#(and he's primed to the equinox as the new year)

[iturbide]

tfw you look up a random piece of information and end up finding something to incorporate into your worldbuilding

[dystopicjumpsuit]

Martyrs and Kings - Chapter 1

A Clone Walks Into a Library

Rating: T (rating varies by chapter; mature content will be tagged)

Pairing: Kix x archivist/historian OFC

Wordcount: 3.3k

Warnings: slight angst; mentions of canon character deaths; office politics are canon in the GFFA

A/N: Finally migrating this story over from AO3. I'll be posting a chapter on Tumblr every few days until I'm caught up, but if you'd like to read ahead, here's the link to the story up to chapter 8.

Summary: Clone medic Kix is a man displaced in time. Captured by Separatists and put into cryostasis when he learned the truth about the clones' inhibitor chips, he awakens fifty years after the end of the Clone Wars. The Republic is gone. The galaxy has changed. And now, the last clone trooper searches for answers with the help of a New Republic historian.

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Republic City, Hosnian Prime

32 ABY

The man gazed up at the imposing building in front of him, squinting against the harsh sunlight. The air was chilled despite the brightness of the day, and his breath swirled in clouds around him. He stood, seemingly oblivious to the pedestrians that bustled past as airspeeders whizzed through the skylane behind him. Few noticed the man, but those who did felt a strange sense of unease, of slight wrongness, as though he did not quite belong in the setting. Whether they observed this or not, the pedestrian traffic instinctively steered away from him, leaving a wide bubble of space around the stranger.

He stood, unmoving, for some time, locked in a silent debate with himself, until at length, he reached a decision. With a sharp nod, he walked into the building.

It was cold in the New Republic Galactic Library. Maree readjusted the shawl that she always kept in her office for mornings like this, then wrapped her hands around her mug of tea as she scrolled through the morning’s holomessages. Most of them were from colleagues complaining about the temperature. Most recently, the head maintenance droid had sent out a dispassionate mass response explaining that the sprawling complex’s central climate control had been automatically adjusted due to the spring equinox. Maree’s eyes lit with amusement as the indignant replies began to pop up in her inbox.

New Republic efficiency at its finest, she thought. Everything had to be automated. It didn’t matter that the outside temperature was still well below freezing; the equinox had passed, and so they were moved to the spring climate schedule. No doubt the decision had come from a droid that had no problem functioning in the cold. It would probably take weeks of complaints and committee meetings by the time the issue was resolved, and by that point, Republic City would likely be in the middle of a full and magnificent spring, rendering the problem null.

She nearly laughed as she skimmed through her messages and saw identical leave requests from two of the department’s interns who thought they were being subtle about their burgeoning romance. Ah, young love. Who was she to stand in the way? She quickly approved the requests, then moved on to carefully review the latest research directive from the New Republic Judiciary. Finally, she could longer put off reading the last message in her inbox. Despite herself, her heart began to beat a little faster as she opened the message. 

To: Dr. Maree R. Finnall From: NRGL Department of Outreach Subject: Decision on Expedition Proposal Submission Submission Number: ORE-R-72-00066T5 Dear Dr. Finnall, It is with great regret that we must inform you that your recent expedition proposal has been rejected. As you are aware, the current political climate in the Outer Rim is somewhat tenuous. . .

The message went on, but there was no need to finish reading it. Force knew she’d received it often enough to know what it said. Maree turned off the holoprojector with a small sigh. She took a sip of her tea and grimaced when she found it had gone cold. 

Taungsdays, am I right?

She crossed to her small kitchenette and dumped the tea down the sink. She briefly considered making another cup, but it would likely share its predecessor’s fate, so instead, she moved to gaze out the massive window. Glacial air flowed off the transparisteel, but the view was worth the discomfort. The early morning sun sparkled off the thick layer of frost covering Republic City, transforming it into a glittering wonderland. Beyond the city’s magnificent towers and spires, she glimpsed the deep azure of the western ocean.

I love it here, she reminded herself. It wasn’t exactly a punishment to stay on Hosnian Prime. Surely the benefits outweighed the disappointment of yet another rejected proposal.

The soft chime of her office door startled Maree out of her reverie.

“Come in,” she called.

The door slid open to reveal one of the library’s receptionists, Eidani Olphes. Maree didn’t know her well, but she passed the younger woman at the library’s front desk every morning when she arrived at work, and Maree always tried to be friendly with the support staff. She remembered her own early career when senior faculty were often dismissive and condescending, and she had vowed never to be the cause of anyone feeling so small and unimportant. 

“Good morning, Eidani,” she said with a warm smile. “What can I do for you?”

“Dr. Finnall, I have a gentleman here who is visiting Hosnian Prime to research the Clone Wars. Do you have any availability to meet with him this morning?”

Maree’s interest was piqued immediately. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d gotten such a request from a private citizen.

“As a matter of fact, I’m free now,” she said. “Is he here?”

“Yes,” Eidani replied. “TJ-60 asked him to wait outside your office.”

Eidani fidgeted a little as she spoke, and Maree wondered if the man had made her uncomfortable. Maree commed her droid assistant, fully prepared to ban the visitor from the library if he had harassed the young Devaronian.

“Teejay, please show the gentleman into my office.”

“Right away, Dr. Finnall,” came Teejay’s monotone reply.

Maree heard the outer office door hiss open as Teejay directed the visitor to her office. Eidani turned around as soon as Teejay opened the door and watched his approach with a wide smile and undisguised interest. As the visitor walked into view, Maree realized she had misread the young receptionist’s reaction.

Force almighty.

Maree had never seen such a gorgeous man. He was tall and athletically built, with golden brown skin, curly black hair, and a neat beard. His nondescript clothing entirely failed to disguise his powerful frame, and he moved with the relaxed confidence of a man with absolutely nothing to prove. The beard emphasized his high cheekbones, but his eyes were the most arresting. They were a warm, luminous brown that reminded her of sunlight glinting through amber. Something about his face tugged at her memory, and she wracked her brain trying to remember if she’d met him before.

“Hello again,” Eidani giggled. “This is Dr. Finnall. She’s our Clone Wars expert.”

His solemn gaze flicked from Eidani to Maree, and she nearly blinked at the intensity in his eyes.

“Maree Finnall,” she said, shaking his hand. 

“Kix,” he replied.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Kix.” 

“Just Kix,” he said.

He had a lovely voice, smoky and dark and beautifully accented, and Maree briefly wondered if he had any flaws at all. She hoped she had a better sabacc face than Eidani.

“My mistake,” she said. “Please call me Maree.”

“You specialize in the Clone Wars?” he asked.

 “To a degree. My scholarship focuses on the military history of the late Galactic Republic and early Imperial periods,” Maree clarified. “The Clone Wars are, of course, a major part of that era. How can I help you?” 

He glanced at Eidani, who was staring up at him with a worshipful expression.

“I, er—I’m looking for some fairly detailed information,” he hedged.

Maree took the hint.

“I see,” she said. “Please come in. Thank you, Eidani. I’ll notify the front desk if we need your assistance again.”

“Of—of course!” Eidani gushed. “Please let me know if you need anything. Anything at all!”

“We will keep that in mind,” Maree smiled.

She shot a meaningful glance at Teejay, who immediately began to usher Eidani out of the office. Maree closed her door and turned to Kix, who was looking around the room with interest.

“Nice office,” he said.

“Thank you. Please make yourself comfortable,” she replied, gesturing to the soft, padded armchairs that were strategically placed around the room. “May I offer you a cup of tea?”

“No, thank you,” he said. “I don’t want to be a bother.”

“It’s no trouble at all,” she said. “Let me know if you change your mind. For now, can you tell me what specific information you are looking for?”

He selected a chair that was oriented so that it faced both the window and the door of the office, she noticed. Maree’s mother was the same way; she hated the vulnerability of having her back to an opening. Mindful of Kix’s hypervigilance, Maree picked up her datapad and settled into a chair on his left, leaving plenty of space between them, as she prepared to take notes. From this angle, she could see the edge of a tattoo peeking out from his hairline. It looked like aurebesh, but his hair covered too much of it to be sure. It was intriguing, and she had a sudden and distinctly unprofessional urge to brush the hair away from his face and take a closer look.

“I’m interested in the late months of the wars,” he said. “Everything after the Battle of Anaxes.”

She tapped the information into her datapad. He observed her closely as she worked. She wasn’t accustomed to such scrutiny, and she found it slightly distracting. She felt a bit like a bug that was being dissected and studied.

“I can prepare an overview,” she said, “but that is still quite a broad area as there were so many simultaneous campaigns. Is there any particular battle or unit that I should focus on?”

“The 501st Legion,” he said in a clipped tone.

“General Skywalker’s legion. A fascinating unit,” she said. “Are you interested in their actions in the Imperial era as well, or only those preceding the fall of the Galactic Republic?”

“Both,” he said. “Is there a way to research individual soldiers in the battalion?”

“Yes, if you send me a list in advance,” she replied, “though it may take me a few days to compile the records. Will you be on Hosnian Prime long?”

“As long as it takes,” he said.

“I see. Perhaps we can meet on Primeday morning?” she suggested. “That should give me time to collect the combat reports at least, and once we’ve had a look at those, we might have a better idea of where to direct our research efforts.”

“What time on Primeday?” he asked.

“Any time you like,” she said. “I’ll have Teejay clear my schedule so I can be at your disposal all morning. I do have appointments in the afternoon that I won’t be able to reschedule, unfortunately.”

He looked startled. “Oh, I don’t want to take you away from your work for that long.”

“This is my work,” she said. “And I am delighted to meet someone who shares my interest in this particular field. Not many do. Consider yourself warned; you are far more likely to get tired of me than I am likely to run out of things to talk about.”

“I doubt that,” he said, meeting her eyes squarely. 

“Let me know if you still feel that way after I send you so many reports and articles that I crash your datapad,” she said.

He smiled for the first time since she’d met him, and it made him look younger and even more handsome, if such a thing were possible. She found herself smiling back at him even as she told herself not to indulge her interest. Not only was the man a client, but he was at least a decade younger than Maree—much closer to Eidani’s age, in fact. 

“I should forewarn you,” she said. “This period of history—it’s a difficult one. Most of the stories do not end well.”

“Trying to scare me off, Doc?” he asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Not at all,” she said. “I just want you to be prepared. There’s a reason most historians choose other periods to study. It’s a hard time to confront.”

“I understand,” he said, and something in his eyes told her that he truly did. “I will see you on Primeday.”

Kix exited the library feeling decidedly ambivalent. He stepped into the frigid air, which had failed to capture any heat from the bright sunshine during the time he’d spent inside the building. Still, he took a deep breath and felt the sting of it in his lungs.

He had been nervous when he entered the library. He’d spent over a year with Sidon Ithano and his crew, throwing himself into their skirmishes with a ruthlessness and ferocity that startled even the notorious pirate’s crew. But the violence failed to distract him from his own thoughts. He’d been consumed by grief and rage, overwhelmed by feelings of failure and guilt and the futility of everything he and his brothers had suffered and sacrificed. And worst of all, the knowledge that all of his brothers—every single one of them—were long dead. 

He had never felt so alone. 

Every time he looked in the mirror, his fallen brothers’ faces looked back at him. So he avoided mirrors as much as possible. Growing a beard helped disguise the resemblance, but he still couldn’t stand to meet his own eyes in the reflection. When he decided at last to uncover his brothers’ fates, the ship’s Twi’lek mechanic Reveth had warned him that nothing good would come from digging into the past.

“It ended bad,” she said. “I don’t think it could have ended worse. Don’t do this to yourself.”

They had been lying in bed. It hadn’t taken them long to seek each other’s company after Kix joined the crew. They both needed comfort—needed to forget. Just for a moment. He was haunted by his memories, and she by her hopeless, despairing love for the ship’s mysterious captain. They found oblivion in each other’s beds, but nothing more.

“I have to know,” he said, no longer able to bear the uncertainty. 

And so, he took a temporary leave from the Meson Martinet crew and traveled to Hosnian Prime in search of someone who could give him the answers he needed. The New Republic Information Bureau had directed him to the library, explaining that the facility maintained an extensive staff of archivists. At least one of them would surely be able to help, the information droid had assured him. When Kix had arrived at the entrance to the library’s vast structure, he’d hesitated, remembering Reveth’s warning before he’d departed the Meson Martinet three days earlier.

He’d shaken off the voice in his head, squared his shoulders, and gone inside. The pretty young Devaronian receptionist at the front desk hadn’t been able to answer his questions, but she had located an archivist who could, leading him through the labyrinthine facility with an ease that spoke of many such trips. She had been friendly and outgoing, peppering him with questions that left him tongue-tied, so he responded with mostly monosyllables or silence. His reticence did not seem to affect her at all—quite the opposite, in fact, and by the time she had located the archivist, she had escalated into full-blown flirtation. It had been a relief when the office droid had requested him to wait outside the office until the archivist was free to speak with him.

When he’d been admitted, he braced himself for another verbal onslaught, but the archivist was very different from the bubbly receptionist. She was older, for one thing. Her elaborate hairdo was threaded with silver, and a few fine lines crinkled around the corners of her eyes, evidence of decades of laughter. Her greeting had been friendly while maintaining a professional reserve, and he was struck by her low, melodic voice. 

And Maker, she was beautiful. Kix had found himself staring as she introduced herself, taking in the graceful contours of her face. She was dressed in elegant, flowing robes, and he had felt a moment’s self-consciousness about the shabby plainness of his own garb. But she had given him a kind smile, and despite the chilly air of the library, her small hands had been warm when she had clasped his in greeting. He clenched his fist lightly when she released him, trying in vain to hold onto that warmth. 

Her office was a comfortable, cozy room that seemed more like a home than a workplace—at least in Kix’s opinion, accustomed as he was the the harsh sterility of Kamino, the endless gray of the Republic Star Destroyers, and the chaotic violence of the battlefield. There was a large desk, which he had expected, and an assortment of soft, mismatched armchairs set around the room, which he had not. The expansive view from the enormous window naturally dominated the space, but she had decorated the room to suit her own taste as well. Several paintings hung on the walls, a few sculptures were tastefully displayed through the room, and there was a vase of fresh flowers on the desk. When she offered him tea, he noticed a small kitchenette, and he wondered exactly how much time she spent in this room. 

As she settled into the chair next to him and began discussing his request, he felt his anxiety spike again. He wasn’t sure how he was going to explain his interest in the Clone Wars without giving away his identity. It was something of an open secret in the Outer Rim that Sidon Ithano traveled with a clone trooper—though there were those who insisted this was merely another rumor designed to fuel the Crimson Corsair’s intimidating reputation. In general, Kix kept to himself, and he was reluctant to disclose his origins to anyone, let alone a government representative. To his relief, she did not interrogate him about his motivations; instead, she directed her questions to how she could best assist his search. Her soft voice made him want to lean in closer when she spoke, and as they conversed, he felt his tension begin to disperse.

She had a way of drawing him into the conversation without pressuring him for personal details, and he deeply appreciated her tact. It was not easy for him to talk to people, whether they were strangers or friends. Not like it used to be. He was not the same man he’d been before the Separatists tortured him for information and shoved him into a cryo-cycle stasis pod. 

During the Clone Wars, he had been fun-loving and easygoing. He’d been popular with his fellow clones and with the civilians he encountered—in fact, the bubbly receptionist from the library would have been exactly the kind of partner he would have sought out during a night out at 79’s. And most importantly, he’d had a group of brothers who were his best friends. Hardcase; Tup; Jesse; and the Domino twins, Echo and Fives. They had fallen, one by one, replaced by shinies, until it was just him and Jesse left of the original group—and Captain Rex, of course. The best commanding officer a clone could have asked for, and the closest thing Kix had ever had to a father. 

Finding Echo alive had been a miracle, and it was entirely due to Rex’s instincts. But the man they had found on Skako Minor had been so different from the ARC trooper who’d been left for dead at the Citadel that he had felt there was no longer a place for him in the 501st, and so Kix had lost Echo a second time. That loss was what had pushed Kix to take up Fives’s investigation. What he had found had horrified him deeply. He had tried desperately to alert the Jedi to the sinister plot, but the Separatists had found him first.

And now, fifty-one years later, he was a stranger in a strange galaxy, begging an alluring historian to tell him how his brothers had died.

---

Chapter 2

Tagging: @blueink-bluesoul @secondaryrealm @spicy-clones

[steamishot]

end of january

time tends to feel like it flies by in LA, but the days feel more painful and long in NYC. whenever i have too much time to myself, i tend to ruminate and get stuck on negative thoughts. all the interviews in the past few months that i was hoping would work out for matt, have not come to any fruition. UCI, UCLA, city of hope are most likely a no. LA general/USC is a slight maybe - they are "thick in interview season" and do not have an answer yet. kaiser woodland hills seems to be a malignant program that hires new grads and has them basically work a brutal schedule (5-6 days off a month only, flip flops between nights and days).

sometimes i am more compassionate and patient, because i understand matt is trying really hard and the job market is just extremely competitive. but there are many other times that i have a lot of anger about this whole situation and can as an AH move direct it at him/place the blame on him. recently R&T who just moved here last september has informed us that T has been job searching again, and he received an offer in dallas that they're seriously considering. my pathologist friend L is finishing up her fellowship and she received an offer both in socal and norcal - like she received 2 offers out of 2 in person interviews. i know objectively it's easier for T to land a new job (data science, lower paying), and for L to secure jobs because she's highly specialized, but it's also difficult not to compare their success to our behind the scenes.

TP who is also an INTP like matt and have similar qualities about decision making, shared that it took her a year of job searching (while currently holding a job) to select one that makes the most sense. it did really help to hear things from her perspective, that although i find it tough by association, the person doing the interviewing and being rejected is by far taking the brunt of these difficult situations.

i'm really trying my best to be supportive of all this, instead of focusing on things out of my control. i think the most challenging aspect for me to accept is that we're at the prime age to settle down but there is no plan forward yet.

i could be angry at medicine, at how unfair it is after so many years of training (in a location that is not your choice) you can still end up in a malignant situation, how no one really cares for doctors' work conditions because they "make too much money" and there continues to be abusive/predatory environments even as an attending physician. or i could be grateful for all that this career offers us, in terms of opportunities, fulfillment, respect, job security and financial stability.

yoga: in these past 12 days, i will have completed 10 yoga classes (5 at tangerine and 5 at equinox). this is the most i've ever done consistently. it's useful to switch up the instructors, because most of the ones i went to before did not provide hands on assistance or tell me if i was doing a pose wrong. i purchased a yoga strap to practice flexibility at home!

broadway: this month, we watched hadestown, sweeney todd and moulin rouge. both hadestown and moulin rouge were amazing seats; our seats for sweeney todd were OK but we could not see the actors faces/emotions due to distance. i would rank hadestown > sweeney todd > moulin rouge. i actually left moulin rouge with a headache that lasted a few hours because the music was so loud and everything was so flashy lol

bedsheets: as part of lifestyle creep, we upgraded our duvet insert to MUJI down duvet and got a matching washed cotton duvet cover to match the rest of our ensemble. it was on sale for 40% off. i've been dreaming of doing this for like 3 years now haha so it is a worthwhile mention. i'm not sure yet if it is better than the $30 duvet insert from amazon that we've been sleeping with the last 3 years. i realize i am emotionally attached to our last duvet so it'll take time to get used to this new one.

[thenamesblurrito]

Are there any holidays in SNAP?

ty anon, and this ask has been a draft for........ awhile ._. anyways

given how the system of time measurement looks different than just orbital days and years on Cybertron, there’s a different calendar setup of holidays. some are synced to vorns, some are synced to seasons, etc. and obviously different places and cultures will have different holidays, but here’s some common ones:

New Vorn: basically the equivalent to our new year. this is when the calendar ticks over to the next number, everybody celebrates and remembers and looks forward, there’s probably fireworks in multiple cultures, etc. this is also true of the colonies. even though every planet has different orbital years, vorns aren’t counted by years, so all the colonies celebrate the new vorn at the same time along with Cybertron

Spring Equinox & New Year: Cybertron’s orbital year is shorter than a vorn, so celebrating the new orbital year at the spring equinox is more of a seasonal holiday than a timekeeping one. some Rust Sea cultures like Crystal City, Helex, Rodion, Altihex, and Kalis have their holiday on the fall equinox instead. this comes 5 or 6 times every vorn

Apsides: Cybertron has a very oblong orbit, so seasons aren’t governed by axial tilt so much as they are by distance from the sun. perihelion and aphelion are both celebrated, but since the warmth of spring causes more activity in Cybertron’s natural processes, perihelion is considered more important and joyful. this comes 5 or 6 times every vorn

Orn of Ages: so yknow how in real life horses have the same birthday for recordkeeping purposes? it’s kinda like that. each of the 12 fertile hotspots has an annual festival dedicated to it and everyone forged there. this is also how people record their ages. a person forged at the Eugenesis hotspot will mark themselves as one vorn older when the Eugenesian Orn of Ages rolls around, instead of the actual anniversary of their eruption. “birthday” cakes included! colonies have their own hotspots and thus their own Orns of Ages

Trimara Rites: this one is mostly in Tagan Heights and Darklands cultures, like Vos, Tyrest, Helex, and Tarn, and also on the colony Devisiun. these places divide the vorn into thirds, called trimara. each trimara has a holiday at the beginning, called the Rite of the Core, the Day of the Keeper, and the Wake of Mortilus. it’s like a ritualized life cycle of the vorn in three stages. the first celebrates new life and beginnings, as created in the core of Cybertron, the second commends living that life well, as guarded by the mythological figure the Keeper, and the last watches that life move on into a fresh cycle, as witnessed or even caused by Mortilus, god of death

Festival of the 13: a very common religious holiday that looks incredibly different based on local cultural interpretation of the Primes, religious symbolism, and historical bias. it celebrates the lives and importance of the original 13 Primes, with distinct phases and traditions for each Prime. it’s usually held early in the vorn and can last a few days, depending on how seriously the local culture takes the celebrations. it’s often used as a political event too, to get in some speeches and campaigning

Wake of Solus: the semihistorical, semireligious alleged anniversary of Solus Prime’s death. this is a pretty big, serious holiday on Caminus and some cultures on Cybertron, occurring late in the vorn. it’s less celebratory and more solemn, remembering and respecting

The Tragedy: this is sort of a counterpart to the Wake of Solus occurring near the end of the vorn, being a grim reminder of Megatronus Prime. regional belief varies on whether he was corrupted or killed, but something bad happened to him, he did terrible things, and then disappeared according to records attributed to Prima. it’s very important in Darklands, Tagan Heights, and Stanix cultures, but more of a casual bank holiday in other places

Primal Procession: historically the traditional day of appointment for new Primes, now translated into a political holiday for elections, new careers, and propaganda-filled parades. it happens right around the middle of the vorn, and the Grand Architect usually tours the most important cities on Cybertron to participate in processions and remind everyone of his power. sometimes he also visits the colonies. it’s become yet another race on Velocitron, while Carcerians typically treat it as an excuse to take to the streets with drunken singing and noisemakers

Allspark’s Festival: a pseudoreligious holiday that’s mostly become a family and general life celebration, about a third of the way through the vorn. it also celebrates Cybertron and Vector Sigma and the planet itself being alive, as well as individual people. think if Easter got watered down, combined with Mother’s/Father’s Day, and then smushed in with Earth Day for good measure. the colonies don’t really celebrate this one, except some places on Eukaris with cultures that believe the Allspark isn’t a literal physical object but rather a piece of every spark

Festival of Lost Light: this one happens annually, but the date changes, calculated to be held during the depths of Cybertron’s orbital winter in the last third of the vorn. it’s a reminder of the lost, the fallen, the dead, and passing inward to the Well. it’s both sad and comforting, and floating lanterns imitating sparks are a common tradition across cultures

Unity Day: a political holiday instituted by the Stratocracy to celebrate the anniversary of universal demilitarization after all the colonies had been brought under functionist control. supposedly it’s a reminder of the trust and goodwill that went into disbanding the army, a signal of the real unity everyone has under the regime. it’s a very government-run, propaganda generating holiday occurring near the beginning of the vorn across all Cybertron and colonies

[mia-cooper]

okay but just HOW bad was the Janeway 'autobiography'? glad I didn't buy it then lmao

**** HERE BE SPOILERS so do not read further if you plan to buy this book ****

(but also... DON’T BUY THIS BOOK)

So I’m not one to describe ‘Mosaic’ as fine literature, but it did one thing: it fleshed out Janeway’s background and personality to the point where you got some insight into who she was and why she did stuff the way she did. In my opinion it didn’t go far enough, but it doled out just enough interesting info to spark lots of fanfic.

