#Ancient Archives Library Origins

[nickyfrancis24]

World’s oldest libraries

The World’s Oldest Libraries Article Title: World’s oldest libraries Author: Nicky Sinha Francis Genres: Article A heaven of books When your world revolves around books, all you can think of a cozy beautiful place only for your books and you. For others, it’s point to laugh, but for you it’s your passion and your own personal space where you can escape from your stress and pain that you go…

[sunderwight]

Okay, concept:

Luo Binghe grew up very poor prior to arriving to QJP. And when he first got to QJP, he was ostracized and neglected. So there are probably a lot of phrases, terms, and ideas that he didn't know were things until SY arrived and started actually teaching him. Right? So the bulk of what he did learn, he learned directly from Shen Yuan's own slightly messy attempts to fake ancient scholarly credentials.

Plus, QJP is supposed to be the peak of scholars and well-read, fancy intellectuals, and YQY probably also doesn't know shit about most of that stuff (having also been a former illiterate street child) and of course is incredibly predisposed to take Shen Qingqiu's side on virtually anything. Especially something frivolous or linked to their shared past, such as someone, say Qi Qingqi, accusing Shen Qingqiu of making up a literary reference or "gibberish" word. If something Shen Qingqiu says is something no one else seems to know, that just proves he's more worldly and well-read than the rest of his peers. Also, Shang Qinghua will probably know it, and despite his many (many) character flaws, Shang Qinghua reads a lot too. There's really very little to convince a former street child turned Demon Emperor whose former education began and ended with Shen Qingqiu specifically and Meng Mo (wildly out-of-touch with human culture anyway) to suspect that some of the difficult-to-source references his master makes really have no worldly source (in this world).

So Luo Binghe, in his quest to become as knowledgeable of all things about his shizun and keep up with him as well as possible, and maybe also put down some arguments he's overheard once and for all, eventually gets annoyed because CLEARLY there is a wealth of cultural knowledge contemporary to Shen Qingqiu and Shang Qinghua that didn't survive to his own generation. His efforts at hunting down all the sources being referenced and origins of certain philosophical ideas or terminology keep coming up empty in certain departments. He's been over the entire QJP library with a fine-tooth comb, but QJP focuses on things pertaining to cultivation, history, and knowledge. Obviously, there are gaps. The archives are unlikely to keep pop cultural references and lowbrow literature, and Luo Binghe begins to suspect (from what tastes his master seems to share with his shishu) that that is that actual source he's missing.

The trashy yellow books and romance literature of their generation! Bawdy poems and lewd artworks so on! Heck, that's probably even where the shared "code" (bad English) comes into play -- disciples are always trying to sneak forbidden material past their teachers and smuggle naughty books into the dormitories. Knowing Shizun and Shang Qinghua, Luo Binghe honestly wouldn't be surprised if the two of them were racketeering that shit in their own disciple days. Shang Qinghua acquiring materials, Shen Qingqiu acquiring buyers, both of them making their extra spending money off of secretly supplying Cang Qiong's population with contraband fiction and art.

Also, that would explain why both Shen Qingqiu and Shang Qinghua get flustered and refuse to elaborate if someone asks them what this or that strange turn of phrase refers to. Shen Qingqiu has a very thin face for actually discussing erotica, and Shang Qinghua doesn't like being caught doing illegal shit.

Luo Binghe desperately needs access to trash lit that's older than he is. However, most of that stuff is not printed to last, and turning it up is like trying to find old Spirk zines without the internet.

Shang Qinghua, the obvious go-to source, also seems to not really have anything that old anymore (intimidating him is laughably easy, if he had anything he would have coughed it up by the second or third time Luo Binghe asked and frowned at the same time), and if Shen Qingqiu did have anything he wouldn't want to be questioned about it. Asking too much might even get it destroyed in an act of excessive embarrassment.

Which means there is just one other person Luo Binghe knows who might be able to lead him to some sources. One other person he is absolutely, 100% certain was extensively reading trashy literature around the same time that Shizun was a young man. Someone who would know where to go to even begin looking for it.

Luo Binghe is going to have to ask Tianlang Jun for help with something.

[ew-selfish-art]

DP x DC AU: Letters and Paper goods are easy to store, and therefore, easy to hide. Danny has drama to monger though.

Tim Drake becomes a ward of Bruce Wayne at the same time the Drake Corporation is crumbling, and his father's health is declining. Dana, his father's physical therapist turned new wife, isn't optimistic these days, and Tim can read the writing on the wall.

Times have changed and Bruce and Dick are treating him with kid gloves. Jason Todd is alive again, been there suffered that. Young Just-Us has proven yet again to be his true family... But Bruce 'welcomes' him home the second the fake uncle is sniffed out.

So, Tim rationalizes, If Drake Corp is going down, then so shall the reason he spent his childhood abandoned. The many, many archeology digs his parents left him for over the years and their many, many stolen historical pieces. Tim is ready and able to get rid of them all.

He first returns the artifacts that have obvious origins to the people with whom they belong. Then it starts to get a little hazy as to where each item stolen is from. The paper goods are the hardest to place.

Years later, Tim has almost completely emptied his parent's old home of their stolen goods. By now, he runs a fortune 500 company and is working as Red Robin. Going through the last of the archives means going through the very last objects his parents ever preferred over his company, and he can't wait to be rid of them.

A glowing green envelope however... this one he feels compelled to keep. He hadn't known it back when he started this project- but somehow his Parents had found objects drenched in the essence of the Lazarus Pits. And it wasn't just one letter, it was dozens and dozens.

Tim Drake knew it would be risky to move them, but he needed to get these letters to an ex-league member to understand what the language of the dead was trying to proclaim.

_____

Danny hates a fetch quest but apparently Ghost Writer is having a bad day. It starts with Danny running by the guys library to have a chat when all of a sudden, the question of certain... ghost relations... came up. Danny is always more than thrilled to hear about how the various ancient-as-in-old ghosts interacted with the Ancients-as-in-yikes ghosts.

Ghost Writer finally admitted to the monarch in training that if he wanted to know so badly, that he could track down Clockworks old letters. They'd been scattered well before Ghost Writer could properly work on the ghost archives (read: was still alive), and it wasn't until he'd long worked on the library that such affairs were noted as missing.

The potential for gossip was just too good! A call home to Sam, Tuck and Jazz to let them know he was on an adventure, and then Danny flew off with little more than some hints by GW and an annoyed nod of cryptic agreement by CW.

Danny goes about wondering Gotham as himself, not yet seeing the need to be Phantom, when he runs into the very guy he was looking for.

"Hey- you don't happen to have a shit ton of letters written in the language of the dead do you?" Danny smiles as innocently as possible as he watches all seven stages of grief play out on the guy's face. Then something changes and Danny can tell that this guy is like, scary competent.

"I do, however, I was double crossed and a shit ton of assassins are on their way to try and take them."

"Uh... Bummer for them I guess? I'll just take them and go- I don't even really need to keep them if you want em back-"

"Assassins. They won't exactly leave empty handed."

"Huh. Well... Wanna come with? These are supposed to have some pretty juicy drama in them." Danny awkwardly places a hand on the back of his neck.

A knife being thrown in their direction was enough to get this guy to make a decision.

"Let's go spill some tea then."

Danny grins as he pulls the guy through a rapidly drawn portal, ignoring the wide eyes he makes. Turns out his name is Tim, and walking him through afterlife drama is the best- how does he know so many dead assassins??? One of these letters is about a guy who took Tim's spleen??

[valdevia]

Hi, I love your works!! I was wondering where you find the original, unedited pictures you use for your art? Do you take them yourself or find them online?

Hey there! I get them from many different sources! Whenever I can I use my own, and sometimes my followers send me cool pics to use (or put them up in the Sacrificial Altar channel in my Discord), but I find most of what I use through public domain sources online!

For the online part, I put this little list together with some of the common resources I use! Feel free to share it around and copy it:

For an easier experience, I'll copy the relevant part below:

STOCK SITES

- Unsplash: Usually the best quality out of the free stock sites. They’ll try to sell you a subscription plan but you can ignore that.

