - S3x21 - Tongue Tied

632. (3) - S3x22 - Roots Before Branches

633. (3) - S3x22 - Forever Young

634. (3) - S4x01 - Sister Christian

635. (3) - S4x01 - Americano/Dance Again

636. (3) - S4x01 - Never Say Never

637. (3) - S4x02 - Gimme More

638. (3) - S4x02 - Everytime

639. (3) - S4x02 - Oops!...I Did It Again

640. (3) - S4x03 - Celebrity Skin

641. (3) - S4x03 - A Change Would Do You Good

642. (3) - S4x08 - Let's Have a Kiki/Turkey Lurkey Time

643. (3) - S4x08 - Gangnam Style

644. (3) - S4x10 - Feliz Navidad

645. (3) - S4x10 - Hanukkah, Oh Hanukkah

646. (3) - S4x11 - Baby Got Back

647. (3) - S4x13 - Nutbush City Limits

648. (3) - S4x15 - Unchained Melody

649. (3) - S4x17 - Wannabe

650. (3) - S4x17 - My Prerogative

651. (3) - S4x17 - Copacabana

652. (3) - S4x19 - Don't Stop Believin' (Rachel)

653. (3) - S5x05 - Wrecking Ball

654. (3) - S5x08 - The Chipmunk Song (Christmas Don't Be Late)

655. (3) - S5x08 - Away in a Manger

656. (3) - S5x15 - You Make Me Feel Like a Natural Woman

657. (3) - S5x16 - Let's Wait Awhile

658. (3) - S6x01 - Uninvited

659. (3) - S6x02 - Tightrope

660. (3) - S6x04 - Rock Lobster

661. (3) - S6x05 - My Sharona

662. (3) - S6x11 - Chandelier

663. (3) - S6x11 - Come Sail Away

664. (3) - S6x12 - I'm His Child

665. (2) - S1x01 - You're the One That I Want (ver. 1)

666. (2) - S1x01 - Leaving On a Jet Plane

667. (2) - S1x04 - Taking Chances

668. (2) - S1x07 - No Air

669. (2) - S1x10 - (You're Having My Baby)

670. (2) - S1x10 - Crush

671. (2) - S1x14 - Hello, I Love You

672. (2) - S2x03 - Papa, Can You Hear Me?

673. (2) - S2x07 - Conjunction Junction

674. (2) - S2x10 - You're a Mean One, Mr. Grinch

675. (2) - S2x14 - Tik Tok

676. (2) - S2x14 - One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer

677. (2) - S2x15 - Do You Wanna Touch Me (Oh Yeah)

678. (2) - S2x19 - Nice to Meet You, Have I Slept with You?

679. (2) - S2x21 - Some People

680. (2) - S2x22 - Yeah!

681. (2) - S2x22 - Bella Notte

682. (2) - S2x22 - Pretending

683. (2) - S2x22 - As Long as You're There

684. (2) - S2x22 - Still Got Tonight

685. (2) - S3x01 - Big Spender

686. (2) - S3x06 - Hot for Teacher

687. (2) - S3x06 - You and I/You and I

688. (2) - S3x18 - The Rain in Spain

689. (2) - S5x08 - Mary's Little Boy Child

690. (2) - S5x08 - Love Child

691. (2) - S6x13 - Teach Your Children

692. (1) - S1x03 - I Wanna Sex You Up

693. (1) - S1x08 - Thong Song

694. (1) - S1x10 - Don't Stand So Close to Me/Young Girl

695. (1) - S2x14 - My Headband

696. (1) - S2x15 - Afternoon Delight

697. (1) - S2x16 - Jesus Is My Friend

698. (1) - S2x16 - Only Child

699. (1) - S2x21 - My Man

700. (1) - S2x22 - My Cup

701. (1) - S3x08 - Buenos Aires

702. (1) - S5x05 - Blurred Lines

[oumaheroes]

Earthbound 1/?

Summary:

Centuries after humanity fled a dying Earth and found sanctuary in the stars, the planet has healed enough to support mankind once more. For some, there is something more than curiosity; memories from another life whisper history in familiar voices, calling them home.

 'He closes his eyes and thinks about blue flowers and large statues of stone, of ships and red coats flapping over a green meadow.'

Part 2 Part 3

……………………………………………………………………  

 Chapter 1: Scattered Amongst The Stars

Alfred is six. It was his birthday last Tuesday and he got to have a really big party and it was really really cool, but the coolest thing ever was that he got an e-tab from his Ma. Everyone at school already has an e-tab -as a July baby he's one of the youngest- so now he can finally join in with the special classes that they have and play all of those games at lunch time.

Alfred doesn't like feeling left out. It's not nice, Ma says, when you don't include people, so that means that the people who play games on their e-tabs when they know he doesn't have one are being mean on purpose and that really hurts. Except now, now he can join in and be their friend again and won't have to sit alone at his table when it's interactive e-tab time.

It's not real learning, Pa says. He didn't want Alfred to have one, says that it rots your brains and makes you lazy, and says that the e-tab time is just 'enrichment', it's not part of the curriculum because they're not learning anything, just downloading and watching stuff. Still, Ma must have talked him around because on Tuesday Alfred opened the box and there it was, all for him. There's some games on it, from Grandpa, and Ma had uploaded some of his favourite movies for him to watch as soon as he'd synced his mind up. Pa got there too, he must have done, because there's also some files on 'Earth History', 'The Fall', and one about extinct animals which Alfred really doesn't wanna read but Pa's been mentioning at least one of them every dinner since so he probably should.

He goes into school and begins to chatter happily to his friend Ben as soon as he sees him about 'Zip Blast', the current school-yard fad, and about how he can't wait to sync up and play because he'd been practising over the weekend and he thinks he's kinda good now.

Ben looks uncomfortable. 'Oh, I don't think we're playing that one any more.'

'Huh? But...' Alfred stops and looks at Ben in disbelief, 'but Friday you said it was the best ever!'

'Well it was,' Ben concedes, reluctantly, 'but now there's the new 'Rock-ite' out so we played that over the weekend.'

Alfred's heart sinks. 'We?'

His friend has the grace to look as apologetic as a six year old can look about these matters but nothing more than that and at recess Alfred is alone once more. He tells himself it's okay, he doesn't care anyway but it's a half-hearted lie at best and he doesn't try to kid himself for too long. Instead, he decides he may as well sync up one of those stuffy files Pa put on the e-tab to pass the time and nibbles a cookie to keep himself entertained.

His teacher finds him gormless, ten minutes later. His eyes are glazed as he stares unblinkingly at the wall and his cookie, one chunk missing, lies forlorn on the table next to his slack left hand but his brain is more full and awake than it's ever been. Information about a long dead planet far far away pound and crash in his head and as soon as the data file has been properly synced he reaches out for his tab and loads up another.

At eight, Alfred has become that kid. No matter what conversation he gets into or who he talks to, if there is an opening or an opportunity he will bring up Earth and once that's accomplished he can go on and on for hours. He's downloaded every possible data file he can find about the entire subject: life before the Fall, the Fall itself, and the human race's desperate escape across the stars and for him it's still never enough. There's always another e-file to sync: about ancient nations, about old sciences and religions, about old wars and songs and dances and food; every second he can spare he gives over to tales of the past woven from the binary of today.

