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patolozka · 5 years ago

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On Crowley and Mary Magdalene META

So I was thinking about the whole ‘Crowley could be Mary Magdalene’ concept and I decided to put a few things together. I don’t want to persuade anyone of anything I was just thinking.

This META was written for @a-zira-fell and @azirafuck because they were feeding me with this stuff the last week.

So here is it:

1. Before the GO show aired in May we knew that Crowley wore female clothes at Golgotha from the stills that were shown to us in April. (It was THIS meta by @intersexaziraphale that I read about it). But after the show I think we promptly forget everything about it because there were so many things to think about.

https://intersexaziraphale.tumblr.com/post/184424971273/so-i-realized-that-not-everyone-knows-what-i-do

2. In the show in the crucifixion scene there is this exchange between our duo:

C: Come to smirk at the poor bugger, have you?

A: Smirk? Me?

C: Well, your lot put him on there.

A: I'm not consulted on policy decisions, Crawley.

C: Oh, I've changed it.

A: Changed what?

C: My name. "Crawl-y" just wasn't really doing it for me. It's a bit too... squirming-at-your-feet-ish.

A: Well, you were a snake. So, what is it now? Mephistopheles? Asmodeus?

C: Crowley.

A: Hmm.

A: Did you, uh... ever meet him?

C: Yes. Seemed a very bright young man. I showed him all the kingdoms of the world.

A: Why?

C: He's a carpenter from Galilee. His travel opportunities are limited.

C: That has got to hurt. What was it he said that got everyone so upset?

A: "Be kind to each other."

C: Oh, yeah. That'll do it.

In the script there is no bigger change in the exchange and about Crowley there is not much more than that he is wearing black. But we saw how he looked like in the show.

3. Then there is this Neil Gaiman’s tweet

Source: https://vintagefloof.tumblr.com/post/186199778332/confirmation-from-mr-gaiman-on-twitter-today-that

4. And also this meta by @olliaaron about Crowley’s and Aziraphale’s clothing during crucifixion:

https://olliaaron.tumblr.com/post/186239033859/so-i-read-something-about-this-and-heres-an

5. What do we know about Mary Magdalene

· She may have been Jesus’s wife, but we don’t know for sure. {ENG Wiki Mary Magdalene}

· She is for the first time noticed as one of the women who “ministered to Christ of their substance.” (Luke 8:3) {ENG Wiki Mary Magdalene}

· She travelled with Jesus as one of his followers and was a witness to his crucifixion, burial, and resurrection. (According to the four canonical gospels) {ENG Wiki Mary Magdalene}

· Mary as one of the women who travelled with Jesus and helped support his ministry "out of their resources", indicating that she was probably relatively wealthy. (Luke 8:2–3) {ENG Wiki Mary Magdalene}

· There is a statement seven demons had been driven out of her (Luke 8:2–3) and that prompted her to became Jesus‘ follower. {ENG Wiki Mary Magdalene}

· She was one of women who found the sepulchre of Jesus empty (with Salome and Mary the mother of James) and saw the “vision of angels”. (Matthew 28:5). {Eastons Bible Dictionary} The angel told them that Jesus had risen from the dead. Then the risen Jesus himself appeared to the women as they were leaving the tomb and told them to tell the other disciples that he would meet them in Galilee. (Matthew 28:1–10){ENG Wiki Mary Magdalene}

· She hastens to tell Peter and John (John 20:1, 2), and again immediately returns to the sepulchre. There she lingers thoughtfully, weeping at the door of the tomb. {Eastons Bible Dictionary}

· The risen Jesus appears to her but she at first mistook him for the gardener. After she heard him say her name, she recognized him and cried out "Rabbouni!" (which is Aramaic for "teacher"). She tried to touch him, but he told her, "Don't touch me, for I have not yet ascended to my father”. The Gospel of John therefore portrays Mary Magdalene as the first apostle, the apostle sent to the apostles. (John 20:1–10) {CZ Wiki}

· According to Luke 24:1–12 a group of unnamed women went to the tomb and found the stone already rolled away, as in Mark. They went inside and saw two young men dressed in white who told them that Jesus had risen from the dead. Then they went and told the eleven remaining apostles, who dismissed their story as nonsense. {ENG Wiki Mary Magdalene}

· After the resurrection she returned to Jerusalem. {Eastons Bible Dictionary}

· In apocryphal texts, Mary Magdalene is portrayed as a visionary and leader of the early movement whom Jesus loved more than he loved the other disciples. {ENG Wiki Mary Magdalene}

· The earliest dialogue between Jesus and Mary Magdalene is probably the Dialogue of the Savior, a badly damaged Gnostic text discovered in the Nag Hammadi library in 1945. In saying 53, the Dialogue even attributes to Mary three aphorisms that are attributed to Jesus in the New Testament: "The wickedness of each day [is sufficient]. Workers deserve their food. Disciples resemble their teachers." The narrator commends Mary stating "she spoke this utterance as a woman who understood everything." {ENG Wiki Mary Magdalene}

· In Gospel of Thomas in saying 114: Simon Peter said to them: “Let Mary go forth from among us, for women are not worthy of the life”. Jesus said: “Behold, I shall lead her, that I may make her male, in order that she also may become a living spirit like you males. For every woman who makes herself male shall enter into the kingdom of heaven.“ {ENG Wiki Mary Magdalene}

· In Gospel of Philip: And the companion of the saviour [was] Mary Magdalene. [Christ] loved Mary more than all the disciples, and used to kiss her often on the mouth. The rest of the disciples [were offended by it and expressed disapproval]. They said to him, "Why do you love her more than all of us?" The Saviour answered and said to them, "Why do I not love you like her? When a blind man and one who sees are both together in darkness, they are no different from one another. When the light comes, then he who sees will see the light, and he who is blind will remain in darkness."{ENG Wiki Mary Magdalene}

· The Gospel of Mary: The Gospel of Mary was probably written over a century after the historical Mary Magdalene's death. The gospel does not claim to have been written by her and its author is, in fact, anonymous. Unlike in the Gospel of Thomas, where women can only be saved by becoming men, in the Gospel of Mary, they can be saved just as they are.

Then there is this:

Source: https://azirafuck.tumblr.com/post/186236114966/so-i-was-already-on-board-with-the-whole-crowley

6. How we can see Mary Magdalene in art

As you can see, majority of the paintings pictures Mary Magdalene with red hair and more so some of them even in dark colours.

Source of the pic: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Magdalene

7. Dan Brown

I’m a big fan of Dan Brown and of course I know his ‘Da Vinci Code’ is only a fiction but still…

According to Dan Brown, there was a woman in Jesus‘ life. According to him, Jesus was married to Mary Magdalene. And according to his book Leonardo da Vinci painted Mary Magdalene on ‘The Last Supper’, not John. And you know what hair colour does she have there? Red.

Source: https://cdn.getyourguide.com/img/tour_img-312981-148.jpg

Some pieces from book Da Vinci Code about Mary Magdalene

"The marriage of Jesus and Mary Magdalene is part of the historical record... Moreover, Jesus as a married man makes infinitely more sense than our standard biblical view of Jesus as a bachelor... If Jesus were not married, at least one of the Bible’s gospels would have mentioned it and offered some explanation for His unnatural state of bachelorhood." (The Da Vinci Code, 245; cf. 244)

“Behold the greatest cover-up in human history... Not only was Jesus Christ married, but He was a father. My dear, Mary Magdalene was the Holy Vessel. She was the chalice that bore the royal bloodline of Jesus Christ” (Code, 249)

“Jesus was the original feminist. He intended for the future of His Church to be in the hands of Mary Magdalene.” (Code, 248)

“The Church, in order to defend itself against the Magdalene’s power, perpetuated her image as a whore and buried evidence of Christ’s marriage to her, thereby defusing any potential claims that Christ had a surviving bloodline and was a mortal prophet.” (Code, 254)

Source: https://www.westmont.edu/~fisk/articles/bruce_fisk_on_the_da_vinci_code.html (it’s a big article about why it all can’t be true, but it has its moments)

And I add one of my favorites:

"Who is she?" Sophie asked.

"That, my dear," Teabing replied, "is Mary Magdalene."

Sophie turned. "The prostitute?"

Teabing drew a short breath, as if the word had injured him personally. "Magdalene was no such thing. That unfortunate misconception is the legacy of a smear campaign launched by the early Church. The Church needed to defame Mary Magdalene in order to cover up her dangerous secret—her role as the Holy Grail." (Da Vinci Code, 205)

8. Gender in Good Omens

We know that angels don’t bother themselves with gender. But to me it looks quite like Crowley was manifesting himself the first four thousands more as a female than as a male.

In the garden of Eden, he is a demon, of course, but still you can see a slit in his clothes. I don’t think Aziraphale has some too. It could be only that his clothes are ragged but still…

In the Noah’s ark he looks more woman then man on the second glance. His long hair, his dress with belt…

At Golgotha it’s most prominent. There you can see he presents himself as a woman.

And after that, only 8 years later, the big change. The short hair, the glasses, all male.

And only other occasion in which we can see Crowley as a female is with Warlock as his nanny. But that is a different story.

9. So let me summarize it.

v Mary Magdalene was Jesus’ follower and travelled with him.

v Crowley knew Jesus, he showed him the world.

v Mary Magdalene was a witness to Jesus’ crucifixion, burial, and resurrection.

v Crowley manifested himself as a woman during Jesus’ life and he was a witness to Jesus’ crucifixion.

v Mary Magdalene was probably wealthy.

v Crowley has no problem with money.

v Mary Magdalene is often pictured as a woman with long, curly, red hair.

v Crowley had for the first four thousand years long, curly, red hair.

v After the crucifixion Mary Magdalene left and went to Jerusalem.

v After the crucifixion Crowley left Palestine and went to Rome.

v Out of Mary Magdalene had been driven seven demons.

v Crowley is a demon.

v Mary Magdalene saw an angel (or two angels) that told her Jesus had risen from the dead.

v Crowley has no problem with seeing angels.

v Jesus said to Mary Magdalene after resurrection: "Don't touch me, for I have not yet ascended to my father”.

v Crowley is demon, that could do it. ¨

v In apocryphal texts, Mary Magdalene is portrayed as a visionary and leader of the early movement.

v Crowley invented many things and was a leader of a sort on Earth.

v Three Jesus’ aphorisms are attributed Mary Magdalene: "The wickedness of each day [is sufficient]. Workers deserve their food. Disciples resemble their teachers." She is also described as: "she spoke this utterance as a woman who understood everything."

v Well, I don’t think like you but I think it’s a pretty good description of Crowley if you ask his co-workers.

v Jesus said he may make Mary Magdalene male to become equal men.

v Crowley changed after his death to male and also changed his name.

v The Gospel of Mary was probably written over a century after the historical Mary Magdalene's death. The gospel does not claim to have been written by her and its author is anonymous.

v Mary Magdalene’s gospel was found in Egypt covered in feathers.

10. So I think Crowley could be Mary Magdalene. Crowley and Jesus could be together. Crowley could be the one painted all the time on all the Mary Magdalene’s pictures.

The idea about Crowley being Mary Magdalene is not mine. It’s all tumblr.

#Good Omens meta #my first meta #Crowley as Mary Magdalene #some thoughts #my meta

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annisir-kaugan · 4 years ago

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Report: Origins and Operation of Triglavian Society Annisir Kaugan - Third Eye Analytics.

The first interesting thing about the Triglavians is their language. It is not an exact language, meaning many of the terms they use have no one definition. They use cultural idioms in a contextual way, phrases can have different, but related, meanings depending on the context of the sentence. The 'Flow of Vyraj', which is used a lot, refers to the passage of time, but this can be in terms of a project plan, the course of events or even, as fate wills it. 'Poshlost' generally means bad or unsavoury and its opposite, 'Sobernost' means good, or good for the majority. Understanding this is key to understanding the Triglavians and people seem to miss this because its not a normal usage of language. It is worth spending time with their language, either the data streams, or other example that are scattered around, simply to gain an appreciation of their culture.

The other area that people get confused with is the organisation of Triglavian society, when in reality, although complex in some ways it is actually very simple. There are three main Clades, Perun, Veles and Svarog, each has a number of sub-clades and so far only a few of these are known. For the most part these are made up of Narodnya and all the pilots of vessels encountered are Narodnya. Again its a general term, they call capsuleers 'Augmented Foreign Narodnya' and Sansha 'Hivelinked Foreign Narodnya' for example. Each Clade appears to have a number of Koschoi and Navka associated with them, from various models there is a simple reason for this and it will become clear.

The term 'Struggle' is used a lot, while there have been various theories it is actually, again, very simple. Triglavian society is an extreme meritocracy, rank within society is entirely based on 'Proving', whether in technical arguments or combat they always compete and trial everything. An individual Narodnya begins life with a base level of rank in society, throughout their life every qualification, contest, successful project or failure adjusts this ranking. The Triglavians speak of 'Glorification' and 'Mortification', which were confusing at first. 'Extirpation' refers to destruction or death. 'Glorification' simply means an upward adjustment in ranking, and 'Mortification' a downward one. This is the 'Struggle' of which they speak. In one case an entire sub-clade was given Mortification because their ship design did not come up to specification and fell short in proving.

It suggests there are upper and lower limits to rankings too. The point is that those reaching the ultimate rank become Koschoi, and those dying in the attempt or reaching the lowest rank become Navka. Which is why the Koschoi and Navka make up the Convocation of Triglav Outside the Struggle; they are not in it, they have either won or lost. Explaining the Koschoi and Navka is complicated to say the least and will be followed up later. Every clade and sub-clade have their own, because they belonged to them before becoming as they are, but the Koschoi and Navka can also act independently of the clades; both have been shown to be operating as 'Detached' from time to time. This too has implications that will be revealed in due course.

In order to explain this it is necessary to go right back to the very beginning of New Eden, to the first settlers in the cluster. At first is appears not much is known about these times, but a lot can be inferred. Analysis of human DNA has shown that all the inhabitants of New Eden belonged to the same species which originated on a single planet some two hundred thousand years ago. Many of the animals and plants we see are not native to New Eden, but were imported around the same time as human settlement took place. Countless archaeological studies have found no trace of any predecessors which would show that they evolved on planets in the cluster. Astronomers have been studying space around New Eden for centuries, in particular the Eve Gate, Which was a natural wormhole that formed fifteen thousand years ago and was open for around 75 years before collapsing into a singularity. This data complies with the findings of archaeologists on all the settled worlds.

There were three main clusters of activity; the Amarrian and Minmatar home systems and the system shared by the Caldari and Gallente. Outside of these there were a handful of smaller colonies and these groups were almost pilot studies. Pioneers to test the soil, lay down the infrastructure for terraforming and habitation as well as surveying the planet. They were not really prepared to operate without support, unlike the Jove, who fared much better after the gate's collapse. The two groups that really stand out are the Talocan and the Yan Jung, for different reasons.

"The Yan Jung nation immigrated into our world through the EVE Gate aeons ago. From where, we do not know, though the fragments of texts we've managed to translate talk about a mysterious middle kingdom. They settled here in Deltole, though we suspect they also colonized other systems, even in far off places. But what we've uncovered so far is here in the Deltole system, especially on Deltole V and VI, which seem to have been much more inhabitable back then."