- Adobe Stock: Select “Free” on the dropdown menu next to the search bar. The free image selection here is big and high-quality, though they feel more like stock pictures than natural photos. Note: They limit how many pictures you can download per account per day, but you can make several accounts to circumvent this if you use it a lot.

- Texturelabs: lots of free, very high-quality textures!

- Pexels: Similar to Unsplash, but it has more pictures with people. If you need a photo with models, this is usually the best place.

- Pixabay: Widest selection, but worst quality control. Go here if you haven’t found anything in other sites and don’t mind sifting through a bunch of garbage pics and occasional AI images.

PUBLIC DOMAIN SOURCES

- Wikimedia Commons: an enormous selection of CC and public domain pictures. Super useful, especially for the really specific images that you'd expect to find on a Wikipedia article. Always check the copyright conditions! To filter by license, search something and then click on the License dropdown under the search bar. Select “No restrictions” for public domain images.

- Picryl: A repository of public domain sources, ranging from ancient historical books and artifacts to fairly modern pictures. If you're looking for something old/historical, chances are it's here! This website is probably one of the most complicated ones to use, so here are three important tips before you use it:

This site added a paywall that appears after the 3rd page of search results. To remove it, install uBlock Origin, go to the “My Filters” page (clicking on the gear icon after opening the extension), and paste this filter: picryl.com##._9oJ0c2

After searching, use the timeline on the top right to narrow down the result by year.

It won’t let you download the full picture without paying, but it always has a link to the source site below the description. Click on that, then copy-paste the image’s name to find it in the original source. That way you can get it for free, and often in better quality than Picryl offers.

National Archives Catalog, The Library of Congress, NASA, and Europeana have wide selections, but they are included in Picryl so it’s usually better to search there and then download them in the source as mentioned above!

- Flickr Search: a ton of usable pictures with a generally more amateur feel, just remember to filter by license using the “Any license” dropdown menu. When you find an image, make sure to check its specific license (you can find it below the image, on the right side).

- Openverse: The official Creative Commons archive, has many sources! Includes other sites on this list, but has a lot of clutter if you don’t filter.

- iNaturalist: a repository of user-submitted images of animals, plants, and fungi. Look for a genus or species, then navigate to the photo list and filter by license.

MUSEUM COLLECTIONS

- The Met: An amazing selection of artifacts from all over the world, with top quality photographs of most of them (usually with several angles for each). You can filter images by material, location, and era.

- Getty Museum: Another smaller selection of museum pieces, but this one includes old photos as well as artifacts. You can also filter by dates, materials and cultures. Make sure you include the “Open Content” filter to only see public domain things!

- Smithsonian: Big selection of around 5 million museum pieces, with some 3D scans of museum pieces. Most pieces just have a single picture that can sometimes be low quality, but pieces with 3D models sometimes also include a lot of high quality photos from multiple angles. This collection also includes things from museums of natural history, so you can also use it to search for bones and specimens.

- Artvee: public domain classical art. They make you pay to download high-quality images.

If you guys got any others, please let me know and I'll add them to the collection!

[lovinglonerhybrid]

Pubic library’s love Optimus prime!

Public libraries tend to rely a lot on government funding and local donations. now once Optimus here’s this he immediately begins to comb through the autobot archives for some books that he can donate. The librations are understandably veary confused when a truck load of books is dumbed by there doorsteps with the note ‘both the original text and English translation are available’ now these poor people open up the large books expecting another earth language but instead they get cybertronion. They put the English translations on display and they are all the subject of much scrutiny until someone actually sits and reads the texts and finds that they are very intriguing. There are story’s on ancient mystical robots that the books call primes. There are stories of war and rebellion and love and loss soon the library’s are hounded by meany dedicated fans of these mysterious books for Moore for a way to contact the author but there is nothing moor given to them in the form of books only donations signed by an O.P.

[lemurmate]

I finally looked at that soulbonding strawpage so it's time to disprove it. Feel free to link this if this discourse ever comes up over there I don't really care

This is also highlights why you really shouldn't trust anything presenting itself as an informational resource that doesn't have sources. Don't worry everyone, I spent way too long going through websites that were made for a monitor the size of a shoebox to get them

so the reason is moreso that the term system wasn't known to the soulbonding community at the time and it's a case of two separately developed communities. Think like otherkin and therian developed separately but started to share terms later.

Unfortunately, LiveJournal was being a bitch, and the soulbonding LJ was not archived well. Thankfully I did find a mirror that let me search, and here are the earliest results.

The most blatant one is sourced 08.07.03: "(I have SoulBonds, and one could say I'm part of a multiple-ish system. It's *not* DID, though. I guess most of you know about empowered multiplicity and SBing anyway.)"

You can find a lot more references to soulbonds as systems from around this time too! and nothing really saying they aren't systems (even in early accounts of discourse).

You also have this essay, likely from around that time, that discusses directly this combining between soulbonding and multiplicity.

"If you look through the annals of history, you'll notice that much of the soulbonding community thought itself very far removed from plurality, and the multiple community out there didn't even address soulbonding at all. Recently, all of this has been changing very quickly. Now, you don't have to look very hard to find multiple systems who admit to soulbonding, or soulbonders who have acknowledged themselves as multiple."

(Also "Hopefully in a year or two, we'll be writing another essay called 'Our Thoughts on the New Friendship Between the Multiple and Soulbonding Communities.'" BUDDY I AM SORRY-)

I also actually found a comment on Psych Forums, a DID community, that discusses soulbonds in 2010 and having soulbonds with alters, which was very interesting.

But anyway either way it seems like when soulbonders learned about the term system and multiple, they started using it.

Similar to what happened with fictive actually but that's a whole other topic to explain.

I wasn't going to acknowledge this because I don't know fuck all about tulpamancy, but stuff about the overlap kept coming up in other sources so here you go.

From Soul Whispers in at least 2004 (context being a semi-conscious creation element to soulbonding): "This theory also has its own basis in ancient spiritualities; there is a belief in some Eastern religions, such as Tibetan Buddhism, that people can create and shape "thought-forms" that take on a spirit-realm life of their own as animals, mythological creatures, or other people."

From Living Library in 2015: "Still other soulbonders deliberately set out to create a soulbond (which often overlaps to some degree with tulpamancy, the practice of deliberately creating new consciousnesses as mental companions)"

So like there is a known overlap, but I couldn't give you anything super insightful on that.

Not inherently, no. This personal essay from Soul Whispers earliest archived in 2004 points out how complicated soulbond theories are, acknowledges psychological theories ("One theory that once used to be popular, and probably originated from the old Multiple Personality Disorder idea (or else was just suggested because it seems simple and obvious), is that a SoulBond is just you personifying a part of you which you refuse to acknowledge or which might need an outlet"). While it acknowledges the multiverse theory, it also concludes with an imaginary-created world turned real theory against the multiverse theory.

This essay from 2000 also highlights the early writer/muse focus that the community has.

The spiritual-focused view was popularized by From Fiction. I don't have a source beyond "system joined the soulbonding community in 2016", but if you look up anything from them, it is very spirituality/multi-verse focused, and that can also be seen with their fictionkin stuff.

If you want a newer example, Living Library's site from 2015 directly acknowledges this: "Some soulbonders see soulbonding in a psychological light, whether by considering their soulbonds aspects of their own personality or as conscious psychological entities like themselves."

Also from experience, some of it came from other systems seeing the term and assuming soul = spiritual.

You can see the above essays and sources to see that that's not a universal view that all soulbonders have. Actually a few of those acknowledge the view that soulbonds might be a part of the host.

Though that is true that soulbonds can be anything!

This is another yes and no thing. If you're coming at this from a strictly multiverse view, yeah, but again not all soulbonders view it like that.

It can also get a little muddy if you have a soulbond who doesn't really acknowledge you as a headmate (i.e. seeing you as just a headvoice on their end).