They are a scattered people, he likes to tell his listeners, there are hundreds of us, strewn across galaxies and planets and ships and no one knows how many of us there are any more because the Fall ripped apart alliances and histories so we don't even know who else is out there to find. Everything was lost, everything; the history, the stories, the places, the-

At this point, someone usually either changes the topic of conversation or he realises that they've walked away and left him babbling to himself, his eyes shut as he imagines the flight to freedom that happened too long before he was born. Adults are usually nicer and listen for longer, but they don't mean it either and by pretending to be interested in what he has to say they only serve to hurt him more.

He just can't understand, why does no one else find this interesting? Why does no one else dream of where they as a species came from and long to see it for themselves? Alfred would do anything to feel the wind on his face, to have breeze in his hair and the sun touch his skin because although he could play in a holo-room or go on a special holo-holiday it's not real and Alfred longs to just feel it. The sun on his planet is strong but the dense material of the domes blocks it from actually reaching him; he can't feel the warmth. At school he's learnt that it's too hot out there anyway and he'd die, but according to his data files the sun should be warm and gentle and fill up summer days and spring afternoons, so he can't quite feel the danger as much as he probably should. There's no air outside the domes either and what's the point of feeling the sun without a breeze, so he's not as sad as he could have been. It wouldn't ever compare to mankind's old sun, the sun in the stories he's growing up on.

He sometimes spends his recess and lunch at school rushing about as fast as his legs can carry him. Trying to get his own wind in such space is hard, but not impossible and if he focuses hard enough on his self-made breeze he can imagine that he's running over rocks and cliffs and weaving in and out of long gone animals that only the sky can remember. If this doesn't work, he syncs with his e-files to learn about something else, he's started to get into the people recently and likes the stories about normal stuff the most. Food, clothes, toys. Relatable things that he can see in his own home and use to imagine that he's been transported back through time and space.

There are often pictures of houses and Alfred marvels as how big they are and how much stuff those people must have had, collected form all the many places they must have seen. You can't get wood any more, but maybe if he asks Pa nicely he can get him some of that building material they use for making the new domes and he can practise making his own, just to see if he can.

He spends his weekends tinkering in his room with old bits of plastic, metal and cables and every now and again he plugs in a new circuit board to the plug sockets in his room and sees if he can make the lights turn on or off from somewhere else. Last weekend he built a fan and managed to make it blow. He can sync up a sound file from Earth and imagine that he's in a town somewhere way back when and there's a breeze on his face and there's someone who wants to talk to him.

Alfred is fifteen and is the best engineer in his school. He specialised early -he'd always had a knack for building things and he's good with numbers- and now this is what he's known for. Alfred can look at a electrical hub or a circuit board and immediately he can see either what's wrong or how to improve it and this makes him valuable. He's been building and fiddling with this sort of stuff in his room for ages but now it's finally cool, people actually want him to do that now. He sees it as a lucky thing, that he was bullied so much for it previously, because now he can see how much bullshit people like to throw when they want you to do something, how much an opinion of someone can change depending on their age and talent. Too good too young: weird and a nerd, you're wasting your time. Then you hit the right age and suddenly you're very experimental, very mature, it's good to know what you want in life. But ah, still young enough not to know your worth, you'll fix this for me for free, yes? If he wasn't as good as he is, he thinks, how valuable would they think I am? The answer scares him because he knows what it is and knows how thin the line he treads is; there are others like him, don't forget.

What even is he, without the skills of his hands?

He is seventeen. Alfred hates it, but Ma could use the help and Pa's not getting any younger, so he accepted an offer not too long ago for a entry level job in the government engineering department. It is an amazing offer for someone so young and fresh out of school, he knows that, but as much as he enjoys what he does the days wear him out and he spends less time listening to his e-files and more time building the dreams of others far more affluent than he.

He thinks he's doing okay for a while. The days whittle by easily and he starts to build up a nice savings pile that he uses to help out his parents every now and again. But he's nothing special. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of kids just like him on this planet who have been fed on a diet of strict, specialised schooling meant to produce only the best and Alfred knows that the only thing which sets him apart from the many many many others is his ability to just keep going. There is no safety in what he does at his age, no net to catch him if he slips up, so he begins to take on private jobs at the weekend to build up his CV further and get his name out there, making the chance of falling just that bit smaller. Before he realises it it's been a month since he last had the time set aside to listen to an e-file and that hits him, hard. He'd never had to set aside time before. Hell, he can't remember when he'd last done anything other than go to work, come home to sleep, and repeat.

He's struck by the monotony of it all. He can't see a difference between his life and that of his dad's, or his dad's friends, or anyone he knows, for that matter. Is this all there is? Is this all anyone does? When is there ever a break? Then, he gets it. There won't be a break. As soon as you can't keep up in this crazy race he's in, you're worthless. He's kind of been kidding himself, almost, that there'd be an end to it all, like a video game where you complete the level and then suddenly it's free play. You work hard to get a reward of, of something, or at least you can stop worrying and panicking about being left behind. There is no free play, he realises, it just keeps on going until you can't play any more because life has ground out your energy and sucked the vitality from your bones.

He goes running; pounding his feet on the treadmill he sucks in the humid air around him and imagines than he's running through an old Earthen jungle, dodging trees and leaping over crags in the forest floor. But there's no wind, and Earth refuses to come alive.

Alfred is eighteen. A message came through from Earth, old true Earth, that a new colony there is doing well and he hasn't been able to stop thinking about it since, thinking and dreaming about what he'd do if he ever went there, if he ever set up his life there instead of here. He could...no. There is no safety in history, he knows. There is no definite chance that anyone would want him to do that. Besides, there's no potential for definite growth, no stable career plan because you can't guarantee a career on digging up the scanty past of a long dead planet. But no matter how big of a safety net he could make for himself in engineering he feels no passion about any of it and the idea of spending his days encapsulated in this metal world of domes and tunnels makes him feel cold.

There's something that calls him in his dreams and whispers over the wind in his mind and this builds and builds in his feet until he can't keep them still any longer. One more look out of the window and up at the stars and he's gonna blow, he needs to get out and go go go because if he doesn't then he's gonna sink in this place.

Before he can stop himself he's bought a ticket and finds himself packing hurriedly late at night when his parents are asleep, stuffing clothes into the only bag he only which is far too small for this sort of thing but who the fuck travels anywhere these days? He hasn't got time to be better at this so he crouches under his bed and reaches in, all the way back until his hand scrapes the wall and he finds his old fan that he built when he was eight. He puts it on his bed, places his e-tab next to it with a message of what he's done and that's that.

He slips out without waking his parents, because saying goodbye would only be too hard and he knows that he'd end up changing his mind if they spoke even one word to him, so he says his farewells in silence and disappears.

................................................................................................................................