– Sebast Mathon, Professor of Archaeology, University of Caille

The Yan Jung are an oddity. The majority of the early settlers were unprepared, they were not, they left few traces but the Hidden Path site in Deltole is odd. An Ancient Gargoyle Statue guards the site, although defunct now and a beacon lights up the system. Their artefacts are found throughout space, notably, from a Triglavian point of view, texts on Semiotic Theory, Singularities and Trigonometric Laws. Although they apparently were only around for a millennia or so they seem to have been masters of ancient technologies that New Eden science still cannot match. Rather than being simple settlers they could have been fugitives escaping to the newly discovered space, but there is another option.

The second oddball group are the Talocan. Unusually they did not settle anywhere, but rather roamed as nomads or lived in space, another connection to the Triglavian way of life perhaps. They seem to have left only one site in New Eden, the Devils Dig in Otitoh, now heavily over run with Rogue Drones to the extent all archaeological research has had to stop. This may be deliberate. One interesting feature of the site is the Sun Reader, a black monolith, similar to others found elsewhere in New Eden, which may also be Talocan artefacts. These seem to contain solar data, of some form, which points to them being some kind of observational device. Its is possible they formed some kind of distributed network in the manner used by astronomers today, several devices creating a much larger device when working in unison. Even more intriguing is the possibility that the network is still operable and the Triglavians accessed it to determine which systems to target.

There are numerous ancient relics scattered throughout the cluster, black monoliths, ancient stargates and even odd rift like features. The Amarrians expanded into space by reverse engineering an old stargate, and the technological principles are still not fully understood. In the same way the original Minmatar expansion was via an ancient acceleration gate. If the black monoliths are Talocan in origin, then did they also build the other structures in space?

The Jove were better prepared, setting in the Utopia system in the Heaven constellation. Since the Jove moved out there have been numerous archaeological surveys of the area. Ice core and soil samples show that they spent a long time adjusting the climate and seeding the ground before establishing colonies. It seems likely that they used automated systems and kept the vast majority of their personnel in cryostasis until the planetary installations had sufficient resources. This may have been as long as a millennia in some cases. Further studies have shown that the first Jovian expansion did not really develop until the third millennium, which has implications to be discussed further on.

Nothing is known of what lies beyond the Eve Gate, although it is certain that New Eden was colonised by the inhabitants of that space. Exhaustive DNA studies have shown that everyone in the cluster originally came from a single species originating on the same planet. Minor mutations concomitant with space travel and living in space show they had been in space for some millennia prior to the Eve Gate. We can infer a lot from the behaviour of groups within New Eden, everyone is essentially running on the same underlying code. It would have been a place of Empires, Corporations and factions in a similar form to those established in New Eden. It seems to be a natural development in human society. Colonising a new space is a difficult task, but with great possibilities; the first steps have been taken already in the Anoikis systems and they are relatively easy to access. New Eden was virgin territory. The original crews had to scout and survey and be followed by teams to build the star gates. That meant mining and refining resources, and all done in space, massive industrial ships must have been used, on a scale we only really see with the World Arks, Anchorages, and perhaps the rumoured City ship being built by Thukker.

They would have needed the technology to move across vast distances without cynos, some advanced form of jump drive or wormhole generating system maybe. Sansha, Drifters, Triglavians, the Jove themselves and maybe even Rogue Drones now, have shown something like the abilities required. Whether they developed it themselves, or found the necessary information in some ancient cache is not known. While the Empires of New Eden build star gates and know how to set them up it is still a massively complicated process, the original Amarrian gate required sending ships out using cryosleep chambers. The incoming crews from beyond the gate managed to push lines of stargates deep into the cluster in just a few decades. This raises some interesting questions and possibilities.

The other side of the gate could have been contested, but there are actually quite a mix of different groups in the original settlers, so that may well not be the case. The engineering group should therefore be a representative mix as well, from those factions with an interest. They are not another race, or nation, but almost certainly something like a corporation or other entity, composed of members of the existing nations. It is not known how the gate failed, certainly echoes of the collapse are still heading out into space but it does not seem normal. The gate appeared to be a wormhole of huge size, which is interesting. Gates are formed by the conjunction of points of gravitational resonance, in simple terms. New Eden has a propensity for forming wormholes now but did not at one time. When two systems get close enough on the right path, that can trigger the formation of a hole. For something this size it would mean another cluster or a galaxy moving into the right position relative to New Eden for it to form. Normally that kind of movement is slow, in terms of galactic time, which means the lifespan of the hole can be very long. The mass limit too, given its size but there is a possible way around it. Mass Entanglers are used to increase the mass of a ship for the purpose of rolling holes, better than the old Higgs device. An array of Entanglers, much as we see with the Triglavian Solar Harvester could be used to pull the hole apart, compensating for mass entering it. There might need to be an array on both sides, but there is no way of knowing, this kind of engineering is beyond the capacities of most groups in New Eden.

The question is did one of the groups in the original settlement phase sabotage the gate? Preventing a massive influx of settlers coming to plunder the resources, and maybe giving their allies a better chance of success? It is a distinct possibility, some of the ancient stargates are badly damaged, but others are not, they have been deactivated and rendered useless, which implies deliberate sabotage. If somebody rigged the mass entanglers to reverse polarity then that could collapse the hole, but the array on the other side would work against it, resulting in the singularity that exists now. The same for the stargates, it is as though a deliberate attempt was made to stop the early colonies being able to support each other or receive any assistance. That is curious in itself, as is the behaviour of the Talocan and Yan Jung. Perhaps they decided humanity needed a second chance, to work out a better way to live rather than simply plundering the resources of this new space.

Archaeologists often use the term cultures and it frequently gets misinterpreted by people from outside the profession. All the inhabitants of New Eden belong to the same culture, there are racial differences but in fundamental terms everyone speaks the same language and follows the same basic ways of doing things. Prior to meeting the Amarrians and Udorians were distinct cultures, but they lost their individuality not long after. In a similar way the Talocan, Yan Jung and even the Jovian, from Sleeper artefacts, are obviously from the same basic culture. The labels given them come from the Jove, but they may not be entirely accurate or show the true picture. Given the hypothetical existence of an engineering team that facilitated the early migrations it makes good sense that the Talocan and Yan Jung were a part of this. The Talocan appears to be based in space, the engineers, scouts and surveyors, while the Yan Jung fit into the role of scientists and theoreticians. The planetary settlements of the Yan Jung being research bases, and perhaps food producing areas or for the production of other planetary materials. They both disappeared from New Eden, possibly around the same time, maybe fourteen thousand years ago. The Talocan reappear, in Anoikis, occasional wrecked ships and quarantine zones around ruined Talocan structures, something certainly went on and to discover what requires a reworking of the established position. It is impossible to say if Yan Jung went with them, or were somehow taken over or absorbed. This appears to coincide with the Jove becoming more active which indicates the Talocan group wanting to avoid them in order to let the new colonies flourish uncontaminated

Anoikis is a cluster of systems, possibly located in a region of dark matter or energy, or a region of intensely folded space, it has some extremely unusual characteristics. Assuming that the Talocan used the network of black monoliths as a wide area observatory, then this should have piqued their interest. How they travelled there is unknown, but they must have, and spent some considerable time there preparing their plans. Presumably using the same kind of technology that was used to set up the original gate network but it may have taken longer due to distances involved. They seem to have had a much more intimate understanding of the way space operates than anyone in New Eden possesses today. The New Eden cluster consists of 5431 systems, 230 of which are in Jovian space and inaccessible and there are 2603 known systems in the Anoikis cluster; the true extent of Abyssal space is unknown at present.

Many people see the system of wormhole connections between New Eden and Anoikis as randomly occurring, this is simply untrue. Anoikis has a definite structure and while the formation of connections may seem random it does, in fact, operate according to a comprehensive set of rules. There are 30 Regions and 310 Constellations, these directly affect the class of system and also the connections that will open up between them, and also New Eden. This might be due to the way the data is represented, rather than an actual physical map, no such map exists so it is a convenient way of looking at things. All of the Region 30 systems are class 6, for example and that pattern follows for all the other regions. This suggests that there is something highly unusual about both the underlying structure of space and the matter-energy balance of the cluster. Most unusual indeed.

The Talocan must have spent some considerable time there. Exploring and mapping the area offered challenges not found in New Eden and chances are that meant modifying their technology. From events in New Eden much later on it is suspected that some of the precursor technology was based on Isogen-5, an allotropic form of Isogen, connected in some way to the formation of blue stars. It is highly volatile, as evidenced by these later events, Isogen-10, used by the Triglavians is a much more stable form. It does not, as far as anyone knows, appear in Anoikis, meaning that the Talocan may well have had to find alternative materials. ~

Oddly the materials and blueprints for making tech III ships all come from Anoikis , so are a sign of Talocan adapting to the new environment. Which means that the Talocan wrecked ships spotted in Anoikis and New Eden are more than likely not their original ship forms, but developed later on. This is an interesting pointer. For one thing it does point to an extended time in the Anoikis cluster. They also must have taken the construction and mining vessels. There are a large number of ruined Talocan sites around, some of which are co-sited with Sleeper sites, probably the origin of the Jovian-Triglavian satellite polity mentioned in one of the data streams.

The Talocan built a complex network of structures known as Epicenters, which are vitally important. Each contains Talocan static gates and violent wormholes, impassable by any means available. There are similar wormholes in the Drifter systems, but more on those later. Thera formed the heart of this network, and still functions in that respect, although possibly in a different way. It is a unique system and may have been artificially engineered, in itself a prodigious feat of stellar engineering and beyond the capabilities of anyone today. There are twenty-five small ship systems, known as Class 13, these only form small connections that will only pass frigates, or some specially engineered ships. In addition a further seventy-five systems also contain Epicenters.

The operation of this network is unknown, although there are a number of possibilities. This gave the Talocan one hundred and one systems to explore and operate in. It could have been fixed, Thera acting as a hub and the Epicentre static gates and what are now violent wormholes connecting to other systems in the net. The Drifter systems also contain strange wormholes that do not seem navigable but may once have connected. Alternatively it may have been programmable, the Epicentres acting as controls for the system, rather like a modern mass transportation system. In either case they had access to systems within the network but presumably also those outside it. Overall a fixed system makes most sense in light of later events.

This must have taken a considerable amount of time, which presupposes that the Talocan used some form of Kitezh class ship, as discussed by the Triglavians and also the Jove appear to have some knowledge of them as well. It is unknown as to how many of them there were, or what the ratio of male and female was. Likewise did they use sexual reproduction or some system to generate viable embryos as the Jove did? It is a task of mammoth proportions, feeding so many without access to planetary resources, not to mention completely adapting to a whole new technology. They did it, while dating technologies for planetary archaeological sites are commonplace and a number of methodologies may be employed, those for spatial artefacts are much more complex and prone to error. Especially in the complex topology of Anoikis space. The only realistic figures quoted suggest some of the installations may be as old as twelve thousand years. This seems reasonable; the first Jovian expansion began around this time and the Talocan should have completed most of the work by then.

It is now a piece of history, but the Seyllin event was linked to Isogen-5 caches and caused the first wormholes to begin appearing in New Eden as well as shattering a number of planets. The later Caroline’s Star event, since found to be W477-P, revealed the presence of Thera and the shattered systems. Again, this points to the Talocan network and the main Anoikis cluster being two distinct entities. The Talocan must therefore have returned to New Eden prior to the Jovian expansion to complete their work unnoticed. It is also worth bearing in mind that a society can change beyond belief in three thousand years and that this happened twelve thousand years ago.

Somehow the Talocan used a device, or array of devices at W477-P in order to create some form of sub-spatial affinity between New Eden and Anoikis. How this was done is hard to even imagine as it necessitates altering the topology of space in both clusters. Interestingly this manipulation may have had other side effects as well, the abundance of deadspace zones, and even the Dead Storms of Detorid, which may point to the Abyss and even the Abyss itself may have been formed by this work. The Seyllin event probably opened up the existing weaknesses permitting the formation of wormholes and made this easier to achieve naturally. The event at W477-P travelled through the Epicenter network rendering the wormholes and static gates dysfunctional and unlocking the now shattered systems.

This made the formation of wormholes a lot easier and allowed the explorers much more access to Anoikis. Thera can support a dozen or more connections and maybe as many as twenty-five, this is a lot higher than most systems where the upper limit may be five or six. Most systems have one or two static connections, these can despawn and respawn very quickly so appear to be always present. There are any number of wandering connections as well, but all connections follow the underlying rules. Systems in the New Eden cluster itself do not have static connections, their limit seems to be around the usual five to six, Systems in Jovian space do not connect to normal Anoikis systems, although there may be others that are still hidden. The J005299 system is occupied by Sansha’s Nation and is unique in this respect, although it really suggests Sansha have other hidden systems in which they stage their fleets. The Jovians used a time-based system to name the Anoikis systems, the majority of the systems, excluding the unique, the shattered systems and four others, fall into the format of J-hours, minutes and seconds, two digits for each. The list is possibly not complete.

Connections form according to the systems, their statics and then any available wandering connections, These may follow some kind of hidden paths within the structure of space, it is impossible to say at present. Connections generally disappear within twenty-four hours, although the new Pochven holes have a shorter lifespan. Different connections have different mass limits, affecting the size and number of ships that can pass through without triggering a collapse. The inhabitants of Anoikis systems use this to their advantage, triggering an early collapse, or leaving the hole at a critical point thus trapping intruders. These cycles create endless patterns in the map of Anoikis, Class 4 systems can form long chains leading across the Anoikis cluster and Class 2 systems can form smaller ones or bridges between Anoikis and New Eden. The map is therefore a complex map of both scientific phenomena and human activity, the mathematics of which is extremely complicated.

It is not possible to predict where a given system will connect to, the type maybe but not an exact location. Organisations like Signal Cartel rely on huge numbers of scouts and specialised mapping tools to create a window into the map. In that respect it corresponds with the mathematics governing the formation of freckles on skin or the pattern on a variegated leaf, the patterns are unpredictable but expected.

The so-called Drifter systems are also unique. They contain a number of ancient structures, black monoliths and violent wormholes. The Caged Wormhole in particular is interesting in that it seems to link to Thera. Another site is a wrecked Sleeper Enclave, and there are ship graveyards containing unknown vessels. These appear to be experimental areas, strange rifts and mysterious probes, the black monoliths are also in evidence. The Sisters of Eve have been researching these systems for years, although have yet to report on them, standing flotillas of vessels stand guard in each system. A focal point for the system is the Hive, a complex of acceleration gates guarding entry to the Nexus. This is staggering, a massive double rift with a broken structure at the centre. Originally the structure resembled a sea urchin but quickly fell apart and is now an S-shaped disarray of huge beams, lightning sparks through the components on an intermittent basis. Nearby is an alignment device, but frequent attempts have failed to move the beams in any way. It is as though it was once trapped or sabotaged to make operation of the Nexus impossible. Drifters guard the way and have a Hive structure on site, hence the name, but the systems themselves are obviously the work of Talocan, or their descendants.