The autobiography, on the other hand, reads like it was ghostwritten by a church lady who’s never been outside her nice white gentrified neighbourhood.

And while I know Kirsten Beyer’s books have flaws, they tell a great story (and a great love story - let’s not ignore that). The autobio reads like “I did this, and then I did that, and then this happened. The end.”

It’s boringzzzzzz.

Also, it contradicts both canon and beta canon like what the fuck! Like...

* Owen Paris and the Al-Batani and the capture by Cardassians that was one of the formative experiences that led Janeway to command? In this shitty AU, there’s no encounter with Cardassians, and KJ stays on the Al-Batani as chief science officer for EIGHT YEARS. (one wonders how she then managed to make captain by age 34...)

* speaking of ages... I know her birth year is never fully established in canon, but it’s generally accepted she was born in 2335. But her autobio says she was born in 2336. What’s more, she entered the academy a year early. (Funny how that never came up in the show)

* Dead Daddy Janeway does get dead test-flying an experimental ship on Tau Ceti Prime and there’s pages of boring exposition about why he’s flying under the polar ice caps, or smth, I skimmed that part. But KJ isn’t with him when it happens. She’s slobbing around on the Al-B and only hears about it. So there’s another formative Mosaic experience that gets whitewashed. As for the other part of that tragedy...

* Justin Tighe? Who’s that? Nobody we know, apparently. Nor Cheb Packer. She does have a number of “affairs” as she describes them, including one with some stiff at the academy who’s never named, but Mark Johnson is the biggest and the best. So good, it seems, that as soon as she gets his magic D she never wants to leave the house again.

* But you wanna know about Chakotay, don’t you? You want to hear how they fell in love on New Earth but she couldn’t give into her feelings until they got back home and now they’re living happily ever after, right? RIGHT? Well fuck you, because this book doesn’t so much as HINT at J/C romance, not even when she’s recounting the Resolutions Experience, and when they get back to Earth Chakotay leaves Starfleet to go travelling and occasionally teaching and when he’s in the solar system he and KJ catch up weekly to reminisce about... nothing much really. Because even the most riveting and traumatic episodes of Voyager (Scorpion, Equinox, Repression) are lame-ass children’s book versions of themselves. There is no excitement here. No insight whatsoever. No intrigue... EXCEPT...

* The twist at the end. Which is that Phoebe and Gretchen decided to use KJ’s frozen eggs to make a baby. Called Amelia (after Earhart, I assume, since she gets more air time in this book than Chakotay does). Yep. there’s a SURPRISE DAUGHTER.

* I have read some bad fanfic but none of it is as bad as this.

* If you still buy this book I don’t know you.

PS: my final word. LIZARD BABY ERASURE.

This book is TRASH

[maemi324]

Burned

Hello all you lovely people! Today I come to you bearing gifts!

the gift that is this fic, which is quite possibly the longest fanfic I’ve ever done. Period. I’ve written more for a personal story of mine, but this one…this just takes the cake.

14 pages, 6988  words. That may not sound like a lot, but for me it was a huge thing, and I’m actually pretty proud of it. 

this was inspired by the song “Burn the Witch” by Shawn James, which I highly recommend listening to towards the end of this.

So this involves witches, as you might have guessed. I did do some research on this, referencing a few holidays. With that being said, this is not the fic to go to looking for accurate information about Pagan Holidays, their differences, similarities and all the right customs. This is all mixed in with some fictional things that I felt helped the story flow. If you want an accurate description of their holidays, practices, beliefs, please go do your own research, or ask someone that knows about them, as that person is not me. 

With that out of the way! here are some mentions of some characters in here!

Aizawa, Present Mic, All Might, All for One, Shigaraki, LOV (vague description), Ochaco, Iida, Todoroki, mama Midoriya

Warnings: Character Deaths (kind of) vague descriptions of death, witch hunt, stakes, fire. OOC Shigaraki probably, and Izuku. If there are more warnings needed let me know. Only edited by me. May edit later. Right now i just wanna post this guy.

@katsukikitten​, @what-the-censored-xd​ I hope you enjoy!

You were standing beside your mother, hanging onto her skirts as she placed a flower crown in your hair, your small hands reaching to gently feel their soft petals. 

X.X.X.X.X.X.X.X.X.X.X.X.X.X.X.X.X.X.X.X.X.X.X.

It was the brightest summer you could remember, the first thing you could remember actually.

You could see your father, as well as some of your parents’ friends, all gathering wood into this large pile to be lit that night. You felt a thrum of something run through your fingers as your hands fell back to your sides. Excitedly you tugged on your mother’s skirts. 

She’d just placed a crown upon a friend’s head, looking down at you with that sweet smile that had you giggling. 

“What has you so giggly darling?” 

She bent down to your level, nearly falling over as you thrust your zinging hand in the general direction of her face. She carefully pushed your fingers back, a gasp at her lips as soft yellow hues glowed from your fingertips, your other hand still preoccupied with the soft flower petals.

“Well would you look at that! I knew you’d be getting it soon!” She pressed kisses all over your face, the last one landing on your forehead. Her attention was pulled from you as someone called out to her, a young woman, no older than your own mother, with hair so dark it was almost green, carrying someone who’s hair matched hers. 

“Inko! You made it!” She hugged the woman- now named Inko- closely, only pulling back after a tight squeeze. 

“Thank you for inviting us! Are you sure it’s alright that we’re here? These aren’t, well, really our traditions to do-”

“Nonsense! You’re family, you are just as welcome here now as any other part of the year. Now who is this young one?” You watched as she motioned to the, what you could now see was a young boy, who had the brightest green eyes you had ever seen, with a magic all their own.

“This is my son, Izuku, my pride and joy,” She nuzzled his cheek, pressing a kiss there. In an attempt to get him to smile she blew a raspberry on his cheek, which had him giggling, but his eyes remained trained on your mother. “He’s a little shy around strangers however”

“ That’s the same little one I saw last year? Goodness, he’s grown so much!”

“Oh I know! It seems like only yesterday I just had him! 

You frowned, you wanted mama’s attention! It was like she’d forgotten you were there. You tugged on her skirts with a whine, hardly mollified when she only gave you her hand. You pressed it against your cheek. 

“And this is the lady of the day?” Inko set down Izuku in favor of looking you over.

“Yes indeed, our little Birthday girl, (Y/N)” She smiled down at you letting go of your hand, “Why don’t you show Izuku how to make a flower crown, hm?” 

At the idea of doing something fun your mood brightened immediately, offering your hand to him. He instead looked up at his mother, now adorned with her own flower crown, who gave him a light push towards you. 

He nervously gave you his hand and you pulled him over to the circle of people braiding flowers together.

Somehow, that little moment blossomed into friendship. As the hours passed, he’d opened up, little by little, much like the flowers in your hand had when first blooming. He told you stories from his village, tales of a heroic man- a knight you would later remember- under the name of “All Might”.

 As he talked, he paid close attention to how your hands moved as he made his crown. While it wasn’t perfect, he placed the small crown over the one your mother had given you, saying it wasn’t any good. You told him right then and there you were proud to wear it. You had yet to finish yours, so you asked him to continue his stories as you worked. It may have been all he talked about for the first hour since then, but you were keen to hear his tales, eyes sparkling with something wonderful as his freckled cheeks turned pink at the sound of your laughter. 

He was also incredibly interested in your traditions. You were too young to have them all memorized by heart, but you did know that at every celebration, you, and others of your kind in the area, came to this specific clearing in the woods. 

The area had been used for as long as any elder could remember, slowly built into a circle with a place for the fire in the center, steps built into the hill as makeshift seats, the grass around the area lush and green, the best to dance around the fire in. During this celebration in particular you adorned crowns of flowers and built the fire, dancing and offering praise to the gods. Hardly any from the village came to these celebrations, but they did not condemn your ways and kept to their own. 

You danced and played the day away, the other children chasing after you in good fun. Giggles and loud shrieks filled the air, air soft and warm with the scent of the lavender fields so close by.

Of course, you were both so young then, by the time the stars were high in the sky, the both of you were out like lights, leaning against one another with a blanket draped over your laps. You only remember briefly waking as you were cuddled next to someone in your bed. You paid no mind as your father kissed your forehead, leaving you with a whisper of ‘goodnight’. You snuggled back into the person beside you, green hair tickling your nose as you slipped back into sleep.

When you awoke the next morning, breakfast lingering in the air. Your heart clenched sadly as you were alone. Had yesterday been a dream? Where had your new friend gone? You scrambled out of bed into the main room, Izuku sitting next to his mother, stuffing a sweet bread your father had made into his mouth, whilst Inko and your mother talked about the previous night.

Since then, Izuku and his mother had returned to every holiday, the Autumn equinox, Samhain, the Winter solstice, every single one. You would count down the days, a small piece of charcoal to mark on your wall until the day he arrived. 

With every visit came more tales of knights and their battles, He’d even started writing them down, so that way no one would forget them and their deeds. You had joked that with a memory like his, he would never forget. 

During the time in between visits, you learned how to help manage your father’s shop. He taught you which herbs and plants had medicinal properties, how to bring a potion to the right temperature and keep it there, hands glowing a soft blue. 

Your mother taught you the other properties of magic, warding away evil and the right way to banish an evil that had long sunk its roots into it’s target, hands glowing a soft purple. You were all too happy to learn from them, how to help people with a kind hand and a soft smile. 

But there were times your heart had wanted to be cruel, to be angry. When all you wanted to do was place something wicked on the boys that ran around your village and teased you. Especially when they had torn apart a necklace your mother had given you. 

It wasn’t rare by any means, but your mother had given it to you and thus it was special.

You told your mother as such after hours of searching for the pendant, with little to no luck of even finding the chain. She had nearly dropped the jar of spices into the soup she had been making. 

“Curses are not things to be taken lightly darling,” She sat you down at the table, your feet kicking in an irritated fashion, toes barely touching the floor. “They are dangerous, and not for the faint of heart. But most importantly, that is not what our magic is for” she tilted your pouting face up to hers, so she could look you in the eye, her other hand taking your smaller one into hers. “Our magic is to help and heal. Those of our magic who choose otherwise have…They have died, or worse even. So promise me you’ll never curse or hex anyone. Alright?”

“I promise mum,” you sighed, anger dissipating into a strange form of disappointment and forced contentment. She let go of your hand with a smile, a confused expression on your face as you opened your hand to find the necklace sitting on your palm as if it had been there for hours. 

That promise only lasted a short time. The next time Izuku had visited, the boys began to pick on him as well, he was shorter and smaller than they were, a prime target. That was all easily ignorable, taking his hand and leading him off somewhere else. The last straw had been a kick to his dream.

“You’ll never be a real knight, no matter how hard you try! You’re too much of a mama’s boy, too weak!”

You could have sworn you’d seen red, though Izuku begged you not to do anything. It was only his asking that spared the boys a beating they would not come out of unscathed. 

So instead, come nightfall, you had slipped from your bed, careful not to step on Izuku as you passed. You snuck into the shop, grabbing one of your father’s bowls and setting out into the forest. You picked at your ingredients with haste, mashing them together with water and a stone. You uttered the foulest curse your young mind could think of; giving the boys a taste of being so close but never there. An itch they couldn’t scratch, they would never be able to scratch, no matter how sharp their nails.

Pleased with your work, you washed out the now empty bowl. You ignored the sickly feeling in your stomach, setting the bowl back in its place. You closed the door as softly as you could, sneaking back into bed.

However, that morning you awoke to your skin feeling itchy, the sensation unrelenting no matter how hard your nails scratched. Your whimpers of panic woke Izuku, eyes wide with panic of his own, he dove out the door and ran for your mother. 

That’s how you found yourself alone, with your mother, the offending bowl in question as well as one that had an ointment of some kind in it, your mother smearing it over your red skin.

“I hope you’ve learned something from this,” her voice held just the barest hint of amusement, though only just barely. “Poison ivy isn’t exactly a walk in the park” she finished with your arms and moved on to your back. 

“If you weren’t careful however,” her voice turned hard, your body tensing at the shift in tone, “This could have turned out far worse. Far more dangerous. Magic isn’t a game, there are real consequences to your actions, just as there are in any other parts of life” You nodded your head solemnly, the back of your mind thanking just about everything for the relief the ointment brought. 

Of course you had to learn the hard way the effects of going against your own nature. 

You’d spent that Summer Solstice wrapped up with an ointment, dealing with Izuku’s annoying little smirk.

“I appreciate the thought (Y/N),” He whispered to you, the two of you sat a ways from the fire as you watched the others dance, “You wanted to defend me, but please, don’t go around cursing people, for my sake if not yours” he laughed, swatting your hand away from your own arm as you tried to itch it. 

“Yeah, yeah, see if I ever do anything nice for you ever again” you groused, no heat behind your words. You were best friends, you’d do anything for him, just like he would you.

It was on your seventeenth birthday, a coming of age for a young witch, when you learned how far those feelings would go.

It was one hell of a birthday, you thought, sitting behind the wagon full of flowers that had yet to be formed into crowns, crying pitifully. The young girls of the village had teased you, your dress was so short compared to the usual style, even the sleeves! Your ankles were on full display and your feet were bare.

You hardly minded their comments, their concerns didn’t matter. It was your coming of age celebration as well as the Solstice. Everything was perfect, you’d even woken up early, gotten all your chores done and had enough time to have a relaxing bath beforehand. Their sense of fashion didn’t matter compared to your traditions. Not only that, but your mother had made the dress herself, it was soft and comfortable. 

It was only when the other witches your age had decided that the color you wore wasn’t appropriate for the celebration, in these ‘modern’ times, far too dark and disrespectful. While they had etched a seed of self consciousness into your mind, you carried on, your mother had chosen this color specifically for you and the celebration at hand. The colors were fine! In your irritation, you stomped away hardly looking where you were going, falling face first and sliding into a patch of mud, probably leftover from yesterday’s rain.

You looked up from your predicament, one of the others dogs lifting up its leg to pee near you but not on you. At that angle it hardly mattered. The giggles from younger children were harsh enough, grating on your ears, whispers from some of the elders of this being a bad omen. But what was the worst of it all? The concern in Izuku’s eyes. He’d made a beeline towards you, but before he could reach you, you had sprinted off, just away from everyone.

You didn’t know why his eyes made it all the worse, that look never would have bothered you before, right?

The sun was starting to set, the wood was almost arranged perfectly to burn all night long.

You wiped your eyes, glaring down at the mud now on your hands.

“I thought I might find you here”

You jumped, heart launching itself into overdrive as you whirled around only to see Izuku.

“Oh! Izuku…you scared me” you placed a hand over your heart, as if it would slow to a normal pace if you did so. “Shouldn’t you be helping with the fire?” you asked, scooting over so he could sit next to you.

“What kind of a friend would I be if I let you be here by yourself?” he asked, his gaze patiently waiting to meet yours, as soon as you had the courage to.

“You seemed alright with me being here up until now” you muttered. A flash of hurt appeared in his eyes, you immediately regret your harsh tone.

“W-Well, I had wanted to let you cool down before I just got in your space-”

“No, that was unfair of me Izuku, I’m sorry. I just…everything was supposed to be perfect. Or realistically perfect. Falling flat on my face in mud wasn’t exactly a part of the plan” you wiped your hands off on what little remained of your dress. “Or being considered a possible bad omen”

“I know what that’s like, remember on my fifteenth birthday, when I was helping carry all those crates?” You had to hold back a snort, as you recalled the story. 

Your father had arranged for you to meet a supplier of a rare type of herb, as well as a few crates of spices for one of the shopkeepers in the village. The poor man had fallen ill this year and had somehow convinced his supplier to meet him halfway instead of going to the nearest town. 

Izuku had been visiting at the time and, of course, offered to help you. You had just gotten over the main hill, you could see the people of your village milling about. You turned to look over at Izuku, only to watch as he fell face first onto the ground, tripping over a root. The barrels of spices went rolling down the hill, him rolling after them. 

The barrels landed with a crash against some boxes stacked near the well, Izuku was hardly so lucky as he had rolled right into the wells wall.

“You were so lucky that you came out of that with only a broken arm” you laughed softly, a huff of laughter escaping him as well. 

“At least the spices were alright, I’d have felt so bad if they’d all gone to waste because of my clumsiness” he placed a hand over yours, not even minding the dirt and tears that clung to it. 

“It’s not quite the same as a ‘bad omen’, it’s also probably a little thoughtless of me to say ‘ forget them’ when they’re a huge part of your culture, your traditions. But…I want you to know that, they could call you any and all these bad things under the sun…and your parents wouldn’t believe them for a minute…I wouldn’t believe them for a minute.” 

He stood up then, pulling you gently along with him. You allowed him, though your eyes were too preoccupied with seeing what everyone else is doing. Most were gathered around the fire, listening as one of the elders spoke, others talking and laughing amongst themselves, their cups full of sweet liquid.

He led you down to the river, the water warmed by the long summer day, softly babbling as the wildlife went about their ways. He sat you down on one of the rocks, taking one in front of you for himself.

“What are we doing over here Izuku?” 

He didn’t answer you, reaching into one of his pockets and dunking a cloth into the water.

“Isn’t that your handkerchief?” you ask, face molded into disgust as the cloth came closer to you.

“What? No, well yes, but this one is an extra one, it’s clean I promise” he gently placed his hand on your chin, tilting your face up as he wiped the muck off of your face.

His touch was soft but firm, eyes only taking in his work as your own counted the freckles that danced along his cheeks, the way he bit his lip in concentration. Somewhere in the deepest part of your mind and the very center of your heart, you knew why that look had your cheeks turning red and your heart hammering in your chest. But at the forefront of your mind, you couldn’t tell why.

The two of you were silent as he continued his pattern, dunking the cloth into the water, washing out the dirt and wringing out the water to carefully wash away the dirt on your face. 

It doesn’t take him long however, to finish with his task, washing and wringing out the cloth for the last time. His eyes finally meet yours, offering a gentle smile that only widened as he booped your nose with the cloth, the face you made sending pink butterflies through his stomach. You couldn’t help but laugh as well, his good mood far too contagious.

“Ah, there you are,” he said, his hand still holding your face as he took in your smile. You only hummed in agreement, internally mourning the loss of warmth from his hand as he pocketed the cloth. 

“Thank you, Izuku, that was…you are too kind for this world, I think” You stood up from the rock, you couldn’t stay down by the river all night. Your dress may have been ruined, you’d have to apologize to mother for it, but someone must have brought an extra. Or so you hoped. 

Hand in hand, you walked back to the clearing, trying to slip past the majority of the party to get to your mother, only for a gentle hand to stop you both in your tracks.

One of the elders, Mrs.Tachibana, looked up at you with kind eyes. She was mostly known for her talent for seeing into the future. That’s what the majority said it was, she described it as, ‘ getting a feeling I’ll need such and such object today’ only for it to come in handy at the oddest of times.

“I’m sorry Mrs.Tachibana, did I bump into you?” She shook her head at your question.

“Oh no dear, but I do have something for you. I had made it for my daughter, but it seems she made her own dress this time. I think It’s a good color for you!” She carefully handed the dress to you, to which you handed to Izuku, your body was covered in mud! You weren’t about to dirty some other dress.

“Oh are you sure-”

“Oh yes of course dear, no one else is going to be wearing it tonight!” 

You quickly changed behind a tapestry your mother had been working on, feeling much better and cleaner in this new dress, it was a little on the short end, but just barely past what your mother’s dress had been.

You walk back out to find Izuku waiting for you, the fire having been lit. The music was hardly loud, but the drums struck a chord within your heart that pulsed with energy, a need to sing along, to move to the beat. You bound over to him, taking his hand in yours.

“I see you’re feeling better” He mused, his foot tapping to the beat.

“Much better. Come dance with me?” You tugged gently on his hand toward the fire.

“You know I’m not the best dancer (Y/N)” He warned, as if you didn’t have years of experiencing it first hand. You shrugged your shoulders, even though he was far from good, he was most definitely not a disaster.

“Is that a No?” You swayed back and forth on your heels, looking up at him with what you hoped was a sweet enough look to get what you liked. He let go of your hand, for a moment you feared you’d pushed your luck too far, suddenly his hands were on your waist, lifting you into the air as he spun you into the dancing circle, your shriek of surprise worth the slight pain of him stepping on his own toes as he brought you back down.

You danced the night away together, hardly pausing for a break, you didn’t need to for whatever reason. You just wanted his arms around you, spinning you this way and that, lifting you in time with the music that had your stomach doing somersaults that tickled.

He felt the same, your laughter had his heart soaring, the smile on your face shooting Cupid’s arrows right through his heart. He tripped and stumbled every so often, but it was all worth it if it meant you were having a good time.

The two of you finally stopped to take a break, the moon high in the sky. You pulled him towards the river once again, the cool air there was bound to cool you off. 

You sat down in the grass, pulling him down with you as you laughed at his startled expression.

“Well I’d say you did quite well with dancing!”

“Oh do you really? Even with all my fumbles?”

“Eh, you just added a few new steps!”

“A few new steps she says!” He barked out a laugh, tears gathering in his eyes, your own giggles twisting into his like sweet music. 

Your laughter died out naturally, the music of crickets and rushing water kept you company, the drums from the music thumping distantly. He leaned back, looking up to the sky, you followed suit, your shoulder pressed against his as you pointed up at the stars.

“I think I’ll draw a new image in the stars. Just for tonight” You traced the shape with your fingers, Izuku mirroring your actions to see if he could get the shape.

“And, what are you going to call this new one?”

“Hmm…I’m not sure yet. It’s a process” 

Your brow furrowed as you thought, the thoughts clear in your eyes, oh he was hopeless.

You jumped slightly at the feel of his hand cupping your jaw. His eyes were full of an emotion you couldn’t name, but it set your skin ablaze.

“I’ve had a great time tonight” you murmur, eyes wide and watching. What was he going to do?

“I have too,” he matched your volume, thumb idly stroking your cheek gently.

“I’ve actually thought about this for a while, but I was…afraid to ask you, in case I somehow ruined our friendship. But…the thing is (Y/N), I know our friendship is strong enough to withstand that. I want more than a friendship with you, I…I want to be with you all the time. I wanna be there on your good days, bad days, those days where everything and nothing are going on at once, I want it all,” he took a deep breath, steadying his shaking limbs and resolving his nerves.

“What do you say (Y/N)? Be my Love?” 

Your eyes had watered considerably, your own hand holding his, you couldn’t help but nod.

“I was starting to think that my feelings were one sided,” you laughed, tears dripping down your cheeks. “I would love nothing more than to be yours” 

He leaned into your space, so carefully, his hand gently pulling you closer until your lips met his, soft and warm, just like yours. You slowly pulled back, only to be gently pulled back in again, over and over until you were used to one another’s rhythm, kisses becoming slower and longer.

His tongue softly asked for entrance, and you readily allowed him access. He tasted of the sweet drink that had been served, goosebumps raised along your skin as he leaned you backwards into the grass, his eyes half lidded as adoration danced along the pinks of his cheeks. 

He was careful not to press you too hard into the ground as he kissed you again, your tongues dancing as your hand gripped the hair at the base of his skull. The groan that rumbled through his chest and that particular rough pass of his lips had your toes curling.