Peter is five and he sits upon his mother's knee, playing with the buttons on her shirt. She's with other adults and they're all talking about something that he doesn't really understand but they all sound sad and the air feels heavy so he keeps quiet like a good boy should and thinks about other things to keep himself busy. He thinks about the e-book his nanny got him last Christmas, the one with the pretty pictures, and thinks that it would be nice to live inside that book, with the greens of grass that he's never touched before. He wonders if grass is hard or soft and he spends so long thinking of this that that night, when he is sleeping, he dreams that he is running on grass and it is prickly, tickling his feet.

There is a voice in the dream, singing him the story but it is not Nanny's voice, nor Mummy's or Daddy's, but another man's and the lilt of his voice sings a language Peter doesn't know but it is a good voice for story telling and so the dream is vivid and touchable. He flies through the grass, feet pounding at earth instead of metal and the voice chuckles, deep and throaty. It makes him feel safe.

He wakes up because his Mummy is stroking his hair and forgets; school teaches him about how the air system in his dome works. Grass isn't as important as breathing.

He is eight and they are learning about the old Earthen languages. There used to be many, his teachers says, and each language held a culture, a history and a soul of a people and there used to be hundreds of them on Earth before it Fell. The teacher is old; his words are flat and there is no passion in his tone, but a thrill runs up Peter's arms as he imagines so much more. From the nothing he is given his brain decides to give those dead languages life and all of a sudden there are bursts of sound echoing inside his head. The teacher moves on, the class sits bored, but Peter can hear consonants clash against teeth and tongue and fricatives slip between breathy vowels. There are phonemes which glide between dipthongs and tripthongs to bound and fall out of the hundreds of mouths of hundreds of people; whispers of a past no one can hear tell stories long forgotten.

There is a clap very close to his head which scares all of the sounds away. His teacher looms over him, frowning in exasperation.

'Again, Peter?' he says, 'Stop daydreaming, boy. I asked you a question.'

'Er...' his classmates snicker and he feels his ears go red. 'I'm sorry, sir, I wasn't listening.'

'That much was obvious.'

Peter's cheeks burn hotter and he stares at his e-tab, focusing on the light of the screen to stop him from crying.

Before too long the lesson changes, then the day ends and he's allowed to go home. He walks alone through the corridors and exits the school dome, coming into the shuttle bus bay. He's a big boy now, he can take the shuttle bus all by himself and he has a special card to prove it. Weaving in and out of the other children, he hurries to where his bus is docked and scrambles inside to rush to his favourite seat, hopping up and placing his bag on the seat beside him. He likes to sit alone, because then he can stare out of the window and dream for as long as the journey will let him without worrying about talking to someone. Not that anyone wants to anyway, the other children say he's not got a brain because he would rather focus on the story in his head than on their silly games.

Nanny doesn't mind, she says it's good for people to dream and says that he goes off to somewhere called 'Neverland' whilst she pinches his cheeks and calls him her little Peter Pan. But when he gets home Nanny isn't there, Mummy and Daddy are and they're huddled in front of the large e-screen in the sitting room, faces pinched in worry.

He drops his bag by the kitchen table and goes to join them. There is a man on the screen speaking about their air ventilation system and a 'catastrophic degradation' and about some big numbers with a scientist nodding seriously to his left.

'What do we do now?' His mother's voice is hushed, fragile.

His father raises his eyes to her and shakes his head slowly. 'Debbie... you heard what he said. The planet's no longer viable.' His eyes flick towards Peter, suddenly aware that he's there too, and he smiles although it doesn't reach his eyes. 'Hey Pete. Do you mind doing your homework in your room today?'

Peter could ask why, but he sees that his Daddy doesn't want him to and Mummy looks like she's going to cry, so he glances once more at the screen and nods. He leaves them with the scary looking numbers and tips his books onto his bed. That night he dreams of waves crashing against his legs and he tastes the salt on his lip when he wakes.

At nine, there's some breaking news. Earth, of all things Earth, is habitable once more and it can't come at a better time. Peter sits on his favourite sofa at Nan's house, with his father having lunch, when the planet-wide intercom coughs its way to life and briefly deafens them all before the sound adjusts ever so slightly.

'ATTENTION ALL. PRIMARY SUPPORT SYSTEMS FOR THE SOUTH SIDE HAVE SUFFERED AN IRREPERABLE MALFUNCTION. BACKUP SYSTEMS WILL HOLD FOR APPROXIMATLY 3 HOURS AND 45 MINUTES. THIS IS NOT A DRILL; MAKE YOUR WAY TO YOUR EVACUATION POINTS.'

Then, it falls silent once more.

South side, that's them. Peter immediately feels as though he's going to be sick and by the look on his dad's face he's not alone. Once one half of the planet goes the other will surely follow. It's something they've all been expecting and planning for for years, but it's far, far too soon, they should have more time than this; they're not ready to go and the government's not even started the evacuation programme yet. His Nan shoots a look at his father from where she's sat in her armchair. It's a look Peter can't really read because there's something there that he subconsciously doesn't want to acknowledge.

'Earth?' Her voice is a thin whisper.

His father nods gravely. 'We got them Mum, the tickets came yesterday.' Peter's heart briefly lifts at the prospect, a longing that's deep and euphoric but then it crashes quickly. 'But...'

His Nan smiles but it doesn't reach her eyes. 'I know.'

Slowly, with growing horror, Peter understands. 'Wait,' he whips his head back and forth between the two of them, 'Nanny, where-'

'Don't worry, Peter,' she gets up and goes to kneel in front of where he's frozen in his chair, hands digging nails into the old material, 'I'll get on one of the other evacuation ships.'

'But you're not-,' his eyes burn and his voice is breaking but he doesn't look away, 'but you're not with us, why aren't you coming with us.'

'Oh Peter, my little Peter Pan,' she hugs him tight, pulling him in to her chest and he grips his hands in her shirt and tries to take in as much of her as he can.

'Mum we- we have to go.' Dad doesn't sound much better and before Peter can register much his Dad is hugging his Nan with a funny tight look on his face, then he's being pulled by the arm and out of the door, stumbling over his feet as he tries to keep up.

A terse shuttle bus later they get home to his mother already throwing their things into cases and boxes, haphazardly grabbing at e-frames and e-tabs to squash them and their memories safe under piles of their clothes. Peter could help, should help, but all he can do it sit numbly on the floor and cry whilst his life is collected and contained into a few measly bags. The rest will be left.

It doesn't take too long, thankfully, as Peter doesn't know what's worse, wanting to get this over with as fast as possible or wanting to stay and cling to the remnants of the only life he's ever known. As they make their way to the loading bays for the Earth-bound travellers he blearily finds himself thinking about what classes he'll miss in school tomorrow, but then he remembers Nanny and the ordeal starts anew as reality sets back in.

His parents are focused on more practical things.

They stand in line, their few pieces on luggage already being loaded on, and wait to board the ship they were assigned to only yesterday. His mother speaks under her breath, as if she is afraid to talk too loudly for fear of jinxing something. 'The Earth ships aren't even ready. They won't have enough food let alone rooms.'