Anoikis is a grey area, it hides its secrets well and in many ways offers more questions than answers. The Talocan were active there from maybe twelve thousand years ago, the first Jovian expansion lasted for nine thousand years before collapsing in what appears to be civil war. From the archaeological record it is possible to see that they leapt ahead, making great strides in science and technology, their installations were re-engineered at a furious pace. It seems likely that some Jovian group made contact with the Talocan during this period, laying the foundations for the Sleepers. Analysis of at least one Drifter corpse was completed by a team consisting of Dr. Mizhir Starsurge, Dr. Anslo Tetua, Kybernetes Moros and Kalo Askold. The corpse had been much modified, beyond the original Jovian improvements, the Jovian corpses are similar and formed the basis of Warclone technology. Capsuleer infomorphic technology relies on a destructive brain scan at the point of death, the information is transmitted as a burst and used to reconstruct the brain state in a new clone, thus preserving memories and experiences. The Jovians, and now, Warclones, use an incremental system, much more sophisticated but requiring much higher bandwidth. The intricacy of some of the implants is such that the technology is unfathomable, but it probably has applications in interfacing with a virtual reality system.

Virtual Reality Environments (VRE) have been a desirable theoretical possibility since the use of computing technology really got going. There have been a large number of thought experiments, a lot of research, and they have formed the basis for numerous stories and a number of popular holoreels. The principles are well known and a lot of research has gone into virtual reality and its many applications in science, industry and entertainment. While great strides have been made the ultimate goal of a fully immersive world has never actually been realised and remains tantalisingly out of reach. The difficulty lies in the interface to the human brain, due to its complexity, and the Jovian implants appear to do just that.

The brain contains around 86 billion neurons, with interconnected synapses numbering maybe 60 trillion or more. The numbers are that large and frightening. A neuron is relatively simple to simulate, it's a switch, although there are countless different types and it has weighting with experience. The firing of a neuron triggers hundreds, even thousands, of synapses and these react in different ways because of the nature of the triggers released. Synapses also react to the firing of other synapses in their local area, which makes the processes much more complicated to simulate. Even the most highly sophisticated technology available in New Eden would require an installation the size of a large city and would not operate at anything like the speed of a human brain.

The Sleeper installations in Anoikis are densely packed with processing units and use advanced materials and methodologies not really understood by New Eden science. Even they do not appear to simulate the brain, but there is a way round it.

Old time philosophers talked of mind, body and spirit, to a great extent this is true. The brain is split into two sections, often referred to as the bicameral mind, on side being the emotional centre, the other dealing with logic and problem solving, but both interconnected and also interdependent with the body as well. It processes around 3 terabytes of information a day, a lot from the environment but a significant amount is derived from within the body as well; even the kidneys have nerves. The chemical balances of the body can affect the brain and vice versa. It seems as though the Jovian design uses the mind as a processor in conjunction with the high bandwidth infomorphic interface. This group mind acts as a kind of computational cloud which interacts with the processing structures to produce a kind of consensual reality, filling in the blanks as necessary.

The body is largely switched off, or the external stimuli are ignored and replaced by those of the VRE. This has to happen, without the bodily awareness in the circuit it can destabilise the mind. At its height there were countless installations throughout Anoikis, linked through the Talocan Epicenter network. Presumably the Jovians had been working towards this for thousands of years, and who is to say the Talocan were not doing as well. The supposed disappearance of the Yan Jung could be due to them taking their research into a VRE as well. It was a substantial computational structure. There must have been external operators and many working within it on various research projects. The early efforts of the Jovians would go a long way towards explaining the exponential gains in sophistication made during the first Jovian expansion. It is not known when the Jovians encountered the Talocan, perhaps only a few did, and maybe during the course of the first expansion, or shortly after it’s collapse.

Then things might have taken a different course, likely in light of subsequent events. In order to construct an ideal society, or at least experiment to find a better way, which appears to be a constant motivation for the Talocan at least, they would have to go a different route. The Jove created embryos, from bloodline genomes, rather than sexual reproduction. If they connected an infant to the VRE, and raised it inside it, using external operators, or even some form of artificial intelligence actors then the possibilities are extra-ordinary. They could link the infant’s mind to adaptive neuromorphic arrays, which would then grow as the child did, This then gives a reproducible processing array capable of hosting a human mind or forming the basis of an artificial sapience.

Artificial intelligence is used in many applications, and is frequently misunderstood. Any program that makes a seemingly intelligent decision is deemed AI. Although the leap to something which is artificially sentient is a big step. The Rogue Drones are for the most part simple intelligences performing according to a sophisticated script of some form. Very few are actually sentient, and even those may be part of a much larger single mind. The Triglavians use the term ‘distributed artificial entities’ in speaking about them and are very cautious.

It does make sense that the Jovians used some form of AI actor within their VRE, to guide events perhaps and steer things in the right direction. From analysis of what appears to have happened, this was their downfall. If they used an array capable of sentience for their actors, then it is possible that one or more actually achieved it, and in realising their nature, also perceived the nature of the VRE. The purity of the society within the VRE relies on the inhabitants being unaware that it is a construction. Something went badly wrong. The Talocan were forced to rescue infomorphs from the VRE, there are numerous quarantine stations around Anoikis to confirm this. Quarantine because they had to make sure that the rescued infomorphs were human and not some artificial infomorph. Very much letting the genie out of the bottle.

This took place not long before the total collapse of the second Jovian expansion and the Talocan of this time might well have been calling themselves Triglavians, or were heading that way. The Jovian Sleeper installations were equipped with guardians, the Patrollers and other ships still seen today, the actors from the VRE would have had little trouble taking these over and using them against the Talocan and surviving Jovians. It would seem that they fought a defensive battle heading for the Drifter systems, then using the giant rifts to take their Kitezh, presumably into the Abyss. This was not a controlled migration, it was a rushed evacuation, who knows what they left behind, or how many were lost.

The sentients from the VRE, and the other AI were able to take over the corpses of the Jovians, it is unlikely than any actually survived, although the question still exists; did the AI achieve sentience by accident, or did someone deliberately engineer it? As with the initial settlements, they were left alone to develop naturally, to give humanity a second chance. Were there agents among the Talocan that still wanted that to happen? Whichever the case it would seem that the sentients used the knowledge within the VRE, possibly to create the feared Drifter vessels, or perhaps simply using the guardian vessels left behind, to attack the rest of the second Jovian expansion colonies in New Eden. Revenge on, maybe as they saw it, their jailers. Certainly the second Jove Empire sites were attacked from outside their sector, fighting inward to the centre. It is possible they also infiltrated the genome databases and left behind a gift, the Jovian disease, a fatal flaw in their physiology. It may never be known, the evidence points to all the Jove being dead, only leaving their remnants behind.

These then are the Sleepers, a group of autonomous defensive systems and possibly some actual artificial sentients, maybe even one or more rogue agents among them. They seem to have built more structures, looking for a way to follow their jailers, or discover their technologies. Seemingly they did in the end, the scraps of trinary data recovered from damage fleets of Drifters in New Eden revealed the first glimpses of the Abyss. It is known they were fighting in areas of the Abyss capsuleers were not able to access and the Sansha had managed to invade their as well. The Triglavians referred to them as the Ancient Enemy, but not quite as they had known them. They also linked them to the second Jove Empire quite clearly, but these were Drifters, not the Sleeper vessels they had fought originally.

The Sleepers and Drifters are therefore two facets of the same group, some of the Sleeper installations being built after the surviving Talocan and Sleeper infomorphs escaped. The Talocan installations were left in ruins, the result of the Drifters' frustration at the escape. Sites like the Mirror may be Sleeper attempts to decode the Talocan technology in order to follow them, the actual truth may never be known.

The story from that point has been well recorded elsewhere. The Talocan prospered in the Abyss, modifying their technology, and adapting, as they had done previously. Its unknown how their society evolved, although these were the descendants of people who had gone through doubtless many changes in the last fifteen thousand years. For now their invasion seems to be at an end; they are consolidating Pochven and creating Bujan, or moving Bujan to Pochven, This is indeed perhaps one of their enduring mysteries, but given their history, simple to decode.

The Narodnya live lives of Struggle, seeking to improve themselves or die trying, their pilots fight ferociously without mercy for the most part. Each success improves their ranking, as seen in the Abyssal Proving Ground contests. Presumably failures send them down the ranks and Glorification can therefore be seen as a promotion, Mortification as a demotion. For the ultimate survivors the reward appears to be the rank of Koschoi, these live in the Domain of Bujan. It is obviously a VRE of some form, a fabled pleasure garden, similar to those depicted in ancient religious texts. There they reap the rewards they have earned, outside the struggle at last. The Navka receive somewhat different treatment. Their infomorph is edited, the emotional facet of their personality removed, and what is left is hosted on some kind of processing array. They act as librarians, guarding the memories of the Triglavians, and with the addition of a personality and a script, as actors to serve the Koschoi. Both may leave the Domain of Bujan from time to time as requested, but under the names Detached and Unshackled, to undertake missions of import.

The Domain itself is probably based on the Anchorages, linked together through their conduit network. Koschoi and Navka are both able to interface with individual Narodnya it would seem, acting as information stores and advisors. Indeed the Koschoi and Navka, being beyond the Struggle are those that form the Convocation of Triglav Outside the Struggle. From the Triglavians themselves it is known that those left behind in the Abyss are the Poshlost, the unworthy, maybe they can in time redeem themselves, but for now the bulk of the Triglav care nothing for them. It is telling that now the Sansha, Angel Cartel and even DED operatives are fighting over what remains in the Abyss. There will be more developments to come.

The Triglavians have wrought great changes to the fundamental nature of space, on a scale not seen since the establishment of the affinity between New Eden and Anoikis. This in itself was almost certainly responsible for the phenomena known as the Dead Storms of Detorid, elusive, but appearing when the alignments of Anoikis connections are in a certain conjunction. It could also have been responsible for the formation of the Abyss, lost systems trapped between the folds of space. Since the Triglavians moved the Anchorages into New Eden it has become even more unstable, Metaliminal storms sweeping the fringes of the New Eden cluster, and strange clouds moving through the Abyss. So far Anoikis has been unaffected, but for how long?

One of the communications from the Triglavians showed Sansha fleets fighting in what appears to be an unknown part of the Abyss. Certainly a part nobody has been able to access, but it might be possible given the Triglavian migration. The ship building facilities were only found in the deepest pockets, and no sign of the anchorages ever found. There could be tracts of systems never seen by capsuleers, the remnants of Triglavian civilisation, archaeological sites giving clues to their origin, as well as any facilities they may have left behind. Triglavians still live in the Abyss, Poshlost, but with the capacity to achieve some form of redemption and, although Narodnya, they remain connected to the Koschoi and Navka. These must live somewhere, even have Kitezh to use as a base and some means of harvesting food and other supplies. Maybe one day these wonders will be accessible, a new frontier of exploration.

There are fifty Abyssal pockets, linked by the conduit network, that is still Triglavian controlled, possibly a number of Proving Grounds as well. The Talocan directly controlled 101 systems out of the 2499 known Anoikis systems and Pochven is comprised of only 27 New Eden systems so far. When these are consolidated the Triglavians might desire to expand. They are building up, repurposing existing stations, constructing military installations and there may well be covert research facilities being constructed. The limitations of the conduit network restrict both capsuleers and those Narodnya who are still to prove themselves, not forgetting that even now the clades still prove against each other, it the way of the Triglav. New wormholes appear in systems, mostly local to Pochven, but other areas as well and in Anoikis, and the Triglavians still come out to prove themselves against the forces of New Eden.

A further complication could be Edencom; Provost Marshal Kasiha Valkanir has amassed a great deal of power and there are rumours of political turmoil between Edencom and the Empires. They have established 53 Fortress systems, between Edencom and the Triglavians there are a further 112 systems that have been ravaged by combat. Those systems obviously still hold some interest for the Triglavians and Edencom are not likely to let them go, nor do they seem content to let the Triglavians hold Pochven. While the systems are sealed off for now there are ongoing planetary resistance operations underway from all appearances. From the history of New Eden it would not be the first time a military command has gone rogue. This conflict has already seen a number of mercenary groups emerge, even Sansha have had some kind of schism and there are questions about the Upwell Consortium outstanding.

Both Edencom and Upwell have been found to have covert research facilities out in the fringes of the cluster, how many of these remain is unknown, but the two organisations seem to be linked in some unknown way. What further developments will take place is hard to imagine but there are undercurrents even now. It is a possibility that the Empires will write off their losses and seek peace with the Triglavians which could lead to them opening the border systems of Pochven, only time will tell.

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vertanimeni · 5 years ago

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the ice will start to break, the day will fade away (5/18)

Summary:

“Have you heard? The Elephant of Caocin has committed high treason!”

From Trikru’s most reputable war hero to Trikru’s most wanted traitor, Kova found themselves stripped of their titles and trapped between a clan that wants them dead and a camp of invaders - the same ones who kidnapped and tortured their brother.

But Kova was willing to do anything to stay alive and keep their family together.

Pairing: Bellamy/Grounder OC

Word Count: 6,277

TW: Canon typical violence, injuries.

A/N: Hi hi! After some convincing from my friends, I decided to post this series here :D I’ve already finished with season 1 and half of season 2, I’m just in the middle of re-writing and editing. If you’re reading through my blog, the read more does not show up due to Tumblr’s new formatting, so please click on the post itself. I’ll be updating every other day at 12pm EST. Anyways, hope you enjoy it!

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v. intervention.

The sole fact that the Ankwon Bridge stood tall and proud despite the dry creek underneath, despite having gone through neglect, a nuclear war, renovation, and more neglect, was an impressive feat on its own. The debris scattered across the floor and the crumbling sides and edges made it quite obvious that it had been abandoned, or at the very least, hadn’t been used as often, for trading or otherwise. After all, there were faster routes to get to southwest Trikru, and with no villages or people for miles down this road, it became an unpopular course.

Which is why Kova couldn’t hide their surprise when they found someone casually leaning against the railings, as if she had been waiting there for a while now.

Knowing their tendency to accidentally sneak up on others, Kova made sure to step with a bit of extra pressure on a few dried leaves and twigs. Octavia turned at the noise. Her eyes landed on Kova, and she gave them a wry smile. They dipped their head in acknowledgment. Octavia might be Lincoln’s… interest, but that didn’t mean Kova would drop their guard just for—

“No sword to the throat? I thought you liked me?” Octavia couldn’t help but tease, a sly smile on her face.

The muscle underneath Kova’s eyes twitched. They blinked once. twice. Octavia could have sworn for a brief second she saw the corners of their lips twitch, too. Suddenly Kova’s chest spasmed as a light laugh tumbled out without restraint.

Alright. Maybe they could warm up to her.

Once they calmed down and cleared their throat (pointedly ignoring Octavia’s wide eyes), they held out their forearm. Without hesitation, Octavia gripped theirs with her own, and her smile was much more natural when they squeezed lightly.

“Wanna sit with me while we wait for the others?” She asked.

“…mn.”

Since they were early, the two sat on the edge of the bridge, legs hanging over the side and arms resting on top of the lower railings. And to Octavia’s shock, Kova easily plopped down by her side, letting their shoulders touch.

“Lincoln talked about you a lot.” There was no hint of malice in Octavia’s tone, just curiosity. “He mentioned why you can’t take off the mask. Don’t worry, I’ll do my best to make sure you can stay with us while everything clears up.”

“Mn. Thank you. I appreciate it.” They faced her and bowed their head slightly. “He talked about you as well.”

Well. More like gushed. A lot. He had been telling Kova as much as he could about Octavia, probably to put the woman in a favorable light. But she was doing just fine on her own.

Her cheeks flushed at their words.