He parted from you again, staring at your kiss bruised lips, wet and so inviting looking, moving slowly towards your (E/C) colored eyes, finding the same emotion fluttering in his heart. Carefully he sat up, you following after him with a smile on your face. You sat together, curled into one another as you watched the stars.

It had been four years since that Solstice, the two of you now adults. A year or two after becoming lovers, Izuku had finally found someone to train him into becoming a knight, a real hero. It meant that you would see him less, but he would always write to you when he could.

You were saddened at the news, but also so proud. Finally after all these years, his dream was coming true. He promised you that he would always come back to you, that once he had become a knight, able to help you build your own healing stand in the main city, He’d properly ask you to marry him. You knew he always kept his promises, one way or another. 

How could you deny him his dream? You couldn’t truthfully.

That brought you here, scratching out another day along the tally you made. Only a few more days until Izuku came back. You helped your father run the shop now, almost fully taking over as the village healer. 

You braced the day with a smile as the regulars came in, the usual ointments for Mrs.Tachibana, some medicine to the mother of some poor twins who had caught some sickness during the seasons change to spring, a wooden spoon covered in semi-crystalized honey for the wailing babe, their teeth slowly but surely coming in.

The morning rush could hardly be considered as such, your doors opening right at the first peak of dawn. You waved off the last of the morning patrons in no time at all.

You bend down to grab a few herbs, mixing something to help soothe Mr.Yamada’s vocal chords. You hear the door push open, pulling you from your line of thought, your eyes meeting bright green.

“Izuku!” you cry, rushing over to him, arms wrapped around his shoulders in the tightest hug you could manage. He’d grown so much taller than you last remembered- well just bigger in general!

He’d bulked up considerably- he joked he wanted to get better at giving hugs along with being a Knight- and was now a full two heads taller than you. You only pull back to place your hands on his jaw, pulling him down to kiss you properly.

“Did I surprise you?” he laughed, pressing another kiss to your forehead. 

“Yes! You weren’t due back for a few more days! Oh I’m so happy your home!” You stood back up on your toes to press more kisses to his face. “Tell me everything!”

He told you all about the training he went through- hell as he called it, eyes looking back with a slight fondness that only nostalgia could bring- the antics he and some other knights in training had gotten into. His teacher, Aizawa, was a hard man, but ultimately soft hearted in his own way. He couldn’t wait for you to meet the friends he had made, and you were excited to see them.

“I have heard some…other things though” he hesitated, leaning against the counter as you finished Mr.Yamada’s medicine, the yellow glow from your hands dimming until it was no more. “In the city they’re telling stories of witches…and not good ones either.” you hummed in agreement, concern laced into your features.

You’d heard of rumors of witches in nearby towns and villages. At first, nothing was seemingly worrisome about it. So some covens had decided to announce their place in the world, big deal.

Until the rumors had become something dark. Stories of sacrifices, hexes and curses upon innocent bystanders, children. Soon there were rumors of witches in every town, every village.

“Even the people here have started to become…nervous” beforehand, the villagers not a part of your coven had nothing to fear from you, you’d never given them any reason to. But these new witches, witches that were said to be everywhere, brought fear into your community. 

“I’m worried Izuku, they’ve started burning people in the next few towns…I’m not sure what we could do, a show of our magic could scare them into a frenzy, but not doing anything could be just as bad. They even have a witch hunter!” you set down the pestle gently, Izuku taking your hand in his.

“I’m worried too. But for right now, the best we can do is wait and see how things go. No matter what, I’ll always be here, you won’t go through this alone.” your heart fluttered warmly at his words, pressing a kiss to his hand.

The next few days did little to raise or diminish your worries. You walked about the village, showing him what all had changed in his absence, ignoring the stares of the same village girls that had teased your dress all those years ago. 

It wasn’t until the third week that had changed. Even that morning, the dew felt strung and the air was hot and still. Your father had asked you the night before to gather some lavender from the fields in the morning, he was running low on stock.

The two of you agreed, baskets in hand you walked to the fields. 

The breeze began to pick up as you climbed up the hills, the sweet scent dancing around you as you looked up into your lovers eyes.

“Is it just me, or have the lavender fields gotten smaller?” he joked, sitting beside you as you carefully snipped away at the plant, making sure to cut the stalk specifically so the flower could regrow. 

“No, I think you’ve just gotten taller.” You mused, handing him the stalks to carefully separate the leaves and the flowers themselves. 

It was a tense silence as you worked, though you couldn’t tell what was on his. On yours however, was the frequent news of witches being killed. But not only witches, but innocent people as well, for the slightest and most ridiculous thing. Spoiled milk, your neighbor suddenly falling ill after accidentally tripping over your shoe? 

These people wouldn’t know a witch if one kicked them in the ass.

“I think,” Izuku startled you from your thoughts, “It would be best if tonight, you and your family leave with me. At least until all of this calms down.” There would be no reasoning with the public, not with the mass hysteria and distrust of everyone.

“I would agree, but papa would never give up his shop, we’ve been there for years, generations even” you handed him a few more stalks. 

“We’ll have to convince him somehow. I had hoped things would die down, considering the evidence and logic-”

“Since when have the masses and logic ever seen eye to eye?” you quip back, brow raised into bittersweet amusement.

“Since never, but I had hoped…Well It doesn’t really matter what I’d hoped. What I’m thinking now is, I write to my fellow knights in training for help. To help move your coven safely” He started to mumble, various questions littering his mind, how fast could a letter get there? 

Their letters had been casual, while important, they weren’t of any dire emergency. Would his friends believe him? No of course they would, once he proved to them the logic of things. The masses may not be so…sensitive to logic, but his fellow knights were not the masses.

It takes you until sunset to gather enough petals to fill the basket, though the two of you were hardly in any hurry. You walked back to the village, the tense air having loosened just ever so slightly.

All the relaxation the lavender provided was gone the second black smoke was visible over the hill. Lavender forgotten, you ran to the village, the smoke billowing from two stakes. You raced down the hill, passing the well.

No…No gods please no!

On one stake was the remnants of your mother, her eyes open towards the sky as her body drew no more breath. Beside her was your father, eyes closed. A cry of rage and sorrow rang loose, distant from your ears as strong, familiar arms wrapped around you. You screamed and kicked, clawed at his arms. Your throat felt raw as you cried, eyes looking for someone, anyone to blame.

You’d only heard descriptions of him, hairdo pale it was blue, with eyes as red as the blood of innocents he condemned- Tomura Shigaraki.

“Let their souls be cleansed of this evil, so they may find rest at the side of the great one, All for One” his voice was horrid, nasal and cruel, the imagery of snakes filling the back of your mind. He didn’t believe a word he was saying, so evident by the snarl at his lip he called a smile, twisted pleasure saturating his eyes.

“Ah, the main event has arrived!” he snapped his fingers motioning towards you and Izuku, his guards making their way over to you.

One man pulled you from Izuku’s grasp, two men grabbing Izuku by the arms. He swore, headbutting one of the guards, kicking back on the others shin. “You let go of her!” he growled, another pair tackling him down to the ground to restrain him.

“You evil, wicked thing! How dare you kill these innocent people, how dare-” you shrieked and shrieked as you struggled against your captor, another guard capturing your other arm.

“You may struggle now witch! The evil within fights back! But don’t worry, you’ll soon be cleansed.”

Despite your struggles, the both of you are taken into one of the old jails, hidden underground.

The place was dusty from lack of use, the packed earth against the stone kept it cool. You were leaned up against the bars, Izuku leaning against the same ones across from you. He couldn’t hold you like he wanted, the bars too small for anything else but his hands.

“I should have thought about this harder…I should have made a plan sooner” he murmured, breaking the silence. “If I hadn’t wasted time, then maybe-”

“Don’t” your voice was clipped and harsh. You hadn’t meant to be, regret adding to the myriad of emotions pulsing around your broken heart. “Mum and Papa wouldn’t want you to…to talk like that.” you wipe a tear as best as you can, your hand reaching to find his again.

“It’s no one’s fault but that damned Shigaraki” you hiss, “ He’s the witch hunter. He’s selling the world a story and they’re all buying it.” you could feel his lips pressed against your forehead. You shift so you are on your knees, holding onto the bars for balance, you kiss him, deeply, trying to memorize the taste of him one last time. 

You stay like that, murmuring sweet nothings to one another, for who knows how long. You only know that it is all too soon when they open the doors again, dragging you out to the stake. Izuku struggles against the guards as they force him into a kneeling position beside Shigaraki.

Your heart hammers in your chest, adrenaline rushing through your veins as you struggle against your bonds. What you wouldn’t give to become the witch they so feared, maybe then your parents would be alive. Maybe then you and your betrothed would have a chance of surviving.

The fire starts all too quickly, Izuku’s agonized screams of horror sharp in your mind as tears run down your cheeks. Your last image of him couldn’t be of his eyes filled with hopelessness. 

“I love you Izuku! I love you so much, We’ll be together again I swear it-”

“Silence Witch! Your spells have no power here!”

You ignored them, screaming louder, a cool burning sensation wrapping around the ring finger of your left hand, “I will find you! I don’t care how long it takes, we will be together!”

“I love you (Y/N)!” he cries back, a cool burning sensation around his left ring finger was left unnoticed. He was focused entirely on you. Until his world went black.

The guard righted himself, adjusting his hands behind his back, Izuku sat there, his head tilted forward, unconscious. Your heart finally severed, the only explanation for the black ink that spilled from it, tainting all in its path. The wind howled as a sudden storm raged above you, hair twisting this way and that, fueled by the wild look in your eyes, satisfaction found within the fear of Shigaraki’s red irises.

Your magic wasn’t made for curses or hexes. But with your heart broken, the once golden light of your magic turned vengeful, bubbling and vicious. Even as the smoke rose, your voice boomed across the village.

“May your days be numbered!” the crowd gasped, your voice multiplied, as if thousands were speaking at once, your eyes roaming across all of those who had cheered for you and your parents demise, of all those who died before you.

“May your last passing hours be filled with my ghostly visage, as all your loved ones choke on my ashes they thought long swept away! May you die in fear, knowing your bloodline will end with your hatred!” 

The smoke from your pyre weaved around the guilty villagers, more thickly located around Shigaraki and his group. Your vision was turning spotty, but you didn’t care, you weren’t done. If you had to die, you were going out on your own terms.

“To those of you who survive, may you always see my shadow at the end of your beds as you sleep! May your Children curse your name! For your evil, your wickedness! For your Injustice!”

The storm raged on, even as you choked your last breath, your vision turning dark.

I’ll be with you soon my love…

.X.

.X.

.X.

.X.

You blinked, your eyes wet with unshed tears as you glanced around the room, your friends, Ochaco, Iida, and Todoroki were all behind you, looking at you with wide eyes. Next to you sat your boyfriend of two years, now in your third year at UA. His eyes were also wet, slowly turning to gaze towards you.

You had all decided to go to the fair that had opened up. Towards the end of your merriment, you spotted a fortune teller of a sort, and decided to go inside. Everything had been fairly light hearted and fun, until the two of you sat down for your turn. The fortune teller was shocked, the past had something important for you to see, and by all that was good you were going to see it.

You looked down at the promise ring Izuku bought you. It burned with the same cool sensation as you remembered…saw past you. It felt like…a small part of you had been unlocked, as if some part of you had been missing for all of these years.

“We found each other after all”

He gave you a gentle smile, one you returned.

[dragonfire2lm]

So, I play Warframe.

Warframe released this warframe wayback thing on their website that allows users to see their overall stats from playing across the years.

Here's mine!

Trivia Time!

Warframes

- Equinox was the first frame I ever brought, I used her almost exclusively until I bought Ivara. I was a walking buff generator with Equinox.

- I am an Ivara Main, stealth is my jam! I have cheesed Shadow Stalker, the arenas on Sedna (and Kayla De Thaym), most bosses now that I think about it (not counting Vay Hek "Turkey Mech")

- My best friend actually bought me Ember Prime, back when her parts cost a fortune, before she was nerfed into the ground. I liked running around with World on Fire obliterating everything... then they reworked her because the devs don't like "Press button to win" strats.

Weapons

- Ah, the Tigris Prime, my "bang, you're dead" gun that has served me faithfully throughout most of my run in Warframe. I'm vision impaired, I suck at shooters, so the high damage shotgun was perfect. Then I made it silent! Ivara with this thing is awesome.

- Grakata! Ok, yeah these were fun to use, and Clem is just a cool character, they were my go-to secondary.

- My wonderful, twirling, smacky-stick of doom, The Galatine Prime. This thing was a beast stat-wise and since I primarily use melee, I kicked arse. Tempo Royale on this made me a walking blender, and yes, paired with Ivara I did even more damage. I'd cheese sentients on Lua with this sword while my friend tanked all the damage.

Other Stuff

- Nowadays, I run the Daikyu for my primary, because I like bows and I have an awesome status build with a riven. Secondary is kind of up in the air, either a kitgun or whatever new weapon looks good. Currently giving the Epitaph a whirl. As for Melee, I used Zaws, I have a few polearms, a dagger, and my favourite, a scythe that functions like a heavy weapon, which means more spinning with Tempo Royale.

- Still an Ivara main! I run a maxed efficiency build with high duration and a bit of power strength so I stay stealthed for ages and provide a ton of damage with Artemis Bow.

- I also main Inaros, purely for the insane amount of tankiness the frame has. I call mine "Dog God" because of the anubis helmet I have on him. He's the frame I pull out when I do high level content that I want done fast without worrying about squishy frames like Ivara.

- My friend and I do have a Clan, The Helix Force. I made the clan glyph/logo thingy by cobbling together icons from the games in paint, it uses the focus icon and lotus icon to make a purple flower with a yellow centre.

- Stopped playing back when Heart of Deimos dropped because holy shit was that broken. On the bright side, I still have plenty of content to plow through now that the bugs are fixed. Downside is that the Heart of Deimos colour palette causes eye strain. Which is a shame, I want the infested fox damnit.

- I play on PS4!

[tomasorban]

Enoch & the Watchers: The Real Story of Angels & Demons: BY MICHAEL HOWARD

In 2002 the British newspaper The Sunday Telegraph reported that the Vatican had banned the veneration of those angels who do not appear in the authorised texts of the Bible. This was an attempt to counter the influence of unnamed New Age groups who were allegedly recruiting new members within the Roman Catholic Church. In future, prayers were only to be directed to the three archangels Michael, Gabriel and Raphael who are mentioned in the Bible. According to the apocryphal and banned Book of Enoch these were the angelic beings responsible for binding the wicked fallen angels or Watchers who had transgressed God’s law. The news report said that the early Church had excluded the book, attributed to the Old Testament prophet and patriarch Enoch, from the authorised version of the Bible because it described these fallen angels and their activities.

Who are the Watchers or fallen angels and why was the early Church and the modern Vatican so concerned about them?

Genesis 6:1-4 says: “When men began to multiply on the face of the Earth, and daughters were born to them, that the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and took them wives of all which they chose.” Traditionally the Ben Eloha or ‘sons of God’ numbered several hundred and they descended to Earth on Mount Harmon. Significantly this was a sacred place to both the Canaanites and the Hebrews who invaded their land. In later times shrines to the gods Baal, Zeus, Helios and Pan and the goddess Astarte were built on its slopes.

These Ben Elohim or ‘fallen angels’ were also known as the Watchers, the Grigori and the Irin. In Jewish mythology the Grigori were originally a superior order of angels who dwelt in the highest heaven with God and resembled human beings in their appearance.1 The title ‘Watcher’ simply means ‘one who watches’, ‘those who watch’, ‘those who are awake’ or ‘those who do not sleep’. These titles reflect the unique relationship between the Watchers and the human race since ancient times.

In the esoteric Luciferian tradition they were a special elite order of angelic beings created by God to be earthly shepherds of the first primitive humans. It was their task to observe and watch over the emerging human species and report back on their progress. However they were confined by the divine prime directive not to interfere in human evolution. Unfortunately they decided to ignore God’s command and defy his orders and become teachers to the human race, with unfortunate repercussions for both themselves and humanity.

Most of the information we have about the Watchers and their activities comes from the apocryphal Book of Enoch. In the orthodox Bible the prophet Enoch, from the Hebrew ‘hanokh’ or instructor, is a mysterious figure. In Genesis 4:16-23 he is described as the son of Cain, the “first murderer,” and the first city built by his father is named after him. Further on in Genesis 5:18-19, and several generations later, Enoch is named as the son of Jared, and it is during his lifetime that the Watchers either arrive or incarnate in human bodies.

In the apocryphal Book of Jubilee, allegedly dictated by “an angel of the Lord” to Moses on Mount Sinai when he also received the Ten Commandments, it says that Enoch was “the first among men that are born on Earth [sic] who learn writing, knowledge and wisdom.” It says that Enoch wrote down “the signs of Heaven” (the zodiac signs) according to their months in a book. This was so human beings would know the seasons of the years in relation to the order of the months and their respective stellar and planetary influences. The indication is that Enoch received this information from extraterrestrial angelic sources, i.e. the Watchers, and therefore he was a cultural exemplar.

The Fallen Angels Instruct Humanity

Two hundred of the ‘fallen angels’ descended from the heavenly realm on to the summit of Mount Hermon and they were so smitten by the beauty of human women that, using their new material bodies, they had sex with them. This further incurred Yahweh’s wrath and, according to the Bible, the consequence of this miscegenation between the Fallen Ones and mortals led to the creation of half-angelic, half-human offspring (Genesis 6:4).

These children were called the Nefelim or Nephilim and they were the giant race that once inhabited Old Earth. The fallen angels taught their wives and children a variety of new technological skills, magical knowledge and occult wisdom. This suggests that psychic abilities and magical powers were originally an ancient inheritance from the angelic realm given to early humans. In the Luciferian tradition this is known in spiritual and metaphorical terms as the ‘witch blood’, ‘elven blood’ or ‘faery blood’ that is possessed by witches and wizards.

In the Book of Enoch it says that the leader of the fallen angels was called Azazel, and he is often identified with Lucifer (the Lightbringer) or Lumiel (‘the light of God’). He taught men to forge swords and make shields and breastplates (body armour). Azazel also taught them metallurgy and how to mine from the earth and use different metals. To the women he taught the art of making bracelets, ornaments, rings and necklaces from precious metals and stones. He also showed them how to ‘beautify their eyelids’ with kohl and the use of cosmetic tricks to attract and seduce the opposite sex. From these practices Enoch says there came much ‘godlessness’ and men and women committed fornication, were led astray and became corrupt in their ways.

This was the basis for the early Church condemning the fallen angels for teaching women to make necklaces from pieces of gold and bracelets for their arms. St Paul said that women should cover their head in the synagogue (Corinthians: 11:5-6). This was because the fallen angels were supposed to be attracted to human females with long flowing hair. The custom of women covering their hair in churches is still found in Roman Catholicism and also in the customs of Islam.

The fallen angel Shemyaza, another form of Azazel, is said by Enoch to have taught humans the use of root cuttings and the magical art of enchantment; the fallen angel Armaros taught the resolving (banishing) of enchantments; Baraqijal taught astrology; Kokabiel, the knowledge of the constellations (astronomy); Chazaqiel, the knowledge of the clouds and the sky (weather lore and divination); Shamsiel, the signs of the sun (the solar mysteries); Sariel the courses of the moon (the lunar cycles used in horticulture and agriculture and the esoteric lunar mysteries); Penemuel instructed humans in the art of writing and reading; and Kashdejan taught the diagnosis and healing of diseases and the science of medicine.

It is obvious from these descriptions of the teaching abilities of the Watchers that they were cultural exemplars and the bringers of civilisation to the early human race. It is therefore strange that in orthodox Judeo-Christian religious texts they are misrepresented as evil corrupters of humanity.

Some idea of the original exalted status and real nature of the ‘sons of God’ and ‘the angels of the Lord’ can be found hidden in the ancient annals of angelic lore. For instance, Kokabiel is described as “a great angelic prince who rules over the stars.”2 In the Sibylline Oracles, Araqiel is one of the fallen angels who guides the souls of the dead to judgement in the underworld.

Shamsiel, possible originally a Babylonian sun god, was called “the prince of Paradise” because he was one of the guardian angels who watched over the gates to Eden. In this role he took Moses to see the heavenly garden and he also watched over the treasures of King David and his son Solomon the Wise. This reference may be to spiritual treasures rather than physical gold and jewels. In the Jewish Zohar he is named as the chief aide-de-camp to the mighty Archangel Uriel and bore his standard into battle.

Sariel was an angel associated with fertility of the earth and the spring equinox (northern hemisphere) in March. He governed the martial zodiac sign of Aries the Ram and was invoked for protection against the malefic power of the Evil Eye.

Azazel – Lucifer – Lumiel

Azazel, the leader of the Watchers, as mentioned before, was identified with Lucifer or Lumiel. In the Quran it is said that Lucifer-Lumiel (Iblis) rebelled against Allah because he was told to bow down and worship the clay-born “man of earth” Adam and refused. He was forced to fight a battle in Heaven with the Archangel Mikael or Michael and his Army of the Lord. As a result Lumiel and his rebel angels were cast out of Heaven and fell down to Earth. Here Lumiel became the “Lord of the World” and in Christian mythology he was falsely identified with the bogeyman Satan. However, esoterically in the Luciferian tradition, Lumiel or Lumial is not an evil satanic figure luring humankind into temptation and acts of evil as the Church represents him. He is “the angel of God [who] rebelled against the static, established cosmic order and set in motion the forces of change and evolution…”3

It is possible that Lumiel may have originated in Canaan as Shahar, the god of the morning star (Venus). He had a twin called Shalem, who was also symbolised by the planet Venus, but as the evening star. These divine bright and dark twins represented the solar light emerging from the darkness of night at dawn and descending into it at dusk. They were the children of the goddess Asherah, and there is archaeological evidence from the Middle East that the Hebrews adopted her worship when they settled in Canaan and practised it alongside reverence of the tribal storm god Yahweh. The Old Testament has several references to the continued worship of Asherah as “Queen of Heaven” by the allegedly monotheistic Hebrews. This took place at shrines in sacred groves on hills where they made offerings of cakes and incense to the goddess. In Canaanite mythology, Shahar, as the Lord of the Morning Star, was cast down from heaven for defying the high god El in the form of a lightning bolt. In that form he fertilised Mother Earth with his divine phallic force.

Azazel is represented as a metal-smith and a fire-working sorcerer or magician. He has also been compared to the biblical first smith Tubal-Cain, a descendant of the half-human, half-angelic “first murderer” Cain. The actual name Azazel has variously been translated as ‘god of victory’, ‘the strength of God’, ‘the strong god’ and even ‘the goat god’. In the apocryphal Apocalypse of Abraham, he is called “the lord of heathens” suggesting he was originally a pagan god. He has also been identified with the serpent in the Edenic myth that seduced the first woman and “Mother of All Living,” Eve. In a Persian text known as the Urm al-Khibab or The Primordial Book, dating from the 8th century CE, the angel Azazil or Azazel is said to have refused to acknowledge the superiority of Adam over the angels. As a result Allah expelled him and his rebel angels from the heavenly realm to live on Earth. More generally in Islamic lore Azazel or Azrael is the angel of death and he acts as a guide for the souls of the dead.

In Leviticus 16:8-10 and in the Dead Sea Scrolls a curious Hebrew ritual is recorded that features Azazel as the name for the ‘scapegoat’ that takes on the communal sins of Israel. It says that the high priest Aaron took two goats from the flock and cast lots (practised divination) to choose which one would be the scapegoat and sacrificed as a “sin offering.” The Scrolls say that the high priest confessed all the “impurities of the children of Israel” over the head of the Azazel goat. By this ritually symbolic act he transferred to the unfortunate animal all their guilt and sins so they could be absolved of them. The goat was then either cast out into the wilderness to die or thrown over a cliff to be dashed to pieces on the rocks below.