From what I've seen personally, the divination thing is relatively new in the community, and I think came from the overlap with reality shifting and that bringing in more spiritual beliefs? At least looking through the LiveJournal archive I couldn't find jack shit for divination and soulbonding.

Interestingly I also see this a lot more with the self shipping overlap, which seems to be reinforced by the StrawPage including links for that, but I don't know anything about self shipping culture or yumeship.

Likewise this is genuinely the first time I've seen it compared to deity worship.

I have seen it compared to pop culture paganism sometimes, but from our experiences having some spiritual soulbonds and pop culture deities... not really? I can kind of see it though? But I wouldn't say it as a universal thing. Cool if you experience it like that though!

Anyway all that aside, the only other terms they have being like self shipping focused is a little annoying, especially since soulbonding actually does have a lot of interesting terms that's developed within it

[mehilaiselokuva]

Is there any specific literature you could recommend for those who want to learn more about the pre-Christian culture in Finland? (In Finnish or in English!)

Hi!

I can link both. I have some personal faves but they are only accessible through our university's accounts...

The first page is a website with multiple good texts about this subject. It is the site of Jaakko Häkkinen, which if you google him you can see that he is a credible source. There are also texts about subjects like language and history.

This article (in Finnish) discusses the claim that Finland had ancient kingdoms. I also listened to this podcast episode from Yle Areena about it (in Finnish).

Yana Borodulina's master's thesis Suomalaisten uskomustarinoiden yliluonnolliset olennot ja niiden nimityksien alkuperä (2016) (in Finnish) is a very good text if you want to read about what ancient Finns believed in (without Kalevala pseudo-Finnish stories!)

An article about the Finnish "bear cult": THE BEAR AND THE YEAR: ON THE ORIGIN OF THE FINNISH LATE IRON AGE FOLK CALENDAR AND ITS CONNECTION TO THE BEAR CULT by Marianna P. Ridderstad (in English) was very fun to read! I will include it only because I love that they mention the Finnish 13th month which has been lost to time. This one is short though.

An article in English with the absolute basics of the ancient Finnish religion, made by Anssi Alhonen from the politically independent organization Taivaannaula.

Now while I cannot give you recommendations on physical books and only have PDFs (we are very digital at our university I guess) I can tell you what to avoid when looking for these books in stores or in the library. A credible book about pre-Christian culture in Finland would NOT promote:

Finnish runic writing. If there were runes found in Finland, they were imported from Scandinavia.

Finnish pre-Latin alphabet. Nothing like this has been found to this day.

"Finnish people descended from the Mongols"/"Finns are mongoloid". Modern genetic technology says otherwise. Put the book down immediately if it says this (or don't, who am I to tell you)

Describing the pre-Christian culture as "vulgar" or similar words. (This point may be ignored if you have good media literacy)

Using the Kalevala as a credible source for Finnish culture.

Additional: beware of texts written by a specific type of people. I would avoid people who do not cite sources. (I have stumbled across so many Neopagan witches who just write stuff like "ancient Finnish spells" which cannot be found in any archive. We have real spells too! No need to make up history)

Hope this helps!

[societyfolklore]

Loki’s Eggcellent Equinox Endeavour

Title: Loki’s Eggcellent Equinox Endeavour

Summary: Following his disastrously misunderstood Christmas gift-giving attempt, Loki turns his attention to Midgard's next major holiday: Easter. But after a deep dive into both modern customs and ancient pagan fertility rites, he becomes determined to outdo himself in a chaotic blend of Ostara rituals and misguided goodwill. The Avengers are not prepared.

Word Count:  1.5k

Warnings:  Silliness! Fluff nonsense- humour… (Well not funny funny.. just..this is a silly post)   No beta read, and not supper thought out either… just.. yeah..

A/N: This is following up on my Gift Giving Guide post at Christmas… Which in itself was not an original idea but inspired by a post made @mycroftrh. I’ve been sick all week and this is what came out of my slightly congested fever addled brain…

Avengers Tower – Somewhere Deep in the Library, Days Before Easter

Loki furrowed his brow, flipping through yet another ancient tome he had ‘borrowed’ from the British Museum’s closed archives. He was surrounded by glowing floating orbs of light, piles of texts, several scrolls, a terrarium of mossy rune stones, incense curling like smoke from a levitating censer, and a half-eaten chocolate bunny he'd taken apart with a ritual dagger for ‘examination.’  The air smelled faintly of lilac, steel, and mischief.

“Easter,” he muttered under his breath, “a rabbit deity of springtime... eggs imbued with life essence... pastel-coloured sacrifices... how quaint.” He rolled his eyes skyward as though appealing to higher intellects for mercy. “And humans revere this ritual with sugar and synthetic grass?”

He tapped his fingers against his chin, golden rings glinting in the light. In a swirl of green magic, he conjured a minor vision spell, images forming and hovering midair- cloaked druids welcoming dawn with chant and fire; baskets brimming with woven spells; children chasing eggs across flowering meadows. One image showed a Midgardian shopping mall with a man in a bunny suit posing for photos. Loki physically recoiled.

“This cannot be what remains of divine celebration.”

He muttered again in Old Norse, his voice echoing with power. The visions shifted to show ancient rites- women weaving wildflower crowns, couples dancing around towering poles of woven ivy, moonlit fertility feasts, and hares darting through sacred glades.

“But it’s not Easter, is it?” he murmured, voice turning thoughtful. He picked up a thick, leather-bound grimoire on Seasonal Rites and Fertility Cults of the Northern Tribes. The cover smelled of damp earth and old magic. “It’s Ostara. The spring equinox. The sacred celebration of Eostre- goddess of renewal, fertility, and woodland passions. The hare, her sacred beast. The egg, a vessel of returning life. Mortals remember so little of the truth.”

His smirk curved, slow and satisfied. He flipped through the pages, pausing on a diagram of a ritual involving gilded eggs and moonstone-infused offerings.

“Yes. Now that makes sense. At least someone on this backwards realm maintained a sliver of cultural dignity. Perhaps even a spark of instinct. A shame it’s buried beneath synthetic sugar shells and plastic grass.”

He stood, trailing one hand along the spines of the books, eyes gleaming with purpose and delight. As he passed a floating orb, it morphed into a map of Avengers Tower, glowing softly. “They want eggs? I shall give them eggs. They want rabbits? I shall give them a herald of the goddess herself. They want rebirth?”

He gave a low, dangerous chuckle, already summoning the first strands of enchantment with a flick of his fingers. A rabbit the size of a cat blinked into existence on the windowsill, its ears perked attentively.

“Let them be reborn... in delirious, chaotic wonder.”

Avengers Tower – Easter Morning

The screaming started just before dawn.

“WHY IS THERE A GIANT RABBIT IN THE GYM?!” Tony’s voice tore through the intercom system, the sound of something crashing and skittering echoing behind him.

“Correction,” Bruce called back calmly from another floor. “There are now thirty-two. And rising. But they are shrinking in size though..”

It had begun as a trickle. One or two glowing, eerily calm hares appearing in strange places. Then it escalated. Rapidly.

By the time the sun rose, the Tower was under siege by rabbits.

They were everywhere. In closets. In the vents. Sitting perfectly still on countertops, judging silently with unblinking eyes and faintly glowing fur. One particularly bold bunny had claimed Tony’s suit-up platform and refused to yield, even when threatened with an arc reactor blast.

Everywhere they went, they left gifts behind: small, shiny chocolate eggs scattered like arcane breadcrumbs. But these were not ordinary sweets. Each was infused with a unique spell- Loki’s own blend of mischief, meaning, and just a dash of spite. Some sang lullabies in foreign tongues. Some whispered secrets from other timelines. Some made whoever ate them speak in rhyming couplets for an hour. One made Steve temporarily see time sideways. Another turned Sam’s wings bright neon pink until he crash-landed into the kitchen.

Clint opened a cabinet and was greeted by four rabbits in tiny, rune-etched bonnets who immediately began chanting in a dead language. He closed the cabinet and walked away.

