#kori’s daedalus

[zwy01]

Noble OCs - Gradeus’ Clan

Making five OCs for every clan!

Asterion: Pureblood. Entered eternal sleep, belonged to Lagus’ generation.

Asterion was the father of Pandora and the grandfather of Gradeus. He was a good father to his little Pandora and felt worried when her personality suddenly changed from energetic and upbeat to lethargic and unresponsive when she was about 80 years old. He tried asking what’s wrong to which she always smiled and answered “nothing”. Pandora didn’t want to make her Clan Leader worry about her, so she never told him about the permanent condition that tortured her on the inside. Asterion gradually stopped with his questions because he could sense that his daughter was reluctant to share. He could’ve ordered her to be truthful, but he didn’t want to force her to be uncomfortable. He was very lenient with her and let her skip mandatory events. Sometimes, he canceled his own meetings and duties to spend time with her. He also defended her when others called her an “old lady” to poke fun at her. Asterion was a pretty relaxed person, though he was a terrifying force whenever someone tried to bully Pandora. Father and daughter had a close, loving relationship despite the wall the latter put up between them. Perhaps Pandora’s tendencies to hide her struggles didn’t come from nowhere. Asterion also suffered from a strange one-of-a-kind condition where he craved the flesh of humans. Only his partner, the mother of their daughter, and his mysterious best friend were aware of it. Other than those two, no one had a clue. Asterion was perfectly fine in his childhood until he hit his teenage years when he suddenly gained an intense and insatiable appetite. Nobles don’t need to eat, yet he was always looking for food. Nothing seemed to be the right answer and his hunger drove him mad. Eventually, after putting everything he could possibly find on Earth into his mouth, he discovered that only human flesh could completely quell his symptoms. Asterion’s partner and best friend helped him source human corpses and even live human sacrifices from the outside world and brought them back to Lukedonia for him. The disappearance of dead bodies from graves and live sacrifices from ritual grounds contributed to the humans’ beliefs of the dead rising and sacrifice rituals working. Asterion was ashamed of himself and kept his condition a secret from everyone else, including his daughter. He felt like a monster, but he had no other choice. His partner and best friend made sure to “pay” the humans for their contributions, which just led to even more live sacrifices thus causing the ritual to become a common practice in many parts of the world. Asterion’s hobbies were meditation and trying to make Pandora happy.

Daedalus: Non-pureblood. Alive in the present day, belongs to Gejutel’s generation.

Daedalus is an inventor, architect, and sculptor. When he was a child, he kept complaining to his parents about their “boring, unoriginal, and lacking” home even though it was perfectly fine by your average noble standards. There is no best, only better, he repeated. He’d run around and point to the walls, ceilings, and corridors gesturing and explaining the changes he’d make if he were to be in charge of the layout. He was confident with his visions. Daedalus’ creativity would come and go in random surges and he had a tough time sitting still during his education. He’d barely get to the fifth page of his book and then he’s suddenly screaming and jumping up and down shouting “Eureka!!”, to his parents’ confusion. They’d sigh at their hyper son and wonder why he’s saying the name of his imaginary friend… or something, for the nth time. His parents eventually gave up on trying to get him to finish his education because it seemed impossible with his personality. Plus, they wanted to support Daedalus in his passion despite have no understanding of it themselves, so they let him run wild with his full potential. Time goes by, Daedalus turns 200, and his parents gift him with the opportunity to remodel their home. Go ahead and do your magic, they said. Daedalus is overjoyed. They end up sort of regretting making such an offer to their son, though. He turns their home into a giant, complex maze that is so hard to navigate it’s impossible to not get lost, even with loads of practice. Only Daedalus knows how to get around. Guests jokingly comment on how it’s almost like their home was designed to trap people inside forever. Who knows what the designer was thinking. Daedalus calls himself a genius and his work a masterpiece. He names their new home “Labyrinth” which just confuses his family again. His parents love him, so they simply deal with it and accept their new life of never learning how to get from the dining room to the living room. They’re happily suffering as they feel proud of their son. Daedalus, his love, and their son Icarus Pyradros live together in their maze-like multigenerational home.