This ancient and archetypal concept of the scapegoat sacrificed for the sins of the human race and abandoned in the wilderness is a powerful and potent motif that appears several times in biblical myths. It can be seen in the story of Cain who becomes an exiled wanderer on the Earth after being marked by God and banished “east of Eden” after killing his brother Abel. In one Jewish legend the wise King Solomon, a powerful magician who could summon and control demons, fell from grace because he “whored after foreign gods.” He was forced by God to leave Jerusalem and wander in the desert disguised as a beggar.

Also after their exodus from slavery in Egypt, Moses and the Israelites were forced to spend forty years wandering in the desert before they were allowed to enter the Promised Land (Canaan). In Ancient Egyptian mythology, the dark god Set is represented as a divine outcast who dwells in the desert and, after she left Adam, his first wife Lilith or Liliya fled to the wilderness away from human habitation. In the New Testament Jesus wandered in the wilderness for forty days and nights. He was not accepted as a teacher in his own town of Nazareth and was rejected as the promised messiah by his people. When Jesus was crucified he symbolically took on the role of the sacrificial scapegoat who dies to cleanse the sins of the human race.

It is possible that the account of the ritual of the goat-god Azazel may have been an autumn equinox or harvest rite of Syrian, Hittite or Canaanite origin adopted by the Hebrews. Originally a goat would have been selected by means of a divination ritual and then offered to a desert god or demon that had to be placated by the shedding of blood. Eventually the sacrifice was made to Yahweh as a petition to forgive the sins of his followers. Azazel was popularly believed to have a retinue of hairy he-goat demons known as the se’irim who, like the Watchers, lusted after human women. It cannot be a total coincidence that the Church imagined the Devil or Satan in the form of a hairy half-human he-goat with a massive erect phallus who had sexual intercourse with his female worshippers at the Witches Sabbath.

Shemyaza is seen by some modern Luciferians as either the emissary of Lumiel or one of his avatars (an incarnated divine being in human form). He not only fell in love with human women, but also with the Babylonian deity Ishtar, the goddess of love and war. She promised to have sex with him if he would in return reveal to her the secret name of God. When Shemyaza told her, Ishtar used this forbidden knowledge to ascend to the stars and she reigned over the constellation of Pleiades or the Seven Sisters. While the other Watchers were rounded up by the archangels and punished by God, Shemyaza voluntarily repented his error and sentenced himself to hang upside down in the constellation of Orion the Hunter, with whom he is sometimes identified in the Luciferian tradition. In the Qabalistic tradition, Naamah, the sister of the biblical first smith Tubal-Cain, seduced Azazel and she has been associated with Ishtar.4

“A race between Gods and men”

As we have seen, the end result of the illicit relationships between the Watchers and “the daughters of men” was, according to Judeo-Christian propaganda, the spawning of a monstrous race of warlike, blood-drinking cannibalistic giants called the Nephilim. Genesis 6:4 less dramatically describes them as “the mighty men of old, men of renown.” At first they were fed manna (ambrosia or the food of the Gods?) by Yahweh to stop them consuming human flesh, but they rejected it. They slaughtered animals for food instead and then began to hunt down and eat human prey.

It has been speculated that this legend is based on the culinary habits of the nomadic desert herdsmen in the Middle East, who were voracious meat-eaters. In the biblical myth of Cain and Abel the dispute between the two brothers that led to the first murder is over the nature of the offerings made to Yahweh. Abel, a “keeper of sheep” or nomadic herdsman offered the “firstlings of the flock…” and Cain, who was “a tiller of the ground” or farmer-gardener offered “the fruit of the ground” (Genesis 4:2-4). Abel’s burnt offerings of animal flesh and blood were pleasing to Yahweh, but he rejected the vegetables, cereal and fruit offered by his brother. On a purely material level, as opposed to a mythic and spiritual metaphor, this story may reflect the struggle for dominance between nomadic herdsmen and the early farmers of the Neolithic Age in the Middle East.

The idea of semi-divine heroes was born from the ancient myths of unions between the Gods and mortals. The poet and writer Pindor (518-438 BCE) described the heroes of the past as “a race between Gods and men.” In the Dead Sea Scrolls the terrible human-eating Nephilim are in fact described as the guardians of arcane knowledge who “knew all the mysteries of nature and science.” There are also oblique references to the breeding techniques they taught that suggest they instructed early humans in the domestication and rearing of animals.

Additional references also hint at experiments that led to the creation of ‘monsters’ by the interbreeding of animals with different and unrelated species. In modern theosophical occultism there are legends about the lost continent of Atlantis that claim its scientists bred half-human, half-animal hybrids as a slave race. In our own time scientists are experimenting with genetic research and animal cloning experiments. It is widely rumoured that in China there have recently been abortive attempts to create a new half-human, half-animal hybrid species. These unnatural experiments led to the cataclysmic disaster that destroyed Atlantis. This also relates to the destruction of the Nephilim and the early human race in the biblical Flood. Records of such an event can also be found in the mythology of ancient peoples worldwide and especially among the Babylonians in the Middle East. In fact, it is claimed that the story of Noah and the Flood in the Old Testament originated in Babylonian and Sumerian myths.

10,000 BCE and the End of the Ice Age

It is known that around 10,000 BCE there seems to have been a cultural explosion that transformed early humankind. At the end of the last Ice Age the first signs of agriculture appeared in the Middle East with a shift from a nomadic hunter-gatherer lifestyle to that of settled farming. This marked the beginning of civilisation in this area. As early as 9500 BCE barley, wheat and rye were being cultivated and oats, peas and lentils were being grown by our Neolithic ancestors in what is now modern Kurdistan, between Turkey and Iraq. At the same time dogs, goats and sheep were also domesticated. Within a thousand years copper and lead smelting was being practised in Anatolia (modern Turkey) and archaeologists believe this process was first discovered in Kurdistan, along with weaving and pottery making. The ancient Kurdish culture was also the first to develop a script and was one of the earliest literate societies in the Middle East.

The Kurds claim to be the descendants of the ‘Children of the Djinn’ (spirits), the offspring of a mating between the djinns and mortal women. In some parts of Kurdistan, especially among the sect of Yezedis, who worship the Peacock Angel (Azazel, the leader of the fallen angels), can be found tall, fair-haired people with blue eyes. Although anthropologists believe they may be of ancient European ancestry, popular folk belief among the Kurds says they are descendants of the ‘Children of the Djinn’, who in ancient times brought civilisation to early humankind.

In general the ancient Middle East was known as ‘the cradle of civilisation’ with the earliest city-states being founded in the Mesopotamian area (modern Iraq and Iran). The early indigenous people of the region, the Sumerians and Akkadians, developed the first written language, studied astronomy and created libraries. The Babylonians and Assyrians followed them and in the mythology of all these races are stories of how the Gods descended to Earth and taught them the arts of civilisation.

In the Book of Enoch it says that when Yahweh saw the lawlessness, chaos, corruption and sexual immorality that had been caused by the interaction of the Watchers and humans he decided to intervene through the agency of the archangels Michael, Raphael, Gabriel and Uriel. He commanded Raphael to bind Azazel hand and foot like a sacrificial goat and cast him into a deep ravine in the desert. Gabriel was sent on a divine mission to destroy “the bastards and reprobates” and “the children of the Watchers amongst men.”5 The Archangel Michael, the commander of the Army of God, was sent to arrest Shemyaza and bind him “under the earth” until Judgement Day. As we have seen, the fallen angel repented his sins and sentenced himself to cosmic exile among the stars.

The Book of Jubilee says that the archangels bound the Watchers “in the depths of the earth” and in Judaic lore they are imprisoned in a mysterious “second Heaven.” However, it is also said that some of these “mighty warriors” have a special place reserved for them in Sheol, the Jewish underworld. There they are said to lie in state “with shield and spear intact.”

Christian O’Brien has suggested6 there is a connection between the biblical Watchers and the semi-divine, semi-mythical Tuatha De Danann (Children of the goddess Dana). This race of ancient magicians descended to Earth on the sacred hill of Tara in prehistoric Ireland. With the coming of Christianity, the Tuatha De Danann was banished into the ‘hollow hills’ and became the Sidhe (Shee) or ‘Shining Ones’, the elves and faeries of Irish folklore. There has always been a strong belief among the peasantry in Ireland that the Good People or faeries were originally the fallen angels who sided with Lucifer in the Battle of Heaven.

In this article we have constantly referred to the Watchers as angelic beings with a spiritual form who incarnated in physical bodies to have sexual relations with mortal women. In recent years a considerable amount of speculative literature has been published suggesting that instead they were of earthly origin. Popular best-selling authors such as Andrew Collins,7 Graham Hancock and Ian Lawson have claimed that the biblical myth of the Watchers represents memories of a primeval ‘elder race’ of super-humans belonging to a lost civilisation who taught their technology to more primitive people. Lawson has claimed that this (unknown) ancient race may have been spiritually advanced souls who incarnated to help early humankind and were corrupted by them in the process. Collins has also recently launched a new project to investigate the magical aspects of the legend.

Symbolism of the Myth of the Fallen Angels

What is the esoteric significance behind the myth of the fallen angels, the expulsion of Lucifer from Heaven and the Fall of Man as represented by the Garden of Eden saga? In the Bible Lucifer is often depicted in the reptilian form of a dragon or serpent and in the West this creature is symbolic of evil and the powers of chaos. Babylonian, Hittite, Canaanite, Iranian, Egyptian, Greek and Norse myths all describe in various forms a struggle between a supreme father-god, representing cosmic order and harmony, and a younger rebellious god who challenges and tries to overthrow divine authority. Although these conflicts usually take place in a pre-human epoch, they are also sometimes depicted as occurring in world history and are often connected with the creation and early development of the human species and the rise of ancient civilisations.

Symbolically, Lucifer or Lumiel is known as the Lord of Light as he is the first-born of creation. He represents the active cosmic energy of the universe and has been identified with fire, light, phallic power, independent thought, consciousness, progress, liberty and independence. The founder of the modern Theosophical Society, Madame Helena Blavatsky, described the Lightbringer as “the spirit of intellectual enlightenment and the freedom of thought” without whose influence humanity would be “no better than animals.”8

In the Bible Lucifer (or Satan as he is mistakenly called) is often depicted in reptilian form as either a dragon or a serpent. In Western mythologies this creature is commonly misrepresented as a symbol of the powers of darkness, chaos and evil. In contrast, in Eastern mythology the dragon is a good omen representing fertility and good fortune. Lumiel-Lucifer is often identified with the serpent in the Edenic myth described in Genesis. In the Luciferian tradition, the biblical serpent is regarded as the personification of knowledge, wisdom and enlightenment who liberated the first humans from the spiritual ignorance imposed on them by Yahweh. The serpent is seen as the symbol of an outside liberating force that quite literally opened the eyes of Adam and Eve to the reality of the created universe and the wonders of the material world.

The snake, serpent or dragon is an ancient mythical and archetypal image of the solar phallic power or life force that is associated with Lucifer and the explosion of light following the divine celestial event that created the universe (known by modern scientists as the Big Bang). When the first man and woman ate the forbidden fruit from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil in the astral or heavenly garden, they became consciously aware. Their first realisation was that their physical ‘cloaks of flesh’ were naked. They rushed to cover their genitals as they had become aware of the so-called ‘serpent power’ or kundalini that can be raised by sexual intercourse and non-reproductive sex acts. They also ate from the Tree of Life which initiated the cycle of birth, life, death and rebirth and of human souls incarnating in physical form.

Interestingly, the anthropologist and shamanic teacher Dr. Michael Harner has described an experience he had in the jungle of the Peruvian Amazon after partaking of the hallucinogenic vine ayahuasca. He had a vision of a dragon-prowed ship with a crew of bird-headed humans. He then encountered an ancient race of reptilian entities that he believes exist within each human being in the brain stem at the base of the skull and the top of the spinal column. These reptilian life forms told Dr. Harner they had arrived on Earth aeons ago from the stars. Allegedly, they created life here so they had somewhere to hide and were the true masters of the planet. The anthropologist mentioned this to an old Indian shaman and he said he knew about these entities and called them the “Masters of the Outer Darkness.”9

The myth of the Watchers, the Fall of Lucifer and the Fall of Man all represent the primeval Dreamtime or ‘Golden Age’ of cosmic and earthy harmony and primal innocence that may have existed on the material plane or on some kind of astral or pre-material plane. It is the symbolic or actual physical destruction of this heavenly or earthly paradise, where humans and animals lived together and communicated by a universal language, which is reflected in such myths and legends. In shamanic terms it is known as the Great Separation when humans no longer knew or understood the language of the animals. It was also a time when humans began to communicate together in different languages and this is represented by the biblical story of the Tower of Babel.

The myth of the Golden Age or Paradise on Earth is closely linked with the fall of Lucifer from Heaven and the diminishing of his former status as the first-born of creation to become the Lord of the World. On a symbolic and metaphorical level, as well as a physical one, it is also connected to the separation of humans from nature and their natural environment that is manifesting in our modern times. It was the deliberate intervention of Lucifer and the fallen angels in human evolution, rather than any defiance of cosmic authority, which ultimately lead to their fall from heavenly grace. The Watchers’ only ‘crime’ was that they wanted to help the progress of their human flock. However, the refusal of Lucifer-Iblis to recognise the creation of human beings means that the Fall from heavenly grace was inevitable.

In the Luciferian tradition Lumiel is promised redemption and the restoration of his former status in the cosmic plan. This can only come to pass when the human race spiritually evolves. So it is to the benefit of Lumiel and his teaching angels to help us achieve that end. The relationship between humanity and the leader of the Fallen Ones is therefore very much a symbiotic one, as they need each other.

[gffa]

You know how some fandoms just keep piling on the fic, so you’re like, “I’ll just wait one more day, so I can read a few more and include them on the list!” and then two weeks later it’s still happening and you finally have to go, “NO, I HAVE TO YELL ABOUT THIS NOW, NOT IN ANOTHER MONTH.” and yet people still keep posting fic? That’s me yelling at STAR WARS fandom about how much wonderful fic there is and that I cannot keep up with it and it’s the best problem to have! Because, oh, this collection has some incredible fic, so many of them that I want to shove right at people and yell at them to read this amazing thing, and how brilliant this fandom is. STAR WARS FIC RECS: TIME TRAVEL RECS: ✦ Legacy by myrlendi (thehistorygeek), luke & leia & obi-wan & anakin & ahsoka & cast, time travel, 105k wip    Three months after the Battle of Endor, Luke Skywalker goes in search of a rumoured Jedi temple in a secluded part of the Mid Rim. He finds within the temple nothing but a strange artifact, which unexpectedly brings him much closer to the Jedi of old than he ever thought he would be. ✦ Let’s Try This Again by Nny11, obi-wan & ahsoka & anakin & cast, time travel, 33.5k wip    Anakin’s life is shaken up when he finds a small togrutan toddler hiding in a dingy alleyway, after all, she did create a Force bond with him and is apparently his future Padawan. Wizard! PREQUELS RECS: ✦ A Constituency of One by victoria_p (musesfool), padme & obi-wan & anakin & cast, 3.7k    Padmé is the one who figures it out. ✦ And the Void Answered Back by Ghost_Owl, obi-wan & anakin & rey & finn & poe & ben & yoda & maz & han & cast, force ghosts, 84.9k wip    (Follows the Force ghosts of Anakin, Obi Wan, and friends getting dragged kicking and screaming through the events of The Force Awakens) ✦ Supreme Chancellor Obi-Wan Kenobi by stonefreeak, obi-wan & anakin & padme & cody & bail & palpatine & cast, 22.1k wip    By an old Republic law, all members of the Jedi High Council are senators in the Galactic Senate, and can thus be voted in as chancellor. ✦ Dooku Deserves a Break by nny11, dooku & qui-gon & yoda & obi-wan & anakin & ahsoka & luke & cast, 1k    Master, it’s time now. The voice was faint and familiar, and it burned. It’s soothing sound eating away at everything. Pain, pain, pain- It went ignored. ✦ The Past Remains by otherhawk, obi-wan & anakin & cody & mace & plo & adi & depa & cast, 15.6k    The war drags on leaving trauma and destruction in its wake. After a bereaved Master is accused of harming his padawan, Obi-Wan is sent to talk to her, dredging up memories of his own past. ✦ Not the same fate as mine by liv_k, obi-wan & anakin, 2.6k    Excerpts from the journal of a newly minted Jedi Knight. ✦ perfect in so many ways by victoria_p (musesfool), padme/sabe, nsfw, 1k    Padmé knows she’s been selfish. ✦ untitled by stonefreeak, obi-wan & bant, 1k    When Bant steps into Obi-Wan’s room in the Halls, it’s like a balm to his nerves. She’s one of his oldest friends, and her familiar presence is so very soothing. He really has missed her, they see each other too rarely these days, what with the war. ✦ Villain of a Different Story by HiNerdsItsCat (HiLarpItsCat), obi-wan/satine & anakin & cast, 73.2k wip    It turns out that there are some perks to being the Chosen One: Anakin finds himself transported five years into the past—only to discover that it isn’t his past, but a completely different one. One where Obi-Wan Kenobi left the Jedi Order, where Qui-Gon Jinn survived… and where Anakin Skywalker is the galaxy’s greatest villain. ✦ Accidental Baby Acquisition: The Obi-Wan Kenobi Way by kitkatkaylie, obi-wan & anakin & qui-gon & cast, 8.5k wip    Shmi Skywalker was desperate, so when she saw a Jedi in the marketplace of Mos Espa she did something that many would judge her for if they knew but just as many would understand. ✦ A Personal Touch by DragonHoardsBooks, obi-wan & anakin, 6.2k    New jedi padawan Anakin Skywalker realizes that there is more to being a jedi then he tought. Discovering a completely new culture will take time and effort, but maybe he’ll make some friends along the way. ✦ untitled by stonefreeak, mace & cast, 1.2k    “News, I have, from the investigation into the altered mission reports from the Senate.” ✦ untitled by stonefreeak, anakin & ahsoka & background obi-wan & cast, 2.4k    The past and the present blurs together, Anakin can hardly breathe through it. Too many thoughts crowd inside his head and the more he tries to sort himself out, the more of the past he remembers and the more fears for the future it brings up. ✦ Passing by Nny11, ahsoka/barriss & luminara & anakin, modern au, 18.3k    Barriss claims she’s dating Ahsoka, Ahsoka agrees to go along with it, and both of them spend the next 6 months worrying the other will discover their crush on the other. Nobody is really surprised about this fact besides them. ✦ Jedi of Light by Sannah, obi-wan/anakin/padme & mace & yoda & plo & even & jocasta & cast, 9.4k wip    Out of irritation with the war and with permission from the Council, several talk show hosts create a show that airs weekly about the Jedi. They name the show *Jedi of Light,* and go around following Jedi and asking them questions. OBI-WAN/ANAKIN RECS: ✦ And yet, somehow, a happier ending by liv_k, obi-wan/anakin (pre-slash?), ~1k    He had always known that there would be no happy ending waiting for them at the end of the road. And yet, somehow, he felt that this was happier than what could have been. ✦ The Missing Part by Nightstar269, obi-wan/anakin & ahsoka & palpatine, NSFW, modern au (of sorts), 109.3k wip    Anakin Skywalker, a student of mechanical engineering, has always felt that his life was lacking something, a feeling that was made much worse with the deaths of his mother first, and of the woman he loved some time later. Still haunted by the pain and heartbreak, he tries to go on with his life as well as he can. When an initiative of the director of the university has the students attending the classes of another degree so as to enrich their knowledge, he will meet someone that will turn his world upside down. ✦ my push and my shove by victoria_p (musesfool), obi-wan/anakin/padme, nsfw, crossdressing, d/s, 1.8k    There wasn’t much Anakin wouldn’t do to make Padmé and Obi-Wan happy. ✦ Collar by bell (belldreams), obi-wan/anakin, NSFW, d/s, 9.4k    “You have to be sure, Anakin. Once we’re in, we’re in.” “I think I can handle being your sub, Obi-Wan.“ ✦ Shaak Herding for the Troubled and Lonely by protos_metazu_ison (larkspyt), obi-wan/anakin & anakin/padme & ahsoka & plo & cast, au, 34.3k wip    Disgraced Master Obi-Wan Kenobi was content to live out the rest of his life as a hermit until the Prime Minister appeared at his door, begging him to attend the Skywalker clan’s annual party. ✦ Solstice by lilyconrad, obi-wan/anakin & ahsoka & cast, 8.9k wip    After the events of Equinox, Obi-Wan and Anakin find themselves back at war with enemies both seen and unseen. ✦ Home by little_tales, obi-wan/anakin & qui-gon & shmi & cast, time travel, 6.4k wip    Time travel fix-it story with a bit of a twist. After his death, Obi-Wan wakes up on Tatooine, in the body of his padawan self. But instead of trying to prevent Anakin from Falling, he decides to change the future by stopping Qui-Gon from ever meeting the little Ani. ✦ Tidbits by SingManyFaces, obi-wan/anakin, ~1k    Things go a little bit differently when Anakin sees Obi-Wan off on his mission to Utapau. ✦ untitled by subskywalker, obi-wan/anakin + implied obi-wan/anakin/padme, nsfw, 1.6k    (The easiest way to kill someone? You just need to kill what they love the most.) ✦ 36 Questions by kenobiapologist, obi-wan/anakin + background anakin/padme + implied obi-wan/anakin/padme, 30.7k    In a study by psychologist Arthur Aron, they found that strangers would fall in love when asked to answer 36 questions together. ✦ Let’s Be Wrong Together by bluebell26, obi-wan/anakin, NSFW, 3.1k    Anakin Skywalker had a dark secret. He’s been in love with his Master for several years now. He is attached. Yes, attached. It was bad, he shouldn’t, but what his former Master didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him. ✦ Untouchable by Blu3sc0rpion, obi-wan/anakin, NSFW, non-con issues/themes, 64k wip    A mission on Kraysiss-Two takes a turn for the worse. Ancient Sith designs work against both Obi-wan and Anakin as they desperately try to find a way off world. In the throes of confusion their relationship begins to spiral. They might be able to escape, but can they ever truly be rescued? ✦ Seed by bell (belldreams), obi-wan/anakin + anakin/padme, NSFW, 44k    When Anakin falls prey to a lethal poison, Obi-Wan has no choice but use all his resources to heal him– no matter how reluctant he is in administering the antidote. ✦ Miasma by lilyconrad, obi-wan/anakin & cody & rex & & kix & cast, dark themes, 20.6k    Obi-Wan never believed his best friend and lover Anakin would die first. But he has. ✦ [iasip music] Anakin Explains to His Darkest Timeline Son That He’s Gay by destiny919, obi-wan/anakin & luke & ahsoka & cast, 2.2k    "Ah, Padawan,” said Qui-Gon. “The crux of the matter lies in that our world is prey to the spectre of compulsory heterosexuality.” Obi-Wan gasped, horrified. “No! Not that!” ✦ Swear On It by dirkygoodness, obi-wan/anakin, NSFW, mild d/s undertones, 6.5k    He squeezes his eyes shut tight against it and holds his breath for a moment, trying to get himself under control. Tonight it doesn’t seem to be working, though, because the images of people he knows and loves hurt and bloody and dead just won’t get out of his mind. ✦ Unexpected by planetary_retrograde, obi-wan/anakin, NSFW, 2.1k    Obi-Wan’s first instinct when Anakin is hiding something is to help. ✦ Hidden Treasures by SingManyFaces, obi-wan/anakin, modern au, 3.9k    Ben Kenobi doesn’t look like the type to have tattoos, and Anakin badly wants to see his hidden ink. ✦ He Is the Chosen One by wearethewitches, obi-wan/anakin & cast, fem!anakin, 17.8k    Darth Vader dies. Then, Anakin Skywalker wakes in the body of a dead slave woman in 31 BBY, a year before the Occupation of Naboo. ORIGINAL TRILOGY RECS: ✦ Maker by ambiguously, luke & r2-d2 & c-3po, 1.8k    Threepio’s processor has an error. Luke and Artoo have to figure out why. ✦ does it bother anyone else that someone else has your name? by suzukiblu, multiple pairings across all of star wars, soulmate marks, 2.9k    Drabble series about various soulmates in the Star Wars universe. ✦ brittle, break by glorious_clio, leia & luke & han & chewbacca & rieekan & cast, 8.2k    They’re not on Hoth very long, but Leia stands still long enough for it to leave an impression on her. A very cold sort of impression. ✦ sand into glass by glorious_clio, luke & cliegg & owen & beru, 2.2k    AU where Cliegg is around for Luke’s arrival at the Lars homestead. Luke has a lot to learn from his grandfather. REBELS RECS: ✦ The Starry Crown by bedlamsbard, ezra & kanan & sabine & zeb & chopper & cast, 8.8k wip    Months after Ezra Bridger vanished into the depths of the mysterious Jedi temple on Lothal, he reappears – with Kanan Jarrus in tow. All Hera Syndulla and the other surviving members of the Ghost crew want is to retrieve their missing teammates, but a Jedi who can raise the dead is a prize too great for the Empire to pass up. Palpatine will do anything to get Ezra and the secrets he carries – secrets that may allow the Emperor to control reality itself. FULL DETAILS + RECS HERE!