After that, conversation flowed out naturally. After all, both sides were equally curious about the other. Octavia spoke about how difficult life was on the Ark. She spoke of the prison system, her trauma of being thrown in the sky box just for being born (and that added a whole new conversation topic on the Ark’s justice system — Octavia never thought she would see the day where she had to explain how the justice system worked and try to defend the justification behind her imprisonment, but here she was.)

But she also spoke of the parties, the view of the moon and stars and the sun with its solar flares, and how different and freeing it was to live here, with friends, clean fresh air, and the ticklish grass underneath her feet (although she had to admit, she hated the mosquitoes and bugs that tried to sneak in her tent.)

Octavia had to admit, she liked the way Kova listened intently while they watched the distant landscape, with a few hums of acknowledgments and agreements, a few frowns and worried glances when she mentioned the sky box and her “crimes.” Almost exactly like how Lincoln had reacted when she told him.

“What about you? What’s your sob story?” She couldn’t help but ask at the end of her history.

Seeing as Octavia laid out most, if not all her history and secrets and worries bare to them, Kova couldn’t help but want to do the same. Well, not all their secrets, maybe not even most, but more than anyone would know.

(Except for Lincoln, of course. He knew everything.)

So Kova explained what it was like to live on Earth. They spoke about Trikru, about how Trikruvians are expected to train in the militia for 20 years before they’re allowed to opt out, how they themselves so desperately wanted to opt out early and work full time in prosthetic handling, something they thoroughly enjoyed on the side. They spoke about how tired they were of training, of fighting battles after battles, wars after wars (Kova could tell Octavia sat up a little straighter, as if she wanted to delve more into that topic, but Kova sent her their most nicest glare and she thankfully didn’t press into that open wound.)

But they also spoke of the ceremonies and celebrations, the drinks and foods with spices so ferocious tears would bundle at the corners of their eyes, the delicate warmth of fire after a night of fishing in the river, the stars and moon twinkling above them, the smell of the earth after it rains, and the way the trees move with the winds.

(They told her they hated the bugs just as much, if not more, than she did. And if they get the chance to, they would show her which plants keep them away.)

A comfortable silence fell between them as the sun began to rise higher in the sky. Both of them needed a moment to gather their bearings. After all, two weeks ago they hadn’t known the other person even existed, and in Octavia’s case, she was getting used to the fact that she was practically an alien on a planet her ancestors were from.

Surprisingly (or maybe not, due to the nature of their question), Kova broke the silence with, “Can I ask what your intentions are with my brother?”

Octavia nearly choked on her spit. She leaned over the railing as she coughed, but eventually broke out into a laugh. “Are you giving me a shovel talk?”

Thumping her back, Kova couldn’t help but soften their eyes. “No. But I am curious.”

“Huh. Well, I’m interested in your brother.” Octavia’s cheeks flushed. She suddenly found her nails interesting and picked at them. “Really interested.”

“Do you like him?”

“Yeah.” She would have been more shocked at her quick answer if she hadn’t known her feelings already. “I do. A lot.”

Of course, this entire time Octavia knew she had been talking with Kova, Lincoln’s sibling. But it suddenly struck her as fast as a train that this was Lincoln’s sibling. As in the person closest to him in the entire world. Shouldn’t she be proving her feelings towards their brother? Shouldn’t she say more than ‘I like him a lot?’

“Mn.” Kova nodded slowly, unaware of Octavia’s sudden flustered panic. “Good.”

Octavia paused. “Good?”

“Good. As long as he’s happy, you don’t have to worry about me.”

A pause.

Ah.

So it was a shovel talk.

The two made eye contact. Octavia was the first to burst out into a light laugh, one that made the corners of Kova’s lips quirk up. Yeah. They could see where Lincoln’s infatuation came from.

Their conversation ended when Kova’s ears picked up the crunch of leaves and twigs in the forest closest to them. They snapped their head to the side, alerting Octavia. The two stood up just as three figures came out of the forest. Despite Kova’s mask in the way, Octavia understood the questioning look they gave her, and gave them a safe nod.

One girl, presumably Clarke, and two boys, one of which Kova easily recognized as Finn, the boy Lincoln had stabbed.

“So that’s how you set this up.” Clarke’s eyes glanced between the boys behind her and Octavia. “You helped that grounder escape, didn’t you?” An all too familiar accusatory tone laced her words.

That word didn’t seem nice. Hmm. She reminded Kova of General Tristan. That was already a bad sign. Before Octavia could respond, Kova stepped in between her and Clarke. “The ‘grounder’ you speak of is my brother,” Kova bit out, “and it was I who rescued him.”

“You? How?”

Kova dipped their head ever so slightly, locking eyes with Clark dead on. “If you truly do not know, then I believe you should update your security measures.”

To Octavia, Kova’s personality did a complete 180 compared to who she had been talking to a few moments beforehand. Now she understood what Lincoln had meant when he said, ‘They might be cold to you at first, maybe even sharp, but once you get to know them, they’ll warm up.’ They were neither of those things when they had started talking, but now…

Their straight and tall posture displayed for all the confidence of someone who had expertise of these situations, of someone who took no shit, of someone who had been there, done that. Kova’s presence certainly created a challenging atmosphere, one that Lincoln would find in handy.

Clarke, poor Clarke, grew both uncomfortable and seemingly irritated at the sudden switch in the situation, her face going tight and her eyebrows wrinkling. “I see. Who are you? Are you the one I’m meeting with today?”

Kova didn’t respond, they merely stared at her. The skin under their eyes twitched, a movement Octavia recognized from before. Ah. She wanted to smack herself in the forehead for not realizing, and she suddenly found herself in the same place as Kova, struggling to hold back her laugh.

Imagine? Imagine if Kova had been the Lieutenant? Imagine if the sky people had tortured the brother of the Lieutenant they were meeting with today? What a stroke of bad luck that would have been — the sky people wouldn’t even be able to negotiate a way out of their situation. Hell, they would be fortunate if they made it out of the bridge alive.

Oh, to most people Clarke’s face seemed stone cold, but Octavia could practically feel the panic thrumming in waves from the sky people’s leader. Taking pity, she took charge. “This is Kova.” Octavia placed a hand on their shoulder. “They’re the one helping us today with Lieutenant Anya.”

They raised an eyebrow at that. “The Lieutenant? Not the Chief?”

“Nope, Lincoln said it would be best to skip the Chief and went straight to the Lieutenant. I was shocked too.”

Octavia truly had intense whiplash from Kova’s sudden personality change, and didn’t know how to respond when they gave her a succinct nod. Thankfully, Octavia didn’t have time to over think it, because Kova started talking.

“My brother, despite everything, was kind enough to set up this meeting between you and the Lieutenant. You must provide her with good reasons why Trikru shouldn’t declare war. If she thinks it is sound, then she will pass the message on to the Commander. Did you prepare?”

“Naturally. I—” Clarke paused. Something caught her attention behind Kova. But just as Kova turned to look, something bright shined across their eyes for a brief moment. Their gaze turned to the tree line over the bridge. They switched their gaze to Octavia when her warm hand left their shoulder. She ran across the bridge to—

Lincoln.

He jogged towards them from the other side. He must have came after talking with the Lieutenant. Kova used the distraction to coax Clarke to the side of the bridge. She followed with little reluctance, as if knowing what Kova would say.

They jutted their chin towards the bank of the dry creek. Clarke’s back-up contrasted severely against the green bushes. Kova’s mere presence seemed to have forced Clarke’s back-up out of their hiding spot behind the bushes for a better view.

“Guns aren’t permitted. If the Lieutenant sees them, she’ll kill you on the spot.” Kova stated. “But seeing as you all seemed to have been taught to use them, you are allowed to have use them, so long as those three,” They jutted their chin once more. “can hide properly. I have to say, it is physically hurting me to see how careless they are.”

Flustered, Clarke turned around to face the trio. She signaled them to move back, to hide themselves lower in the thickets. Once they were concealed properly, Clarke gave Kova a silent nod of gratitude before heading back to the others waiting for her.

Kova remained where they stood. They stared silently into the distance before turning their sharp gaze on the trio. Based on the rustling of the bushes, Kova must have startled them. Satisfied with their coverage, they sent them a thumbs up before heading back to their position.

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It had been a struggle to set up the guns at the bank of the dried river, but Raven, Jasper, and Bellamy managed to make it work despite all the foliage around them. Jasper muttered under his breath in the background while Raven and Bellamy remained posted by the guns. The two figured it was best for him to let off some steam by organizing their water and snacks.

Raven looked through the optic of her rifle towards the bridge. Her eyebrows furrowed. “Hey, where did Octavia come from?”

The fear that shot throughout Bellamy was enough for him to grab his rifle and peep through the optic. Jasper followed suit and said, “Who’s the grounder next to her?”

Well, they certainly weren’t the grounder that escaped the camp not too long ago. That one was bald, brown skinned, and tall. This one had long dreads, dark skin, and although they were tall, they weren’t as tall as the other one. There wasn’t much else they could say about the new grounder, since an intricate mask covered the entirety of their face.

“Do you think that’s who Clarke’s supposed to meet?”

“Don’t know, don’t care.” Bellamy muttered before taking aim.

Raven immediately pushed his gun down by the muzzle, an appalled look on her face. “Bellamy, what do you think you’re doing?”

He pulled his gun back, his famous scowl back on his face. “Waiting for this shitshow to blow up.”

“What—?”

Before Raven could scold him, Jasper interrupted with, “Guys, somethings going on.”

The three of them looked through the opticals. There was movement in the trees opposite of their side of the bridge before someone came jogging out. It was the same grounder they had captured!

“What’s Octavia doing— Oh.”

Octavia had practically thrown herself into the grounder’s arms. The two embraced one another tightly. There was no question what their relationship could possibly be.

Jasper felt his heart sink deep into his chest, a pain strong enough to make the scar throb.

“Well, I guess we know how he got away now.” Raven remarked with a smirk, unaware of Jasper’s change in mood and purposefully ignoring the way Bellamy seethed with anger. Her eyes flickered back to their side of the bridge. “We got movement with Clarke and the new grounder.”

The trio watched carefully. To their shock, the grounder jutted their head directly towards them without sparing a glance. For a moment, the trio panicked, under the assumption that they had been caught by this grounder leader, and thus destroying the chance at a deal. But because of the mask, they couldn’t tell the grounder was still talking until, to their shock, Clarke turned and signaled for them to move farther back behind the foliage.

The trio did as told without hesitation.

Once Clarke felt satisfied, she nodded to the grounder, as if showing her thanks, and made her way back to Wells and Finn. Huh.

“What was that about?”

“Are both grounders helping us?”

The grounder hadn’t moved, even long after Clarke left their presence. Now that they were heavily covered by surrounding bushes, Bellamy knew there was little to no way the grounder could directly see them. But as he peered through his optical, the grounder seeemd to have looked straight at him. He hated the shudder that ran up his spine.

After a moment, as if scanning their area, the grounder sent them a discreet thumbs up before turning away and heading out of sight.

“It seems like we have a new friend?” Raven elbowed Bellamy’s side. Not wanting to decipher whatever look she was giving him, he turned away.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Back on the bridge, Kova joined the rest of the group and clapped Lincoln’s shoulder. “How’s everything?”

He nodded briefly. “The Lieutenant is pissed, but she’s willing to—”

The bridge under their feet rumbled, followed by the sounds of hoofbeats. The two Trikruvians winced at the familiar noise, but the invaders had no idea what it was, and their eyes flickered across the bridge in a crazed panic.

Clarke looked past the group and towards the other side of the bridge. “Oh my god,” Her mouth dropped slightly in excited shock, “are those horses?”

“Don’t look too happy about it.” Kova muttered.

Three horses came into view, Anya in the lead with two warriors beside her. The two warriors carried swords, but it seemed the Lieutenant did not.

“Hey, we said no weapons.” Finn protested, placing him between Clarke and the other side.

“We were told there wouldn’t be.” Lincoln glanced at Kova, as if to say ‘guess you were right.’

“It’s too late now.” Clarke brushed past Finn and made her way to the middle of the bridge.

He and Wells sent each other a look before stepping forward, as if to follow her. Until Kova and Lincoln stuck their arms out, shaking their head. “No. She has to go alone.”

“But—”

“I’ll take responsibility. I won’t let anything happen to her — you have my word.” They placed a hand on Wells’ shoulder, as sturdy as their gaze. Wells and Finn glanced at one another, then to Octavia, who gave them a subtle nod. The two boys conceded and went to sit next to her.

Kova could feel the heavy weight of Lincoln’s worried gaze once the two boys were out of earshot. “Don’t stress.” They murmured and lightly bumped their shoulder against his. “You focus on making this crazy ass plan of yours work. I’ll focus on keeping the kids alive.”

Out of the corner of their eye they saw him practically break his neck to look at them in shock. They would have found his reaction hilarious if it weren’t for their situation.

“…kids.”

Kova nodded. “Kids. They’re only two or three years older than Artigas. So. They’re children to me. I feel like I should say be something about you and Octavia…”

Lincoln stiffened.

“…but I already had a talk with her earlier. It all seems good. Treat her well.”

“…of course.”

Their conversation fell off after that once Lieutenant Anya walked up to the meeting point, holding the confidence of someone with three decades of warrior and battle experience under her belt. Not once did she waver, nor did her expression change during her talk with Clarke. To Kova and Lincoln, this was a good sign, and the two of them relaxed their tense bodies ever so slightly, arms crossed, leaning against one another.

“They seem to be doing fine so far.” Kova commented quietly, as if their voice could carry across the bridge.

“Mn.”

“How does it seem like they’re doing fine?” Wells’ panicked voice would have surprised the two siblings if they hadn’t heard his feet snap what seemed like every twig littering the bridge. “Your Lieutenant looks like she’s about to kill her at any moment.”

“But the fact is, she hasn’t.” Kova pointed out. “She hasn’t even glanced at her weapons, if she has any. It’s a good sign that your leader isn’t completely incompetent, at least.”

Truthfully, Kova regretted the words as soon as they left their lips. Even they could tell when their words were too harsh, and it was quite obvious they had offended Wells, as well as Finn who came up to them. The two boys straightened to their full heights. But before they could defend their leader—

“They’re about to shoot! CLARKE!” A boy’s voice bellowed from the bank of the bridge. “RUN CLARKE! THERE'S GROUNDERS IN THE TREES!”

Everyone twisted their head towards the noise, but Lincoln was the one who ran up to the side of the bridge only to find a sky boy at the bank of the dried creek, still shouting to warn his leader. “Clarke brought back-up?”

“Mn—” Before Kova could elaborate, gunshots rang throughout the area. The leaves were still plenty and bountiful, but even the trees couldn’t hide the thumps! of bodies hitting the ground. Too many bodies, actually.

Heart hammering against their chest, breath hitched, Kova found themselves trapped in their thoughts until someone bumped into their shoulder running by them. Before they could react, Lincoln stepped in front of the runner. Wells barreled into Lincoln’s arm, calling out Clarke’s name in fear, but Lincoln was much stronger than the younger boy and dragged him away from the bridge. “Don’t! The scouts will shoot you down.”

Lincoln had only been expecting at least one of the three sky people to try and run across the bridge to save Clarke, which is how he had managed to catch Wells easily. Yet when he looked back to Octavia and Finn behind him, Wells in his arms, he caught a glimpse of someone sprinting past him.