Natasha found an egg in her boot. It warmed against her skin, thrummed like a heartbeat, and then- when she threw it out the window- exploded into a cloud of lavender mist that lingered ominously for hours.

Clint then ended up following a trail of glittering eggs to a linen closet, stepped into what turned out to be a spatial loop. He entered six times before realizing he was stuck in a teleportation snare created by a particularly malevolent peppermint truffle. When he finally emerged, his watch was ticking backwards.

Bucky picked up an egg and sniffed it. “This better not be like the mead incident,” he muttered. The egg burst into sparks, and his hair turned a soft, shimmery teal. No one commented. They valued their lives.

By mid-morning, Sam was shouting from the ceiling rafters. “I JUST WANTED CEREAL!” he howled as two hares launched themselves from a cupboard like tiny, fuzzy missiles. “I WILL NEVER MOCK PAGAN RITUALS AGAIN!”

Tony tried to take control by ordering JARVIS to purge all foreign magical signatures. The system crashed within five seconds.

Even Vision, attempting to understand the rabbits, was last seen seated in the common room with a clipboard, three eggs in his lap, and a half-formed theory about “chaotic fertility deities and emotional transference.”

In the kitchen, a rabbit sat solemnly on top of the fridge, its paws crossed like a tiny monk. Whenever anyone approached, it hissed like a boiling kettle.

By the time noon arrived, the Tower had become a pastel warzone: a strange purgatory of chocolate, spells, and judgmental lagomorphs. And still, more rabbits came.

Thor found Loki in the greenhouse, perched serenely among over a dozen lounging rabbits, sipping herbal tea like a smug woodland prince. Ivy curled lazily up the trellises behind him, and faint choral humming emanated from an egg-shaped lantern nearby. A hare wearing a tiny crown of daisies hopped into Loki’s lap, and he scratched it behind the ears like a king dispensing favour to a loyal courtier.

“Brother,” Thor began, tone already exhausted as he stepped through a cluster of sun-dappled foliage. “You’ve unleashed a plague of enchanted rodents upon our home.”

“They are sacred messengers,” Loki replied smoothly, stroking the rabbit with fur like starlight. “Each one carries a blessing. Or a mild hex. The line between the two is rather artistic.”

“One of them hexed the elevator,” Thor deadpanned. “It now only moves when spoken to in limericks.”

“An improvement,” Loki mused. “Encourages poetic expression. I’ve long said Stark lacked verse.”

“You also hid three dozen spell-laced chocolates in the ventilation system,” Thor continued, stepping over yet another lounging rabbit, which blinked up at him with golden eyes.

“I may have over-committed to the symbolism,” Loki admitted, not remotely remorseful. “But the symbolism, brother! Ostara’s essence flows through all things: air, fur, cocoa. Would you have me squander the opportunity for divine resonance?”

“Someone’s coat rack came to life and is currently waging war against the Roomba,” Thor said flatly.

“Ah. The one in the north hallway?” Loki asked brightly. “That was one of my better enchantments.”

Thor gestured broadly, looking like he’d aged a decade in a single day. “You call this restraint?”

Loki only smiled, radiant with misplaced pride. “Come now, brother. This is subtle by Asgardian standards. Why, I’ve not even summoned a fertility fog. I think I’ve grown.”

By late afternoon, the team had rounded up most of the rabbits- though a few remained unaccounted for and were assumed to have formed a colony in the sub-basement, possibly developing a primitive society. Bruce had started tracking their movement patterns on a whiteboard and labelled the warren 'Bunholm'. No one asked him to.

Tony created a ‘Magically Problematic’ shelf in the lab for the leftover eggs, complete with biometric locks and a laminated warning sign that simply read: Don’t Touch the Chocolate. One egg had already turned his lab coat into a sentient garment that flinched whenever Steve got too close.

Steve, still speaking in Elizabethan verse thanks to a particularly stubborn caramel core hex, stood before the team in the common room and launched into an impassioned monologue about valor, rabbits, and the strength of camaraderie. The others applauded out of both pity and fear he might try it again.

Natasha was last seen slipping one of the eggs into a lead-lined safe with no label.

Even Clint, who had spent the morning arguing with a particularly aggressive hare in the laundry room, muttered something about 'kinda festive' before disappearing into the vents again.

Loki, watching the chaos unfold from a high balcony with a glass of mead and a smug tilt to his mouth, let out a contented sigh. He was draped in ivy and basking in the golden light of dusk like some triumphant fae monarch surveying his pastel kingdom.

This time, he thought, they almost appreciated it. There had been no screaming threats of exile, no immediate portal banishments, not even a direct punch to the face.

...Almost.

A/N:.... This is so ridiculous... I am sorry

[sugaredoleander]

i just took my final ancient greek exam of the semester yesterday and have been avoiding studying for my microbiology exam all day. so let's talk about these three devastating lines from anne carson's translation of herakles

and by talk about i mostly mean here's a bunch of different translations

Ἡρακλῆς μαινόμενος - Herakles by Euripides, lines 1398-1400

c. 416 BC.

original text in Ancient Greek via the Perseus Digital Library

Euripides. The Complete Greek Drama, edited by Whitney J. Oates and Eugene O'Neill, Jr. in two volumes. 1. Heracles, translated by E. P. Coleridge. New York. Random House. 1938.

Herakles translated by Anne Carson in Grief Lessons: Four Plays by Euripides (pg 81-82) 2006

Internet Archive

H of H playbook by Anne Carson (not a direct translation but a reimagining of Herakles, 2021)

Euripides: Herakles, translated by Tom Sleigh, Oxford University Press, 2001

Ian C. Johnston, 2020

Heracles, translated by William Arrowsmith, from Euripides III: Heracles, the Trojan Women, Iphigenia Among the Taurians, Ion (The Complete Greek Tragedies - Euripides III, University of Chicago Press, 2013 (Arrowsmith's translation itself is from 1956)

my own translation with notes under the cut

* everywhere that I have used [] I have inserted a word that does not technically appear in the original text.

Theseus Stop! Give [your] hand [to me], [your] servant [and] friend. 

*more literally: Stop! Give [your] hand to a servant/helper [and] friend.

* Ancient Greek uses different punctuation, though the : symbol is used roughly the same way as it is in English and exclamation points are not used, verb conjugation in English does not differentiate the imperative mood, which παῦσαι (sg.2.aor.imperat.med-pass) is in, and often the way we show imperative mood in written English is with an exclamation point. 

-The word δίδου (sg.2.praes.imperat.act.) is also imperative. 

-παῦσαι is said in reference to Herakles’ earlier lines, lamenting his - well, the plot of Herakles.

* The particle δὲ has been omitted from the translation. It’s usually translated as but, and, or then. 

* The possessive pronoun your - σός - does not appear but is implied.

* χεῖρ᾽ is the short version of χειρός - hand

* ὑπηρέτῃ φίλῳ are both nouns in dative, here answering the question to whom? The word and - καί - does not appear between the two, likely because poetic language. The word ὑπηρέτῃ can also mean rower, an underling, servant, attendant, assistant, and is often translated here as helper. The word φίλῳ is a form of φίλος - friend, loved, beloved, dear

Herakles No, lest I wipe off blood on your garments.

* Word order changed slightly. The first word is ἀλλ᾽ - poetically shortened version of ἀλλά - usually translated as but, however, here: lest.

* ἐξομόρξωμαι (sg.1.aor.med-pass.) means wipe off or wipe away, but stain is, in my opinion, not an inaccurate translation in regards to the meaning conveyed.

* πέπλοις means any woven cloth, here usually translated as garments, robes or clothes. 

* αἷμα means blood and is grammatically either nominative or accusative, probably accusative, μὴ means not and σοῖς is a second person possessive pronoun in plural dative.

Theseus Wipe it off, spare naught: I [do] not refuse [you].

* ἔκμασσε (sg.2.praes.imperat.act.) - wipe it off - is imperative again, so is φείδου (sg.2.praes.imperat.med-pass.) - spare.