His father shakes his head and slips his hand down to intertwine with hers. 'They must have known something like this could happen at any time, they've been predicting it for years. If anything, the rooms may not be ready but the agricultural sections will be.' He looks determinedly at the back of the head of the man in front of them and swallows. 'They only give out tickets if there's room. We'll be fine.'

Peter's mother glances his way meaningfully, and then back to his father.

'Jo, there're not enough ships; no one was ready in time. They can't have planned for everyone.' She bites the inside of her cheek, one hand on Peter's shoulder. Her fingers dig in, hard, but he doesn't try to shrug her off. He can barely feel it.

His father understands. 'She'll call us when she can.' Then, the line moves and they lurch forward together, huddled close.

Just before the door, where the tickets are being checked and where the din of the engines roaring into life starts to become uncomfortable, his father takes one last desperate look at out of the window at the distant domes of their colony, nestled in the dust. He taps an impatient rhythm against the tiled floor. 'She'll call.'

She never does.

................................................................................................................................

Francis is three and his daddy has just left Mummy.

'He went to fight,' she says as she strokes his hair. This confuses him because fighting is bad and you're only allowed to fight if someone tries to fight you first and no one has been nasty to Daddy that he's seen.

Mummy doesn't answer but continues to stroke his hair, humming softly a tune she sings to him every night before bed that sounds old and sad and sleepy, so he just nods and rests his head heavily against her chest.

He doesn't see his Daddy again.

He is ten when he realises that there never was any war. The notion strikes him dumb one day in the kitchen as he distantly listens to the news playing through the announcer when he helps wash up after dinner. The announcer is speaking about something banal, a fashion show maybe, but Francis is staring out of the window and up at the sky, up at the stars that push through the daytime's thin atmosphere. He doesn't know what caused him to start this train of thought, but once it's started his brain quickly pieces together the puzzle that it has ignored all of this time.

At school they were taught about wars, about age old battles with guns and swords and metal where blood was spilt over land and the wealth it contained. But, there hasn't been any fighting here. He scrubs a glass, sponge squeaking against the side. And even if there was fighting somewhere far away, his dad would surely still be able to write or visit, or come back after all this time. And more importantly, if there was a war going on now then surely he would have learnt about it at school, rather than learning about age old political struggles on the human-ruined home world.

His mother takes the glass from his slack grip. 'Daydreaming?'

He shakes himself to and looks at her. Turned away and out of the window her face is suddenly older and oddly clearer than he remembers it being, she looks like a person rather than just his mother and that's a scary thought. It's as though the wash of childhood has momentarily slipped away and he's now aware of both it and the harsh brushstrokes of reality. She's a person and feels things, just like he does. So it hurts, that she lied, and it will hurt him for a long time because he doesn't know why but cannot for the life of him bring himself to ask her. Francis is good at reading people and he knows that this isn't something he should ask about, so turns back to the dirty dishes and doesn't.

When Francis is fifteen there is a war, of sorts. The planet nearest to them, the one they rely on the most for trade, switches governmental policies and refuses to continue their current agreements. This results in a breakdown of communication and heightened tension between the two colonies, each bristling angrily at the offence yet unwilling to be the first to initiate anything rash. There is minor rationing imposed upon Francis' planet until trade is re-established as well as a draft of specialisation training implemented, just in case. He's unaffected by the rationing; the draft is a different story. Just in case this trade block becomes permanent, his planet needs to be prepared to become fully self sufficient in everything from science, to food, to art, to the army.

The block stays in place and tensions rise. Against his wishes, Francis is assigned a scientific draft. He is now seventeen and knows he needs to be given something but he'd prefer agriculture or education to research, if he could have the choice, or the arts if he's allowed to dream. He isn't. He brain is good, his grades are high and thus he is far more useful to the cause working on the advancement of his planet than working to help feed it.

A few days after his birthday and a month after his posting letter arrives, his mother rides with him on a shuttle to his boarding station. He will try out four different areas: mechanics, medicine, biology, and physics, then he will be assigned to what he works with best, where he can produce the best work possible. But Francis can't think of anything worse than being stuck in a lab all day, shutters drawn and devoid of all personality. Even worse, he's heard the rumours that have managed to float back from those who have graduated and knows that once he boards this ship there's no escaping the life he'll be moulded into. The programme is four years long and then he will be placed into a job where he will stay until he dies. At twenty one he will have no other skills for work other than what he will acquire at the science facility, there is no swapping careers afterwards. He wants to do so much, there is so much that he loves to do, and with each passing shuttle stop his heart grows more frantic, fighting his brain which has accepted the inevitable.

He gets physics. He calls his mother to howl down the phone once, just once, before he realises the futility of doing so; nothing can or will change. Accept it.

At twenty, a year before his training would end, there is finally a truce. Trade resumes and Francis finally tastes sugar after five years but now, after so long, the taste is too much. Not fully qualified yet too old to be automatically accepted into another programme, Francis is in limbo. There isn't much point in him continuing his training, there are more than enough specialists now and not enough jobs to give them, so there isn't anything for him to do. It's odd, now that there is nothing to work towards he feels empty but at the same time everything is just too much. He returns home and his mother fusses and tries to talk to him, tries to get him to come out of his room and sit with her and he did, at first, but the longer he's home the shorter his resistance is and the longer the 'breaks' are in his room.

Emotions seem to be harder to process without a goal, that or he never had many to begin with and without something to distract him from that notion he's finally noticing how few he has. Either way, other people are small insignificant creatures who worry about such useless, banal things. Who did what, with who and where. Did you know, her son the doctor? Well, he's a you know what now and- ugh. Francis can no longer take it.

He doesn't really see this as a problem. He feels as though he's risen above other people and finally understands that such things are not worth his time; why worry, after all, about what job to get. Why worry about whether or not someone likes you. Every day, regardless of what they do, the planet will spin and the domes will reflect the same bleak, churning sky and Francis realises that he's trapped here, by this life and that his life means nothing. None of their lives do, it's all the same; nowhere new to go, nothing new to do. Pick a job, do the job. Come home, go back. Retire. Die.

So he sits in his room, because if he talks to his mother or to anyone else he is reminded that somehow he's supposed to care about it, that life here is supposed to matter to him just as it matters to everyone else. His mother will mention this or that and he'll have to either fake the responses she wants, or not and upset her and neither option sounds pleasing to him.

After years of monotony and training suddenly he is permitted to express again and it's like he's forgotten how, the parts rusty after all the disuse. There are too many emotions and he finds himself forgetting to use them or using the wrong ones because he can't do them automatically any more, for some reason, and reactions that call for an understanding of nuance are just lost to him. Very quickly everything is too much. Food, heat, depth, people, concepts, everything.