He had almost called out their name. Almost. He managed to stop himself, thankfully. But with no way to help them, he felt useless.

His grip around Wells tightened.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Clarke had heard of the flight, fight, and freeze response, but there were no predators in space, and she had no idea what it truly felt like until now. She had only looked away from Lieutenant Anya for a moment — just for a single moment — when a strong shiver ran up her back, her body stiffening, hair standing on end, a heavy pit forming deep in her gut.

On instinct she turned back, raising her arms to protect herself (from what?). She only managed to catch a glimpse of shiny silver and the screech of metal scraping against metal before she felt someone’s hand on her shoulder, pulling her away.

The sheer unexpected force of the defensive move sent the Lieutenant’s arm reeling back. She stumbled over the debris of the old bridge. Kova stood in Clarke’s place, one hand holding a dagger and the other a barrier between the two.

The Lieutenant gathered herself and stepped forward to attack. Everyone flinched at the sound of a loud bang! followed by the sound of a bullet hitting its mark. Kova looked only to find the Lieutenant on the floor, clutching her shoulder and roaring in pain.

Not one to waste an opportunity, they grabbed Clarke by the back of her arm, shouting, “Go, go!”

“Fire!”

Kova paled. They looked over their shoulder as the two ran. The two warriors the Lieutenant had brought were now at her side, two large shields across their back. From the forest, as if in slow motion, dozen arrows shot up in the air, followed by half a dozen more. They had practiced how to avoid the arrows in training by prediction, but not once did Kova consider they would actually have to use this information against their clan.

Their predictions found a safe zone up ahead. If they had been alone, they would have made it with ease. But Clarke had neither the stamina nor the speed to reach it in time.

‘Ah. I took responsibility.’

They jammed their dagger back into its sheath and tackled Clarke to the ground, using their own body as a shield.

The arrows darted around the two. They counted each sound of seventeen arrows embedding into the ground around them, wincing at #14 who landed just by their head. For a moment, Kova wondered what happened to #18 when they felt a scorching fire shooting up from the outside of their left calf.

They looked over. The arrow sliced their pant leg and barely nicked their skin, thankfully avoiding Clarke altogether, but the pain grew intense with every throb of their heartbeat to the point of sudden intense nausea. They groaned, pressing their forehead against the cement below and gritting their teeth, taking deep breaths, eyebrows scrunched together.

Ah, unfortunately this pain was all too familiar for Kova. Trikru’s archers could be quite deadly when they wanted to be, and it wasn’t below them to dip arrowheads into vials of fire ant venom. If potent enough and in the right place, it could kill a person. If this were another time, Kova could only thank the Gods for the luck they bestowed on them. 1, the arrow didn’t land in the right place. 2, the arrow only nicked them. 3, the venom was certainly not potent enough.

But as they rolled off of Clarke onto their back, facing the blue sky, their eyesight slowly going white, leg twitching in pain, they couldn’t bring themselves to even think, let alone thank the Gods.

The bridge rumbled with hoofbeats, and for a moment they thought they heard Clarke talking to them, but all they could manage was a quiet groan. Next thing they knew, they felt hands lifting them up and over someone’s shoulder. Their head lolled around, and in their haze, they thought Trikru might have captured them, and tried to fight back. Kova slammed tight fists into the person’s spine to let them go, only to be surprised that the person could take their hits without wavering. In reality, they were only lightly tapping the person’s lower back with loose, curled fingers.

“—they’ll be safer with you guys for now, so please take them with you. Run and don’t stop until you’re behind your walls.”

“…A-Lin?” Their question was barely audible, the cloudiness of both their head and vision intensifying. They waved a hand in his general direction. A pair of shoes popped into their vision, and a warm hand settled gently on the back of their head. “Good luck fixing all that.”

“Thanks.” Kova could hear the small smile in his voice. “Don’t worry. I’ll come and find you when it’s all clear.”

“Mn.” They only managed to give a weak nod before their body finally gave up on retaining consciousness. But before they knocked out, they sent a thumbs up towards their brother.

***

Reluctantly, Lincoln brought his hand away, releasing a heavy sigh. He thanked Wells, who had offered to carry Kova. Wells could only nod, his face scrunched up as if all his energy went into holding them. Lincoln then turned to Octavia to give her a light kiss on the forehead before jogging off to where the Lieutenant had retreated to.

He had a lot of work to settle.

Just as he left their sight, Raven, Jasper, and Bellamy arrived at the foot of the bridge. The group merged and ran through the forest. Halfway through Bellamy noticed Octavia and Wells lagging behind and waved at them, urging them to hurry up, but he paused halfway through his wave, his face falling from disbelief to anger. “Why are you carrying that g—!”

“Bellamy, not right now!” Octavia snapped. “We don’t have time, and they saved Clarke.”

He opened his mouth—

“She’s right.” To everyone’s surprise, Clarke agreed. “Let’s bring them back now and talk about it later.”

As much as Bellamy wanted to argue, even he knew this wasn’t the right time nor place. “Fine. But we don’t have time for this,” he gestured vaguely to Wells’ trembling form, “either. Pass them over.’

If they weren’t in a dangerous situation, Wells would have felt at least a little offended. Instead, he passed the unconscious grounder over, Octavia helping with the process. Once Bellamy settled the grounder on his back, both arms curled under their legs, the group ran back to camp.

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The group slowed to a quick-paced walk once they were near the camp, much to Bellamy’s dismay. The grounder was heavy — there were too many times where he had thought he would topple over a root and under their weight. Now that the group no longer rushed through the foliage of the forest and the momentum was lost, the grounder felt even more burdensome — physically and mentally. How the fuck were they gonna explain why they brought a groun—

A steady, warm breath enveloped the back of his neck.

He detested the shiver running up his spine to the top of his scalp.

As if that weren’t enough, the next breath made its way between his leather jacket and shirt, leaving behind an even stronger warmth across his upper back.

The walk also meant Bellamy noticed little things from the grounder, like the loose arms across perpendicular to his shoulders, bouncing with every step, the expanding of their chest against his back, the twitch of their fingers—

The stiffening of thighs and calves against the hands underneath the back of their knees.

A soft groan.

Twitching fingers clenching, forming tight fists.

Before he could alert the rest of the group of the grounder’s awakening, the thighs in his hands suddenly pushed down with all their weight, forcing him to drop their legs. The once loose arms suddenly wrapped across his abdomen—

Bellamy only caught a glimpse of Octavia and Wells turning towards him in shock before his world flipped. The trees and the sky streaked across his vision until his shoulder landed against the forest floor—

There was no pop, but something definitely shifted. He let out a loud groan and rolled to his front, leaning on his uninjured arm.

“Hey!”

“Wait!”

With everyone shouting, it was a wonder that Bellamy heard the sound of metal unsheathing. He fell back on his butt, narrowly avoiding the swipe of their dagger. He noticed the grounder stayed close to the ground, favoring their injured leg.

Unfortunately, taking note of this meant he couldn’t dodge the next swipe. He flinched with the cut to his cheekbone, warmth trailing down his face. In his panic, he scrambled back, trying to evade each strike until his back slammed against a tree.

Oh. Oh no.

The grounder reversed their grip on their knife, the butt of the blade against their thumb, and struck at his neck.

Bellamy might not have been the strongest in the Ark’s cadet force, but he certainly wasn’t weak. Yet when he blocked their attack, slamming his forearms into theirs, his other hand supporting and exerting more force, he found himself struggling under their strength. The dagger, shaking under the force of both sides, was far too close for comfort now.

His gaze rose from the pointed end to the grounder. He had expected the grounder’s eyes to be focused, sharp, merciless, piercing him just as the dagger would. Instead, he found wide eyes, shaky hazy pupils glazed over with pain and panic.

Blood rushed in his ears. He couldn’t hear the shouts and warnings from the others around them, except for one clear call.

“Kova!”

As if a spell broke, the grounder’s panicked eyes widened and looked to the side of the direction where the voice came from, breath hitching in their chest, the momentum of their strength trembling.

Bellamy struck the bottom of the grounder’s chin with the palm of his hand.

The mask clunked! against their face, the ribbons unraveling, and it slipped off, landing out of reach along with the dagger. The grounder fell back from their crouched position onto their butt, and for a brief moment, Bellamy thought he was safe. Until the grounder used the moment and rolled back, landing on their feet in fighting position, legs trembling, ready to strike with bare fists—

“Kova!”

The grounder’s dreads fell over their face, and before Bellamy could catch a clear look, Octavia stepped in between the two, holding her arms out in a placating manner. Briefly, Bellamy wondered when his little sister started growing up, and when did she start protecting him?

“It’s alright. You’re safe. This is my brother, the one I mentioned before. He helped us.”

The grounder didn’t respond. Fear spiked in Bellamy’s heart, but before he could move in front of Octavia, the grounder dropped their arms and fell to their knees, hunching over. Octavia cried out their name and rushed to their side without hesitation, pressing a hand against their chest to prevent them from falling over.

Using the tree behind him, Bellamy took the opportunity to stand and looked at his people. Clarke, Wells, Raven, and Jasper stood around, completely stunned. Whether by what just happened or because of Octavia, Bellamy couldn’t tell. “Thanks.” He grunted towards Jasper, the one closest to him.

“What, you expected me to go against that?”

“Are you okay?” Came Octavia’s hushed murmurs.

Bellamy turned to answer, only to find Octavia pressing the mask against the grounder’s face, helping them keep it on straight while the grounder reached behind their head and tied the ribbons firmly. Betrayal and anger bubbled slowly in his chest. “Shouldn’t you be asking me that?” He snapped.

Imagine his surprise when, while helping the grounder stand, Octavia sent him an annoyed look! Dumbfounded, he opened his mouth—

“Sorry, I’m sorry. Panicked.” The grounder murmured.

While Bellamy couldn’t catch a clear look of their face, he saw how they leaned heavily against his sister, head hanging, hunched over, one leg trembling worse than the other. How could one arrow cause so much damage? He wouldn’t have believed it for a second if not for the eyes he had seen behind the mask up close.

“Kova, you okay?” Octavia asked again. “What happened back there on the bridge? Lincoln didn’t tell us why you passed out like that.”

“Fire ant venom.” Kova gritted out. “Pretty common for Trikru to use in battle, not so common for them to use it during a negotiation meeting. Then again—” Full of resentment and anger, the single eye visible through their curtain of dreads landed on Jasper, who flinched and curled away from them. “—it wasn’t like they had much of a choice.” They glanced at Clarke before turning downcast, hiding away from the group. “They aimed for your leader’s heart. She would have died. I promised I would take responsibility.”

Wells and Finn startled ever so slightly at that. They sent each other a look Bellamy couldn’t decipher.

Suddenly, Finn turned to Clarke, an angry look with hints of betrayal flashed across his face. “I told you not to bring guns!”

“And I told you we couldn’t trust them, I was right!”

“You didn’t have to trust them, you just had to trust me.”

A bitter, weak laugh caught the two off guard. Everyone turned back to Kova. “Foolish boy. Take your fragile pride elsewhere.” They gritted out. “You should be praising your leader. It was smart to bring back-up.”

Before Finn could respond, he felt a hand grab his shoulder. He was face to face with a very angry Raven. “And why didn’t you tell me what you were up to?”

“I tried, but you were too busy making bullets for your guns!”

“The grounder’s right.” Hmm. That didn’t sit right in Bellamy’s mouth, but he continued. “You’re lucky she brought that. Those grounders came to kill you, Finn.”

“You don’t know that, Jasper fired the first shot!”

“A mix of both.” Said Kova. “Trikru, naturally, would be ready to kill, but not unprovoked. Just as your gunmen had their sights on the Lieutenant, the archers had their sights on Clarke. They only shot because of that one.” They jutted their head towards Jasper, who flinched and looked away, rubbing at his arms.

“Raven.” Octavia called gently. She noticed Kova’s words began slurring together gradually. “Help me bring them to my tent?”

“…sure.”

“Whoa,” Bellamy held Octavia’s free shoulder as she tried to pass him. “Who said they’re sleeping in your tent?”

“Where else would they sleep?”

“The dropship, obviously. What if they try to kill you?”

“That’s a stupid idea.” Octavia’s eyebrows scrunched into a frown. “Say we put them in the dropship. They wake up, can’t recognize their surroundings, and start panicking. Are you trying to get sliced up by them again?” Before Bellamy could respond, she kept going. “At least if they’re in my tent, they can recognize me, and recognize they’re safe, like they did now.”

“You don’t have to worry about Octavia.” Kova’s deep voice grew quieter and quieter every time they spoke, as if it took up all their energy to speak. “I’m not dangerous to anyone like this—”

‘My cheek says otherwise,’ Bellamy thought bitterly.

“—let alone to Lincoln’s… interest.”

“…interest.” Bellamy gritted out.

“Bellamy.” Clarke stood next to him, dropping a placating hand on his shoulder. “They saved my life. Twice, actually. Lincoln said it before — it’s not safe for them to return to the grounders since they helped us.” She turned to Raven and nodded. Raven returned the gesture and moved to Kova’s other side, swinging one of their arms around her shoulders. “We’re letting them stay. Bring them to Octavia’s.”

“Got it.”

With a sigh, fists on his hips, Bellamy had no choice but to reluctantly yield, stepping to the side. Octavia and Raven dragged Kova into the camp. Bellamy turned to Clarke, as if wanting to argue more, but before he could speak—

Boom!

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#bellamy blake x oc #bellamy blake x reader #bellamy blake imagine #bellamy blake imagines #the 100 fic #the 100 imagines #the night our stars aligned (and our breaths touched)#bellamy blake #the 100 #writeblr #wip fanfic

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callummcgee001 · 4 years ago

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Song review of ‘Look through my eyes’ Phil Collins.

This song has always been one of my top 5 favourites for magical soundtracks. This song is an early 2000’s Disney movie: Brother bear. This engaging story shows the stubborn views of a young Inuit native named Kenai, who kills a mother bear in grief; and is transformed into a bear by the spirit of his deceased brother. I’ve linked the song below, check it out!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ZfkYYa_keM

This song is an upbeat pop genre that wants to emphasise messages of life in Phil’s collins voice. The song lyrics relate to Kenai’s character ark of believing all bears are killers, and he must learn from the eyes of a bear why it’s not all black and white. This song always speaks to me due to talking about an issue of mankind that I am very passionate about, treating all life besides ourselves equally, and not to look for the things that make us different, but things we all have in common.

The pop music/rock creates a catchy beat that is meant to give hope and happiness, rather than other songs that talk about delicate topics, which usually are blues music. Phil Collins voice has a captivating ring to it, a loud soothing voice that gives life to the lyrics he’s telling us.

The lyrics ‘There’s a better place

Somewhere out there

Just take a look through my eyes

Everything changes

You’ll be amazed by what you find’

-means we should see things through the animal’s point of view; instead of dismissing those different from you and me as mindless killers, maybe we should look at ourselves, and see how our actions affect others on Earth.

Some lyrics such as:

‘There are things in life you learn,

And oh in time you’ll see

It’s out there somewhere,

It’s all waiting

If you keep believing

So don’t run

Don’t hide

It will be alright

You’ll see

Trust me

I’ll be there watching over you, Just take a look through my eyes’

These lyrics talk about how everyone should let go of their fears holding them back and go out and find the best parts of life with an open heart and mindset. It could mean go through life with a positive outlook by not letting shackles of hate and bitterness hold you down.