* μηδέν I translated as naught as in nothing, οὐκ means not

* ἀναίνομαι is in sg.1.praes.ind. - so present tense would be the most literal translation, ie. I do not refuse you, but the meaning might best be conveyed in English with the use of future tense, ie. I will not refuse you. The word can also mean reject, deny, renounce and disown, or be ashamed. Possible other translations: I don’t deny you; I won’t reject you; I am not ashamed; I won’t renounce you.)

That's all on Herakles, the rest is me rambling about Ancient Greek grammar for interested parties (mostly myself). If I could put a second cut here, I would.

Some further notes on the grammatical cases and verb conjugation. You'll have noticed that I've followed verbs with parentheses with some abbreviations. I'll break those down a little for those not in the know: unlike English, Ancient Greek has different endings to denote the person in verb conjugation - 1.sg being first person singular as in I, and so on with 2.sg - you, 3.sg he/she/singular they, 1.pl - we, 2.pl - plural you, 3.pl - plural they. There's also technically an extant dual form in some texts (when speaking of a pair of two) but it's rare. Ancient Greek conjugation also varies a lot by the temporal tense, the ancient greek times are present (praesens - praes.), future (futurum and futurum III), imperfect (imperfectum), strong and weak aorist (aor. - this one doesn't exist in any modern languages and is a bit of a jeremy bearimy but is usually translated as either present or past, depending on the context), perfect (perfectum), and pluperfect (pluscuamperfectum) - all of these except imperfect and pluperfect (which only have indicative forms) then have various forms - indicative (ind.), infinitive (inf.), imperative (imperat.), optative (opt.) and conjunctive (coni.). Verbs also have an active (act.) and middle and passive or active and mediopassive (med-pass.) form, except some verbs only have mediopassive versions and are thus translated as either active or mediopassive depending on the context. This is as complicated (and fun!) as it sounds. (editors note: the fun! was not sarcastic - i am a medstudent who hasn't had to take two semesters worth of classes on this, nor do i have to keep taking ancient greek next semester but i'm going to)

Nouns in Ancient Greek also have grammatical cases, nominative, genitive, dative, accusative and vocative, as do adjectives. They also have genders, and adjectives of course have positive, comparative and superlative (good, better, best) forms.

Ancient Greek also uses a lot of participles, which is like a noun-ified verb. Participles are also a concept in English, just - a lot simpler in English, and also I think in English a participle is a verb that has some characteristics of an adjective or noun, whereas in Ancient Greek participles and verbal adjectives are separate concepts. Participles are derived from verbs and have the same grammatical cases as nouns, nominative, genitive, dative, accusative and vocative, and singular and plural versions, and have three genders, masc., fem. and neut. - they also have active and mediopassive forms, and differ based on the temporal conjugation of the verb, retaining its augment, reduplication, characteristic added letters (for example σ in the future tense, and θη + σ in the passive future) or lack thereof, also they can have different endings or roots based on the tense. So, yeah, "conjugate and translate this verb in part.fut.pass.sg.masc.gen. and II aor.part.act.sg.acc.fem." is what a test question might look like at my level of studying ancient greek.

Sentence constructions also differ from English, some of the most common ones are AcI, NcI, genitivus absolutus. accusativus duplex and nominativus duplex. They also will often skip words (particularly the verb to be they often deemed unnecessary) and poetic language is its own can of worms with its own theoretical dialects and prosody.

All of this is like, barely scratching the surface, there's also a bunch of different dialects, stuff varies by era, all of the noun cases have like, a Bunch of different uses, and it's all terribly interesting.

[alirhian]

Archive spirits made me think about elves and the nature of paths. I don't like that Nadas Dirthalen speaks like virtual assistant; the devs wanted sci-fi so badly that they couldn't resist adding AI. But I think they tried to make it lore-wise with "pathways", although I still think the fact that every Evanuris had it is pointless.

At first I thought it was like the archivists in Vir Dirthara from Trespasser, but Nadas Dirthalen is different, and Bellara said they weren't really spirits. Bellara said about archives:

They have, well… not thoughts like us. But sort of… pathways, I guess. They can only respond to specific questions. Worded in specific way.

The archivists in Trespasser, who didn't turn into Librarians, welcomely shared knowledge unlike that rude dirtbag.

Vir - path, way. Paths as origins of philosophy are reflected in the Dalish culture. The most famous is the path of Andruil, followed by the Dalish hunters, Vir Tanadhal, the Way of the Three Trees, which, as the name implies, is divided into three parts - three paths - Vir Assan, Vir Bor'Assan, Vir Adahlen. Another path is Sylaise’s Vir Atish'an, the Way of Peace. An interesting Vir Banal'ras, the Way of Shadow, which is followed by elves for revenge. Perhaps it has something to do with Mythal, since we find armor describing this path in her temple. It may be the path that some of Mythal's worshippers were following after she was killed. Vir'abelasan, the path of the Well of Sorrows. Servants of Mythal used to store the knowledge by transferring their memories into it. The paths contain collective knowledge of the elves in the form of memories.

Apparently the paths are sort of ether, or energy, or substance of the Fade. Most likely it's the basis of the nature of spirits, whose bodies are formed from ether, to absorb information and memories.

Vir Dirthara, the Shattered Library of all knowledge of Elvhenan. It can be translated as the Way of learning/seeking truth (knowledge/secrets). It was the creation of material world (world that wakes) and Fade. Vir Dirthara preserved the memories of elves and connected paths of the Elvhenan.

This is the Vir Dirthara. The living knowledge of the empire. The libraries of every city. The wisdom of every court. A connecting place whose paths are in disarray.

The archivists, Ghil-Dirthalen, were spirits of knowledge that absorbed and preserved that knowledge. Spirits are creatures of the Fade, so they were connecting elements.

“Ghil-Dirthalen” was what the elvhen called me. “One who guides seekers of knowledge true.” I was connection. One city could read the records of another, one elvhen feel the memories of another.

I believe Vir Dirthara was created by Dirthamen. The legends of Dirthamen and Falon'din include the paths and travels into the Fade. They guided elves to the uthenera to seek knowledge in dreams (and then dead elves to the Fade through the Veil), and Dirthamen advised them. Indeed, Dirthamen often shared his wisdom with elves, especially those of his favorite city, and perhaps this legend is also an allusion to Vir Dirthara, the connecting place of world that wakes and world that dreams where knowledge from across the empire was kept and shared with elves.

After the creation of the Veil, the paths were damaged and diminished, as the archivists and Tevinter texts said ("The paths ahead are lost in darkness, and those who walk them find only ruin" in Razikale's Reach). Some nexuses, reservoirs of memories of the ancient elves, remained. One of them is the Well of Sorrows.

It is possible – even likely – that the “emerald waters” Andraste refers to are the substance of the Fade, which began as an “ocean of dreams” (Threnodies 1:1) and was reduced to a well-bottomless but limited in scope-by the Maker's creation of our world

Even though the elves are former spirits, and the paths willingly embraces them, unlike other races, the elves, having taken mortal form, lost the ability to travel the paths, so they used a network of eluvians to organize the connection between them. The Well of Sorrows had eluvian that Corypheus was going to use to go into the Fade. Flemeth likely brought her memories into such a nexus through eluvian for Morrigan (makes more sense than Morrigan with Mythal's soul, actually). Morrigan said that the Crossroads were closed when a war between Evanuris began, which means that elves couldn't use the paths without them. It also wouldn't be surprising if blood magic, which weakens the connection to the Fade, made it worse. I think this is reflected in the legend of Dirthamen, who most likely started seeing the paths grey as non-elves because of blood magic. "Dirthamen tried to follow them, but the shifting grey paths beyond the Veil would not let him." "Shifting paths" that would not let him to follow could refer either to the paths without (before) eluvians or the consequences of using blood magic.

Moreover, by regaining their spirit form, the Forbidden Ones could be able to reach the paths without eluvians.