Helga: Pureblood. Alive in the present day, belongs to the Previous Lord’s generation.

Helga is a shipwright. Her parents love the sea and built their home on the coast. Little Helga was born in the glittering waves during a beautiful sunrise. She opened her eyes to the magnificent scenery and immediately fell in love with it. Helga has a very active lifestyle. She harvests planks of timber from the forest during the day and builds ships of all shapes and sizes at night. The twinkles of stars and sounds of crashing waves keep her company as she diligently develops her craft. She works until sunrise and goes home to relax with her parents before heading to the forest again. Her ships are light and strong. When further enhanced with her noble powers, they can easily withstand aggressive attacks from all directions. Helga likes to put her ships to the test. She’d gather her huge group of friends for spars and they’d all go to the beach for a fun, competitive game. She splits everyone into many teams, and some of them do the rowing while others jump between the moving ships as they fight each other in hand-to-hand combat. Last team standing wins. It’s a great way to develop some fitness without getting bored, though sparring in traditional training grounds is neat too. Helga’s ships are popular with nobles and humans alike. There are instances of sea-loving nobles asking to go into eternal sleep out in the water in one of her vessels. At some point, a group of humans witnessed a noble’s death on a ship and mistook the glowing red lights for fire, which is possibly what led to them mimicking the practice and writing sagas of their own with accounts of setting ships ablaze with the dead in luxurious “ship burial” funerals. Helga just shrugs. It’s cool, they can keep the misunderstanding if they want. Well, maybe it’s waste of wood. Her Tradio parent always told to her to thank the trees when she harvests them, so she’s very serious about it. Helga’s partner is an unnamed Kravei. They are childless for now and plan to have one soon.

Ragnar: Non-pureblood. Alive in the present day, belongs to Raskreia’s generation.

Ragnar is chill. He and his minotaur friends hold hands and dance around in a circle together. Then they braid each other’s hair and have a tea party in the fields and gossip about the love lives of his fellow clan members. Ragnar was raised by minotaurs then by his adoptive mother Freyja. His biological parents had him because they thought having a child would patch their less-than-stable relationship and gave him up when they decided he wasn’t a satisfactory bandaid. Ragnar went off to live with a group of minotaurs who took him in because they pitied him. One day, Freyja was riding her cat chariot and stopped by a lake to rest. Little Ragnar climbed into her chariot and fell asleep. Freyja waited for the boy to wake up and asked him if he would like a permanent home after finding out that his parents abandoned him. She had always wanted another child but didn’t quite have enough lifespan to spare after having her biological children. Ragnar said yes, the minotaurs congratulated him, and he went to his new home. Currently, Ragnar lives with Freyja, her Ceresthalassa partner, and their son Khumbo Ceresthalassa who is his much older adoptive brother. Khumbo’s full-sisters Hnoss and Gersemi also live close by and visit often. Ragnar is a blacksmith of axes. His interest in weapon-making comes from frequenting the workshop of Tabitha Pyradros, the sister of Freyja. When Ragnar comes of age, Auntie Tabitha helps him establish his own workshop which would become the hangout location for him and his minotaur friends. The axes he makes go to his fellow clan members. Ragnar has yet to perfect the art of smithing like Tabitha, but he’s working hard towards that. He’s positive that he can reach her level in a few centuries. How ambitious! Ragnar’s partner is Kirsi Vuokko Loyard.

Torunn: Non-pureblood. Alive in the present day, belongs to the Previous Lord’s generation.