He hides away but then they stop becoming too much and they shrink and shrivel up and become nothing at all he can feel how empty he is. Nothing can fill the void he's got because he doesn't even know why it's there and he can scarcely tell that there's a problem in the first place. He does knows he's got a problem though, really, knows how serious it is by the way his mother watches him with fearful eyes and baleful glances. She tiptoes tentatively around the house, carefully softening her words and her gentleness feels like a pressure cooker slowly but surely building something that's going to get bigger and hotter and harder to make go away. She avoids talking about it, about how Francis feels or doesn't, and by doing so the problem is allowed to grow, unchecked. Francis doesn't have to act any more, doesn't have to pretend, and so the feelings of apathy grow and grow until they swallow him whole and all he can bring himself to do is sit and stare and the sky, a dark choking yellow.

It feels heavy to look at, like a lid covering everything in his life, all potential, all future, all growth. It just festers and sinks lower and lower still and he sits and watches it for days before he's realised he's done so.

When Francis is twenty-two, his mother breaks. Not that she herself breaks, but her patience does.

'I can't do this any more.' she says. There are tears on her face and Francis watches one slide off and fall onto her collar. 'You need to go.'

Francis appraises her properly, meeting her eyes. She flinches at his gaze but remains resolute in her decision, though her bottom lip quivers. 'There's nothing for you here, we both know that. You don't want to be here, so you need to go.'

'I don't want to be anywhere.' he replies.

She gives him a watery smile. 'I know. That's why, you might as well see if you can want to be somewhere else.' She lifts up her arm and shows him her e-tab, the translucent screen showing a brightly coloured ticket. 'I've bought you a flight. It's Earth, it was declared habitable a few weeks ago.'

Francis knows he should feel something, this is one of those instances when he knows that he should be feeling something but he can't quite imagine what emotion he should give her.

She doesn't seem to expect one. 'It's one way. And this, this is all of my savings, Francis.' Her eyes are wide and her face is suddenly so very very old. 'If you don't want to be any more, at least make that decision once you've seen this. You can't go without seeing this, after all. See this, see it for me and then you can decide, okay?'

Suddenly she looks shocked and runs forward to embrace him, wrapping her arms tightly around his neck and knocking her e-tab into his face. The garish purple of the ticket burns his eyes. 'Oh Francis.' She sobs into his shoulder and clutches tightly into his shirt. 'Oh Francis it's okay, you can cry if you want to.'

Oh.

He's crying.

................................................................................................................................

Ludwig is six, and is sick again. The doctors don't know what's wrong with him; they know what's causing it at least but they have no idea why. He can't keep food down and every time he tries to stand the world pitches and swims and he can't keep his balance so he never manages to stay up for long before he bonelessly falls to the floor, where he feels no better.

It's the gravity, the doctors say, for some reason he's affected by the gravity. The artificial gravity that he's known all his life; it's as if he's just climbed aboard and his body suffers from relapses where it just can't acclimatise. Where it suddenly realises that something's not quite right and rebels against him for a week or so. This his family already knows, but his mother isn't satisfied with such a lacklustre answer so she takes him to a different doctor every time he suffers another attack just in case one of them is even marginally more competent than the last. These 'episodes', as his mother likes to call them, don't happen all that often, but he seems to have one every ten months or so and they are regular enough to annoy his mother to no end. Ludwig doesn't really know if she's annoyed that no one can fix him or with him himself, Gilbert won't say and normally his big brother talks to pretend that he knows something so his silence worries Ludwig the most.

Mother is a very important person with a very important job: she's a governor of the space station upon which they live and it is very important that Ludwig remembers this. So, when he's laying in bed clutching at his belly and desperately clenching his eyes shut to minimise the swaying, his friends at school think that he is away for a special training academy. Because can you just imagine, the governor of a space station's son being space sick?

His father doesn't like to call it that because he thinks it's degrading so his mother doesn't, when she thinks Ludwig can't hear, anyway, but Ludwig knows that's what the kids at school would say so he happily keeps mum because it's easier than lying. They don't talk to him much besides, they find him too cold and distant but that's because he's so scared of disgracing his mother further that he can't quite relax fully.

When Ludwig is thirteen his mother, after exhausting all doctors aboard their large floating colony, finally accepts that it's unlikely that this small problem of his is going to go away. Her way of dealing with it is to pretend that it just doesn't happen; during an attack Ludwig is sent to his room where he stays painfully alone with only his books for company whilst she busies herself with her new campaigns. She's running for director now, aiming as high as she can go and there's no room for weak, feeble Ludwig all the way up there.

His brother tries his best to keep him entertained and happy during these times, but Gilbert is healthy, strong, smart; he's everything that Ludwig should also be able to grow up to be and their parents have sent him off to expensive schools which means that he's more often away from home than not. Sometimes Ludwig wonders if they've sent him away because they want Gilbert to be the all around best he can be, or if it's to distance him as much as they can from Ludwig. It's almost as if they're worried that Ludwig will taint him, or that maybe Gilbert will grow too attached to him and distract himself from what's really important. That Ludwig will anchor him down.

At five years older it's highly unlikely that Ludwig will be the one doing the influencing, but his brother, despite hardly seeing each other and such a large age difference, does seem to genuinely care for him. During one particular attack, when Ludwig is eighteen, Gilbert is home from university; it is almost Christmas and his family are preparing to travel to where his grandparents live on the other side of the space station, where they'll spend the holiday. Of course, it is now that his body decides to betray him.

He, his parents, and his brother are gathered around the large dining room table finishing off dinner. It is tense. Mostly it is Gilbert who talks because despite their mother's cool demeanour and their father's lack of interest he seems to always have something to say to fill the silence and speaks easily. Even with the response he gets, or lack of it, he seems honestly unperturbed and remains cheerful, somehow managing to both eat and speak without seeming impolite. As much as he loves his brother, Ludwig is also supremely jealous.

He stares at his fork, contemplating which point in the evening would be best to ask if he could slip away, when his body decides for him. His stomach swoops, his ears pop and the table tilts alarmingly. He clenches the edge in panic to remain upright and the noise alerts his mother, who looks up from her dessert in irritation.

'Ludwig, we are going away tomorrow.'

'M- mother-'

His mother sighs and looks at his father, who sharply stares back. 'Dear?'

His father grunts and spears another forkful of fruit pie. 'They're expecting him to come.'

'But the photographers-'

'What do you want me to do, Hilda?'

Meanwhile, Ludwig has still not been dismissed and cannot now seem to find the words to ask for permission himself without spewing all over the fancy silverware. He doubts that that will make the situation better, somehow. Gilbert notices and stands, attracting his parents' attention.

'I'll take Luddy to his room.'

'Darling...' their mother tries to say something, but it's what she's trying not to say that comes across the loudest.

Gilbert ignores her and walks around the table, slowly helping Ludwig to his feet, then away from the table and swiftly towards a bathroom. They make it just in time. Gilbert pats him comfortingly on the back and rubs soothing circles into his shoulders until he's finished, then hands him a glass of water.

'So, they're still arseholes, huh?'

Ludwig snaps his head up in horror, but this is a bad idea because the image of Gilbert swims before him and he has to shut his eyes.

'Don't call them that.' He finally manages, weakly.

Gilbert tuts. 'What the fuck did they feed you with in order to churn your personality out.'

Ludwig lays his head on the cool tiles of the floor and groans inwardly at how nice the feeling is. 'They're not arseholes.'