[burialsocietyrpg]

𝐁𝐎𝐎𝐊 𝐎𝐍𝐄, 𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐏𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝐎𝐍𝐄. 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐌𝐄𝐌𝐎𝐑𝐈𝐀𝐋.

the potter family, though somber, desired the public memorial service of henry potter to be a celebration of his life rather than a second funeral. the gathering, held in the large and expansive garden-courtyard of the potter manor has been rumored to feature several speeches by the late mr. potter’s former colleagues - from both his wizengamot and hogwarts days -, a fundraiser for underprivileged purebloods, as well as a performance by famed vocalist madame bletchley, whose musical talents mr. potter was known to be rather fond of. the date of the memorial, as well, was chosen specifically to honor the late mr. potter’s affinity for the lughnasadh festival, which he had attended and bought spiced mead at every year from the age of fifteen until his untimely death. despite the planned levity of the event, as well as the familiar festivities of  lughnasadh, a strange and tense undercurrent seems to run through the crowds. perhaps everyone is thinking of the missing ministry workers–– a shocking scandal just waiting to end in tragedy. it wouldn’t be proper to speak of it, of course, not on such a day. at least, not in public.

𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐃𝐀𝐓𝐄 𝐈𝐒 𝐀𝐔𝐆𝐔𝐒𝐓 𝟏𝐒𝐓, 𝟏𝟗𝟓𝟎. 𝐖𝐇𝐀𝐓'𝐒 𝐇𝐀𝐏𝐏𝐄𝐍𝐈𝐍𝐆?

an open and public memorial for the late public figure, henry potter, at the potter family manor in cheshire, england.

lughnasadh: the first day of the three-day festival commemorating the beginning of harvest season and the halfway point between the summer solstice and the autumn equinox. the first day of the festival will take place in grappenhall heys walled garden, england –– due to the heavy wards enchanted into the walls that prevent apparition, portkeys set to travel between this location and diagon alley are fairly common to find and free to use.

several restaurants and confectionaries in diagon alley, in anticipation of an influx in customers, have announced a temporary lowering of their prices.

𝐓𝐈𝐌𝐄𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐌𝐏𝐒

timestamps are optional settings and scenarios to help inspire a direction and/or context for your event threads! as always, they are not mandatory. 

001 MEMENTO MORI – your character is attending the memorial – why? what is their connection to the potter family, or alternatively, what is their connection to henry potter’s untimely death? are they there as a friend or foe? are they there for remembrance or reconnaissance? feel free to plot with henry potters’ surviving son– fleamont potter –to further discover what may be transpiring.

002 IN VINO VERITAS – your character is attending the lughnasadh festival, an ancient and popular celebration within the wizarding world. if inclined, they may enjoy festivities such as dancing to the tunes of a live band, bowing to the goat who has been crowned festival king, or any other outdoor activity. they may also choose to pass through the many vendor stands to enjoy roasted sunflower seeds, freshly baked goods, a variety of flavored wines and beers sure to loosen any tongue, as well as independent tradespeople selling handcrafted wands, one-of-a-kind robes, and rare potions ingredients. as the sun sets, magic grows more powerful and unstable– a prime time for casting spells and facing fears.

003 SI VALES, VALEO – your character has taken refuge from the day’s events and lingers around diagon alley. perhaps they take advantage of the lowered prices at one of the confectionaries and dining establishments. perhaps they have a shopping list to get through. curiously enough, they seem to have crossed paths with someone they haven’t spoken to in a while. it would be rude not to catch up with them, wouldn’t it? perhaps there is more to discuss between them than one may initially expect..

please remember to keep all event threads, regardless of timestamp or any other circumstances, to remain on the official in-character date of August 1st, 1950. the precise time of day or night is up to the players’ discretion.

please note ! as is true for all in-character interactions, if you do not ward your conversations by specifying in the header of the post that it is warded or private, anything that transpires within the thread may be heard by keenly listening ears... this event will begin at the time of posting –– SATURDAY, AUGUST 15th, 12PM EDT/5PM BST, and will continue until SATURDAY, AUGUST 29st, 12PM EDT/5PM BST. please try not to start any new event threads after AUGUST 19th, in order to ensure that you’ll be able to wrap up and complete any threads before the event’s end !

[metawitches]

In episode 6, the worlds ended, thanks to Adam’s double apocalypse. In episode 7, we meet the new world. And tie up a few loose ends.

Recap

The episode begins with a twist on the opening voice over- a segment from HG Tannhaus’ science show from the 1970s:

Tannhaus: “What is reality? Is it singular in nature? Or do several parallel realities exist at the same time? To address this, Erwin Schrodinger constructed an extremely interesting thought experiment. Schrodinger’s cat. A cat is locked in a steel chamber with a tiny amount of a radioactive substance, a Geiger counter, a vial of poison and a hammer. As soon as a radioactive atom disintegrates inside the steel chamber, the Geiger counter triggers the release of the hammer, which smashes the vial of poison. The cat is dead.

“However, due to the wave characteristics in the quantum world, that atom is indeed disintegrated and intact. Both states are true until our own observation forces it into a definitive state of existence. Until the moment we check and see, we can’t know if the cat’s dead or alive. It exists in two superposed states. The attributes “dead” and “alive” exist simultaneously in the microcosm.

“But what if the simultaneous existence of life and death also applied to the macrocosmic world? Could different realities exist side by side? Could we split time and let it run in two different directions, and, as with the cat, induce a state of death and life simultaneously? And if so, how many different realities could exist side by side?”

Good question- how many realities could exist side by side? Is that the normal state of reality- for many realities to exist side by side, happily coexisting long term without judging each other’s existences, each accepting that sometimes the cat lives, sometimes she dies, and sometimes she chooses to leave the box closed and uncertain forever? That does seem like what the theory predicts, doesn’t it?

The famous cat, waiting for her life to go one way or the other.

HG Tannhaus presents the 2 potential states which the cat is superposed in- it exists as both a live cat and a dead cat at the same time, until an observer opens the box and forces circumstances in one direction or the other. The observer affects the outcome because of quantum entanglement.

A representation of 3 equal states/worlds/dimensions superposed together which arose from one moment in time, showing this is possible in the Dark universe, according to science expert HG Tannhaus.

In the Prime world 2020, Alt Ex Raincoat Now Emo Martha stands outside of Hannah’s house at the end of S2, just after Adam shoots Prime Martha. Inside, Young Jonas watches his Martha die and promises to make it right. Alt Martha goes inside- or does she? In split screen, one Martha runs into the house, while the other stops when Bartosz appears and yells to her not to go inside, Back to the Future-style. He tells her that Adam doesn’t want to stop the apocalypse and will kill her in the future.

Bartosz says that they’re all doomed because of Jonas/Adam, because everything is his fault.

Of course it is. At least some things are consistent across all of Space-Time.

As the black hole warp bubble forms in the sky, Jonas runs to the basement. Bartosz takes out the time sphere and begs Martha to trust him. He can save her and show her the origin and how everything is connected. Martha and Bartosz poof away just as the shockwave hits.

So good to have Bartosz acting normally again.

Time to note the next twist of the episode- sometimes we are seeing a 3rd world, which I am going to creatively continue to call the 3rd world or Tannhaus’ world. You can tell when it’s this world because widescreen black bars appear at the top and bottom of the picture. And HG Tannhaus appears.

Except in this episode, the jumps between worlds aren’t always marked by any of the normal markers that we’re used to. Make of that what you will- do some of the scenes apply to multiple worlds? Are we seeing Bartosz’s world sometimes? Are we seeing more of Tannhaus’ world than we realize?

Did the most recent surges in time energy fry the system in some way so that the boundaries between worlds are overlapping and more fractured than usual? Maybe the new connections that were made need a while to settle down? Usually, after an event like the end of episode 6, we’d be shown where/when travel has now been opened up to- my guess is that’s why we can see Tannhaus’ world in this episode. The connection to his world has been made or changed. We’d also usually be shown the travelers along with the new places they went, but apparently we’re assuming Martha, Charlotte and Aleksander are dead.

In the Prime world, in 1986 HG told Teen Charlotte that his son, daughter-in-law and infant granddaughter, Charlotte, died when their car went off a bridge in a storm in 1971. Baby Charlotte’s body was never found. That same night, two peculiar women brought him a replacement infant to raise. The “For Charlotte” pocket watch, a Tannhaus family heirloom since the early 19th century, came with her. Teen Charlotte met Peter, who came to town that day and eventually became her husband, on the day HG told her about her past. Both HG and Charlotte were given reasons to stay in town and stay settled when they were told the story of the accident.

In the 3rd world, in 1974, the clock shop looks much more like an inventor’s workshop than usual. HG works on a machine on a table late at night. It’s unclear whether he has Charlotte in this reality. We never see her, but he could be working around her sleep and then later her school hours. In S1, Prime Charlotte found a piece of the time machine chair room’s wall paper in the bunker and recognized it for what it was.

That suggests that on the Prime world, Tannhaus brought her with him to the bunker while he worked at night and the room was originally set up as a bedroom and playroom for her. The ownership of the bunker and cabin is murky, since we’ve been shown that the property also belonged to the Dopplers, especially Helge, during the same period. Bernd Doppler and HG were the same age and may have been friends, sharing ownership of the vacation/hunting cabin between the families.

The ownership of the cabin could be a bootstrap paradox- someone could have changed history. Bernd and Helge are Claudia’s allies, so it would benefit her to pass ownership of the passage to them. Encouraging marriage between Charlotte and Peter also accomplishes that goal.

Or we could have been seeing the cabin and bunker in multiple worlds all along, but it’s only become clear now that the timelines have differentiated more. In the pilot, Jonas’ timeline, Martha’s timeline and Bartosz’s timeline may have been identical. They could be living in entirely different universes by now.

HG glances at his photo of his son and family, then the scene switches to the Winden graveyard and the family’s gravestone. They died on November 8, 1971. Marek was born on March 20, 1947. Sonja was born May 26, 1949. Charlotte’s birthday was May 30, 1971. She was just 5 months old when she died. HG leaves a red knit animal on the grave for Charlotte.

Both Charlotte and Sonja were born just a few weeks before the Summer Solstice, the peak of the light. Marek was born on the Spring Equinox, one of the balance points in the year between light and dark, this one tipped toward light.

In voice over, HG says that it’s hard for humans to accept death and loss. “We long in vain for a way to turn back time. To reverse death.”

“But if time is relative and nothing is really ever in the past, and the simultaneous overlapping of different realities is possible, shouldn’t it then also be possible to bring back something that was believed to be dead long ago and to create a new reality in which the dead live again? If our life is defined as everything between birth and death, it exists there, ad infinitum. Could we succeed in cheating death by finding a way to bring back life, there, between time?”

As he speaks, HG goes to the Doppler cottage and down into the empty bunker. He must own the cottage on this world. He looks around the bunker thoughtfully.

The bolded question is the central question of the series and especially this season. There are several different stories about how time travel began on Dark. They all have to do with bringing someone back from the dead. Generally, the characters’ theories about the knot involve blaming someone who they believe shouldn’t be alive either.

The show’s focus on how guilty characters feel about this or that serves to distract from how alarmingly frequent murder and physical violence have become. When you combine this violence with the way Adam speaks about who deserves Paradise and pay attention to how few characters Eva saves from the apocalypse, it starts to look like a multi world genocide.

Prime world, 2021.

Young Elisabeth and Hanno work to clear the rubble from the passage. It can’t be that long since Hanno finished clearing the passage the first time, in the 1920s, so he has every right to be an angry guy. Adam couldn’t send him to the 1990s for some R&R for a few years first?

Of course not, Adam doesn’t believe in happiness or fun anymore.

They reach one of the Sic Mundus doors, which gives them hope. Later, while they’re relaxing, Elisabeth looks at the For Charlotte watch that Adult Noah gave her. She asks Hanno to tell her about Paradise. He uses sign and speech. “Paradise is free of pain and sorrow. Everything we’ve ever done is forgotten there. Any pain that we’ve ever felt is erased. And all the dead live. Adam will keep his promise. The passageway will open up.”

So cruel of Adam/Jonas to raise all of these kids on the dream of a beautiful world, then take it away from them. Such a timely storyline. Better living through chemistry and physics, y’all, ’til the artificially concentrated and combined chemicals turn into poisons that build up in every system on earth.

Prime world, 1890.

Adam/Stranger Jonas is working in his workshop, wearing a leather suit that looks like a hazmat suit, but of course it isn’t as sturdy. The cesium 137 is placid in its basin until he turns on the electricity. Once it’s been hit enough times, it turns into a blue-black cloud, but it remains unstable.

When Jonas goes to one of the lightning rods to adjust something, he gets struck in the arm by an intense bolt. It gives him a large burn. The energy surge probably would have killed anyone else. He glares at the stone basin where the God particle lives- it’s sentient, so given the way he treats it, it probably is out to get him.

Later, he finds Bartosz staring out the window in the one bedroom in 1888. It’s time for their regular blame Jonas session. Bartosz is angry that Jonas hasn’t reinvented time travel and all of 20th century technology yet, after two whole years in the 19th century. He’s wasting the best years of his life here in the past and he doesn’t think Steampunk is a good look on him at all.

Jonas reiterates that he knows he’ll get the God particle working eventually, because he’s already seen it working in the future-past, but Bartosz continues to be suspicious of his intentions. Jonas explains that he wants to fix everything, not just one event or one person’s problems. He’s the savior, okay? That’s bigger than their love triangle.

Jonas: “If the portal works, then we can use it to find the origin. The one moment that started all of this. And when we’ve found it, we’ll destroy it. And everything that arises from it. That is paradise.”

Bartosz storms out and takes a long walk in the rain. Of course it’s raining. Jonas makes a mental note to do something about this situation in the future, like get Bartosz a girlfriend or a hobby so he’ll quit being such a pain in the butt.

Still in the 1890s.

Silja arrives from the 2050s, wearing Alt Martha’s 1800s outfit. She hides her hazmat suit under some brush. Bartosz comes stomping by, still fuming over Jonas. Silja makes a little noise so that Bartosz will notice her, then comes over to introduce herself.

And Jonas’ Bartosz problem is solved.

I hope that Hanno, Agnes and Silja at least got to pick out which family members they wanted to date before the first cycles in which they were used this way. Because there is no other way to interpret how they are sent to Elisabeth, Doris and Bartosz and the way Agnes was bred with the Unknown. We never see Silja question her path, but Agnes expects Jonas to keep up his side of their deal (plus, she doesn’t stay with either Doris or Unknown). Hanno/Noah openly chafes at the expectations placed on him, and eventually rebels against them, even though he loves Eli.

2023, Prime world.

After 3 years of torture by blue lightning bolts from Jonas and Claudia, the cosmic egg has developed a transparent, protective outer layer, but seems no closer to becoming a time travel portal. Claudia and Jonas give up for the day and rinse the radiation off their hazmat gear in the outer section of the power plant. Jonas is super depressed and ready to quit. Claudia tries to convince him to keep going, because, well, he just has to. Someday, somehow, it just has to work, if they can keep up their team spirit. Jonas tells her he really doesn’t have any team spirit and walks away.

Of course he goes home. He stops in the kitchen for one last look at all of his emotional touchstones- the family portrait, the kitchen table where he last saw Michael, the spot on the floor where Martha died. Then he goes up to Michael’s studio, which has tree branches growing in through the skylight. A sign from his dad, the Sun King- choose life! Jonas looks up at the ceiling beam fondly, then goes about the business of hanging himself.

He doesn’t die. Young Hanno rushes in and cuts him down, sent by either Claudia or Adam. The poor kid has been doing hard labor in the tunnels for years, now he has to live in the barren cave with his child bride, and his savior can’t even be bothered to stay alive. He tells Jonas that he and Adam made Noah and Hanno a promise that the apocalypse had to happen so that everyone would get saved. “You cannot die.”

I think if Jonas died, Hanno would kill him.

He hands Jonas a gun. Jonas holds it to his head and fires. 5 times. Hanno takes the gun back and fires the bullet in the last chamber at the wall. Time and Hanno win this game of Russian roulette.

Hanno explains that Jonas can’t kill himself, because his older self already exists. A force or a person will always intervene. He tells Jonas that he and Elisabeth have found the passage, as ordered by Jonas’ older self. So now it’s up to Jonas to keep the promises made by his older selves.

When Hanno burst into the room, Jonas asked why he was there and if he was following him. After that, Jonas stayed silent. When they’re done with the gun, Hanno brings him to the passage to prove that it’s waiting to be reopened. Jonas stays silent for this as well.

Hanno tells him again that the passage will open up and then Adam will take them to Paradise. Before then, he and Jonas are supposed to become friends, until Hanno is betrayed.

It’s always worded that way- Hanno/Noah will be betrayed and Jonas will be to blame. Jonas is never blamed in the active voice and Hanno never notices. But Hanno is also one of the few who knew Adam well before he met Jonas, so he sees Adam as the real version. Young Jonas is merely the alternate.

Jonas is already tired of the burdens placed on him by people he hasn’t become yet.

And he isn’t even saving for retirement or a mortgage or his kid’s college or keeping up with the maintenance on that poor house so he can pass it down to the Unknown. His eldercare plan for his parents is pretty rough, too.

I’m thinking Jonas’ cosmic egg is also a metaphor for all of those core wounds that get buried deep inside and won’t budge, no matter what you do to heal them. They pop out occasionally as giant black time clouds or nightmares or ex boyfriends. They say that time heals all wounds, but even time can’t heal some damage.

Metamaiden says she assumes that “time heals all wounds” means you’ll die eventually anyway and then your problems will be over.

She was born with this cheery outlook, folks.

But you see- Jonas doesn’t have death to look forward to as an end to his pain, so he keeps zapping that poor time egg. It’s ultimately a circle of torture and self-loathing, punctuated by occasional suicide attempts. He didn’t even hesitate before he pulled the trigger on that gun, 5 times in a row.

In 1904, Silja gives birth to a baby boy. She tells Bartosz she wants to name him Hanno. Bartosz realizes that this innocent newborn baby will grow up to be the killer who brought him into Sic Mundus while posing as a priest and drug dealer.

In the 3rd world, 1974, Tannhaus hangs the photo of his son’s family on the bunker wall, mirroring the way Claudia hung photos on the wall and Martha made the family trees in chalk. The 3rd world mirrors the other two, but things don’t happen in exactly the same way or at the same time.

Tannhaus: “Fate is playing a cruel trick on us. Yet we will always believe there is a way to turn the tide in our favor. If we only want it hard enough. A person is able to pursue any goal, no matter how unattainable it may seem, over the course of an entire lifetime. No resistance, no obstacle is great enough to stop the human will in its tracks… Throughout the ages, isn’t this unquenchable thirst at the heart of any progress that is ever made? No matter what motivates our will, it guides us on our path. We will only be able to let go once we have finally reached our goal.”

As Adult Tannhaus speaks, he spends the 12 years from 1974 to 1986 building a time machine in the bunker. At the same time, he turns into Old Tannhaus. The machine is a large ball with even larger rays sticking out. When he’s done, it looks like a room size version of what’s probably in the sphere.

We saw a similar aging process mirrored with Gustav Tannhaus in the carriage, which had a prophet, the wheels of time and Charlotte’s watch, even if it didn’t technically have a souped up time machine. HG’s new time machine could be seen as a high tech variation on a wheel of time or a cosmic egg as well.

Forward to Prime world, 2040.

17 years have passed in the power plant and Hanno and Jonas have aged into their older selves. Hanno works with Claudia and Jonas on the God particle. At rest, it’s still a white cosmic egg, but when stimulated by enough electricity, it gradually turns black, then becomes the larger cloud that’s a precursor to forming portals. They all look hopeful for a moment as the cloud begins to smooth out into a ball, but it doesn’t hold the formation.

Later that night, Jonas and Hanno stand outside in the dark over a fire. Jonas wonders why the portal isn’t working.

Hanno: “Maybe Claudia doesn’t want it to work.”

(This is correct.)

He asks why Jonas trusts Claudia. Jonas asks why Hanno trusts Adam (Adam raised him).  He tells Hanno that Adam’s Paradise is a lie and that he knows the portal will work eventually, because he’s seen it, in the future-future. Everything repeats itself, so this will, too, Jonas is sure that he can do things differently this time though. He and Claudia have changed enough of the components in the passage so that this time, he’ll be able to close it forever when he tries in November 2019, as Stranger Jonas.

Hanno confirms that Claudia told Jonas this. Then he asks what Jonas actually knows about Claudia. “She sometimes disappears for days. How does she know all the things she knows? She said that not all that’s here, should exist here. What did she mean by that? Claudia’s hiding something from us. We can’t trust her. I hope that you know that.”

A very pregnant Elisabeth calls Hanno inside for the night.

Alt Claudia to Prime Claudia: “He still doesn’t suspect anything?”

Prime Claudia: “No, he has no idea that you or the other world exist.”

Alt Claudia: “You must continue to guide him on this path. The matter must not function yet. You keep the knot up in your world, and I’ll keep it in mine.”

Alt Claudia pulls out the sphere, ready to leave. Prime Claudia stop her. She asks how Eva knows what will happen in the future and what instructions to give them. She wonders if Eva knows everything, every future. Has Alt Claudia met her? Alt Claudia asks who she means. Prime Claudia says, “My older self.” Alt Claudia says, “No.”

Prime Claudia: “I still remember exactly what she said. ‘If all this works, then our Regina will live.’ I’ve thought about it all these years. I just can’t believe that what she meant by that was that her suffering would repeat endlessly. There must be a way to untie the knot, without destroying all life in it. A way for Regina to live. Really live. I think neither Eva nor Adam know this path. But I’ll find it. In my world or yours.”

Prime Claudia takes out a gun and shoots Alt Claudia in the forehead. Alt Claudia dies. Prime Claudia becomes the supreme deity on 2 worlds. She picks up her prize, the Golden Time Snitch of Omniscience. Now she can figure out what the multiverse is really all about.

Because they’d never seen an Alt Old Claudia, Prime Claudia assumed she was meant to kill her. Claudias think this way. To be fair, so do Adams and Evas. They are gods, far beyond our mortal ways of thinking about murder and death. They know there’s always another version of the person, somewhere, on some world, and anyway, that person will be born again, next cycle, like nothing ever happened.

Claudia is assuming that at some point she changed the course of the cycles to bend toward favoring her Regina. And if that isn’t the reason Alt Claudia died in past cycles, well, it is now. If you ever think that changes haven’t been occurring over the course of the cycles, go watch S1Ep1 and any S2 episode again. The Windens are all very different places.