For abandoning the People in their time of greatest need, for casting aside form to flee to where the Earth could not reach, we declare Xebenkeck and others of her ilk exiled from the lands of the Evanuris. Beware! Their familiarity with shape allows them to travel paths unaided.

[maniculum]

I'm doing a College class on Ancient Foods. My focus is on Honey like the different recipes and usages in Medieval era. I found like a couple recipes, a thing on religious relation ("Milk and Honey of Paradise") /Crusades, medicinal use, and possibly bees/beeswax because I was struggling to get something.

Y'all have any recommendations?

(I've brought Zoe in on this one; the following is a collaborative effort. Also I'm assuming you have access to your university library so you can get ahold of the cited material below quickly and for free.)

Can you include beverages? Honey is the main ingredient in mead, which should give you a lot to talk about. Susan Verberg is the premier researcher on medieval mead, and has some excellent works on both mead making and honey production. She has a website at https://medievalmeadandbeer.wordpress.com/ where you can find both her formal publications and her blog.

If you do want to talk about beverages, there were other medieval drinks that used honey. Some citations for you:

Breeze, Andrew. “What Was ‘Welsh Ale' in Anglo-Saxon England?” Neophilologus, vol. 88, no. 2, 2004, pp. 299–301.

Fell, Christine E. “Old English ‘Beor’." Leeds Studies in English, vol. 8, 1975, pp. 76-95.

You can also go into cultural symbolism; here are a couple on that:

Enright, Michael J. Lady with a Mead Cup: Ritual, Prophecy, and Lordship in the European Warband from La Tène to the Viking Age. Four Courts Press, 2013.

Rowland, Jenny. “OE Ealuscerwen/Meoduscerwen and the Concept of ‘Paying for Mead'." Leeds Studies in English, vol. 21, 1990, pp. 1-12.

Also you might want to look into the general concept of the "mead of poetry" from the Old Norse sources. You can find the origin story for that in the Prose Edda, I believe.

Definitely check out https://www.foodtimeline.org for recipes with honey during the period - they have more than you'd expect. There's also a few medieval cookbooks you can parse through. Here's an online one you can sort through that does a great job modernizing the translations: https://www.medievalcookery.com/etexts.html

As for honey itself -- there's actually quite a bit of research on that! Honey was quite a specialized trade, and most of the medieval world used it for sweetener, so there's a good amount of research.

A few leads:

honey as an alternative to sugar, which was expensive, imported, and could indicate class

honey grading: honey was graded based on location/provenance, type (lavender, orange blossom, etc.), and also by grade. However, their method of grading was very different to our modern one.

honey as a preservative, not just for flavor

Articles on this subject:

(DEFINITELY this one!!) Fava, Lluis Sales, et al. “Beekeeping in Late Medieval Europe: A Survey of Its Ecological Settings and Social Impacts.” Anales de La Universidad de Alicante. Historia Medieval, no. 22, 2021, pp. 275-96, https://doi.org/10.14198/medieval.19671.

Wallace-Hare, David, editor. New Approaches to the Archaeology of Beekeeping. Archaeopress, 2022. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv2b07txd.

Verberg, Susan. “Of Hony: A Collection of Mediaeval Brewing Recipes for Mead, Metheglin, Braggot, Hippocras &c. — Including how to Process Honey — from the 1600s and Earlier,” 2017. Academia.edu.

If you want to look more into the medicinal usage, Cockayne's Leechdoms, Wortcunning, & Starcraft collects all the medical & scientific texts of the Old English period. It's old enough to be public domain, so it's available on the Internet Archive and HathiTrust in searchable form, meaning you can just ctrl-F "honey" and see what comes up.

Let us know how it goes!

[tidalhaired]

[   SILENCE   ]     ,     sender  and  receiver  enjoy  a  quiet  moment  together  without  conversation.

It never ceased to fascinate Elrond, how Númenorian Sindarin had changed over the years. The shift was notable from ruler to ruler. As founder and first King, Elros wrote with the clear Quenyan influences that had been taught to them by their foster fathers. He even wrote entire pieces just in Quenya and Elrond had to smile when he spotted a typo.

His fingertips traced more of his twin brother's familiar writing. It was beautiful, with elegant flourishes and characterized by placing the tehtar lower than most would. Elros' descendants had begun to adapt this charming quirk of his. His heart grew heavier by the moment, threatening to sink like Elros' beautiful city. At times he felt like those ancient ruins on the ocean floor. Drowned and left behind, clinging to brighter days and loud laughter.

It was thanks to Faramir that he even got to enjoy these original scrolls, here in Imladris. They would have been lost to the water, if not for Elendil, who had brought old records pertaining the Eldar to safety. And it had been Faramir who had taken stock and organized, making lists and appendices to lost or connected works like a proper archive and library required. It was Faramir, who had arrived with such a precious gift.

With eyes a little too damp for company, Elrond looked over to his lovely companion, who sat by the table with him, surrounded by many open tomes. The candlelight dipped Faramir into a warm, cozy light that seemed to embrace him, much like Elrond wanted to do right now.

A reminder that he was not alone. That there was still beauty and radiance in the world. But also that it was allowed to reminisce, as long as one did not forget to treasure the here and now just as much. Elrond found that he did not mind Faramir witnessing him shed a tear and that he was comfortable being vulnerable in the presence of the wise prince, who would never judge him for being overwhelmed.

[the-mountain-flower]

The Exiled and The Outcast

Chapter Five: A Rose,

Previous chapter

Next chapter

Dainix noticed his leg was bouncing when it bumped against the desk, startling him out of his reading stupor.

How long had he been doing that?

He tried not to worry about it too much, and went back to scanning the open book in front of him for anything useful.

Except… once interrupted, it became surprisingly difficult to go back to focusing on his task.

His mind kept wandering, and he found himself fidgeting with anything he could get his hands on.

Dainix sighed and leaned back in the chair.

He was bored out of his mind, subconsciously looking for anything else to do other than sit there and read for hours on end. Doing nothing but his exhausting search for-

Wait a second.

Just how long had he been at this? How long was it since he last got some exercise, how long since he’d been outside?!

He’d arrived at the castle only a few days ago, almost a sef at this point. The second day he’d gone to buy food, but other than that… he’d been in the same two rooms, repeating the same routine. Wake up, eat, research, eat, sleep, repeat. For five days .

Gods, no wonder he was so restless! He hadn’t stretched his muscles or even seen the sun in almost a sef!

Dainix stood up the second that realization set in, almost knocking over the chair in the process. He was out of that library that exact moment.

It was past time to get some fresh air.

The sun on his skin felt good . It wasn’t nearly as bright or hot as it was back home, the light broken up by the occasional cloud or leafy tree. Still, Dainix practically basked in the sunlight like a lizard. He breathed deeply, letting the fresh outside air into his lungs to replace the dusty, stagnant air of the castle.

It was probably the first time he found the world outside the desert not as cold and unfamiliar, but instead as a warm, welcome relief from the monotony he’d found himself in.

Dainix took his time familiarizing himself with his surroundings. The castle grounds had long since been neglected, the original gardens reclaimed by nature, trees and vines covering every stone arch and pillar. The amount of vibrant green still made him a bit uncomfortable, but not nearly as much as when he’d ventured into a forest for the first time. It was actually beautiful, in an overgrown, ancient way. The plant life here was so vastly different than anything he’d seen growing naturally in the desert, even in the underground oases.

He considered preserving something to take with him to show his family back home, settling on some brightly-colored flowers that looked like the wild descendants of what once grew in the flowerbeds. He’d seen something similar every once in a while, sometimes worn by traders and travelers passing through his village, and its likeness replicated during the Feast of Serenis. He hadn’t known roses came in colors other than red and pink, though. This one had petals that were white, its neighbors various shades of orange, yellow, red, pink, and white.

Careful of the thorns but knowing the wyrmsilk would block the sharp points, Dainix tucked the flower into his belt. He was aware that even dried out, it might not last for as long as it might take for him to return home if ever , but he tried to ignore that thought. It didn’t hurt to have a little token of hope.