'Yeah, and my name's Shirley.'

Ludwig cracks open an eye, but Gilbert's not joking. He is, for once, deadly serious. 'How'd you put up with them Lud?'

Ludwig shrugs and gives a small shake of his head. 'They're our parents, Gil. They still care for me. Besides, I'm not exactly making it easy for them.'

Gilbert looks disgusted. 'You're their fucking son, arsehole. They're supposed to take care of you. They ain't even doing that right are they?' Gilbert runs a hand through his shock of white hair and bits his bottom lip whilst he shakes his head. 'Look at how they treat you versus me.'

'Yes, but I'm not exactly-'

'But nothing!' Gilbert raises his voice slightly and swallows. When he speaks again, he's much quieter, back under control. 'Have they got you in a university programme yet?'

Ludwig's silence is answer enough and Gilbert sighs deeply before brushing back Ludwig's sweaty fringe. 'There's nothing wrong with you Lud.' His brother sounds so very sad. 'Fuck, there's nothing wrong with you at all. They know full well that if they put you on a planet rather than this floating heap of rust that you'll probably be alright. And have they? Have they fuck.'

Ludwig wants to argue against him, wants to say something to stand up for himself if not for their parents but his eyes are suddenly burning and his throat is choked up. He knew a long time ago that his parents had given up on him, but to hear it from someone else hurts more sharply than anything he tells himself.

There's an odd companionable silence for a while; Ludwig lays still with his face against the floor and his brother's hand carding through his hair so he almost misses what Gilbert says next.

'I was gonna wait till Boxing Day, but I've got us tickets for Earth.'

Ludwig tenses and holds his breath. Gilbert continues. 'I was gonna wake you up on the 26th and take you away with me, but I want to tell you now instead, cause you look like shit. We're gonna get out of here Luddy; I've always wanted to take you to a planet and what better one is there than the original, huh?'

'You, I- you can't- what about your studies? The internship you've got?' Ludwig manages to stammer out, opening his eyes.

Gilbert brushes his concerns aside. 'I never liked medicine, really. I've always wanted to go to a planet, so I'm mega up for it.'

Ludwig knows he should say no, knows that he shouldn't take up the offer. He'd be denying his brother so much, he'd be exactly what their parents worried he'd be because he'll only drag Gilbert down and down and down like a heavy lead weight and ruin all of his chances at a good life.

But Ludwig wants to be selfish. He reaches out and clasps onto Gilbert's hand, squeezing it tightly. 'Gil...'

Gilbert flashes him a grin and winks. 'I know, right? How awesome am I?'

[justferritalez]

Don't dim your light babygirl

Don't dim your light babygirl - Chloe Bailey

It's funny how the universe communicates. We are so conditioned to not pay attention. The messages are not always loud, but no less powerful. When we open ourselves to them the world begins to look like a very different place.

I have dimmed my light for more years than I would like to admit. I thought deep down I didn't deserve to be happy. I tried to fight my way through, but when I felt happiness near I would always turn away. I thought if I smiled and laughed one day it would reach the part of my heart that refused to receive love. I saw how much others hurt, I felt it in my own body. How could I allow myself to feel joy when so many people I loved are in pain?

I see so many children in my immediate and extended family in pain. I see their parents in pain. I see that horrible red thread of trauma weaving its way through each generation. Just like the elephant in the room, everyone pretends it's not there. Each generation learns to lash out in a different way, too afraid that on the other side is more pain instead of healing. We learn to dull the pain like a Tylenol with money, cars, clothes, and pretty pictures on Instagram or Facebook. Trying to convince ourselves and the world that we aren't miserable. Some of us are even so afraid that acknowledging our own thoughts is akin to torture.

At the beginning of lockdown in 2020, I thought I would thrive since I'm an introvert. By 2021 I learned that my assumptions of what it meant to thrive was arbitrary. I thought I would finally learn to play the guitar, piano, and finish a considerable amount of books waiting to be read on my bookshelves. Instead I was forced to dive deep into my relationship with religion, with societal expectations, and most importantly my own relationship with myself. The latter of which was most important.

I've always felt a call to something growing up. What it was I didn't know. I always tried to put it into words. I tried to put it into a career or something more tangible for my own human mind to digest. As I grew older, in my own mind I failed to accomplish what I had desired. I became gripped by fear with each year that passed. 30 was the year I told myself I would stop dreaming. I would buckle down. I would work towards the American Dream people always talk about. I'd get a good job, get married, buy a house, and have kids.

Before my 28th birthday came I was so excited for the upcoming year despite 30 looming near. I had a list of places I planned to go and things to do for my special day. Before I knew 28 had arrived. When I got all dressed up I couldn't shake this ominous feeling. Except for the sheer black top I wore I was dressed in all black, as if I was attending a funeral. Something wasn't right and I couldn't figure out what it was then. I may have made it to one or two places before I decided to return home. I was so sad, I couldn't stop myself from crying. I could barely look back at the pictures.

Before 30 came I did manage to accomplish the first two goals of the American Dream. I honored my self-imposed advice and hung up my silly dreams at 30. It was hard but I did what I thought was best to redirect my energy. To this day I always remember a conversation my cousin had with my mom years ago. One that broke my heart. I never forgot how it made me feel. She told my mom she was too old to dream. She was too old to accomplish the things she wanted to. She's 30 years my senior but I still believe if she wanted she could do anything she put her mind to. Yet here I was remembering that feeling and falling into the same mindset.

Since my teens I had always wanted to visit Japan. Especially after my dad passed away when I was 16. Ironically j-pop(and shortly after k-pop) was something that offered me a lifeline during my grief. I had plans to study abroad, but my grief and fear of losing my mother held me back. When 30 came after I had given up on my dreams, this dream unexpectedly came forward. My husband and I planned to celebrate our honeymoon/1st anniversary in Japan. It was amazing! I felt so free and so at home at the same time. We talked about moving there years before, but that's all it ever was. Now that we were there, we knew it really was a possibility. Unfortunately at the end of our trip tragedy struck. Just like it struck us after we got married. And once again just like the day I turned 30 another dream had to be swept away.

I tried my best to convince myself this is just the way the cookie crumbles. Maybe this isn't the life I wanted exactly. So many people would be happy to have this life. I would convince myself to keep my head down and appreciate it. In hindsight I think back and acknowledge you can appreciate something, and still acknowledge that it isn't right for you. What good is a $200 shirt if it doesn't fit?

There were two prominent questions that kept coming up during lockdown. Who are you? What do you want? So simple but terrifying for me to answer. In trying to answer them I realize I never truly asked myself this. No wait I did, but I didn't listen. I didn't listen to the one person who was driving this ship. I listened to the opinions of others. Surely those who have spent more time on earth than me knew what they were talking about. Then I realized they didn't. They were doing the same thing that I had done. They too ignored what they wanted, instead aspiring for the lives their family, friends, and acquaintances told them would make them happy.