And with all the Claudia drama, we skipped right past the confirmation that she’s actively holding back progress on the God particle portal (“The matter must not function yet.”). She doesn’t need to hold Jonas back in 1888. The primitive working conditions do that by themselves. In the 21st century, they can scavenge modern materials. So she’s misdirecting him toward experiments that are ineffective, while she and Eva, and maybe Adam, work on other goals.

Swoop into the Alt world, focus on those darn scorched paintings. This scene takes place after the apocalypse in the Alt world, when Stranger Martha is aging into Eva, so it’s probably about 2040 there as well. Eva’s God particle apparatus is disassembled on the floor, so she probably lost it in the shockwave too and is trying to rebuild it.

The same scenario is being played out on all 3 worlds, in a different way on each world. As promised, no matter what, the three worlds are linked and the same archetypal events repeat between them. Family members die and get lost, going all the way back to the first Charlotte Tannhaus in the early 1800s, creating the desire to change the timeline. Time travel is invented and reinvented, repeatedly, by the same or different people. This is not a one time occurence based on a single sad event.

Tannhaus justifies following his Will with no restrictions by saying that wanting his son back so badly makes it okay. Claudia believes that saving Regina’s life justifies anything she will do for that cause, no matter who else she hurts in the process. Both arguments come back to Bernd’s advice to take what you want, because no one will give it to you. The flip side of that is the assumption that you are owed whatever you want and no one else’s needs or desires matter as much as your own.

When Prime Claudia enters, Stranger Eva asks if her alternate self is coming, too? Claudia says that Noah is watching her, so she couldn’t get away.

Note that she knows he’s suspicious of her and is limiting her movements because of him. When Charlotte disappears, Noah’s mental focus is conveniently removed from Claudia and his physical person is conveniently removed to time periods and locations Adult Claudia mostly stays away from.

Eva rolls up a blueprint for a time travel device and tells Claudia to give it to the other Claudia, who must then give it to Tannhaus to build. She asks if the Claudias understand why everything they’re doing is necessary and everything has to keep repeating. Claudia nods her head yes.

At some point, everyone in Winden will have been designed one of the time travel devices. I’m glad to see Martha get her shot. Does Alt Tannhaus also get blueprints, or does the Alt world go straight from their futuristic God particle portal design to the sphere?

Back in time to 1910. We aren’t shown a switch back to the Prime world, and for the first time all season, we’re shown the outside of Erna’s tavern and boarding house. Either we’re still in the Alt world, or this happened in both worlds. Both worlds, is my guess.

Silja has died in childbirth. A woman tells Hanno that he has to be strong now for his father. Someone holds crying baby Agnes. A crazed looking Bartosz bursts into the room and kneels at Silja’s side. The midwife tells him the baby’s name. He looks overwhelmed.

Forward to 2041.

Under a full moon, Hanno and Elisabeth leave their cabin to bring in the laundry that’s hung outside. Elisabeth asks Hanno to tell her about paradise. As he tells her the same story he told her in the caves in 2020, 2053 Charlotte and Elisabeth sneak into their cabin to kidnap Baby Charlotte. Elisabeth picks up the baby she lost 12 years prior. Charlotte takes the pocket watch.

When Hanno is done with the story, they hug and take the laundry inside, where they discover that Charlotte is missing.

Hanno vs Noah

By telling Elisabeth the story, Hanno keeps her facing away from the cabin during the kidnapping, so she has no idea what happens. But as it’s happening, he seems like he’s upset and trying to control his emotions. From where he’s standing, he should notice the movements of the two women entering and leaving his cabin.

Noah/Hanno tells the Paradise story to Elisabeth twice on camera- just after Peter dies, which he knew was coming but didn’t prevent, and now during Charlotte’s kidnapping. Did he know it was coming and that he had to let it happen? Even though he spends the rest of his life blaming Adam and Claudia?

I think he did know that he had to let it happen, but he blames them because Charlotte is taken as part of their war. Prime Hanno blames Adam/Jonas and Claudia for the whole war and the way it tears the whole family apart, starting with the death of his mother. Silja was born in the 50s. If she hadn’t been time displaced, she probably wouldn’t have died in childbirth.

Before he dies, Bartosz tells his son to ask Adam why he took Hanno back in as an adult, after the apocalypse and after Charlotte was taken, and called him Noah instead of Hanno. The biblical Noah is remembered for saving his own family and two members of every species. Since we are all theoretically descended from those winners, we see it as a victory for the virtuous.

We rarely think about the fact that Bible Noah knew the flood was coming and did nothing to stop everyone but his family from dying. Noah’s immediate family weren’t actually much better than anyone else. It’s more likely that Noah had boat building skills and was in the right place at the right time. But Noah went along with God’s plan and watched everyone die, feeling quite good about himself. In fact, when it’s all over, God makes a backhanded promise to Noah:

“Never again will I curse the ground because of humans, even though every inclination of the human heart is evil from childhood. And never again will I destroy all living creatures, as I have done.”

God promises he won’t send another apocalypse, even though humans are born evil with no hope of ever changing. God has apparently given up on finding good in humanity and is settling for telling people to be fruitful and multiply.

Like so many others, Hanno usually has good intentions overall, but he performs evil acts, such as killing Erik, Yasin and Mads, to attain his goals. In the Dark world, consequences usually catch up with the characters over time, no matter their intentions.

Hanno leaves the cabin and goes straight to Jonas, who’s working in the bunker, and demands to know where Charlotte is. Jonas is taken by surprise as Hanno shoves him up against a wall and nearly chokes him to death. Hanno continues to ask where Charlotte is and whether Jonas or Claudia took her. He says that he finally understands how Jonas betrays their friendship. Before he leaves, he curses Jonas with endless suffering.

Too late. Jonas has been there for a long time. Or is this falling out between best friends the true origin of the timeline split? They’ve been close for 18 years. I think that’s Jonas’ real time record. And their fireside chat showed that they really were very close.

Causality. Such a slippery concept on this show.

Hanno returns to Elisabeth, who looks like her soul has been ripped from her body. She’s fondling Charlotte’s tiny knit cap. He promises to find Charlotte and bring her back. A bit of resolve forms in Elisabeth’s eyes as he gets up to leave, but they both know their life together is over. He picks up the triquetra diary and puts it inside his coat, an offering to help smooth his way back into Adam’s lair after wishing him endless suffering.

Where is Charlotte? Mikkel? Ulrich? Mads?

Noah/Hanno does find Charlotte after some number of years in his life. We aren’t told how many, though he refers to it as a long time, during their first conversation in the clock shop. When he finds her in 2019, after reading the final pages of the triquetra diary, she’s 49 years old and has already been told by Stranger Jonas that Noah killed Yasin, Erik and Mads. That’s the true betrayal of the Jonas-Hanno friendship. Adam is no longer Hanno’s friend, so I don’t think it matters what he does to Adult Hanno/Noah. Hanno is just waiting for the chance to kill Adam.

It’s Stranger who drives Hanno’s long lost daughter from him by giving her out of context information that benefits Stranger and makes Noah seem like a terrible person who’s only motivated by his cult’s orders and his own sadism. That’s what we all thought about Noah in season 1.

Instead, Noah is a driven man, more like an addict who’ll do anything to get what he needs, which is something Stranger Jonas should understand. For a long time, Jonas mainly takes his pain out on himself and Martha. But even in his more benign forms, he’s coerced into participating in Michael’s death and Mikkel’s kidnapping, which ultimately lead to Ulrich’s confinement and Katharina’s death.

Adam coerces Hanno into becoming a demon just as surely as Claudia leads Jonas to his fate as Adam, heartless mass killer. Hanno can’t simply leave his daughter alone and abandoned in the world. He’s been trained since his mother died to be a caretaker and fixer. The murder of the boys is even mixed up with raising Helge and getting him back to 1954.

Meanwhile, Charlotte is displaced in time in before she’s even born in 2041, since Hanno was born in 1904 and Elisabeth was born in 2011. In addition to her kidnapping to a third time period, she and Elisabeth give birth to each other.

Alt Charlotte was born in 1971, the year HG Tannhaus tells Prime Teen Charlotte his original granddaughter was born. But Noah and Elisabeth still enter the bunker in the Alt world and Charlotte and Elisabeth are still shown giving birth to each other on the Alt world family tree. Is this a clue or a mistake?

If this is real, and isn’t changed within 48 hours of me posting this recap, then it perhaps fits with the theory I’ve had about Charlotte since sometime in S2- I think that when she’s kidnapped as an infant, 3 versions of her are swapped between 3 worlds, not just taken to another time in the same world. If the Charlotte who’s in the Alt world was born in 1971, then she could be the Charlotte either from Tannhaus’ world or Bartosz’s world. Alt Infant Charlotte would have been taken to the Prime world and Prime Infant Charlotte would have gone to the 3rd world.

The Adult Elisabeths and Charlottes (or someone else- we don’t know who ran Marek’s car off the road) would have done this round robin with the infants between the 3 (or 4) worlds to help create or strengthen a connection in time and space- an earlier, less binding version of the Unknown. I can’t explain every detail because of the bootstrap paradoxes involved in Charlotte’s family and HG’s family, but I suspect they are the same family, slightly altered between variations in timelines, time accidents and deliberate tampering.

HG Tannhaus: “A man can do what he wills, but he cannot will what he wills. All the paths we take in our lives, every choice we make, is guided by our deepest desires. It’s pointless to fight this sense of want. It determines every one of our actions, no matter how difficult and unimaginable they seem.”

This is a very different sentiment from the one expressed by Prime world HG Tannhaus, who’s said many times that he’s always wanted to travel, but circumstances have required him to stay in the present, running his clock shop.

3rd world, 1986, the bunker.

Tannhaus looks at the family photo on the wall and removes his lab coat. It’s time. He presses keys on a keyboard, fiddles with this and that, then decisively presses the 2 blood red buttons on the wall. The time machine fires up- literally. The center ball is coated in a thin layer of orange flames, with waves of electricity flowing up the arms, but the machine doesn’t seem to be out of control in any way. The music and other sound effects aren’t ominous either.

Prime world, 1911, Tannhaus factory.

Bartosz is in the courtyard working on a car when Hannah and her approximately 4 year old daughter approach, device/apparatus suitcase in hand. Bartosz, who already looks haunted, recognizes that this child is his wife, who’s been dead for about a year. Hannah asks for Jonas. Bartosz warns her that traveling has changed him, but still takes her to see Jonas in his lair.

Jonas is in a transitional stage between Stranger and Adam. He’s in Adam’s uniform and stands staring at the painting. But he still stands tall and straight. Adam will eventually sort of melt into rounded edges and a more socially presentable public persona. This man is still in the midst of the hottest part of the fire.

When he turns around, Hannah is momentarily shocked by the extreme facial scarring. In this time period, his face looks like a skull in ways that will soften later, maybe when he tires of punishing himself. Hannah recovers quickly and introduces his sister to him.

She’s clearly saddened by what she sees, but as a mother who wishes she could have helped spare her child this pain. She touches his cheek and explains that an old woman, Eva, came to her a few days ago and told her that Jonas needed her and where to find him. She promises to be there for him from now on.

Since Jonas doesn’t want to be spared pain, he’s not interested in her compassion and even finds it repulsive. He removes her hand from his cheek with enough menace that Hannah feels it. He finds himself repulsive and probably finds anything connected to him repulsive right now. He tells Igor Bartosz to take them to the bedroom.

Later that night, once it’s raining, Jonas sneaks into the bedroom. He goes to Silja first, but as he’s carefully folding down her covers, Hannah awakens and asks what he’s doing. He decides it’s Hannah’s turn first and sits on the edge of her bed, as we’ve seen Young Jonas do for sweet mother-son talks.

This is an entirely different situation. He tells Hannah that she and Silja aren’t right here and all of the pieces must be in the correct position. Hannah knows something isn’t right with him, but he’s got her lying down and blocked in. He gently touches her face, calls her Mom one last time, then pulls her pillow out from under her and smothers her to death.

She and Silja are both in white nightgowns. Women should refuse all white garments on this show. It never ends well.

When Jonas is done brutally murdering his mother, he turns to his baby sister and wakes her up, telling her has a secret to show her. He needs her to be quiet so they don’t wake her mom up. He carries her out so that she’s facing back toward Hannah’s body, staring at it the entire way to the door. Hannah very clearly isn’t asleep.

I can Only Salvage So Much from a Bad Situation, Okay?

So. That was sickening and exploitative. There is no good reason to include hints of pedophilia and for Jonas to brutally murder the mother he hasn’t seen in decades. Given the number of characters who commit heinous crimes, such as Helene, and are never caught, and the women who just disappear, such as Greta, there was no reason to bring Hannah back simply to kill her this way.

Though Tannhaus’ last voiceover certainly justifies indulging in any sexual or violent predilection you can come up with, regardless of the other person’s desires. Is that what this show is saying? Anything goes?

The message, if there ever was one, has gotten confused in these last few episodes, as if this show doesn’t know what it’s trying to say anymore. I’m tearing my hair out trying to continue some kind of coherent narrative through line that holds together through the final episode. I finally realized the only way to do it was to give up.

Maybe Claudia has taken the wheel and Hannah had to die out of revenge, because she allowed Ulrich and Katharina to think Regina had turned Ulrich in for rape. That’s a giant stretch though, to the point where I’m writing the show for the creators. And many innocent people who had little to do with Claudia or Regina have died horrible deaths.

I could play the mythology card, and say that Jonas is Hades, the god of the Underworld, who has been collecting young women as his Persephones. Hannah, as the Mother goddess/Demeter, came to look into the situation. Jonas sent her back to another realm, where she wouldn’t interfere with his plans. The myth is sometimes called The Rape of Persephone. In mythology, Demeter mostly wins, though they essentially end with joint custody of Persephone, creating the seasons. Demeter isn’t going to win here.

And there’s only one Persephone, whereas Jonas is collecting everyone’s children for his cult, but mostly girls. Adding a scene where he has a skull face, creeps on a small child in bed at night who’s dressed in white, then kills her mother when he’s caught and carries the little girl off, pretty much solidifies his symbolic nature as a pedophile. At least they only implied the pedophelia itself, rather than showing it.

But this finishes the assassination of both his character and Martha’s character. When we met Martha, she was was on a hunger strike to save starving children. Now she’s procuring women and girls for men who like to murder women and rape little girls?

Yes, the fairy-tale witch imagery has been there all season in Eva’s long black dress. I’d hoped they’d avoid actually going to the stereotype for old women, witches and the biblical Eve, even though they’re obsessed with stamping out original sin. I should have realized that getting rid of the “origin” would involve killing as many mother figures as possible, while turning over little girls to men as child brides.

Because it’s really all Jonas’ mother’s fault, right? She must have done something wrong to make him this way. She must love him too much or too little or embarrass him in front of the other boys. Otherwise he wouldn’t need to live in the basement forever and only have sex twice in his life.

This is an incredibly disappointing direction for this show to take, in so many ways. Beyond misogyny, the philosophy seems to be that people just can’t control themselves and there’s no point in trying.

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1920, Erna’s tavern.

Adult Hanno enters the bar, fresh from 2041. The crowd pauses for a moment when the stranger enters. He tells Erna that he’s come a long way and needs someplace to rest. She calls for Young Hanno and tells him to take their guest upstairs to a room.

Adult Hanno goes to see Adam in his lair. Adam has become the older version played by Dietrich Hollinderbäumer. Before Hanno can speak, Adam says that he’s been waiting for Hanno’s visit. He says that Hanno was right about Claudia all along. She was the one who stole Charlotte. Adam says that Hanno needs to find the missing pages from the triquetra diary, with the help of Helge. Then he’ll find Charlotte, his final destination and his Paradise. Adam hands Hanno a bible and says that this will be his last cycle. “Are you ready, Noah?”

Forward to 2052, the bunker.

Old Claudia gives instructions to Stranger Jonas. They’ve finally stabilized the dark matter/Cesium 137. She’s sending Stranger off to November 2019 to lead Young Jonas down the correct path. If he helps everyone he knows complete this cycle in the exact same way they’ve done all the other cycles, for sure change will occur this time.

I have to wonder what she’s been putting in his food for the last few decades.

She hands him Tannhaus’ book, A Journey Through Time and says that the author will repair the apparatus. Once the device is repaired, he can destroy the passage and the knot. It’ll work for sure this time.

Because doing everything exactly the same way always creates the change you’re looking for.

As he’s headed out the door, she tells him not to ever give up hope. Then she tears out the last few pages of the triquetra diary, sticks them in her coat pocket, and leaves.

Now for a brief recap of the series. Stranger goes to Winden in November 2019, when Mikkel and the other boys have gone missing. Noah experiments on the time machine chair, killing 3 boys in the process. Old Claudia gets Gretchen from 1953 and brings her Adult Claudia in 1986, to prove that time travel is real and that she’s really Adult Claudia’s older self.

Both Claudias will abandon Gretchen with Regina in order to pursue time travel and supposedly save Regina. It doesn’t occur to any Claudia, ever, to actually be a mother to her daughter, which is why I question her motives.

Claudia abandons the dog, the daughter, the lover and the father. She kills the daughter and the father and leaves the lover to die in the apocalypse. This is not a woman who will devote eternity or destroy worlds to save someone. This is an obsessed scientist who is devoted to solving a problem and needs an emotional flag to keep her motivated through the tough times.

The writers can retcon the character they created. That’s their prerogative and TV shows do it all the time. But this is the Claudia they created. She doesn’t move heaven and earth for Regina. She moves them for science.

Hey, remember that time that Bartosz decided to get in on the Back to the Future action, so he put on Christopher Lloyd’s duster and went to rescue Martha from getting killed by Adam? I know it was about 9k words and 110 years ago, but I promise you, that did happen. After 3 seasons of Claudia trying to save Regina and Jonas trying to save Prime Martha and Noah trying to save Charlotte and half of Winden trying to save Mikkel, and all of them failing, all the time, plucky little Alt Teen Bartosz jumped in and rescued Alt Teen Martha.

I knew I liked that kid, And his older self, too. In fact, I think he’s the chosen one on the 3rd planet that his Grandma is trying to take out of the system in her obsessive quest to ruin everything for everyone, everytime in everyway. That’s why this episode focused on Bartosz’s story and the story of his son, Hanno/Noah. We’ve already spent quite a bit of time on Bartosz’s granddaughter, Charlotte and her family, for 3 seasons. And Charlotte has known all along that she was important.

This episode is kind of its own little season, focusing on a third world/timeline that’s almost identical to the prime world/timeline, so we’ve switched between them throughout the episode. That’s my theory. Time is so mucked up that apparently even the writers can’t be bothered to sort it out anymore, so here we are. I can’t tell you when we were where, necessarily, just that we jumped around a lot without the normal markers telling us what world we were in.

Also, I think the HG Tannhaus time machine world, which I’ve been calling the 3rd world, is a 4th world, that’s not Bartosz’s world. As I said, Bartosz’s world is so close to Jonas’ and Eva’s that it blends with theirs, so it doesn’t get the widescreen black bars at the top and bottom that HG’s world does. HG’s world/timeline has some significant differences from the other 3, so it looks different on screen. That will be explored more in episode 8.

Okay, so. Our plucky boy hero, Alt Teen Bartosz, convinces Martha to leave Jonas in his house, so he can live in his mom’s basement forever like the loser he is. She goes back to Erit Lux with Bartosz instead.

One poof of awesome gold glitter later, and we’re there. Those paintings are still scorched and I’m sorry, I still can’t spoil how it happens. Truly annoying, I agree. The writing and editing for S3 are meant to f–k you over, but I doubt they meant for it to indecipherable rather than mind blowing. 3 episodes worth of teasing when the paintings burn? Really? And then all of the scorched painting scenes look so alike that it’s nearly impossible to put them in order, though I’m not sure why we would care enough to go back and try, when it’s all said and done. I know I don’t. Somebody didn’t think that one through.

Martha wonders why Bartosz brought her there. He tells her that the Marthas are the only ones who can save them, because they are the Light. Martha realizes she’s in the hands of an Erit Lux true believer, though she has no idea what that means.

You know what? I think it mostly means love. I think Old Claudia impersonated Eva when she brought Hannah to be murdered by Jonas. I’m going to singlehandedly exonerate Martha/Eva of this crime, for my own sanity’s sake, and go on with my life. Readers, you do you and believe whatever you want. I can’t work with a meaningless world. What would be the point? I know they’re going to continue with Eva pushing apocalypses and whatever, but I’m going to believe that she at least loves her little family of followers, even if she doesn’t show it, because I need Martha, or someone, to be a good person in order to continue writing.

And the madness continues, as Eva enters the room. Martha says something nasty to Eva and Eva says they’re more alike than she thinks. Then she gives her version of Adam’s patented “You’ll grow up to be just as bad as your parents” speech, before pulling out a dirty machete and swiping it across Teen Martha’s eye.

She tells Martha that she can’t tell all of the Marthas apart anymore unless they have festering wounds to go by. But Adam is the one who’s trying to kill her. The disfiguring wound is a reminder that things can always get worse. Choosing Jonas/Adam’s side means choosing death, while choosing Eva’s side, which is ultimately her own side, means choosing life.

This is strange reasoning for someone who’s main motivation is protecting her son- if Martha doesn’t choose Jonas sometimes, the Unknown is never born, because this is the version of Martha that brings him to the Alt world.

There’s really no way to spin what Eva’s says into something that makes much sense. They just wanted to squeeze in more mirroring of Adam/Jonas’ scenes.

I can put a meaningful spin on it, but I’m pretty sure this is coming from me, and not the show- in real life, the underlying reason for the slash would be to make Martha unattractive to creepy old men like the ones Jonas becomes. The road to women’s accomplishments is paved with women who fell by the wayside because they couldn’t take the sexual harassment, even rape, from their male colleagues anymore and were driven to quit the male dominated fields they worked in. And the women who got married and pregnant, giving up their careers.

By taking away Martha’s perfect features, she takes away her attractiveness as an innocent young woman to both Stranger and Adam. If they want her, they will have to deal with more than just Young Martha’s pretty face and apparently neither of them are ever inclined to do so. Adam collects other young women instead, until he finds a replacement Young Martha Eve to torture to death for tempting him into sin.

Yet God and Lucifer both still refuse to take him back.

Unfortunately, Martha/Eva didn’t realize Prime Claudia was also her enemy. As far as I can tell, Alt Claudia was actually working for/with Eva. Prime Claudia is the megalomaniac who took over the universe.

I suspect the creators just wanted to throw in one more senseless, sadistic action against a main character for shock value, plus they needed Martha/Eva to mirror Adam’s disfigurement, but sexism stops them from making her as scarred as Adam.

Time to take the Wayback Machine over to the end of episode 6. Adam has the other Alt Teen Martha dressed in the only rapey white slip he had left after 66 years of kidnapping and torturing women. He’s tied her to some Faye Wray scaffolding under the enhanced God particle. The God particle is turned up to 11 and it’s incredibly excited to finally be turned loose.

Martha’s yelling for mercy and Adam is excited to finally be getting somewhere in his life’s work. He’s pretty sure he’s never used an enhanced God particle to kill the love of his life and his own child inside the womb before. Surely this ultimate human sacrifice will do the trick and Time will finally be satisfied with him.

A portal opens up above Martha’s head. Then the God particle finally escapes its enslavement, mercifully taking Martha and her unborn child with it. Time has always had a fondness for her.

The cloud and the woman disappear. Jonas assumes they’re dead, because he has so few brain cells left.

I sincerely hope that Martha is in a world outside the Dark universe, with better writing and no white slips. Women actually die in the clothes we’re wearing- we don’t change our clothes when we find out murder is on the schedule, or keep a special victim dress on hand for the occasion. I f–king loathe the sight of those things. “Time to die or be abused, little girl. Here’s your pseudo-virgin gown to remind that you’re ultimately powerless.” Where is the corresponding male attire?