Dainix started looking around for somewhere with enough space for him to get some exercise. He wanted to go over some of his forms and such, at least enough to keep his skills honed even if he wasn’t actively having to use them. He was still Ravvan, no matter where he was, and he wanted to hold onto that.

He thought he found a suitable place to practice, but stopped himself from entering all the way he noticed something off to the side, and realized this area was in use.

East of his position, back turned to Dainix, was Falst. He was sitting on the ground, a stick in one hand, and drawing something in the dirt in front of him. It was a little too far away for Dainix to see what it was, though what he could see were multiple pictures drawn in the ground around him. Falst was clearly absorbed in his work, detailing the lines in the ground with great care.

Dainix left try somewhere else, leaving Falst to draw in peace.

Falst’s ears picked up rustling and footsteps. Immersed in his drawing, he initially dismissed it as probably just an animal.

Sure enough, it stopped soon after. Then it came again, and Falst realized it didn’t actually sound like some random animal.

He whirled around, and saw the stranger- Danix- as he turned away and left the clearing.

Falst scowled. Someone so heavily armed had seen him with his guard down like that, and he hadn’t even noticed! He hadn’t seen Dainix outside the castle before, but context clues told him that of course he wouldn’t be the kind of person to willingly stay inside for too long. Falst was getting sloppy with keeping his guard up.

In frustration, he threw away the stick he’d been using, and raked his claws through the drawing in the dirt in front of him. It was a hobby he’d picked up in his time here, something he’d never had time for in the past. It gave him some comfort, at first just reminding him of the drawings gifted from a caring mother long ago, eventually becoming something he did fairly often.

Falst walked away from the small collage, leaving his newest drawing unfinished. Through the scattered dirt could be seen a rough sketch of tight, circular petals wrapped around each other above a thorny stem.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Y'all have no idea how excited I was writing that last paragraph.

I'd like to give lots of love to everyone who's been SO supportive so far!! Seriously, your comments have made me so happy, and reminded me why I love sharing my stories. Thank you so so much!!! <3

Remember to drink water, eat food, take your meds (if applicable), and get enough sleep. Love you all, and have a great [insert time here]! <3

[sacredpyre]

V:Alena Cross and the Hidden Histories

indiana jones/mar*vel crossover verse. Set before mutants are known to the world. Dates are flexible but early 1900s

In a world where the extraordinary has been buried under centuries of lies, Alena Cross is a secret even to herself. Born in 1906 in the isolated town of Black Hollow, she grew up hearing whispers of strange bloodlines, of beings touched by ancient power — but never once imagining she was one of them. The truth was hidden as carefully as any artifact: Alena Cross is a mutant, a child of a lineage the world has forgotten, erased, and driven into hiding.

Alena always felt drawn to ruins of myths, relics, and forgotten histories. It was as though the stones themselves spoke to her. She mistook it for intuition. She mistook it for obsession. She never imagined it was in her blood.

Graduating from Hawthorne University in 1928 with highest honors in History and Library Science, Alena quickly rose within the Carnegie Archives, renowned for her uncanny skill at unearthing lost knowledge. Yet even among the highest towers of academia, she felt the pull of deeper mysteries — the missing pieces, the erased histories that no textbook dared touch.

Her secret life began slowly: clandestine trips to abandoned mutant enclaves, whispered conversations with those still living in the shadows. The more she learned, the clearer it became — mutantkind had not vanished. They had simply been forced to survive in silence.

Now, in the 1930s, as the world edges toward another great war and ancient powers stir once more, Alena hunts for the greatest prize of all: the Codex of the First Mutation, a relic said to hold the truth of mutant origins — and perhaps, a future where they no longer have to hide.

But forces both human and mutant will do anything to keep that truth buried. Some would kill to silence her. Others would crown her a symbol of rebellion. And deep down, Alena must confront the hardest truth of all: She is not just a historian of the lost world. She is part of it.

[irithnova]

Notes on Anitismo - The Ancient Religion of the Philippines by Isabelo de los Reyes.

Keep in mind - this was written a while back.

Ancient Chronicles written by the Jesuit hispanic Friars state that at the that the first spaniards set foot in the Philippines from the coast of visayas to Manila there was a considerable population of Muslim converts

This was especially true for Mindanao due to conversion by Islamic  teachers from Borneo

De los Reyes argues that because of this, to find native Filipino religion at its purest, we must look to the North

Distinguishing native religion without outside influence such as from Islam, Hinduism, Christianity etc can be tricky

However he argues that the traces of Native Filipino religion can be found in the stories superstitions and advice that belong to various Filipino ethnic groups (Tagalogs, Bicolanos, Zambalenos etc)

From the South of the country in Mindanao to the extreme North like Luzon, De los Reyes argues then native Filipino religion was consistent

This religion was Anitism or the Cult of Anito, meaning souls of the ancestors.

Anitism is not a monolithic religion and hosts a broad pantheon ranging from Gods to animals, nature, elements and space.

The Philippines had its own modern spiritism and De los Reyes argues this may have been the origins of the cults of "Romanist Saints" (Catholic saints) in the Philippines. By this I think he means that Filipino spirituality influenced how Filipinos proceeded with Catholic worship.

The oldest chronicles about the Philippines can be found in various museums and libraries (such as the National Library of Madrid, Covenant of St Augustine in Manila)

We can follow these chronicles, from when the Jesuit Pedro Quirino provided news of religion in the Philippines in 1604, followed by reproductions by others like the Jesuit Colin in 1663 and others such as Fr. Morga, Gonzalez de Mendoza, Aduarte etc.

Fr Morga said that Filipinos practised Anitism in certain regions like Camarines and Cagayan.

Some traditions would say that Manila and its regions were not originally native to the island - they were from Malayan islands and other remote areas.

Before the Spaniards arrived, Islamic teachers from Borneo came to preach and interacted with the locals 

Their teachings and beliefs spread quickly throughout the Philippines 

Fr. Grijalva writes that they (Filipinos) started adopting their traditions and took on their names.

De Los Reyes argues that Spanish conquistadors' arrival/conquest was delayed because Filipinos were already familiar with various religions and beliefs and also because of the hands of Datu Lapu Lapu. What I believe he is arguing is that Datu Lapu Lapu and the previous exposure Filipinos had to different religions at first delayed Spanish influence from spreading so quickly.

Other islanders who weren't under the control of the government in the Philippines has their beliefs influenced by religious preachers who travelled to them from the Straits of Malacca and the Red Sea.

An account, dated April 20th 1572 (preserved in the archives of India) which is from the conquest of Luzon details "In these towns, closest to the sea, they do not eat any pork, which the moors taught them. But if you ask them, they say they do not know Muhammed or his law." This account was reproduced by Wenceslao Retana.

In actuality, very few Filipinos could understand/read the teachings of the Koran despite the Islamic influence.

In Filipino traditions, reverence and worship was given to nature and the elements, and this was usually consistent throughout the islands.

Native Filipino religion beliefs include elements, animals, stars and ancestors.

Filipino religion in Manila and nearby areas was a mixture or Anitism, Buddhism, Hinduism and Islam brought by the Malays of Borneo.

Vocabulary included Sanskrit and Malay terms such as Bathala, meaning Lord.

However these terms are not used in Northern provinces.

De Los Reyes argues that Itnegs and other mountain tribes conserved and maintained the purest form of Filipino religion

In the Ilocos, Cagayan, Isabela and other provinces of Northern Luzon, native Filipino religion was more prevalent 

Hindus and Buddhists converted many in Java and Malaysia.

However Muslim influence became dominant in 1478 - 60 years before the Dutch invasion.

According to Javanese legends, Hindus arrives in Java 78 years before Christ.

The first Malays came from the Minangkabau river region to establish cities in Malacca , Ojohor and Singapore in the 12th century, as per Malacca records.

In the 13th, 14th and 15th centuries, there were various Malaysian emigrations reaching the Philippines 

De Los Reyes argues that Filipinos may have also populated the islands of Malaysia, and emigrations could have originated from strong winds coming down from the North.