For years I always felt these weird emotions in my body. Emotions that were not my own. I could be perfectly fine and walk into a room and feel overwhelmed. I Couldn't figure out why. The room was just filled with people. Why did I care what they thought of me? We all have our own lives to live, right? I begin to realize while acknowledging my own inauthenticity to myself, how so many other people were struggling with the same issue. They couldn't understand why they had the house, the car, the job, the children, and the spouse yet they were still so unhappy.

The truth is happiness cannot be found externally. It can only be found within you. The more you put all your balls in one basket thinking it will make you happy, the more you will be disappointed. If you can't stand the one person who will be with you every moment of your life you will never be happy.

I've always wanted to have kids. I was probably more excited to get married because I couldn't wait to be a mom. For some strange reason after I got married I became afraid to get pregnant. I originally thought it was because my Grammy was sick. After she passed I still couldn't shake that fear. I thought maybe I was just being overly cautious. People with less have had children and thrived in many cases. I was constantly being told that "You can never prepare for children." Still I couldn't shake the fear.

I had two amazing parents growing up. We weren't rich, but they provided for me the best they could. They did a great job, and I'll admit that I was spoiled. I took a look at the traumas I've experienced throughout my life. I looked at the things that triggered me the most. It was myself, it was a younger version of myself. My inner child as some call it.  Although I had great parents, outside of them I still was inflicted with trauma even they couldn't prevent. The person that hurt me, and the people who I've seen mistreat children, have a tendency to neglect themselves and their trauma and tend to be obsessed with how things look instead of how they are.  I did not want to be that type of person. Realizing that, I became passionate about trying to heal my own trauma, in hope to prevent my own children from inheriting this mindset.

Here is where my story truly begins. It began when I began to acknowledge myself. When I recognized myself, I put my happiness in moving to California, in my husband,  in the image of my life. I put my happiness in everything but myself. I still have work to do, but I believe that I am worth it. Every moment I choose myself, I grow and heal my wounded self.

I've begun to release past hurt and trauma that I've experienced. I'm learning that just because people who loved me hurt me in the past, doesn't mean everyone will hurt me. I'm learning to forgive myself for being angry for so long. I'm acknowledging I had every right to be angry, but staying angry was no benefit to me. I'm learning I deserve to say no if I don't want to do something, and I'm not obligated to make anyone happy except myself. People's feelings may be hurt, but I didn't ask them to count on me to make them happy. I'm happy to help others, but I will no longer pour every bit of what is in my cup into another's.

During lockdown my wardrobe got much darker. I wore black almost every day. Although black is an amazing and powerful color, it symbolically felt as if I was mourning myself. I was mourning the part of me that didn't know her worth. I let myself be her for a time, and now I release her. I will gladly put her to rest. I've decided that I won't dim my light for anyone anymore. I won't even dim my light for myself. I will get to a place where I am confidently and unapologetically me. I will shine like the rays of the sun on a hot summer day without a cloud in sight. Just like the world needs the sun, the world needs us all to shine just as bright.

[septembriseur]

You guys know that I’m back to working on Transposition. But it is, frankly, a challenge, and I feel a lot of pressure to put something out there and prove that the story will be finished. So I’m posting what is essentially some AU tidbits, because it’s a draft of part of Chapter 52 that I threw out and totally reconceptualized. It is not particularly good, but here it is!

Telford trades the tel’tak to a junk dealer in the P3S-805 system and ends up in a ratty little cobbled-together half-Kerobottri exoship that shakes when you try to engage its makeshift FTL drive, but, hey, it comes with no questions asked. And it’s not like he has any reason to be picky; he’s just trying to get a couple of gate-trips ahead of Kiva’s people before he finds a spaceport and settles down to get drunk.

The place he ends up in is a shithole clustered around the North Pole of a medium-sized planet in the Formalhaut Debris Ring, about twenty-two light years from Earth. It’s a frozen, sandy desert with a dozen tiny speckling moons above it, and not a single building more than three stories tall. It caters to frack miners running hot crews through the debris ring, which the LA’s First and Second House periodically squabble over, and the occasional Goa’uld war criminal hoping to lay low. That makes it a good place for Telford, even if the liquor is shitty. So he hauls out some of the raw data crystals that he stripped off the Sixth House tel’tak and pays enough to dock his ship, then keeps paying until the barkeeper at the watering hole hands over the bottle.

It’s whatever the latest thing is that the Lucian kids are cooking up out of kassa. It doesn’t really taste like anything; just like ethanol and antiseptic. He hunkers down in his ship and knocks the stuff back without a chaser. And again. And then again. For a while, grimly determined, that’s all he does: limiting his world to the fumes that he breathes out, and the back of his throat, where the mucous membrane is burning.

He doesn’t have a jacket anymore, but he’s got what the bounty hunter threw in with the exoship: a couple of Himalayan-looking blankets made out of knotted-up fibers, and a hooded coat lined with some kind of animal fur. So he puts the coat on, and, after a while, the hood too, then drags one of the blankets over his shoulders and breathes into his cupped hands. He can smell the coat’s earthy leather, and whatever it is that fur smells like. The air smells like naquadah and ozone. He looks out over the bulks of the ships, great beasts sleeping in the desert on every side of the outpost-city, some as tall as the buildings and twice as big. The dim light of the sun, filtered through dust clouds, glints off the shinier of their surfaces, along with the occasional scattered fleck of a moon. They’re like shrapnel wounds, that spray of moons— not quite regular enough to be strafe-marks, but deep enough that you can see the inside of whatever it is that was punctured.

He takes another abrupt swig of the liquor.

He thinks his first step should be to take stock of what he has left. The Hemingway is gone now, and the Dostoevsky. The— assorted personal knickknacks that he hadn’t needed anyway. He took enough shit off the tel’tak to last him a little while if he barters, but when he’d made his elaborate back-up plans, he always assumed he’d be leaving from Earth. So he hasn’t got a whole hell of a lot of assets out here in deep space. He can always sell intel, but that comes with the risk of someone back-tracing the information. Or he can take the sensible option and just turn mere. It’s what a lot of guys did on Earth, anyway, after they’d left the service, if they’d gotten deep in debt or just couldn’t fit in.

He’d tried to imagine it himself, when he was younger: leaving the service. Retiring. Consulting. Security. A house, a car, a wife, a couple of kids. On some level that language didn’t reach down to, the thought had always repelled him. He’d thought that if he tried it, he would end up like one of those guys you heard about who just went missing, just up and walked away from their lives one day. They turned up twenty years later running a tackle shop off the coast of Alaska, or flying prop planes in the South Pacific, or else they didn’t turned up, and stayed question marks forever, strangers who had sealed whatever secret they carried so well inside them that they had taken it, totally unknown, to their graves.

It was possible to do that. It wasn’t a failure. Maybe it even meant that you’d won. Whatever was inside you, you’d kept it: pure and unsullied, a hard bright crystal, a fuel you could burn. It was uncontaminated and yours forever.

He can feel it inside him now: a pain in the region of his chest, close to but not exactly contiguous with the heart.

He drinks and watches cosmic dust catch the amber glow of the distant sunlight.