You can tell by listening to Phil’s bellowing vocals the song was influenced by pop and rock music to create a catchy beat alongside his tuned voice. His voice goes from encouraging and loud to a lower calmness; as if he’s talking to the listeners directly in between as the background rock pauses, this casual singing is his way of conveying to us clearly what he’s saying in the lyrics has a more significant meaning.

The message of life overall is the theme of the song:

Other lyrics from the song below:

‘There will be times on this journey,

All you’ll see is darkness,

But out there somewhere

Daylight finds you

If you keep believing

So don’t run

Don’t hide

It will be alright

You’ll see’

These lyrics quote the inevitable hardships life has install for all of us, but Phil Collins points out that no matter how bad we feel in parts of life, it won’t last forever- like a great sea, there are ups and downs its how you bounce back is what really counts.

I believe the theme of this song is Humans won’t progress until they jump down from their high horses and look at every living creature, and race around them as equals whom are worthy of love and respect.

The cultural aspect of this song is about the Inuit people who lived in Alaska, Greenland and Canada, and centres around their cultural beliefs and relationship with nature and the spirits.

#new writers society #writing #writinglove #writingcommunity #aspiring writer #newwriterblog #newwriterscommunity #Fictionlover #bookclub #bookstagram #song review

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jcmarchi · 11 months ago

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Here Are The Top Performing Steam Games Of 2023

New Post has been published on https://thedigitalinsider.com/here-are-the-top-performing-steam-games-of-2023/

Here Are The Top Performing Steam Games Of 2023

Valve has released its annual “Best Of” list highlighting the top-performing games on Steam measured by gross revenue and player engagement.

The categories are top sellers, best-selling new releases, most-played games on PC, most-played games on Steam Deck, highest-grossing early access games, most-played using a controller, and best-selling VR titles. The top 12 games in each category earn Platinum status, while everything below them is grouped into a descending ranking of Gold, Silver, and Bronze. It’s a fun snapshot of the games Steam users dug into most this year and a reminder that games seemingly on the downtrend or long in the tooth (like, say, Destiny 2) clearly have a lot of players still logging in to play.

You can view the complete list here, but we’ve listed the Platinum-ranked games alphabetically in each category (Valve does not rank these games).

Top Sellers (highest gross revenue earned in 2023)

Apex Legends

Baldur’s Gate 3

Call of Duty (MW III, Warzone, MW II)

Counter-Strike 2

Cyberpunk 2077

Destiny 2

Dota 2

Hogwarts Legacy

Lost Ark

PUBG: Battlegrounds

Sons of the Forest

Starfield

New Releases (most revenue earned during first two weeks of launch)

Armored Core VI: Fires of Rubicon

Baldur’s Gate 3

Cities: Skylines II

EA Sports FC 24

Hogwarts Legacy

Payday 3

Remnant II

Resident Evil 4 (remake)

Sons of the Forest

Starfield

Star Wars Jedi: Survivor

Street Fighter 6

Most Played (number of peak concurrent player counts over 40,000)

Apex Legends

Baldur’s Gate 3

Counter-Strike 2

Destiny 2

Dota 2

Goose Goose Duck

Hogwarts Legacy

Lost Ark

PUBG: Battlegrounds

Sons of the Forest

Starfield

Early Access (highest gross revenue earned before and after launching in 1.0 this year)

Against the Storm

Baldur’s Gate 3

Dave the Diver

Demonologist

Disney Dreamlight Valley

Everspace 2

Farlight 84

Marvel Snap

My Time at Sandrock

Ready or Not

Sun Haven

Wartales

Steam Deck (most played games on the device based on daily active player counts this year)

Armored Core VI: Fires of Rubicon

Baldur’s Gate 3

Cyberpunk 2077

Dave the Diver

Elden Ring

Half-Life

Hogwarts Legacy

Grand Theft Auto V

Resident Evil 4 (remake)

Starfield

Vampire Survivors

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt

Controller (games most played using a gamepad)

Apex Legends

Armored Core VI: Fires of Rubicon

Call of Duty (MW III, Warzone, MW II)

EA Sports FC 24

Elden Ring

FIFA 23

Hogwarts Legacy

NBA 2K23

Resident Evil 4 (remake)

Rocket League

Starfield

Street Fighter 6

VR (highest revenue earned)

Beat Saber

Blade & Sorcery

Bonelab

Boneworks

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim VR

Five Nights at Freddy’s: Help Wanted 2

Ghosts of Tabor

Gorilla Tag

Half-Life: Alyx

Into the Radius VR

Pavlov

VTOL VR

#000 #2023 #amp #Best Of #cities #games #GATE #gold #it #life #list #logging #PC #platinum #Play #Revenue #Rocket #snap #star wars #Sun #time #view #VR

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babylon-crashing · 5 years ago

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shamanic armenia

... from Michael Berman’s Shamanic Journeys Across the Caucasus (2009, pages 21-32)

If the Scriptures are rightly understood, it was in Armenia that Paradise was placed. – Armenia, which has paid as dearly as the descendants of Adam for that fleeting participation of its soil in the happiness of him who was created from its dust. It was in Armenia that the flood first abated, and the dove alighted. But with the disappearance of Paradise itself may be dated almost the unhappiness of the country ; for though long a powerful kingdom, it was scarcely ever an indipendent one, and the satraps of Persia and the pachas of Turkey have alike desolated the region where God created man in his own image (taken from Lord Byron, Letters and Journals, Leslie Marchand (cd.), London, 1976, vol. V, p.157).

What can we say about Armenia? “There is no other country like her. She has played a unique and perhaps indispensable role as a buffer between Asia and Europe, a mediator between two seemingly irreconcilable civilizations and ways of life. And her dark beauty is eternal” (Surmelian, 1968, pp.23-24).

Located in the southern Caucasus, Armenia is the smallest of the former Soviet republics, and is bounded by Georgia in the north, Azerbaijan in the east, Iran in the south, and Turkey in the west. Frequently referred to as one of the cradles of civilization, it is also considered by many to have been the first country in the world to officially embrace Christianity as its religion (c. 300).

Armenia, like neighboring Georgia, is in a region which is a crossroads between Asia and Europe, and has more often than not been conquered by the dominant regional power of the day, starting with the Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians, Macedonians, through to the Ottomans and finally the Russians. As a result, an Armenian diaspora has thus existed more or less throughout the nation's history, with emigration having been particularly heavy since independence. So much so, that an estimated 60% of the total eight million Armenians worldwide now live outside the country. Nevertheless, once again like Georgia, the country has managed to hold onto a unique cultural and linguistic identity which is reflected in its folklore.

As a consequence of Soviet era policies, the number of active religious practitioners in the country is relatively low, but the link between Armenian ethnicity and the Armenian Church is strong. An estimated 90 percent of citizens nominally belong to the Armenian Church/ an independent Eastern Christian denomination with its spiritual center at the Etchmicidzin cathedral and monastery.

It is all too easy these days to paint a totally negative picture of life under Soviet communism, especially when it comes to the matter of religious freedom, but in the case of Armenia it would be an injustice to do so for:

Soviet communism protected the Armenian people from Turkism ... Moreover, despite its internationalist posture, communism built up a nation in Soviet Armenia from individuals and groups of widely differing geographic origins. The power to withstand, and the sense of nationhood, have to be balanced against the totalitarianism and Stalinism which were part of the state ideology, although less visible at the start (Walker, 1997, p.140).

As for the current status of religious freedom, although the Armenian Constitution as amended in December 2005 provides for freedom of religion, the reality of the situation is that the Armenia (Apostolic) Church, which has formal legal status as the national church, enjoys some privileges not available to other religious groups. Societal attitudes towards some minority religious groups appear to be somewhat ambivalent too, with reports of societal discrimination directed against members of these groups.

Only registered groups may publish newspapers or magazines, rent meeting places, broadcast programs on television or radio, or officially sponsor the visas of visitors, although there is no prohibition on individual members doing so. And to qualify for registration, religious organizations must, “be free from materialism and of a purely spiritual nature,” and must subscribe to a doctrine based on, “historically recognized holy scriptures.” In the case of religions based on ritual observance rather than “holy scriptures” though, were an application for registration made, it is unclear what scriptures could be presented to the Office of the State Registrar to satisfy such a requirement.

We find what is now Armenia referred to in the Old Testament, with the Book of Genesis relating how:

Noah's Ark, as the waters of the flood subsided, came to rest, not “on Mount Ararat” as is commonly misstated --- the Armenians call this Mount Masis, a name (Masios) used by Greek geographers to denote a range to the south-west --- but, “upon the mountains of (the land of) Ararat,” i.e. a country known to the ancient Assyrians as Urartu (Downing, 1972, p. ix).

The region of Ararat was then invaded by the Armenians after the Urartian kingdom, plagued by Assyrian and Cimmerian attacks, fell to the Medes in 612 B.C. The most momentous event in the national life of Armenia, however, and the event which was the chief determining factor in the early history of the country, was the change of religion made by the adoption of Christianity, which was finally established by Tiridates (A.D. 286-342).

By this the Armenians were entirely severed from the pagan Persians and brought into close contact with the Greeks, whose representative was then the Emperor of Byzantium. As a result of this religious agreement, a treaty was concluded in 319 between Tiridates and Constantine, the first Christian Emperor of Rome, by which the two Christian monarchs bound themselves to defend each other against all pagans.

The adoption of Christianity meant, to the Armenians, a revolution in their whole view of life, a severance from their ancestral beliefs, though these beliefs have left traces in Armenian folklore which are visible even to this day. These beliefs and the folklore arising out of them were regarded by the Christian clergy as a poisonous flower grown up in the fields of paganism. The historians of the period have chronicled the efforts of the clergy to exterminate every relic of the old faith. Temples were pulled down and churches built in their stead; images and other monuments were broken in pieces; heathen books and records were destroyed; pagan festivals were turned into Christian ones. We learn from Faustus of Byzantium that laws were even made against the use and the singing of pagan songs (Boyajian, 1916, p. 151).

Nevertheless, despite the fact that the Roman Catholic and Orthodox Christian Churches took the place of the old religions in Europe and across western Eurasia, this applied mainly to the urban centers.

Beyond the borders of Rome's control, in the most northern and eastern fringes and on the western isles, and in the rural environments amongst the "country folk" or pagani, the old religions continued, pejoratively designated after them as Paganism. Even when officially Christianized, the religion of the Pagans remained an assimilation, merely an overlay of the newer cults, or it passed unnoticed under other names, with its myths and beliefs adapting and surviving primarily in less objt'ctionnble forms such as folktales and bizarre or quaint festival rites (Kuck, Staples, et al., 2007, p.3).

And this is very much what occurred in the case of Armenian paganism too. Not only can reminders be found in the traditional dances, songs, and rites still being performed, but also in the folktales still being told. Even after so many centuries of Christianity in Armenia, elements of paganism live on in the country to this day. Moreover, the origins of Armenian paganism could well date back even further into the distant past, when shamanism would have been practiced in the land.

Their concept of the soul, for example, would indicate that this was likely --- the belief that departed bad souls could pursue the living, resulting in their soul loss:

Since it was believed that the soul left the mouth in death, it lived on apart from the body and was invisible. It could assume physical shape somewhat smaller than the body, or an animal shape, the most important of which was a bird ... Even inanimate objects, such as trees, were associated with soul beliefs, and the poor health of a tree symbolized that the human owner was in danger, too.

Departed souls could appear as good or evil. Good ghosts were associated with angels and holy beings; bad ghosts were considered to be the souls of sinners ... In the shape of animals or men these unclean souls appeared before men and brought misfortune to them. Such departed bad souls constantly pursued the living and were eager to take them along. To prevent this, the living flattered the dead with attention and honored them with a Funeral. They provided a hokeh-hatz (funeral dinner) with abundant food for the mourners. If, however, flattery was ineffective, the evil force of the soul might be destroyed by eating part of the dead man's heart, which was, and still is, considered the seat of the soul.

... The belief that the soul of the departed needs special care exists even today. Special prayers for the peace of the departed are still said in church and until recently were chanted in individual homes on Saturday nights over the faint glow of incense. On the Monday after Easter the great celebration of Merelotz [Memorial Day] occurs. In Armenia whole families spent the afternoon at the cemeteries of their departed (Hoogasian-Villa, 1966, p.61).

As for the folktales, they can be divided “into wonder tales ... and realistic tales of everyday life ... although this is a rough distinction at best for there are wonder tales with realistic elements in them, and realistic tales not altogether devoid of the marvelous” (Surmelian, 1968, p.11). The tale presented here is of the former type.

Epithets are frequently used in the stories. In The Girl Who Changed Into A Boy, there are the examples of “the King's daughter” and “the old woman's daughter.” We never learn their names, only the name of the horse.

Another feature we find is that formulas are repeated, a popular one being “Whether they traveled a long or short time, only God knows.” Frequently, the following disclaimer appears too: “Whether it happened or not ...” or “there was and there wasn't...” As for the story endings, many are a variation on … “Three apples fell from heaven --- one apple for the storyteller, the second for the person listening to the story, and the third for the whole, wide world.” Another common ending formula is “They attained their happiness. May you attain your happiness, too” (Marshall, 2007, p.xxviii).

A comprehensive introduction by Aram Raffi to the religious beliefs and practices that prevailed in Armenia in pre-Christian times can be found in Armenian Legends and Poems and, as a starting point, it is presented below:

The principal god of Armenia was Aramazd, whom the Armenians called “the Architect of the Universe, Creator of Heaven and Earth.” He was also the father of the other gods. The Armenians annually celebrated the festival of this god on the 1st day of Navasard [which, according to the later calendar of pagan Armenia, was in August], when they sacrificed white animals of various kinds — goats, horses, mules, with whose blood they filled goblets of gold and silver. The most prominent sanctuaries of Aramazd were in the ancient city of Ani in Daranali, the burial-place of the Armenian kings, as well as in the village of Bagavan in Bagravand. Aramazd had an attendant incorporeal spirit, named Tir or Grogh (“writer”), whom he sent to earth to watch men and record in a book their good and evil deeds. After death, human souls were conducted by Tir to Aramazd, who opened the book at each soul's record, in accordance with which he assigned a reward or punishment. In a village near Vargharshapat there was a temple of this god, where the priests interpreted dreams after consulting his oracle. The influence of Tir was great in Armenia, for he was a personification of hope and fear. There are traces of the cult of this god in the Armenian language. It is still usual to hear, used as a curse, the expression, “May Grogh take you!” The son of Aramazd was Mikr, Fire. He guided the heroes in battle and conferred wreaths on the victors. The word nu'himi (“temple”) is derived from Mihr; also some Christian names. One of the months in the ancient Armenian calendar (Mehekan) was named after him. His commemoration-day was celebrated with ... great splendour at the beginning of spring. Fires were kindled in the open market-place in his honor, and a lantern lighted from one of these fires was kept burning in his temple throughout the year. This custom of kindling fires in the spring is still observed in some parts of Armenia.