The first Spaniards found the son of Lakandula, King of Manila, when they went to Borneo.

The emperor's master of ceremonies from Japan (Mr Fujita) argued that emigration likely came from the north and that Filipinos may have some relations to the Japanese.

According to Geographers and Historians of the Mariana Islands, what De Los Reyes calls the "know it all Spanish" - had no idea about interesting ruins found in Oceania, one of which was a prehistoric statue that was being held in the British museum.

He argues there may be hidden megaliths, artefacts, and remnants of lost civilisation in the Philippines, as seen in various locations such as : Butacan caves, Pangibalon Hill, Madias de Iloilo and Nasso.

[margindoodles2407]

heyyy margin I was wondering

for the sw high fantasy au, how are you planning to make the story go down? Will it be pretty similar to the movies, or will you be making any changes? Also, are you gonna be doing anything with all the crazy creatures found on every planet connect? Like, some of them are dragons and so on? Or there being different families all the creatures fit into? and finally, are you gonna include any ships that aren’t canon?

Ok that’s it XD

HI EVIE THANKS FOR CHECKING IN ON ME!!!

Okay SO. Let me answer these one at a time :D

(this is over a thousand words so it's going to be below the cut)

In terms of story, everything from the Prequels through the Original Trilogy is going to be pretty much the same. What I can tell you is that although I haven’t actually put that much thought into the Sequels yet, they are going to be markedly different from the current Disney canon in that they will combine elements from both the Disney canon and Legends, including Mara Jade and the other Organa-Solo kids (Jacen, Jaina, and Anakin as well as Ben) because they live rent-free in my mind. 

However, a few things in the Prequels especially are going to be markedly different because the way they are executed in canon doesn’t fit into a High Fantasy world, and I’ll put these as bulletpoints:

Kamino is going to be introduced very differently. While Dooku destroying all evidence of its existence works in canon, because it’s in the outer rim and canon Star Wars is a digital, data-based world, in a fantasy setting it would be extremely difficult to cover up all the evidence of an entire island- especially in regards to its references (or lack thereof) in the Jedi Archives, because these would obviously now be a paper-and-pen, books and scrolls and tapestries library, instead of a digital archive where data can just be erased. (Though, the mental image of Dooku checking out all the books on Kamino and then burning them is very funny to me. Especially if Jocasta Nu walked in on him. “Master Dooku… what are you doing?” “Oh, nothing, dear Jocasta.” *book makes a FWOOSH sound as it goes up in flames*) Instead, in the AU Kamino is an Atlantis-esque legend to the people of the Galactic Archipelago: in the days of the Old Republic, it was sunk in divine retribution for the unnatural genetic alchemy practiced by the Kaminoans. After leaving the Jedi, Dooku discovers that Kamino is, in fact, real, and that the Kaminoans preserved their ancient fortress undersea by way of a magic barrier. When Obi-Wan learns about the Kaminoan dart from Dex, his problem in looking for Kamino is now that no one takes him seriously because at every turn, it’s dismissed as just a children’s tale.

This isn’t necessarily a story thing, but the map is slightly different; the most obvious example of this is the changing of Mustafar’s location, because it and Coruscant are part of the same chain of volcanic islands- Coruscant just happens to be dormant. In fact, Coruscant’s underworld is built into the caldera of the volcano, because it hasn’t erupted since the early days of the Old Republic and is widely thought to be extinct.

C-3PO has his own new lore now. He’s the ghost of a knight- Sir Anthony Threepio, so I can keep it phonetically similar (C-3PO = Sir Threepio) and also give a little reference to Anthony Daniels- who died in a surprise pirate ambush on Tatooine centuries ago, and the stress he retains from the events surrounding his death has made him neurotically obsessed with being prepared for absolutely every possible situation. In life, he was also incredibly intelligent, and spoke almost every language in the Galactic Archipelago. When Anakin is a little boy, he meets and befriends Threepio’s ghost, and, being the kind soul he is, offers to build him a suit of armor so Threepio can be in the world again. In gratitude, Threepio swears a knightly oath to serve Anakin’s family for as long as he is able.

R2-D2 (and, actually, all astromechs) ALSO has his own lore. Astromech Gnomes are a race that lives far below the surface of the Galactic Archipelago, and have for so long that sunlight is actually toxic to them. They are gifted with a masterful knowledge of machinery- an art lost to the rest of the Archipelago- and can build and/or fix almost anything, including ships. In addition, because they live in near-total darkness, they have an excellent internal compass, so they often work as navigators. However, because they can only ply their trades on the surface, and sunlight will kill them, they use their mechanical genius to build themselves small dome-like suits from which they can safely practice their craft without endangering themselves. In addition, they can understand but cannot speak basic, due to the fact that they have avian-like mouth structures and can only speak in whistles and chirps. 

On a similar note, let’s talk about Battle Droids. I’ll try to breeze through this pretty quickly. Regular Battle Droids are necromanced skeletons (General Grievous is an ancient, undead Lich Warlord and necromances all of them), Super Battle Droids are centaur-esque automatons (in the classic sense, like in Greek and Roman mythology), and Droidekas I… haven’t actually figured out yet (if you have any ideas let me know!). 

Creatures! Well, obviously I just talked about Astromechs and Battle Droids. But yes, I have thought about this! I have a few ideas which I actually came up with while I was designing Padme’s area outfit from Attack of the Clones, and then obviously I’ve been thinking about the alien races that are too bizarre to just put into my system of “There Are Many And Diverse Human Cultures In The Galactic Archipelago”. And anyway, this is a fantasy world, we need fantasy creatures. I’ll put these in bulletpoints, too. In regards to all of these, I’m trying to keep their in-canon appearances as much as possible while just amping up the fantasy vibe, so- for example- Admiral Ackbar will still look like Admiral Ackbar, but with lobster legs. And such.

Nexu are manticore-esque

Acklays are something like a Cockatrice

The Rhino Thing whose name I can never remember? The thing Anakin fights? That’s a Tarasque now.

The Aquatic races are all types of merfolk: Nautolans are your classic mermaids, and still have their head tentacles (for reference, I’ll upload a picture of Heroforge!Kit Fisto at the end of this list); Mon Calamari are crustacean-legged; Quarren are squid-people; and the other fish-people (like the one who steals Ahsoka’s lightsabers in that one episode) are. Well. They’re fish mermaids. 

Heroforge!Kit Fisto:

Thisspiasians are like Nagas, but with four arms. 

Besalisks are centaurs. But with four arms. (There’s a lot of four-armed creatures in star wars.)

Yoda is a delightful little imp-creature. 

Kaminoans are. Well. Kaminoans. I think they’re weird enough to just leave alone.

Geonosians are malicious insect-like pixies (in the classic sense)

Darth Maul specifically is a Drider- a spider-legs person. The Clone Wars writers were cowards (affectionate), but I am not, so he keeps the spider legs.

If you have any more ideas for creatures to fantasy-ify, I’d LOVE to hear them!

Ships. Both in the boat sense and the romance sense. But I suspect you’re talking about the romance sense here :) So here’s the thing, most of my Star Wars ships are. Already canon. (A few I think might just be widely-accepted fanon, but that could just be because I’m not quite done with TCW and I haven’t started TBB yet, so that remains to be seen). HOWEVER. There is, in fact, Mara Jade, and as she is no longer Disney canon, I think it’s safe to say that she and Luke are no longer canon, so yes, there will be at least ONE non-canonical ship in this AU- that being the aforementioned Luke and Mara Jade. There might be others, which I will get back to you on upon completion of TCW and TBB. (Oh, and there’s also pre-Sith Dooku and Jocasta Nu, because old people in love is near and dear to my heart, and I don’t know if this counts as non-canon or not, but that will be at least briefly touched upon.)

I hope you found this enjoyable and enlightening. And also, you know me, if you have any follow-ups, I will be DELIGHTED to scream about those with you :D