Torunn was the playmate and study buddy of Gradeus. She stayed with him until he turned 200 and resigned to pursue a different job which she’s currently doing. She wasn’t assigned to Gradeus by Pandora; rather, she came to him of her own accord. Pandora was more than welcoming of Torunn’s arrival and proposal to become Gradeus’ companion because he kept scaring potential candidates away with his not-so-nice qualities and as his mother, she was worried about him being lonely. In reality, he probably didn’t need a companion like his mother had thought, but he wouldn’t have minded either way. One more person for him to terrorize. In Gradeus’ distant memory, his initial encounter with Torunn was when his mother officially introduced them to each other. Their actual first meeting was when Gradeus “rescued” a very distraught Torunn who had been left behind to suffer by her bullies. They cut off all her limbs and dunked her into a barrel of ale and deliberately trapped her there. As a non-pureblood on the weaker end, she couldn’t have escaped on her own as she had lost too much blood and exhausted all her energy. She was prepared to die. Then in came Gradeus. He aggressively kicked tipped over the barrel out of curiosity and released Torunn as a bonus. He skipped behind her, looked at her in the eye, and grinned as he told her that guess she’s lucky and won’t die today. He went about his day and forgot about it an hour later. Torunn remembered, and she vowed to repay the favor. As Gradeus’ companion, she tolerated all of his eccentric and sometimes violent behaviors whether they were directed at others or herself. It didn’t matter to her, because back then he saved her. She also volunteered to take the blame for the problems he caused without complaint. After Gradeus comes of age, Torunn resigns and opens her own brewery. Currently, she makes ale, mead, and wine. Maybe her inspiration comes from trauma. No one knows for sure. She stays in Lukedonia most of the time and sometimes travels to interact with humans to obtain knowledge of their alcohol. Torunn’s mead may or may not have received the name of “Poetic Mead” from the humans for its divine taste. It’s like a mythical drink to them. She’s rather flattered. Professor Titus is a fan too. Torunn currently lives with her Mergas partner and their daughter.

Thank you for reading! Siriana is next!

[hood-ex]

in the post about whether or not alfred is currently dead, you made a comment about dick having trauma related to being mind controlled, and it made me want to write something about him processing that. now i'm re-reading some of the books where that happens to him, but i was wondering if you had any particular instances in mind when you made that comment? like, what comes to mind for me is the whole brother blood thing in tales of the teen titans, but i don't really (1/2)

(2/2) like that particular arc for a lot of other reasons, so i'm trying to find something else to base the stuff i'm writing on. you don't need to pull anything specific out, but if you have some thoughts off the top of your head, that would be awesome. thanks!

This is probably not the answer you want buuut... the amnesia/Ric arc will give you a lot to work with. The Court of Owls used the crystal to repress Dick's memories. They implanted false memories in his head such as making Dick believe that he was a cold-blooded killer who was raised by William Cobb after John and Mary died. Then, they tried to turn him into a Talon (which is technically where the real mind control kicked in).

Joker then attained the crystal and made everything 10x worse. He used Dick to attack the batfam and to enact his plan during the Joker War arc, and like I said in a post I made previously:

Joker tarnished Dick's memory of his parents. He made Dick think that John and Mary were druggies, alcoholics, and child abusers. He also implanted a memory in Dick's head where Dick felt happy that Joker murdered John and Mary.

To fuck up Dick's head even more, Joker also made Dick believe that he was Dick's father. He made Dick depend on him alone. He also made Dick believe Bruce was his enemy.

Dick knows which of his memories are fake but that doesn't take away from the fact that those false memories are still swirling around in the back of his head somewhere. Not just the Joker memories but the Court of Owls ones too. That's gotta be pretty unpleasant to live with at times.

And as a result of the head trauma and amnesia, Dick also had to deal with a lot of other issues that weren't directly related to the mind control such as learning how to walk/eat/talk again, losing time (blacking out), having identity issues, dealing with homelessness, and navigating family issues during that time.

Like I said, there's a lot of trauma to unpack there.

Uhhh... let's see. Not mind control specifically but the Titans had their emotions manipulated by the Sons of Trigon in Titans (2008) #3. Jacob, the deadly sin of lust, invoked lust in Dick and Kory which resulted in them having (noncon??) sex.

Likewise, for mental/emotional manipulation, there's also the situation with Gargoyle and the Fab Five where Gargoyle fucked with their heads enough to make them fight each other (The Titans #15-16).

In Grayson #20, Doctor Daedalus took over Dick's body and tried to erase his soul from the world. So it was two minds in one body until Dick triggered tsuchigomo and shocked Doctor Daedalus out of existence.

Hmm, yeah, I think that's all that's coming to my head rn. If anyone else has an example then feel free to share it.