Although the Persians and the Armenians were both worshipers of Mihr, the conceptions and observances of the two nations differed. The Armenian sacred fire was invisible, but the Persian was material and was kept up in all the temples. For this reason the Armenians called the Persians fire-worshipers. But the Armenians had also a visible fire-god, who, although material, was intangible --- the sun --- to which many temples were dedicated and after which one of the months (Areg) was named. Long after the introduction of Christianity, there was a sect of sun-worshipers existent in Armenia, who were called “Children of the Sun.” A small remnant of them is still supposed to be found, dwelling between the Tigris and the Euphrates. Traces of sun-worship are also evident in the Armenian language and in the Armenian literature of Christian times. Some sayings and phrases are still in use which contain references to sun-worship, such as the expression of endearment, “Let me die for your sun!” and the oath, “Let the sun of my son be witness.”

One of the most famous Armenian goddesses was Anahit, who answered to the Greek Artemis and the Roman Diana. As a daughter of Aramazd she was the benefactress of the whole human race; “through her the Armenian land exists, from her it draws its life; she is the glory of our nation and its protectress;” and for her the ancient Armenians felt intense love and adoration.

Many images and shrines were dedicated to her under the names of “the Golden Mother,” “the Being of Golden Birth,” etc. Every summer there was a festival in her honor. On that day, a dove and a rose were offered to her golden image, whence the day was called Vardavar, which means “the flaming of the Rose.” On the introduction of Christianity, the temple of Anahit was destroyed and her festival became the Feast of the Transfiguration of Christ; it falls in the last days of the year according to the ancient Armenian calendar; but the name “Vardavar” still remains and doves are still set flying on that day.

The sister of Anahit was Astghik (which means “little star” in Armenian), the goddess of beauty, a personification of the moon, corresponding to the Phoenician and Sidonian Astarte. Strange to say, the Persians had no goddess of beauty, but the bright sky of Armenia, its numerous valleys, the torrents running down from snow-capped mountains, the lakes, the cultivated fields and meadows tended to strengthen the sense of beauty, and, therefore, Armenia had a goddess of beauty, who was not to be found in the pantheon of the neighboring country.

The Armenians assigned Astghik a husband worthy of her. He was Vahagn, deified on account of his valor. In ancient songs, he is credited with a miraculous birth. The fires of heaven and earth, and the sea crimson in the light of dawn, travailed to bring him into being. ... Vahagn was called Vishapakagh (Uprooter of dragons), as he cleared the Armenian land of monsters and saved it from evil influences. His exploits were known not only in Armenia, but in the abode of the gods. Having stolen corn from the barns of King Barsham of Assyria, he ran away and tried to hide himself in heaven. From the ears he dropped arose the Milky Way, which is called in Armenia the Track of the Corn-stealer.

The third daughter of Aramazd was Nane or Noone. She was the goddess of contrivance. It was believed by the Armenians that contrivance was a necessary power for a woman, because, in the management of the household, she had to make big things out of small ones, and circumstances were already against her on account of the vicissitudes which Armenia was constantly undergoing.

Sandarnmet, the wife of Aramazd, was an invisible goddess and a personification of the earth. Aramazd sent rain upon her, which brought forth the vegetation on the earth. She came to be a synonym of Hades and was very frequently referred to as such in theological books and in the hymnary of the Christian Church.

Besides these gods of their own, the Armenians also adopted alien divinities. When Tigranes brought a number of Phoenicians to Armenia as prisoners they brought with them their god Ammon, from whose name [some say] comes the word Ammonor, “the day of Ammon” --- the New Year. Assyrian, Arab, and other emigrations also led to the introduction of foreign deities. An Armenian king, when he brought home captives, also introduced the gods of those captives, whose images were placed in the temples beside those of the native gods that they most closely resembled. Even Indian fugitives brought the brother-gods, Demetr and Gisanes, whose images were not like those of the other gods of Armenia, for the images of the gods of Armenia are, as a rule, small, whereas these were very tall, with long black hair and black faces. There was also a great immigration of Jews into Armenia, and this influenced the Armenians in the direction of monotheism. Besides the principal gods, there were also secondary ones. These were spirits, corresponding to angels, who acted as guardians to different classes of natural objects: --- Kadjk (which means “brave ones” in Armenian], who occupied the mountains; Parik, who presided over flocks; and many others.

Water was honored in Armenia as a masculine principle. According to Tacitus (Annals, vi. 37) the Armenians offered horses as sacrifices to the Euphrates, and divined by its waves and foam. Sacred cities were built around the river Araxes and its tributaries. Even now there are many sacred springs with healing powers, and the people always feel a certain veneration towards waters in motion.

There were gods who lived in the waters and destroyed harmful monsters of the deep. There was also a god who breathed out a mysterious atmosphere which destroyed malignant creatures. … All the gods of this class were friendly to agriculturists.

There were also “Haurot-Maurot,” the name of a flower (Hyacinthus raccmosus dodonei) first mentioned by Agathangelos. The Arabs incorporated them in the Quran (ii. 96) as two angels sent down to live in Babel in human circumstances.

Alk, who dwelt in the waters, was a very harmful devil. He used to live in the corners of houses and stables, and in damp places. He had eyes of fire, nails of copper, teeth of iron, and the jaws of a wild boar. He carried a sword of iron in his hand and was a bitter enemy to pregnant women, near whom he sat at the time their child was born.

There were nymphs, who were guardians of women. They wandered through gardens and amid streams, but were invisible. They attended weddings and frequented bathrooms and the women's quarters in general. These nymphs and spirits were innumerable. Every woman was supposed to have a guardian nymph. The nymphs were supposed by some to be immortal and endowed with perpetual youth; others described them as mortal though they never grew old. There was also a group of male spirits who were regarded by some as mortal, by others as immortal. They wandered with the nymphs through forests, gardens, and other open places. They were imagined as very tail, with features like those of men; some were half-man and half-animal. Some were called Parik, “dancers” others Hushkn parik, “dancers to a melody in a minor key.”

In some places, even now, a belief in these nymphs (or fairies) survives. Many stories are told of their beauty, their marvelous dancing, and their wondrous music. They are never called by the name of “nymphs,” but are spoken of by the people of the country as “our betters.” Still in some parts of Armenia, in May and October, a festival is held annually in honor of them, generally by the women in the Public Baths. They assemble early in the morning and remain till late at night, dancing, eating, and bathing. Before the people thought of building temples, they worshiped their gods in forests and on mountains. One of these forests was the Forest of Sos. According to tradition, the son of Ara the Beautiful, Anushavan, who devoted himself to the worship of this sacred place, was called, after the forest Sos. The priests derived oracles from the rustling of the leaves in this holy wood.

Besides temples, which were numerous in Armenia, there were, all over the country, altars and shrines, as well as images and pictures.

To sum up, the pre-Christian religion of Armenia was at first “a kind of nature-worship, which developed into polytheism (Boyajian, 1916, pp.l27-13'l). A great many curious ceremonies are observed by the Armenians in connection with such family events as births, marriages, and deaths. A wedding takes a whole week to celebrate, and when a wealthy farmer dies all the inhabitants of the village are publicly invited by the priest in church to the funeral feast. They have also retained a great many strange superstitious practices, and believe in the existence of a variety of supernatural beings possessing propensities and powers both benevolent and malevolent. In the long winter nights, when the snow lies thick in the streets and on the housetops, the women fancy they hear in the howling of the wind the shouts and laughter of these tricksy beings. And the young women and girls, when the day's tasks are done, gather round the grandmother, who relates strange creepy stories of the pranks of the djinns, or charming romances dealing with peris, magicians and enchanted palaces, while the grandfather, sitting cross-legged in his fur-lined pelisse in the corner of the divan, tells the boys tales of the Armenian heroes of old (Lucy Garnett, Turkish Life in Town and Country, London, 1904, pp.176-82).

#armenia #armenian shaman #Shamanic Journeys Across the Caucasus #michael berman #shamanism #caucasus #ararat #reblog

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omousvarii · 7 years ago

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------ @mystiicanatomy ( RAVEN REYES )

Bellamy’s eyes narrowed as he looked over at the brunette girl, her hair in a high ponytail, swaying as she played with the trucks, planes and dinosaurs. that was odd, he hadn’t seen any girls play with boy toys before. walking over to her, he plopped down on the floor beside her, gaze questioning. “ ----why are you playing with these toys? they’re for boys.”

#mystiicanatomy: raven #mystiicanatomy #v. early life on the ark

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sunnetrolls · 4 years ago

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Q to Z for Ark!!!!

Q) Did they do something extremely dangerous at some point in their life?

“I was actively stationed on another planet for ten sweeps. Times five, since I got stationed multiple times. I’d call that pretty dangerous.”

R) Is there something they wish they could do/achieve but can’t?

“Live my own fucking life. Not work fourteen hours a night. Lots of things.”

S) Is there something in their life they regret?

“Joining! The! Fucking! Military! How many times are y’all gonna make me say it, we all know by now.”

T) Do they have any siblings? Family? Loved ones?

“Siblings, no. Family, yes- my lusus. Both of my ancestors are dead. Loved ones, plenty, there’s both my mates and all my kids, adopted and biological.”

U) Are they a morning or night person?

“Both. At some point you wake up early for work enough times that you can’t stop waking up early on your days off too.”

V) Do they have a pet? What kind? If not, what kind of pet would they want?

“Does that freaky fuckin’ bird in the back tunnels count? I wouldn’t call it my pet, or really even a pet at all, since it can talk and is probably smarter than me, or mine either- it’s more Coco’s. It likes her.”

W) How would they describe themselves in 5 or less words?

“Uhh.... Fuck, hmm. Mean, tired, overworked, regretful, but also fatherly. I do my best for them.”

X) Do they have a goal in life? What is it?

“Nothing I can say out loud. You never know who might be listening in.”

Y) Is there anything in their life that’s stopping them from succeeding?

“The government.”

Z) Do they have an item that means a lot to them?

“Yeah. Quite a few. My spatha, some of my more priceless weapons and books, plus a few things I’m too shy or whatever to name.”

#arkkryen things #jesus christ grem that was a lot #the-lime-gang

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adz · 5 years ago

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hi here is my albums of the year list for 2019. i will also put it below under the break. happy nu year friends

ALBUMS I LOVED

Big Thief - U.F.O.F. & Two Hands This band has something so special. It's almost as enjoyable to hear Lenker, the primary songwriter, talk about her philosophy and her connection to her bandmates as it is to listen to their consistently wonderful and gently boundary-pushing music. I've combined these two albums into one list item because they're flip sides of the same coin: spirit and earth, ethereal and corporeal, unknown and known. If you've heard their earlier two albums, you might be put off a little: there aren't any smash hits like Masterpiece on here, nor any doomed ballads like Shark Smile. These albums are a little blurrier, shadows and gleaming bits of light floating past. At times the songs sound less like early Big Thief than they do Adrianne's solo releases: lyric focused, strange sprawling structures, a bit rougher around the edges. At these records' cores, though, the soul is the same true soul. On U.F.O.F., there are sadness-tinged love songs like Orange and an ode to a dead relationship or dead loved one, Terminal Paradise, recut from Adrienne's solo discography. On Two Hands, rollicking rockers like Forgotten Eyes and the titular track nestle up against the tender and painful Wolf and a live staple for the band, Not, a song that builds momentum and tumbles towards its conclusion like a meteor. Whether you're a devoted fan (and I don't know anyone who listens to Big Thief but doesn't consider themselves one) or a newcomer, it's worthwhile to spend some time close to these records. Let them, and they'll grow on you.

Kim Petras - TURN OFF THE LIGHT Easily the best collection of club pop songs this year began as a Halloween-themed mixtape, which I think gives it a willingness to experiment that I sometimes miss in Petras's more standard stuff. The hooks on tracks like There Will Be Blood, Close Your Eyes, and Tell Me It's a Nightmare are as good as anything in her discography, and the most adventurous moments, like the interlude o m e n and the German verse in In the Next Life, not only pay off but fuck harder than basically anything I've ever heard. I would be remiss if I didn't mention that Dr. Luke was one of this record's producers. The fact that he gets a cut of every stream and sale is a terrible blemish on what would otherwise be a huge favorite of mine.

Sufjan Stevens & Timo Andres - The Decalogue A forceful, sometimes opaque album. Delicate and opinionated piano music for ballet. One moment of particular transcendent beauty: the track V.

Weyes Blood - Titanic Rising A 10/10, perfect, totally wonderful album. A ton of variety and not a single bad song. By turns upbeat, dreamy, contemplative, creepy, explosive. One of the most beautiful and evocative album covers of the year to boot.

Andrew Bird - My Finest Work Yet I appreciate Andrew Bird's esoteric trips and darkly introspective weirdness, so it surprised me how much I enjoyed this: a bouncy, ascerbic, and delightful return to form packed with ironic turns of phrase and endlessly engrossing little musical details. Bloodless is a legit political statement, a State of the Union address that is somehow equal parts ominous and encouraging. Sisyphus is freewheeling and also political, a common thread here. My favorite is Manifest, a disco-inflected ode to fossil fuels. You could blast it and joyfully sing along without ever realizing how apocalyptic it is.

Nivhek - After its own death / Walking in a spiral towards the house Moody, spacious, and minimalist. Lovely and meditative.

M83 - DSVII A world all of its own. Cinematic, strange, and cheesy. I really appreciate M83's willingness to do absolutely whatever they want when they could easily have made a career pandering to fans of Midnight City and selling songs to car companies. DSVII is spacious and upbeat, steeped in the memory of 70s space western epics. Flutes, pianos, and shimmering picked guitars float over crashing post-rock drums and synths ranging from contemplative sweeps (Mirage) and buzzing pads (Colonies) to swelling vox (Taifun Glory) and precise, retro little bleeps (Oh Yes You're There, Everyday). It's wonderful background music, and the choice tracks (Temple of Sorrow, Mirage, Hell Riders) are great fun and even occasionally thrilling. This album is easy to love.

Thom Yorke - Anima Detuned synths lying motionless in a cold desert fading in and out of life

Foxes in Fiction - Trillium Killer A swirling dream-pop masterpiece. I had the privilege of seeing Warren perform some of these songs earlier this year, and I felt totally transported, like I was physically present in the green holographic world of his back-stage projections. These songs are complex and really special, crafted with care and an ear highly attuned to odd harmonies and little additive details. I love the way stories and thoughts weave together across the album. The catchy, gently swelling music is a brilliant compliment for the lyrics, which are often dark and intense, blurring the political and personal on songs like Say Yes to Violence and Antibody. Aesthetically, this album is a delight, but there's so much depth beneath its glimmering surface. What a wonderful addition to Foxes in Fiction's powerful and lovely discography.

Xiu Xiu - Girl with Basket of Fruit Xiu Xiu always makes me smile. This album is dense and abrasive and very lyrics-forward. Jamie Stewart sounds fucking pissed and I love it. The beats are quick and unrelenting: samples of Haitian drummers led by musician Daniel Brevil. I also can't get over the fact that Angela Seo published her favorite and least favorite lyrics from each song. Jamie wrote this about the record's title, which references Caravaggio's painting Boy with a Basket of Fruit: "When this title is a boy it is fey and lovely. When it is a girl is worrisome and rife with danger. Male martyrs are almost always surrounded by nurses, their mothers, adoring angels and other loving disciples wrapping their crushed and holy bodies in strips of herb soaked cloth and weeping rapturously. Female martyrs are almost always depicted having their skin flayed, breasts branded or ripped off with tongs or being stabbed and they are always, always alone save for her murderers. There is never anyone by their sides celebrating their spiritual life, only fiendishly reveling in their torture of her. It is perilous to be a 'girl.'"