A cold wind shifts and rattles the sand.

***

An ice storm in the morning, with no rain: only hailstones rattling like pebbles against the walls of the exoship. He wakes from a restless sleep still wrapped in fur and heavy blankets. He feels like God has picked up the box he’s hiding in and shaken it right next to His ear to hear if anything left inside still scuttles. He thinks about Rush explaining Wittgenstein’s beetle. There is something alive in us, though it may be a very singular creature. It may not be what other people thought— hoped— it was.

Still. Something scuttles. Insect legs against the siding.

He erases his travel history in the ship’s computer and swallows down another couple fingers of kassa liquor for breakfast, tunelessly humming Mahler under his breath, then throws it up an hour later courtesy of his hangover.

When he stands, he sees starbursts against the array of evening. It’s not really evening, of course; there’s not really night or day, this close to the magnetic pole of a planet, unless you count the constant half-dim polar twilight. One long night lasting half a year, deranging the little rock’s temporalities like every other kind of measurement was deranged by the location. Get too close to the axis of something, and you lose all sense of how to chart it.

He’s familiar with the problem.

***

Ships come and go like fireflies in a summer time-lapse, their engines burning off into the dusk.

It’s fall on Earth, he guesses. So: no more fireflies, which: fuck ‘em, anyway. They only last a few months before they’re done. Like humans, when seen from an Ascended perspective. Little chips of mica; little specks of dust. You could lose a fistful and not notice, so why should they matter?

He thinks of Rush sinking his hands in the floor up to the wrists, as though he could reach down and reclaim the mineral flecks trapped there for eons. As though the whole universe were just water, none of it yet set in stone around him.

It should’ve been me, Telford thinks. It should’ve been me who—

But he hadn’t had the genes.

Always something missing.

***

He doesn’t speak English out here. He speaks the degraded Babylonian of Sixth House. Or at least that’s what Jackson had always said it was— the bastard child of Akkadian and Aramaic, mixed with the Hebrew dialects of the Asar planets, sort of like what might have happened if the Babylonian Empire still existed. He’d had to learn it from scratch when he went undercover the first time, in case the translation matrix ever encountered a glitch. It was hard work, but he was good at it, at least according to Jackson. Jackson had seemed faintly surprised; Telford had said, “You thought I’d be as dumb as a brick.” “No,” Jackson had said, but his eyes had slid guiltily away. Telford had smirked, grimly pleased by the implied admission. Jackson had said, too hurriedly, “I didn’t. II wasn’t surprised because— I mean, I wasn’t alluding to— obviously that’s not what I meant.”

What he’d meant didn’t interest Telford. At forty-two years old, he’d had every version of that conversation, the one that was all ellipses. The last thing he wanted was to rehash them again with fucking Jackson. So, instead, he’d said, “Aramaic in space. Doesn’t it ever make you wonder?”

Jackson had looked uncomfortable. He’d adjusted his glasses with both hands. “Wonder what?”

“Oh, don’t play coy with me. If Jesus was— you know.”

“Extraterrestrial, you mean? A Goa’uld? The idea’s been floated.”

“And?”

They’d been sitting in an empty conference room, waiting for some meeting to start; it had been late, Telford thinks now, or very early; there had been this hush, like sound was suppressed. Sometimes late at night there, he’d feel like he was under the ocean: the pressure deforming his eardrums, till all he could hear was the rush of his own blood. Jackson had toyed with a pencil, balancing it on the side of one finger. Unbidden, Telford had been reminded of the Egyptian scale of justice, where your heart was weighed against a feather after you were dead. The image had seemed apt; Daniel, he’d thought, what a fan-fucking-tastic Eternal Judge you’d make, sitting there with your schoolboy pout and your moralizing.

Without looking up, Jackson had said, “Oh, I don’t know. Not really the Goa’uld modus operandi, is it?”

“No? Render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s; forget about getting what you deserve, and God’s going to magically provide you with loaves and fishes?”

“That seems like a very thin interpretation of the Gospels.”

Telford had half-laughed incredulously. “You’re going to come over all Christian on me, Jackson?”

Jackson flattened his pout out into a thin line. “I hardly think it has to be Christian to suggest that the impulse behind one of Earth’s major religions, and a full interpretation of its sacred texts, is about more than just the redistribution of resources.”

“So— what, then?” Telford moved restlessly in his chair.

“Divine justice,” Jackson said. He had the air of someone offering a challenge. “The idea that there’s something beyond us, some truth, some ultimate harmony or knowledge. Something that we’re a part of, if we want to be— if we want to be good.”

Telford had felt incredulous. “Knowledge,” he’d repeated. “Ultimate knowledge.”

“You don’t think that’s what God is? Knowledge?” Jackson seemed genuinely curious. His forehead was furrowed.

“Well,” Telford said, “for starters, I don’t think God is good.”

“I can’t tell you how amazed I am to hear it.” Jackson’s mouth gained a sad quirk. He looked down, at where the pencil was perfectly balanced on his finger. “So: not harmonious, but maybe— maybe still knowledge.”

Telford had shaken his head— slowly at first, and then faster, like a round of sardonic applause building. “Don’t get me wrong, Jackson— I know you’ve been a floating space octopus of pure light and shit, and gotten the sublime wisdom of the Ancients, but to paraphrase a much wiser man than myself: kid, I’ve flown from one side of this galaxy to the other, and I’ve seen a lot of strange stuff, but I’ve never seen anything to make me believe that all I need is more information, like a giant celestial textbook is going to make it all make sense.”

“That wasn’t what I meant,” Jackson said.

But he looked hurt; stung, somehow. His face had closed off. He curled his fist around the pencil. Telford had felt a brief surge of triumph; he liked defeating Jackson. At the same time, he had recognized Jackson’s expression. Back then, he hadn’t known why or what it meant. Now, he remembers it and senses some vague association with the dreams in which he tries to find the Chinese room. He wants to trust that there’s a place in which the answers will all be provided. He wants a dictionary that will teach him how to be a man. Unlike Jackson, though, he doesn’t think that one exists. There are no universals. There is no truth that we are trying to uncover in the only way that Jackson would’ve understood— the way an archeologist sifts through layers of dirt, patiently looking for the pieces that were once part of a coin, a corpse, a kettle, before the annihilating storm of history blew through. There’s a churning mass that has never had a meaning. It isn’t moving towards or away from something. It just is what it is.

When he was undercover, speaking Babylonian had helped; he’d felt like a different person. He’d felt like he was moving through a different world, one that wasn’t organized according to the same kind of principles he’d grown up with. There was no right or wrong to it; just a different set of facts. He took to it like a fish to water, once he’d mastered the language. The sense of alienation was familiar to him. When he went back to Earth between assignments, that was the strange part— standing in his own house, his own kitchen.

And now he never has to go back there. Never has to speak English again, if he doesn’t want to. He can move through different languages, different truths, like putting uniforms on and taking them off when you’re finished.

“Shkarum,” he says to the bartender, tapping the bar with two emphatic fingers. “Ak shkarum yahab, vakash.”

His accent is very good.

***