Jonas waits to disappear, too, but he doesn’t. He’s dumbfounded. Life is so unfair. Why does Martha get to die, but he doesn’t?

I wouldn’t mind if he eviscerated himself to see if it would stick.

A moment later, the door to the control room creaks open and his other nemesis, Old Claudia, who Noah killed on his orders almost a century ago in chronological time, walks in.

“Hello, Jonas.”

I’ll give her credit for knowing how to make an entrance.

Martha on her way to Oz- You can see Martha is getting transferred up into the cloud. The upper right part of the cloud shows a bright light and the opening to the next reality. 

Commentary

The God particle has literally never killed anyone on this show, much as Jonas has clearly tried to get it to kill him. The dark matter/Cesium 137/cloud/goo/cosmic egg transforms, it doesn’t just cease to exist. In fact, nothing in the universe ever just ceases to exist. Everything either transforms or transfers to a new location. That’s basic physics. In this case, there’s nothing left behind, so it goes somewhere else.

If Dark is following its own rules, then Time took Martha somewhere, probably to Bartosz’s world. It would make sense for this to be a way to create a new connection through time and space, maybe connecting the 3 worlds together. But we’re in the Endgame and the rules no longer apply.

If they ever did. It’s retcon time.

Next episode, we visit the Biff World of Claudia’s mind. Don’t look her directly in the eye and don’t take your hand off your valuables. Actually, that sojourn in the Old West 19th century was probably more fun than anyone realized at the time, even without antibiotics, since there was nothing Claudia or Biff wanted there.

Too bad Adult Bartosz wasn’t able to get the car he was fixing to fly- or was he???? Maybe there’s a world where instead of showing Hannah to her room, he grabbed her, Noah, Silja and Agnes and drove away as far and as fast as he could. Parts of early 20th century Northern Africa seem nice. Or maybe they took the God particle forward 50 years, then went to live in the south of France.

Wait. I just realized. Bartosz is in the Harry Potter world. He’s Mad Eye Moody! Constant Vigilance!

Kill the Origin or Find Another Timeline?

I bolded the first half of HG’s speech from the graveyard because it fits both his point of view and that of his protege, Jonas, who spends 66 years trying to go back to the origin point and bring back something that’s lost, whether it’s Mikkel or Martha. For HG, it’s Marek, Sonja and Baby Charlotte. But the second half of the speech is equally important:

“If our life is defined as everything between birth and death, it exists there, ad infinitum. Could we succeed in cheating death by finding a way to bring back life, there, between time?”

The episode takes its name from the bolded phrase, between time. The 3rd world is formally introduced in this episode. The 3rd world is the Time/Eternal Recurrence that is between the other two Times/Eternal Recurrences that we’ve been watching. What HG is really saying is, in this multiverse full of infinite possibilities, could he find another timeline where things worked out differently for his family? Could he jump to that timeline and live happily there? Or is he hoping to meld the two timelines- bring that Marek and Sonja home to this timeline? It’s not clear.

This is echoed in Stranger Jonas’ speech from S2Ep1, explaining that he is both infinite as part of the multiverse, but also finite as himself, the single soul known as Jonas:

“You could say that I exist infinitely. I’m here now. And I exist for every second between my birth and my death. I’m always Jonas. I’m the same as I was and yet not the same. Just as you’re not the same person who came through that door about an hour ago.”

No matter where or when he goes, what he does, or what he looks like, he’s still Jonas. At first, Hannah still wants the Jonas who left a few months ago, but she quickly accepts Stranger as her son, just as she accepted the proto Adam she met in this episode. In S2 Stranger was grateful for her acceptance, then, in a supreme act of hypocrisy, rejected her when he learned she’d cheated on his father one time before Michael’s death.

The next time they meet, in this episode, he murders her, either because she’s served her purpose in his plans or because she’s kind to him at a time when retaining his strength requires removing all human warmth from his life.

He is still Jonas, but he’s changed everything about himself, from his looks and dress to his demeanor to his home time period and way of thinking. He is no longer trying to save his loved ones. He is now trying to find the origin moment and destroy it. He’s redefined saving as destroying and convinced himself that saving himself saves everyone else. Maybe when he finds the origin moment and changes it, it will set both him and the God particle free from their enslavement. He is now enslaved to a life he can’t bear to live.

Gustav taught him a prophecy of a Paradise that was a dream filled with beauty and light, the Heaven or Ascension of so many religions. Jonas turned it into darkness as an absence of light, where he would remove the cancer that caused his pain (in the form of the God particle, which is the true knot) and kill the patient (himself) at the same time.

In his scenes with Hannah in this episode, Jonas’ true state is laid bare. During the time between 1890-1920, he is a 4th Jonas, Lord Death, with his facial scars meant to look like a skull.

In other words, maybe he’s made some sort of Ghost Rider deal with the God particle, but there are no flaming skulls involved. Just a pact to get out of this world together. That would explain the way they are bound. No one else seems to share quite the same relationship that he does with the God particle, Time and Death, not even Martha.

Martha, the Unknown and the God particle are his family. They all disappear at once and the other 3 versions of the Unknown presumably die in the nuclear meltdown. Unknown has time to save himself if he wants to, but he told us he was about to die. Anyway, after Jonas sent everyone else who was with him in 2053 to the past, it must be devastating for him to watch Martha and the God particle leave him behind and alive while they get raptured together.

He’s in a heartbroken, confused state when Claudia appears to tell him another story.

Images courtesy of Netflix.

Dark Season 3 Episode 7: Between the Time Recap- Hanno, Bartosz and HG Tannhaus move to the front of the house as gaps in the story are filled. #DarkNetflix In episode 6, the worlds ended, thanks to Adam's double apocalypse. In episode 7, we meet the new world.

[literupture]

The Autumnal Equinox Cookout

[AO3] | [Fanfiction]

Summary:  The annual barbecue in the Last City is great for ushering in the new harvest. Vallory sees it as an opportunity to flirt with the Drifter.

Rating: T

Ship: The Drifter x Female Guardian

   The sun hung in the middle of the sky, cradled by hazy clouds. Summer was fading; no longer did noon bring a sweltering heat, and evenings cooled the metal surface of the building known as the Last City's Tower. Shades of orange began to show themselves on foliage, food, and even clothing.

     For Vallory, the food was the best part of this time of the year. She could enjoy spicier dishes and other foods at a higher temperature. She didn't have to break a sweat while cooking, and she didn't feel like her skin would turn to a crisp when she manned the grills.

    With the turn of the season came the annual Autumnal Equinox Cookout, an event held at the Tower for citizens and Guardians to enjoy fellowship and the plentiful harvest. Tower staff and Guardians volunteered their time to prep and cook food and drink, hand out flyers, and host activities such as raffles and workshops. There was even a dance-off, but since Vallory wasn't too keen on dancing, her main focus was the cuisine.

     This year, she'd spent the early hours of the day helping with food prep. She had cut vegetables and marinated meat and set them aside to be grilled. She'd asked about grill duty, but an event organizer told her someone else had already reserved that position. She was a little skeptical, but shook the worry from her mind--it didn't take a mastermind to grill meats.

     The event was set to start at five, with entry available at four. At half an hour till five Val hands her reservation ticket to the door committee, then dumps a handful of glimmer into the donation box, enough to cover her meal three times over.

     Her eyes scanned the wide outdoor space of the Bazaar. To her left was a long table displaying door prizes, such as a pumpkin-shaped Ghost shell, an overflowing cornucopia, and other various knickknacks. There were pop-up stalls near the prize table with people offering trial crafting classes such as wood-carving, knitting, and painting. The space where Ikora Rey was normally found was cleared to accommodate a wooden dance floor and DJ set up. Vallory wondered if Ikora would participate in the dance competition; that would be a rare sight to behold, and Val bet that the Warlock Vanguard would put everyone to shame with her moves.

     Amidst the chatter she heard a faint sizzling sound, paired with the biting smell of charcoal. She turned her eyes to the sky to see a pillar of smoke rising from the garden terrace.

     She'd sacrifice dancing and crafting to sate her appetite any day.

     She weaved through small groups of people talking and eating, past a craft table, and the mini dance floor set up near the center of the bazaar. When she stepped onto the terrace, she saw a bald Awoken Titan standing before an enormous metal grill. He wore an apron draped over his silver and red armor.

     Well, she certainly didn't expect the Commander of the Vanguard to be the grill master.

     "Glad to see a familiar face in charge of the grilling," Vallory smiled at Zavala. "Nice apron, by the way."

     Zavala turned towards Val and gave her a nod, then looked down at his apron. Val guessed he had nearly forgotten that he was wearing one. The apron was zebra print and had the words "Raise the Steaks" in cyan, rounded lettering. Tacky, Val thought, and definitely something that the serious Titan Vanguard would be hesitant to wear.

     "It was... a gift." There was a hint of sadness in his voice; Zavala averted his gaze and poked at one of the steaks with a pair of tongs. It sizzled deliciously, and Val felt her mouth water. "There are plates and utensils over on the table there, with some of the finished meats. Take as much as you want."

     Val bumped a fist to his bicep. "Thanks."

     She grabbed two sets of silverware and plates at the end of the buffet line. The line was long but moved fast; people were eager to eat, and Val couldn't help but smile at how food brought people together.

     She loaded up her two plates with slices of brisket, sausage links, cuts of prime rib, and some potato salad. Each item on the plates was something she helped prep, and it looked like Zavala cooked the meats well. Exiting the line, she spotted a wide cooler.

   She swore under her breath and briefly wished she was an Eliksni; those four arms would've been useful for her predicament.

     Like a shining beacon in the sea of bodies was a singular, empty table not far from the drink cooler. Val breathed a sigh of relief, placing the heavy plates on the table. She bent and opened the cooler, and was met with a wave of cool air. Glass bottles and aluminum cans of varying colors and labels poked from the bed of ice. She fished out two dark bottles of beer, tucked them in the crook of her arm, and let the lid of the chest fall shut.

     She retrieved the plates and weaved back the way she came, passing a few more empty spots. She only had one destination in mind, and it wasn't anywhere out in the open.

     Once she passed the closed ramen shop that was being used for extra seating, Val entered the dimly lit hallway. She ducked underneath the gate, balancing the plates and beverages with ease. When she stood, she saw the familiar figure of the man known as Drifter, hunched slightly over his workbench.

     "Hey, hot stuff."

     The Drifter turned toward Val and moved away from his work. "Well, if it ain't my favorite Guardian," he drawled. His eyes flicked toward the plates of food that Val held, but he looked back to meet her eyes. "Wasn't expecting any visitors, what with the party goin' on outside. What brings you here?"

     Val offered a plate to him. "Figured I'd come bug you."

     A grin spread across his face as he took the plate from her. "That's why you're my favorite."

     "Is it, now?" She sassed, but handed him a beer and set of utensils. She was certain that she wasn't the only Guardian he'd used that line on. "I'm your favorite because I feed you, or because I like to bug you?"

    "Both," Drifter replied. "Just a few of the reasons." He set the beer down on the table beside him and gripped the fork. Val placed her own beer on the felled vending machine opposite from him.

     "Looks tasty," he said, eyeing his meal.

     "I get that a lot." Val shot him a flirty smile.

     "Bet you do," Drifter chuckled. "And rightfully so." He gave her a once-over, but was quick to return his focus on the food. She couldn't blame him; in fact, his love of food was one of the reasons why she enjoyed his company. He stabbed his fork into a thick slice of prime rib and bit into it.

     "Hope it tastes as good as it looks. I didn't do any grilling, but I seasoned all the meats."

     The Drifter's eyes closed as he chewed. "Mmm, that's real good." He finished the slice, and then moved onto the brisket. He reacted similarly, chewing slowly to savor the taste of each different entree before digging into his meal without any reservations. "You sure know how to handle your meats."

     "Oh, I definitely do," Val winked at him before shoving a cut of meat into her mouth. She was thankful that grill duty was in good hands; each bite was juicy and tender, nearly melting in her mouth.

     "Think you could show me, sometime?" Drifter said in between bites, returning her wink.

     "I'd love to."

     Talking drew to a minimum as both Val and Drifter scarfed down their food. Val set down her plate and reached for her beer. She glanced at him, and then angled the top of the bottle against the edge of the vending machine. She brought her hand down against the bottle, and the cap came off with a resounding pop. She took a hefty swig and leaned against the machine, watching him.

     His expression was mild amusement as he set down his own plate and picked up the beer. He thumbed his finger over the paper label: a cartoon drawing of a monstrous skull and crossbones, but in place of the crossed bones were two crossed rockets.

    "Ahamkhara Ale, eh?" Drifter turned the bottle over in his hands. "Used to serve a similar drink back at my old bar. You've got good taste."

     Val was about to say something regarding herself, but stopped when she noticed Drifter flipping the bottle cap in the air with his fingers. Her lips parted and she blinked in awe--when did he remove the cap?

     He smirked as he deftly passed the cap over his knuckles in a cascading motion, from his index to his pinky finger, then back again toward his index finger. He moved it with such ease that any Guardian could've guessed it was one of his jade coins.

     "You're pretty good with your fingers," Val managed, her eyes fixed on his hand.

     "Been around a long time," Drifter replied. "Had a lot of time to get experienced with them." His blue eyes met her yellow ones as he opened his palm in a wave, the cap nowhere to be seen. "Could give you a private session. Know a few tricks that would make you shiver."

     The way he drawled out the last phrase did indeed make her squirm; Val tried to hide it by shifting her weight and taking another swig of her beer. She was sure he'd seen it, and part of her wanted him to notice, but she was the tiniest bit annoyed with herself. Flirting came naturally to her, but she had never met anyone who had such a way with words the way Drifter did. She was drawn to him, but he was pulling her into a dizzying dance; a game Val never considered that she might walk away from as the one who got played.

     Just as Val took a step toward Drifter, the walls and floor of the room began to vibrate. Deep, bassy music came the direction of the bazaar, but then cut out suddenly. They must have been doing a sound test for the dance party.

     She had no interest in dancing, though, so she returned her focus to the man before her. "Where do I sign up for these private sessions of yours?"

     Drifter held her gaze with a mischievous smile that reached the corners of his eyes. Val felt that hint of doubt again, like she was playing right into his skillful hands.

    "Drifter!" A high-pitched voice called from beyond the gate, and moments later a girl with light brown hair came sliding through the gap. "What are you--oh," the girl said as she stood, sensing that Drifter wasn't alone.

    "Cock-blocked," Val mumbled. Drifter stifled a laugh.

    "What?" The girl blurted, and when her eyes adjusted to the dim lighting of the room, her face lit up in recognition. "Val, oh my God! What are you doing here?"

     "Hey, Karyna," Val nodded at her. "I should be asking you that."

     Karyna frowned. "Well, I needed a dance partner, and I was dared to ask The Drifter to come out onto the dance floor," she explained, glancing at him. "But since you're here, I'll take you instead!"

     She crossed the room and tugged at Val's arm. "C'mon, I wanna dance! Err, you're welcome to tag along too, Drifter." She smiled sheepishly at him, not meeting his eyes. "Let's goooo," she pleaded, pulling her friend's arm with more force.

     Val sighed. "You know I can't dance."

     "Can't dance, or won't dance?"

    "Yes."

     Karyna groaned. "I'm not leaving here empty-handed."

     Drifter crossed his arms, but smiled warmly at the two women. "Ya'll go on ahead. Too busy to dance."

     "You heard the man," Karyna said with another tug.

     Val rolled her eyes. She had no desire to dance, but she didn't feel like getting her arm pulled out of its socket, either. She knew her friend wasn't going to leave the two of them alone, so she gave up the fight and let her friend pull her toward the gate.

     When Karyna ducked under the gate, Val looked back at The Drifter apologetically.

     He winked at her. "Thanks for the grub. I'll be seein' you."

     "Rain check on that private session," Val replied, and then ducked out of the hallway.

[ancient-rome-au]

some things I learned about the Sassanian Empire at a recent talk by a visiting historian

The Sassanian Shahs and satraps would stage elaborate communal festivals for Nowruz (Persian New Year’s Day - the day of the vernal equinox). These events were not merely a religious observance (Nowruz is a holy day in Zoroastrianism) but moreover they played a vital role in the political workings of the empire. As with many communal festivals, the masses would be offered entertainment and free food (particularly meat, which was rare treat for non-elites in agricultural societies throughout most of history because it was expensive). Moreover, they would also witness a certain kind of political theater by the elites:

The Shah (or the satrap, or whoever was the high-ranking benefactor putting on the festival) would lavish gifts upon the aristocrats below him in rank. this reinforced the dependence of the aristocrats on the Shah 

Nowruz festivals were prime opportunities for political theater because of the difficulty of travel across the mountainous terrain of the empire. Regional aristocrats would not frequently travel to Ctesiphon or other central locales to parlay with the Shah given the great time and expense required.

The reciprocal exchange of gifts and loyalty was key to building and reinforcing the ideology of empire. These events occurred on precisely the occasion when the populace and many elites would be convened together in a way that made mass communication (propaganda) possible that was rare prior to the advent of the printing press, radio, television, or the internet

The speaker, professor Richard Payne of the University of Chicago, did not explicitly mention this, but I interpret his characterization of these festivals as very similar in function to Byzantine court ceremonies in which honorary titles and cash are doled out by the Eastern Roman Emperor to a variety of lower-ranked elites (including bureaucrats, regional elites, and quasi-independent foreign princes) in order to secure their loyalty.

Fun Fact: I learned the Sassanian were the first to call their empire Ērānshahr (”kingdom of the Iranians”).

Note that “Persia” is a Greek exonym derived from the region of Pars, whence the Achaemenids hailed. It’s sort of like saying “Holland” when you mean the whole of the Netherlands. People will know what you meant due to context and tradition but... a problematic nomenclature, nonetheless.

Professor Payne also advanced the argument that to be identified as “Iranian” in the Sassanian era also required that one be Zoroastrian. This was contested and discussed by many interlocutors, but Professor Payne offered the following evidence: there is not a single textual instance of a Christian, Manichean, or Jewish writer who lived in the Sassanid Empire referring to himself as an Iranian. Iranian ethnic identify independent of religion only has textual evidence during the Abbasid era (Islamic rule).

I am sure he had at least one additional piece of evidence to substantiate this claim but I didn’t take notes and can’t remember it all...

Final comment, not really about history: as far as I could tell, I was the only member of the audience of European descent. There was an Eastern Asian guy, and everyone else appeared to be Iranian. I felt a bit out of place but I felt like “hey, my presence implies it’s not just Iranians who care about this stuff!” which is certianly true. I was hoping to get exposure to more flavor of life in Iran during Late Antiquity so that I could do a better job representing it in future tabletop RPG campaigns. In that sense, mission accomplished! But more on that at a later date...

[newstfionline]

Thursday, October 7, 2021

UN report warns of global water crisis amid climate change (AP) Much of the world is unprepared for the floods, hurricanes and droughts expected to worsen with climate change and urgently needs better warning systems to avert water-related disasters, according to a report by the United Nations’ weather agency. Global water management is “fragmented and inadequate,” the report published Tuesday found, with nearly 60% of 101 countries surveyed needing improved forecasting systems that can help prevent devastation from severe weather. As populations grow, the number of people with inadequate access to water is also expected to rise to more than 5 billion by 2050, up from 3.6 billion in 2018, the report said. Among the actions recommended by the report were better warning systems for flood- and drought-prone areas that can identify, for example, when a river is expected to swell.

Canada to put federal workers who refuse COVID-19 vaccination on unpaid leave (Reuters) Canada’s federal employees who are not fully vaccinated against COVID-19 and are not exempt from getting the shots will be put on administrative leave without pay, officials said on Wednesday, while domestic air, train and cruise ship travelers and workers will soon have to show proof of vaccination. Federal employees will be required to show proof of vaccination through an online portal by Oct 29. Workers and travelers on trains, planes and cruise ships operating domestically must show they have been inoculated by Oct. 30. Canada's vaccine policy will be one of the strictest here in the world. Later this month, Italy will require proof of vaccination, a negative test or recent recovery from infection for all the country’s workers.

Fall on hold: Forecasters predict long-lasting warm temperatures in eastern U.S. (Washington Post) For about a week after the fall equinox, much of the eastern two-thirds of the Lower 48 states enjoyed crisp, refreshing autumn weather. But now Mother Nature has changed course. Warm, humid conditions more typical of late summer have returned and show little sign of retreating. Forecasts now call for above-average temperatures lasting at least 10 days, with high temperatures in some areas nearly 30 degrees above normal at times. The core of the anomalous warmth is predicted to focus in the north-central United States, but above normal temperatures are anticipated to prevail in most places east of the Rockies. The weather pattern may trigger heavy rainfall and severe storms in the central United States and could eventually support new tropical storm activity near the Gulf of Mexico. It’s not clear when this warm pattern will break down, and October is almost certain to end up warmer than normal over a large part of the nation.

South Dakota tax haven (Guardian) Newly revealed documents from the cache of financial revelations called the Pandora papers has shown South Dakota now stands alongside Switzerland, Panama and the Cayman Islands as a beloved tax haven for the global rich. South Dakota’s trust industry rose from $75.5 billion in 2011 to $367 billion in 2020, and the state’s become desirable to the mega-rich owing to its ability to shield money from governments, taxes and spouses. Over 200 U.S. trusts appear in the Panama papers, and 81 of them are in South Dakota.

US, France edge closer to rapprochement after AUKUS spat (AP) France and the United States edged closer Tuesday toward rapprochement after the Biden administration’s exclusion of Washington’s oldest ally from a new Indo-Pacific security initiative ignited French anger. French President Emmanuel Macron and U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken met in Paris to explore ways to overcome the rift over the deal, which scuttled a multibillion-dollar French submarine contract with Australia and led Macron’s government to take the unprecedented step of recalling its ambassador to the U.S. In a French television interview after the meeting with Macron, Blinken accepted a U.S. share of responsibility for the disagreement. “We could and we should have communicated better,” Blinken said, speaking in French. “We sometimes tend to take for granted a relationship as important and deep as the one that links France and the United States.”

Bataclan survivors relive ordeal in Paris court (Reuters) “They were shooting us down like animals. As soon as a mobile phone rang, as soon as someone screamed, they fired,” Cedric Bouhour, 43, a survivor of the 2015 attack on the Bataclan concert hall, testified in a Paris court on Wednesday. Six years after Islamist gunmen killed 130 people—90 of them in the Bataclan—and wounded hundreds in coordinated attacks in Paris, survivors from the concert hall told the court of the fear they experienced, the deaths and injuries they lived through, and their lingering trauma. Wednesday was the first day of testimony on the Bataclan attack. The trial started last month and a verdict is expected in late May. There are around 1,800 plaintiffs and more than 330 lawyers in France’s biggest-ever trial.

Russia's rising young Communists pose an unexpected new threat to Putin’s grip (Washington Post) A candidate for the Communist Party in Russia's parliamentary elections, Mikhail Lobanov, went overnight from being an obscure university math lecturer to being the new face of a rising threat to the Kremlin. He nearly derailed a high-profile, pro-Putin candidate in southwest Moscow in last month’s voting. Then Lobanov claimed his victory was stolen by authorities via an opaque new system of online voting. Russia’s Communist Party has long been known for its compliance, never threatening the Kremlin, in return for state funding and perks. But some young communists and leftist allies did not get that memo. They are starting to behave like a genuine opposition. With a generation of elders fading, a new cohort of outspoken, social-media savvy communists is rising. They don’t wave red flags or speak in stale ideological jargon; they take issue with Putin’s regime over corruption and poverty. “This is one of the really powerful tectonic plates in Russian politics that is beginning to shift,” said London-based analyst Mark Galeotti, an honorary professor at the School of Slavonic and Eastern European Studies at University College London.