Bats - Alter Nature I was shocked to find out these guys have been around for 10 years. This sounds like an album by a young band, which I mean as a compliment: it's energetic and rough and a little uneven in parts in ways that I enjoy. The sound is either especially intense but poppy post-punk or kind of gentle hardcore. I think there's a lot of crossover potential between those two fan bases here. Their attitude is what I love more than anything else. I don't know how to describe it exactly. It feels like the band are willing to go to weird, sarcastic places and then quickly snap back to sincerity and brutality, often multiple times in one song. I'm not much of a hardcore fan, but I almost wish they'd spent a little more time with that sound: my favorite parts on this record are the heavier bits like the end of Current Affairs.

Olivia Neutron-John - Olivia Neutron-John This album sounds like if you trapped a musique concrete artist in a timeless hell with a couple drum machines and synths for a millenium and then poked a hole in the wall and recorded what came out. Really fun and uncomfortable. I do still think the best format to experience ONJ is in her like 20-minute rambling dance tracks, like 2017's Injury Train.

Liturgy - H.A.Q.Q. A lot of people really despise Liturgy, and if that's the case for you, this album probably won't change your mind, but for what it's worth, it's a little more accessible than their synth-horn-heavy black metal midi extravaganza of a previous album The Ark Work. H.A.Q.Q. does contain weird, tonally distinct interludes (the EXACO trio of tracks) between its transcendental metal pillars, but they're the rare interludes that go beyond merely cleansing the palette and setting the mood for whatever follows. EXACT III especially is a bright and emotionally complete unit. What we're really here for is the metal, though, and this album delivers like nothing Liturgy has released before. Composer/singer/guitarist Hendrix's melodies are unique and beautiful, the riffs and blastbeats are tight, and the stuttering glitches that break up dense passages are welcome even when they're really surprising. HAJJ, PASAQALIA, GOD OF LOVE, and HAQQ are all monster tracks, but the whole album is well worth your time. The lead single, GOD OF LOVE, is a great place to start. This is definitely, easily my favorite black metal album of all time, and probably my favorite metal album full stop.

Blood Orange - Angel's Pulse Dev Hynes' mixtape is by turns propulsive and relaxing, softspoken and hardheaded. It's brilliant and beautiful and although it's not too long, each song is given ample room to breathe. I wish other artists were as effective at utilizing guest artists (some tracks here have three guests, and Hynes is able to manage their time well enough that there's no feeling of bloatedness or a lack of cohesion). I love this album. It might be my favorite thing Hynes has ever done. Listen to: Take It Back, Berlin, Dark & Handsome

Toro y Moi - Outer Peace Chaz's album Boo Boo was one of my favorite albums of 2017, but because it wasn't chillwave enough or whatever, people didn't seem to give it a fair shake. That seems to be the case with Outer Peace, too: it's less of a single unit than Boo Boo and contains more danceable content, but it's a little too moody and eccentric to win over fans of Anything In Return, Chaz's basically perfect 2013 opus. (As a side note, his mixtape Soul Trash, which also came out this year, is good fun too.) Anyway, Outer Peace feels kind of like a more accessible extension of Boo Boo. Parts of it still feel like a deranged early-morning exercise program on college radio, which I like. Try some of the lighter stuff first: Fading, Ordinary Pleasure, and Freelance.

Opium Lord - Vore No genre has better subgenre descriptors than metal. This is a black sludge album, and that's pretty much all you need to know.

Mid-Air Thief - Crumbling Okay so this album technically came out in 2018, but it had a wide release this year on Topshelf Records with like four different wax colors, and also I only found out about it early this year, and I need to spread the word about one of the most delightful, fun, and beautiful albums I've ever heard. On Crumbling, organic strums and synthetic trills form a deeply engaging tapestry. I love every second of it. Combining sounds in this way totally qualifies as left-field experimental shit just because It Seems Like Nobody Else Is Doing It For Some Reason (except I guess Floating Points, see SOTY), but the music itself is actually really accessible. This is what pop music should sound like! We have the technology!! Please listen to this album. Dirt and Gameun Deut are my favorites at the moment, but you honestly can't go wrong.

Angel Olsen - All Mirrors Olsen's gotten grander. Her ballads are longer and involve strings and synthesizers and beat machines. The soul feels the same to me, though. Songs like the title track are powerful and emotive and showcase not just her vocal range but a new range of sonic experimentation that I think complements her songwriting really well. For those who aren't on board with the 7-minute ballads, there are also more lighthearted tracks like Too Easy and Spring. I knew that Chance reminded me of a specific song, but I couldn’t think of the name until I read something by a person named Grimelords about how it’s like her version of Sinatra's My Way. That’s exactly what it’s like.

Girl Band - The Talkies Shoulderblades is an ugly, mammoth, multi-part story. Brilliant genreless repetition like in album opener Prolix and at the end of Couch Combover. Amygdela sounds like if early Preoccupations was fronted by someone undergoing torture whilst also muttering at their withdrawal hallucinations. The vibe here is complex. It's a very consistent album, but the collection of sounds and attitudes is really unusual. Caveat is a great example: a simple beat and twitching synth line turns into a lumbering mess of distortion-and back again, whenever it decides to-at will.

0 Stars - Blowing on a Marshmallow in Perpetuity Timid singing, odd titles, and every-instrument-in-the-room textures on this album belie depth and a very warm heart. "even though my dog barked at a baby, i won't tell her 'no' cause that's just the way she deals with being scared and sometimes i get scared too, and it's bad enough without the shame when i mess things up and you don't come over, i go to the kitchen and eat leftovers just because i'm sad doesn't mean it is fair to depend on you when you're sad too"

(Sandy) Alex G - House of Sugar With Gretel—the best song of the year—as its lead single, House of Sugar set an impossibly high expectation. Although Gretel is certainly a high point on the album, there are many more: Hope is inconspicuous but beautiful, honest, and cathartic, SugarHouse is a devastating jam, and Southern Sky whirls comfortingly from a rose-tinted verse into a chorus supposedly inspired by a dream and tinged with sadness. All but one of these songs are under 4 minutes long, but they're packed with conflict between abstract and concrete lyrics, beauty and strangeness. It's Alex G, so don't be surprised by the unexpected and often outright weird electronic flourishes and transitions throughout the record, but if you can handle its irregularities, this is easily one of the most fresh-sounding and enjoyable albums of the year.

Emily Reo - Only You Can See It A bright, fun, and beautiful album full of bouyant vocals and strange twists and turns. Although I deeply love the poppy stuff here (like the anthemic single Strawberry), my faves are the slower, darker, vaguely occultish songs: Ghosting, Counterspell (a shimmering sequel to 2016's Spell, one of the best songs of the year), and In Theaters, which is one of those songs that builds and builds and then has the most satisfying payoff. It might be my favorite ending of any album this year. I hope you check this one out. Emily is the coolest and this album rocks.

Chromatics - Closer To Grey Of course this came out in October. Chromatics is the only band that is allowed to use canned vinyl hiss. The first song on this record is a Sound of Silence cover and it is amazing.

Mizmor - Cairn I try to approach new music without giving too much thought to the circumstances of its creation, but something about the idea of a mythical lone individual painstakingly crafting beautiful layered music appeals to me, whether it's Phil Elverum of Mt. Eerie, Sufjan Stevens, or this: Mizmor, some dude from Portland, OR making sick, dense black metal. Cairn is a slow, doomy, cinematic album, and maybe these qualities make it easier to notice the incredible attention to detail on individual riffs or little instrumental passages. My favorites were Cairn to God and The Narrowing Way

Laura Agnusdei - Laurisilva Lounge music from hell. Twin Peaks-y saxophone glides over squishy synthetic beats. Lungs Dance sounds like a block of jello having a nightmare. In all seriousness, this is an ingenious and very unique album and I enjoy it a lot. A lot of music I listened to this year attempted to merge organic and synthetic sound in a way that emphasises their similarities. Here, synthetic sounds and recognizable voices/samples/sax & flute riffs are juxtaposed, and the rift is never bridged. And it's weirdly comfortable. This is the most acidic of acid jazz. And honestly, I just really like how wet the synths sound.

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SONGS I LOVED (singles for albums that i think outshone the album OR songs that were released not as part of an album OR just songs i heard and enjoyed. this will hopefully prevent me from including an album i don't actually love just because i really dug one song on it)

Arthur Russell - You Did It Yourself Iowa Dream is a great collection of Russell's more accessible unreleased work. You Did It Yourself in particular is such a perfectly weird, groovy almost-pop song, a reminder that Russell was as talented a writer of hooks as he was a mastermind of electroacoustic experimentation. To explore his other side, check out another of his posthumous releases from this year, Not Checking Up.

MGMT - In The Afternoon A gothic post-punk masterpiece that sort of follows from their excellent 2018 album Little Dark Age. This is MGMT's best era ever. My most-anticipated-2020 list is basically MGMT and Owen Pallett's Island. And probably one or two more Big Thief records.

Floating Points - Falaise Floating Points' 2019 album Crush consists mostly of Aphex-Twin-y glitch-beat tracks that occasionally push towards something really interesting and unique. It's a great album, but the organic instruments on opener Falaise set you up brilliantly for an organosynthetic payoff that never arrives.

Honey by Drugdealer/Weyes Blood okay, Lonely on the same album is fun, if a little silly. Lost In My Dream is also totally decent, and Fools is kind of a bop... actually, this whole album, while not totally my cup of tea, is great. If you like 70's-disco-inflected (like, Bee Gees) retro rock, sweet vocal harmonies and guitar licks, and a few indulgences (like saxophone), you'll totally dig this record. I'm gonna spend some more time with it. Honey fucks especially though imo

Everything All at Once - G Jones Something about this song just scratches an itch in my brain. The rest of this album is basically dubstep, and it all sandwiches this one beautiful little song. Better not to question life's gifts.

Perfume Genius - Eye in the Wall Sandunes & Landslands - Eleven Eleven James Blake - Barefoot In The Dark new grimes unfortunately Deafheaven - Black Brick

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Honorable Mentions/stuff i like but other people would probably love

Kim Gordon - No Home Record An experimental (but comfortably modern) record by the 66-yr-old Gordon, best known as a multi-instrumentalist/vocalist in Sonic Youth, a band I occasionally appreciate but can't say I love. Parts of No Home Record are noise rock-y, like Murdered Out, and others totally defy comprehension: Paprika Pony seems to have the most buzz surrounding it, which makes sense since it features both a kalimba and a trap beat. Really not a resting-on-laurels type of album. I wish more iconic older musicians made shit like this.

Pharmakon - Devour The rare album that makes me forget about my tinnitus. A dense cloud of distortion and sharply biting microscopic needle creatures that settle around your shoulders and block out all light. Fucking awesome. Listen if you enjoy oppressive painfully pulsing sound textures of industrial noise blanketing completely incoherent screaming.

clipping. - There Existed an Addiction to Blood This is a tough one for me because there are things about this album I can't stand, but many more things I absolutely love. The inventiveness of the production on Run for Your Life, Daveed's absurdly skilled delivery on Blood of the Fang, the harsh noise and musique concrete combining delightfully with rap on songs like La Mala Ordina; all of this is extremely exciting. I really love the last track Piano Burning, an 18-minute recording of, yes, a piano burning. The thing is, clipping.'s lyrical content is more or less the same here as on 2013's Midcity mixtape. It's ultra-violent, filled with graphic descriptions of gang violence and torture, which is fine, but just not something I'm that interested in listening to more than once or twice. They've branched out elsewhere (on their previous album, Splendor & Misery, and on the recent EP The Deep), but to me, it's unfortunate that this super cool and thoughtful album is lyrically (at least, on the surface) just a collection of descriptions of people being murdered. I don't really have any interest in reading more into it than that, because I regret pretty much every time I try to pay close attention, either because it's gross and boring or because it's embarrassing (The Show, for example). I want to emphasize that as horrorcore goes, the writing here is mostly very good. The rhyme patterns like at the beginning of Story 7 are genius. It's just not for me, I guess. I'm gonna keep listening to a few songs, though: Nothing is Safe, La Mala Ordina, Run for Your Life, and Blood of the Fang are excellent.

Field Whispers - Fire-Toolz The Warm-Body is a great song. Hyphen- (and parenthesis-) heavy vapor/pc music/new age/ambient jazzy synth stuff. really nice.

Caroline Polachek - Pang every r/indieheads dude: i like slide guitar now probably the best vocal performance of any album I heard this year, Polachek is just ludicrously good. listen to Insomnia

Danny Brown - uknowhatimsayin¿ When most artists release an album of outsized acclaim, you can with some certainty expect them to mimic its acclaimed qualities later on in an attempt to reach the same level of success. Danny Brown is not most artists, though, and no one who knows him would count on a retreading of the ground covered in Atrocity Exhibition, Danny's nearly perfect 2016 album. uknowhatimsayin¿ is more lighthearted and, I think, a little less ambitious (it's 13 minutes shorter, with more consistent track lengths; there's no "Really Doe"), but not to its detriment. The features are less head-turning than AE (up-and-comers JPEGMAFIA and Obongjayer, the understated genius Blood Orange, and Run the Jewels, the most overrated act in hip hop), but they all fit in neatly. Tracks like Belly of The Beast and Negro Spiritual prove Danny could still rap over a washing machine or musique concrete or fucking whatever. The lyrics are less dense, the beats less experimental and strange, but the lighter energy is kind of nice. Atrocity Exhibition could've lost three or four tracks, but this album feels juuuust right.

HTRK - Over the Rainbow Soft, ambient, moody. Reminds me of William Basinski's Watermusic II, but this album is less repetitive and a little less weird. It's background music for people who hate background music. It's delightful and ignorable. Very nice.

Blarf - Cease & Desist Shockingly decent plunderphonics/noise album from Eric Andre, who it must be pointed out attended one of the most prestigious music colleges in the world.

Ryan Lott - Pentaptych Beautiful, prickly modernist string compositions.

Cereal Killer - The Beginning & End of Cereal Killer Empath - Active Listening: Night on Earth Ithaca - The Language of Injury Mannequin Pussy - Patience Swan's Chamber - Swan's Chamber Avey Tare - Cows on Hourglass Pond Men I Trust - Oncle Jazz Charli XCX - Charli Black Midi - Schlagenheim Michael Kiwanuka - Kiwanuka Methyl Ethyl - Triage Bill Callahan - Shepherd in a Sheepskin Vest Better Oblivion Community Center - Better Oblivion Community Center Twin Peaks - Lookout Low Holly Herndon - Proto Laurel Halo - DJ-Kicks Earl Sweatshirt - Feet of Clay Nihiloxica - Biiri Wet Fruit - Wet Fruit

Best mix: Night Bus 4: Memory of Night Bus by CFCF When Hyperballad hits, you will understand. http://www.gorillavsbear.net/cfcf-drops-night-bus-4-memory-of-night-bus

Best album name:

Gross Net - Gross Net Means Gross Net.

Answers my foremost question immediately.~~~~~

A halfhearted AOTD list, in order this time

1-The Age of Adz

2-Heartland

3-Entrañas

4-The Money Store

5-Channel Orange

6-Planetarium

7-Ontario Gothic

8-Konoyo+Anoyo (this is cheating but whatever)

9-Carrie & Lowell + Greatest Gift (also cheating idc)

10-My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy

thanks for reading. the world is abundant.

#music

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