[humanitysbridge]

i’m updating tags so: dynamics/relationship. 

things marked as re: are just for the term relationship. any dynamic (Familial/platonic/romantic) can be tagged as this. i specify ships with specific muns with a special tag (marked sh: )

[dustedmagazine]

Joshua Stamper — PRIMEMOVER (self-released)

PRIMEMOVER by Joshua Stamper

Between 2015 and 2021, Resurrection Philadelphia (formerly City Church Philadelphia) commissioned a number of pieces from composer Joshua Stamper. If you'd expect stodgy hymns or Bach retreads, you'd be far off. Stamper's work — mixing chamber music, jazz, and more — doesn't simply provide an easy soundtrack for the liturgical calendar. Instead, he created music that would challenge listeners and participants as well as edify them. Collected as the PRIMEMOVER album, those pieces make a soundtrack for a particular kind of year in the church life, one with puzzles and rest, beauty and complication.

Stamper begins the sequence with an ensemble of horns providing more abrasion than you'd expect in a cathedral for “Night of Darkness Ending.” They give way to more traditional tonality and melody, as if the end of that darkness means the introduction of a more formal sort of light coming through. The piece builds into a jazzy structure around Matt Scarano's percussion, letting a saxophone take off; release in Stamper's world doesn't simply mean the order of a new creation, but the liberation and flight that comes with that joy. 

Listening to Stamper's work proves to be an exercise in theology as much as musicology. We might be far enough out of the worship wars that drums and saxes are allowed on the podium, but Stamper's compositions draw us into complicated spaces, questioning the tone of our meditations or the relationship between metaphysical ideas. In case his music and lyrics weren't weighty enough, he's brought along an eye-catching trio of readers: novelist Marilynne Robinson, Anglican bishop and theologian Rowan Williams, and poet Malcolm Guite (who also provides the inspiration for one of the tracks). That group appears throughout his suite on the Stations of the Cross, the album's theological highlight as Stamper rearranges pieces of scripture in juxtaposition to encourage new experiences of an old tradition. 

Those writers aren't the only notable guests. The Dirty Projectors' Kristin Slipp provides vocals, and half of the Daedalus Quartet add their strings. Even Stamper's lexicographer wife Kory makes an appearance. It could feel like overkill to pull from all these areas, but Stamper wants something big. His opening essays ponders the connections between the spiritual and the physical, wondering how the abstract and ethereal can be made real in particular bodies. The question notes not just the Incarnation, but all incarnation, and PRIMEMOVER engages key moments in the Christian year to provide a sonic grounding for religious experience. 

In doing so, he depicts a number of mental and emotional processes, from dismay and confusion to wonder and hope. With a variety of sounds and excellent performances, Stamper ties these tracks into a grand statement. The statement ends with the brief piece “Contrails,” suggesting (in a roundabout way) the fleeting nature of our experience, the vapor of our vanities. Were he writing a traditional sort of worship piece, it would make for an odd ending. As it is, it provides an essential part of his larger project, and one that might send us back to the beginning. 

Justin Cober-Lake

[bigbadwolf619]

The Uncle of Kori and Kaen Kishidan, Kinzoku is a retired War-Hero who was critically injured in the line of duty, he was given a new body with augments, his body appears human but he can Super Activate which spawns his heavy Power Armor body which gives him immense strength and weapons like cannons, chainguns, blades, chainsaw, missile launchers, jackhammer fists and jet-pack to fly Unfortunately for him his augments feel as uncomfortable as many other people with augments and he requires a medicine to cope, unlike Raiu who can handle her augments so naturally Kinzoku has a hard time coping but has gotten use to it for years, receiving upgrades there and now, but still requires medicine to handle his augs After Kori lost her Mother by the Tesshin Lord Daedalus, Kinzoku saved and took her in raising her and trying to make her avoid the life of an Agent and and live a normal life, sadly she eventually found out about her family heritage along with her boyfriend Ryu, upset she became Nanoknight and is now helping the rest worried he my lose her too He is really upset that Kaen who was now Scarlet Dragon is with the Tesshin and though he calls her a traitor he still cares for his niece and will attempt to save her if he can, he helps Kori and the rest of her team save Vita and fight back the Tesshin Kinzoku: War is not video game, it is the time whether fate chooses for you to live or die