Russian film crew in orbit to make first movie in space (AP) A Russian actor and a film director rocketed to space Tuesday on a mission to make the world’s first movie in orbit, a project the Kremlin said will help burnish the nation’s space glory. Actor Yulia Peresild and director Klim Shipenko blasted off for the International Space Station in a Russian Soyuz spacecraft together with cosmonaut Anton Shkaplerov, a veteran of three space missions. Their Soyuz MS-19 arrived at the station after about 3½ hours. Peresild and Klimenko are to film segments of a new movie titled “Challenge,” in which a surgeon played by Peresild rushes to the space station to save a crew member who needs an urgent operation in orbit. After 12 days on the space outpost, they are set to return to Earth with another Russian cosmonaut.

Philippines: Son of Ferdinand Marcos to run for president (BBC) The son of the Philippines’ former dictator, Ferdinand Marcos, has announced that he will run for president in next year’s election. Ferdinand Marcos Jr, popularly known as Bongbong, announced his candidacy in a video post on Facebook. The 64-year-old, who is an ally of current President Rodrigo Duterte, pledged to bring “unifying leadership” to the country. His father ruled the Philippines for 20 years until he was overthrown in 1986.

For Sale Now: U.S.-Supplied Weapons in Afghan Gun Shops (NYT) In the chaos of the American military withdrawal and the Taliban takeover this summer, thousands of American-made weapons and tons of military equipment were seized by the militants as government military bases surrendered or were overrun. With the Taliban in power, more American weapons and military accessories are now being openly sold in shops by Afghan gun dealers who paid government soldiers and Taliban fighters for guns, ammunition and other matériel, according to weapons dealers in Kandahar Province in southern Afghanistan. In interviews, three weapons dealers in Kandahar said that dozens of Afghans have set up weapons shops in Afghanistan’s south, selling American-made pistols, rifles, grenades, binoculars and night-vision goggles. The equipment was originally provided to the Afghan security forces under a U.S. training and assistance program that cost American taxpayers more than $83 billion through two decades of war. The gun merchants say that many gun dealers have smuggled the weapons to Pakistan, where demand for American-made weapons is strong.

As Lebanese got poorer, politicians stowed wealth abroad (AP) A trove of leaked documents confirmed that for years, Lebanon’s politicians and bankers have stowed wealth in offshore tax havens and used it to buy expensive properties—a galling revelation for masses of newly impoverished Lebanese caught in one of the world’s worst economic meltdowns in decades. Some of the newly outed holders of offshore accounts belong to the same ruling elite that is being blamed for the collapse and for derailing the lives of ordinary Lebanese who have lost access to savings and now struggle to get fuel, electricity and medicine. Bold-faced names in the leaked documents include the longtime central bank governor, a pivotal figure in the failed policies that helped trigger the financial crisis, as well as Prime Minister Najib Mikati and his predecessor. The papers show how members of the political class were sending wealth abroad for years, even as they urged people to deposit money in Lebanon’s banks, assuring them that it was safe, said Alia Ibrahim, a Lebanese journalist.

In brazen attack by settlers, Palestinians see larger threat (AP) Dozens of Jewish settlers swept down from the dusty hills, hurling rocks at a small Palestinian village in broad daylight, smashing windows, cars and water cisterns as families hid inside their homes and Israeli soldiers looked on. Palestinians in this rural part of the occupied West Bank say last week’s attack was especially violent but not unusual. They view it as part of a much larger effort by Israel to force them off their land, including by cutting off vital water resources in a parched region. Days after the attack—in which a 4-year-old boy was hospitalized after being struck in the head by a stone as his family hid inside their home—residents of the village of Al-Mufagara surveyed the damage. It included the smashed water cisterns on which the Bedouin community and its livestock rely. The hardscrabble region is in what’s known as Area C, the 60% of the West Bank that is under full Israeli military control. Palestinians say it’s nearly impossible to secure building permits, even for basic infrastructure like water and electricity. The military has designated an area that includes Al-Mufagara as a firing range, making it even harder for residents to remain on the land. Israeli authorities have meanwhile tolerated the construction of two nearby settlement outposts that are illegal even under Israeli law, where those who took part in last Wednesday’s attack are believed to have come from.

[dat-town]

Waiting for spring to come

A sequel to Waiting for autumn to pass, it probably makes more sense if you read that one first.

Characters: autumn spirit!Young K & spring spirit!You

Setting: fantasy au

Genre: angsty fluff

Summary: The wind of change is in the air. Is it good? Is it bad? You are not sure but spring and autumn has never been so close before.

Words: 2.2k

For those you liked the original drabble, I hope you will enjoy this one too! ♥

Seasons are a part of the cycle of nature. Eternal, ongoing, always unseen. Seasons are sassy, it’s a known fact. Sometimes summers are cold and winters don't have snow at all. Sometimes they are unpredictable but never like this.

"We have to wake up Spring," the spirit of winter rasps fussily as soon as she leaves the doorstep behind. Her presence itself is a blinding brightness with her beautiful silver locks, ice blue eyes and pale skin. She’s like white frost flowers on windows, pioneers of the cold season creeping into the hearts of humans. A sight to behold.

Younghyun slowly looks up from his so-called throne that’s just one of the four around the round, gilded table in the meeting room designed for their trimestrial encounters. There are never more than two of them present but they all have a chair assigned just for them, bearing their marks and symbols, made by a tree so uniquely theirs. It’s a reminder that no matter what, the four of them rule together in this area and when one goes down, another one comes up.

Now, the chilly September wind being the messenger, it’s Younghyun’s turn. The smell of sweet rain and pumpkin pies is already in the air, the leaves are losing their green colour and the flowers are leaving their colourful petals on the dead ground. He’s in the prime of his life, stronger than ever just like he’s supposed to be in the beginning of the autumn season that took everybody by storm after the days of summer officially ran out.

"Why? What's happening?" he asks confused, brows furrowed but can’t help his heart that’s beating furiously of the thought of you. Of better days of spring and flower crowns withering away under your careful gaze and soft smile.

He harshly grabs onto his wooden chair made out of oak tree and overgrown by grape leaves. Normally, he should be discussing important matters with the winter spirit who just woke up and sent Summer into sleep. He should definitely not talk about such blatant nonsense like waking up another season before their time. There's still three more lunar months until you are supposed to be up and Tingyan knows this very well too. Then what the hell is she talking about?

"Don't you feel it? The change?" she quirks an eyebrow at him and even though she usually hides her feelings pretty well, Younghyun can tell she’s pissed, probably thinking about how she ended up with such fools around her.

Of course, he feels the change, the weather getting warmer and more chaotic each year, but he has been sensing this for decades now and he got used to the uneasiness.

“But the rules...” he’s mumbling, hanging onto the only thing he believed to be as certain as writings set in stone.

"The rules change, too. Taeyang can’t fall asleep,” the winter spirit explains and a sun-kissed boy with wide smile steps into the meeting room on cue. “Before, when this idiot accidently touched me, icebergs melt. Now? Flowers bloom from ice.”

“Hey, folks, I’m here too and I take full offense for that degrading comment,” Taeyang snickers like he always does with Tingyan.

Winter and summer are total opposites and their spirits’ personalities are quite different too, so maybe that’s why they never really got along. They didn’t even need to due to the fact they only met twice a year. But now that both of them are up and Summer really doesn’t look sleepy at all, it makes Younghyun mull over the odds of impossible in fear. Their job was to keep the balance. Does that mean they failed?

Yet, here he is recklessly hoping that it means that he can see you soon.

“But how is this possible?” he furrows his brows, fingers twitching as he gulps down his nervousness.

“Ask Mother Earth,” the winter spirit shrugs while Taeyang shoots finger guns at him instead of answering the question.

“Come on, Autumn, bring Spring into the party! You have to be the one to wake her up, otherwise it would confuse her a lot and we don't want any more unnecessary changes or do we?” he raises an eyebrow clearly as a joke. However, Tingyan doesn’t appreciate his funny side and smacks him on the arm that makes him let out a yelp.

Younghyun doesn’t pay attention to their dispute, he’s too immersed in the thought of meeting you so early. Such an unexpected turn of events! He steps towards the direction of your suite almost blindly, pulled by invisible strings and a magnetic power stronger than gravity.

The golden doorknob is cold under his touch and he’s shivering even though he’s not capable of feeling neither warm, nor cold. At least, not in that sense humans feel them; it’s more like an emotion for him, something stirring deep in his heart. His breath hitches as the door opens so easily and the immerse dose of flower scent is already suffocating him. He chokes on his own saliva but it doesn’t break his determination as he marches towards your baldachin bed thoroughly hinted with fresh flower petals. Where in the midst of roses, lilies, jasmines and even more exotic kinds Younghyun doesn’t even recognize, there’s you, the prettiest flower of all.

You are like an angel sleeping in your rosy coloured dress with your long, dark hair sprawled on the white sheets. You have flowers among your locks, like always, and this time they are midnight blue forget-me-nots. Like he could ever forget you! Your heart-shaped face and glossy lips are imprinted in his mind making him crave something he shouldn’t. Because there’s a bridgeless abyss between something you simply won’t have and can’t have. Still, it’s not about owning, about such filial want for physical things but also the longing for a life in which you are with him and not only for one day. But forever.

What can he do though? Autumn and spring is half a year apart, yet you are here, so close, so mesmerizingly beautiful and peaceful while he’s choking on the pollens that are scratching his throat. He absolutely adores this irreplaceable sweetness of yours but the realm of Spring is killing him. He has to act soon or else, his recklessness will be his undoing for being here too long.

He sits down on the edge of your soft bed, the mattress dampening under him as he can’t take his eyes off of you. He’s certain of how he feels, how pathetically autumn is in love with spring, yet he never dares to act on those feelings. Not even when he has seen the same yearning in your eyes because he would hate himself to bring chaos down onto the two of you.

Maybe it’s the change in the air or maybe it’s something completely different but now he feels daring, desperate enough to lean closer until he cannot process anything else but your light breaths on his face and the flutters of your eyelashes. Without further delay, he dives in and presses his lips gently onto your forehead. But as if you burnt him, he pulls back almost immediately, wiping his still tingling mouth with the back of his hands not believing what he just did. Silly, silly deity, has nobody taught you that this mundane thing called love is such a dangerous thing to do?

A heartbeat later, when you blink once, twice and then slowly open your eyes drowsily, he’s there with the softest smile despite being terrified of the possible consequences of his own actions.

“Hey...” he greets you and no matter the centuries that went by, you still get flustered by the way he looks at you so fondly.

“Is it time already?” you ask suddenly wide awake and sitting up in your bed hastily. Did you sleep in? Why did he come into your room when he always waits outside for you?

“Well, about that…” Younghyun gulps and his gaze drops somewhere between your bodies on the flower-made bed. When he looks up, his eyes are autumn days you dreamed about, the warm but windy ones when you wish somebody would hold your hand. But the boy next to you doesn’t do that, no, he rather brushes a stray lock out of your eyes and tucks it behind your ear carefully not to touch your skin. “Everybody is required to be at this year’s autumnal equinox.”

You can only gape at him in awe. This has never happened before.

“What… what does it mean?”

“We are not sure.”

Nobody is. The Seasons’s Council is more crowded this year than ever before and of course, a lot louder too. You stay close to Younghyun as the spirits from all over the globe arrive and start discussing the issue at hand. You don’t understand much of it but you are fascinated by all the new faces you see.

“Is she a rain season? I have never seen one before,” you point at a girl whose hair is like waves and she moves so fluidly as if she was made of slippery water.

“Yeah, she is from the East,” Younghyun nods and introduces you to some other spirits he knows from other areas where only two season spirits exists. You find the monsoon seasons particularly funny so you enjoy yourself despite the seriousness of the situation. Thought, it’s mostly because your beloved autumn spirit is by your side. He’s the calm river in a thundery forest and whenever you feel him getting closer signalled by that dizziness that rushes over you, you are reminded that everything will be okay.

Even if the meeting goes by fruitless and the seasons leave even more fidgety than before, you don’t mind it. Not if it means you can stay and watch autumn unfold in front of your eyes, if you can spend more time with the spirit who stole your heart from bits to bits over the last millennium.

“What happens now?” you speak up when the two of you step out to the balcony of the building. You don’t have to say your fears out loud explicitly for Younghyun to understand what you mean by that: what if you die like humans?

“Now we are here to see every season until we can,” he reassures you with your favourite kind of smile, that genuine one that warms and melts your insides. It takes your breath for a moment and you don’t have any more self-restraint to keep yourself from asking what you’ve wanted to since he woke you up.

“Do you think I can touch you without causing havoc?”

“I- Maybe,” the forever young man blurts out nervous like a teenager in love, clearly taken aback by your direct question but he doesn’t move an inch when you lift your hand to his face.

You hesitate. You’re afraid you will wake up from this dream if you touch him, or you might ruin him just like how spring conquers winter every year. The what ifs horrify you and Younghyun sees your wobbliness in your eyes and shaky fingers. So he gently takes your hand slotting his fingers between yours as he presses your palm flatly on his cheek.

Wow. You let out a relieved sigh.

“You are warm,” you whisper being lost for words. It’s not his ageless face or the touch itself, but the warmth that’s coming from the heart and feels like home.

“You fault,” the spirit of the current season says cheekily and you chuckle in embarrassment. Why is he so cheesy?

“Liar,” you shake your head in disbelief and step back. You need a breather because your lungs are on fire and you’re sure it’s because of the incompatibility between your seasons’ nature. It would be dangerous to prolong the moment more. So you turn towards the jaw-dropping scenery and smile tenderly at no one in particular. “I can’t believe I can see autumn. It’s beautiful.”

Younghyun’s breath hitches as he watches you marvelling at the colours he created and just like an artist presenting his masterpiece, he can’t help but feel proud that you like his work. Oh how he wished so many times you were there to see the beauty of fall.

“I have always known though. I saw it in your eyes,” you keep rambling, confessing in your own innocent way but oh boy, he knows you too well to let it slip through his fingers like that.

“So is it spring I see in your eyes?” he looks straight in your eyes with a look so serious you don’t know what to expect but still, your heart is beating rapidly like the clopping of wild horses on the run.

“I don’t know. What do you see?”

“Something I would be willing to bloom and wither for.”

It’s the softest kiss, a silent I love you and a promise. It takes your breath away and your heart skips a beat as he kisses you shortly. You both know it won’t be easy but you believe it’s worth it, especially because for the first time since forever you are waiting for spring to come with him by your side.

[veale2006-blog]

The Truth About Easter and the Secret Worship of the Anunnaki

April 1,2018 Easter is an annual celebration observed throughout the Christian world. However, there are absolutely no verses in the Bible that authorize or endorse the keeping of this tradition.

Further – the Bible does not mention anything about Easter eggs, Easter baskets, Easter bunnies, or even Lent.

Where did the tradition of celebrating Easter originate?

Easter - Anunnaki Connections The name Easter actually comes from Ishtar / Easter who was worshiped as the moon goddess, the goddess of spring and fertility, and the Queen of Heaven. She is known by so many other names in other countries and cultures that she is often referred to as the goddess of one thousand names.

[Inanna is the Sumerian name of Ishtar, and definitely the most important one. Inanna was the granddaughter of Enlil, who in turn was Anu's son. Anu was the highest ranking Anunnaki and his name translated "Great Sky Father". Anu was revered as 'god of the Heavens' and he was the central figure of mankind's first religion. According to the Sumerian tablets, he only visited Earth twice].

The Babylonian Connections (John 8:44, II Corinthians 11:14, 1 Peter 5:8) Ishtar – the Babylonian goddess – is the one for whom Easter is named. Ishtar is but another name for Semiramis – the wife of Nimrod. This post-Flood festival was part of the false religion Mystery Babylon and was started by Nimrod and his wife Semiramis (also known as Ishtar).

They not only instituted the building of the Tower of Babel, they also established themselves as god and goddess to be worshiped by the people of Babylon. They are the co-founders of all the counterfeit religions that have ever existed.

Nimrod was worshiped as the Sun God. He was worshiped in numerous cultures and countries under a variety of names: Samas, Attis, Uti, Merodach/Marduk, Ninus, Bel/Baal, Moloch, Tammuz - the list is virtually endless. [He was also known as Dumuzi by the Sumerians and as RA by the Egyptians, as I have detailed in this article].

Millions of people are unknowingly worshiping and praying to this pagan goddess today. What is her present-day name?

The Babylonians celebrated the day of Ishtar / Easter as the return of the goddess of Spring – the re-birth or reincarnation of Nature and the goddess of Nature. Babylonian legend says that each year a huge egg would fall from heaven and would land in the area around the Euphrates River.

[The pope's ceremonial clothes copy those worn by the ancient priests of Dagon, and not by coincidence. According to the Sumerian tablets, when the Anunnaki god Enki first arrived on Earth, he landed his space ship on water. He later emerged from water wearing his 'scaly fish-suit' (astronaut's suit?). Thousands of years later, the ceremony of the fish god was still celebrated in Akkadia, Assyria and Babylon, by the priests of Dagon... and seemingly it still is today].

In her yearly re-birth, Ishtar would break out of this egg and if any of those celebrating this occasion happened to find her egg, Ishtar would bestow a special blessing on that person. Does this explain the origin of our modern-day tradition of Easter eggs and baskets and Easter egg hunts?

Other pagan rites that were connected with this celebration and which are part of our modern Easter tradition are Easter offerings to the Queen of Heaven (consisting of freshly cut flowers, hot buns decorated with crosses, and star-shaped cakes); new clothes to celebrate this festival (The pagan priests wore new clothes or robes and the Vestal Virgins wore new white dresses or robes and bonnets on their heads.); and sunrise services (to symbolically hasten the yearly arrival of Ishtar’s egg from heaven - the re-incarnation of the spring goddess).

[The Vatican is secretly perpetuating the ancient pagan rituals and the worship of their ancient "gods" - a.k.a. the Anunnaki. The shadow religion of the world's "elite" is Satanism and all the positions of power are occupied by Satanists].

Related: The Vatican City And Rome: Esoteric Beyond Belief;

The Satanic Connections Easter has its origins in the world of the occult. The Occult / Satanic calender is comprised of four periods of 13 weeks each. Occultists believe that numbers contain inherent power, and many base their lives on numerology. Numerology is also a key component of astrology – another system occultists follow closely. Thus the occult calendar is divided into 4 parts of 13 weeks each. Note that 13 x 4 = 52 weeks – our year.

In the occult system, the number 6 = man, the number 7 = divine perfection or god, and the number 13 = rebellion against authority and depravity. So, in the occult or satanic world, the number 13 represents the state of man’s having reached divine perfection, self-achieved perfection, and illumination.

According to 8th century scholar St. Bede (also known as the Venerable Bede / Bede, the Venerable), the name Easter is derived from the Scandinavian "Ostra" and the Teutonic "Ostern" or "Eastre" - both of whom were goddesses of mythology and were identified with spring and fertility.

Festivals for these goddesses were celebrated on the first day of the vernal equinox – March 21. Important parts of these pagan celebrations included the rabbit, red eggs, and gifts – all of which represented fertility. Easter is steeped in the Mysteries of ancient Babylon – an evil and idolatrous system.

Related: The Secret Worship of the Illuminati: The Statue of Liberty is Goddess Ishtar/Inanna;

The Satanic Ritual of Sacrificing Children Every year, the priests of Ishtar would impregnate young virgins on an altar dedicated to herself and her husband*. The children were born on Christmas (!!!), and the next year they were sacrificed in the Easter's Sunday at the sunrise service. The priests would take Ishtar's eggs and dye them in the blood of the sacrificed children.

*Inanna's husband was none other that the infamous god Moloch or Melekh, to whom children were - and still are - sacrificed in Satanic rituals. Satanism is the religious worship of the Anunnaki, and the human and animal sacrifices were/are part of the rituals.

If you're finding it hard to believe, then here is an excerpt of the Encyclopaedia Judaica, which identifies Ishtar/Inanna and her husband as the gods to whom children were sacrificed:

   "(...) The identification of Hadad-Baal with Moloch provides the background to Jeremiah 32:35, which fulminates against the bamot-altars of Baal in the valley of Ben-Hinnom where male and female children were burnt to Moloch, i.e., Baal-Hadad. Furthermore, a series of Assyrian-Aramean documents analyzed by K. Deller showed that Adadmilki or Adadšarru ("Adad the king") was actually the god to whom children, sometimes firstborn, were burned (see below).

   "The Assyrian material sheds new light on II Kings 17 where Adadmelech (to be read instead of Adrammelech) is the god to whom the Sepharvites burn/dedicate their children (verse 31). Adadmelech in this verse stands next to Anammelech who has been correctly related by scholars to Anath who bears the title 'Queen of Heaven,' the standard term for Ishtar in Akkadian (šarrat šamê; cf. Sumerian nin.anna.ak = Inanna). The pair Adad and Ishtar, or the 'king' and the 'queen,' are the ones to whom children are dedicated in the Assyrian-Aramean documents quoted above." - The Cult of Moloch, Jewish Library;

Most of the world's "elite" (active and former Presidents, Prime Ministers, Politicians, Judges, etc. and even Royalty), take part at this annual ritual. Notice the fish-god priests conducting the ritual.

More Inconsistencies Our traditional Good Friday to Sunday celebration however only accounts for Jesus’ being in the heart of the earth for two nights and one day. Were the facts of Jesus’ death, burial, and resurrection purposely distorted? Learn who is not telling the truth -- and why!

There are absolutely no verses anywhere in the Bible that authorize or endorse the keeping of an Easter celebration. Further, the Bible says nothing about the practice of observing Lent, dying Easter eggs, having Easter egg hunts, baskets of candy, bonnets – and so on. Easter has long been known to be a pagan festival. America’s founders knew this.

In the children’s book Easter Parade: Welcome Sweet Spring Time (pp 4-5) Steve Englehaty states:

   “When the puritans came to North America, they regarded the celebration of Easter – and the celebration of Christmas with suspicion. They knew that pagans had celebrated the return of spring long before Christians celebrated Easter. (...) For the first 200 years of European life in North America, only a few states - mostly in the South - paid much attention to Easter.

   “Not until after the Civil War did Americans begin celebrating this holiday... Easter first became an American tradition in the 1870’s... The original 13 colonies of America began as a Christian nation, with the cry of ‘No king but King Jesus’. The nation did not observe Easter within an entire century of its founding.”  

Most people accept traditions as fact because they have been part of our culture for so long.

Unfortunately, most of these traditions are dark and gory Satanic rituals.

Trust me, I am just as disgusted as you are (or should be), but the truth must be known.

Check out these videos: Easter Celebrates Killing Kids and Sex Gods. CHRISTIANS WATCH THIS! Michael Rood Interview. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L3HpuZvNASU

Origin of Easter/Ishtar https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FzQslWHOqgE

Get Rid of Easter! (Pagan origins of Easter and Christmas Exposed) Part 1 of 8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4EUAMyTYwno

Get Rid of Easter! (Pagan origins of Easter and Christmas Exposed) Part 2 of 8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JnepcFOZY0M

Get Rid of Easter! (Pagan origins of Easter and Christmas Exposed) Part 3 of 8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0kZtsskWP7Y

Get Rid of Easter! (Pagan origins of Easter and Christmas Exposed) Part 4 of 8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4aNpq1MWB04

Get Rid of Easter! (Pagan origins of Easter and Christmas Exposed) Part 5 of 8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3rwFkYFwJTs

Get Rid of Easter! (Pagan origins of Easter and Christmas Exposed) Part 6 of 8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=esLKjcnAB6w

Get Rid of Easter! (Pagan origins of Easter and Christmas Exposed) Part 7 of 8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S3GhJkPdLKM

Get Rid of Easter! (Pagan origins of Easter and Christmas Exposed) Part 8 of 8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vpHKrtb-H4E

Have a blessed day and weekend. May Yeshua the Messiah bless you, Love, Debbie