#I love digging into them and applying alien concepts

[lets-try-some-writing]

This is very important and I am up at 1 am wildly asking you this

DO BOTS DREAM

And if so

WHAT DO THEY DREAM ABOUT? DO THEY HAVE BIT NIGHTMARES? IS THERE A BOT EQUIVALENT OF THE GO TO CLASS IN YOUR UNDERWEAR NIGHTMARE?

I NEED ANSWERS AND YOU FEEL LIKE THE MOST QUALIFIED EXPERT TO ASK

Mwahah! You came to the right writer for this dear anon! I have enough thoughts on Cybertronian culture and biology to write a novel!

Cybertronians and Recharge Cycles

As a general rule, Cybertronians do not "sleep" or hibernate as organics do. While there are certain medical conditions that replicate the phenomenon to a degree, those are rare, and often temporary. Instead of sleep, Cybertronians have recharge cycles which they use as their way to sort through data, clear their processors of unnecessary sensory information, and run through alerts and protocols that are hyperactive. In short it is a chance for their systems to relax and for their minds to be cleared of stress inducing data that may clutter the processors and make functioning harder.

The frequency of recharge cycles depends entirely on the level of stress a Cybertronian is experiencing. Sparklings recharge frequently so that their processors can go through the data they collect and catalogue or discard it. Younglings recharge less as they know more and have largely set up their processors with all the basic knowledge needed to function, but lots of physical activity can lead to more frequent recharge cycles. In fully developed adults recharge cycles are a rare thing since their processors have adapted and their frames have grown into an equilibrium.

Of course there are also minor recharging cycles that function almost like a nap, and those are taken rather frequently, often a few times in a human week and lasting for up to three hours. In those instances the bot in question shuts down a large portion of their sensory capabilities and higher processing to sort through surface level data and allow their systems to have a brief break. They can still perform basic actions, but they are largely unaware and will be left incredibly groggy if broken from their half recharging state. However true recharge cycles are long and rare things that are often only taken once every few human months, often lasting for a few days at a time. It is polite to allow a recharging bot to remain untouched and to offer them energon when they wake since they will be rather starved for fuel.

The concept of "dreaming" is a bit of a foreign one for Cybertronians as a whole. Most often bots do not "dream" in the human sense. Their processors instead review memory files from all over the course of the time in between recharge cycles. Often the Cybertronian in question does not recall this process as their higher functioning is nearly entirely shut off so their systems can recalibrate. However that does not mean they do not experience anything while recharging. Young sparklings often tend to "dream" in that their processors recreate an event as best as possible based on how the sparkling sees it to try and collect the most important data. The sparkling relives moments, usually small ones while they rest and that helps them to fully absorb what they learn.

Younglings can still have this happen, but more often than not their processors run through probability sequences instead. While recharging their processors use their memories and experiences to recreate possible outcomes to events that already happened. So if a bot were to have been anxious about classes but still have had a reasonable cycle going to them, their processors may conceive the worst case scenario just to test probability. In such an instance they may predict a situation in which their plating is not properly cleaned or where they are without any of their outer armor, instead left bare in their protoform through some inconceivable event. Such predictions are the closest thing they have to "nightmares".

With grown bots, these predictions stop for the most part, especially as they grow older and have more experience and thus less need to play the probability game. At most they will have an odd prediction routine run when they are particularly stressed or going into a new environment. But once again, as soon as they are acquainted with a new environment or situation, their processors will stop such "dreams" because experience makes up for it.

Of course these rules only apply to normal Cybertronians. With the war, recharging properly has become impossible, and that has led to recharging having some unusual consequences.

With shortened recharge cycles or little to none, when a Cybertronian fighting in the war does recharge, it is often not a fun experience. For younglings it is... intense to say the least. Often they can spend a week or more recharging when allowed simply because there is so much to review. Not only that, but their prediction routines run at high paces to try and get through the millions of outcomes, often leaving younglings groggy or even traumatized if they recall the "dreams". Their frames also tend to be so very exhausted from sometimes years of nonstop effort that when they do finally drop, they can be left passing out randomly for weeks afterwards as their processors try to get through whatever it might have been unable to fully review.

For grown Cybertronians, the consequences of little to no recharge come in a variety of forms. For some, they suffer much like younglings and are forced to endure horrendous prediction sequences that leave them struggling against their own minds. Others recall nothing but are left to endure complete and total shutdown, with absolutely no way to wake them until their recharge cycle is complete. They wake far more happy and effective than others, but during that time they are totally exposed and vulnerable, a glaring weakness during war. It certainly doesn't help that these recharge cycles can come upon a bot almost randomly with at most a few minutes before they drop.

Cybertronians who have experienced more trauma than others may find their frames wandering the halls as their minds struggle against all sorts of predictions and scenarios. Their minds are more rested, but they often are left sluggish and unhappy due to how little rest the remainder of their frame received. A scant few who suffer the most may end up unable to recharge properly due to how severe the prediction routines are. Those unfortunate few end up living near entirely off partial recharges and can only endure a day or so of proper recharge before they wake barely rested enough to continue onward.

However its not all doom and gloom.

Cybertronians can have happy "dreams" too. It is a rarer thing, but in response to extreme stress or increadible joy, Cybertronians can pull up old memory files of happier times, or when none are available, create predictions based off of hopes and dreams. Those sorts of "dreams" are rarely remembered, but they have shown to have a soothing effect on a strained mind.

[iridescentmidnights]

Do they know what a child is? 4/4 Omniverse

The criteria I’m using has three major factors 1) would this race understand what a child is 2) do they raise children or are they born self reliant not needing parents and 3) would they understand developmental cycles of childhood like understanding that Ben is child at 10 and 15 and understand a kid and teen are different that still means a child not an adult. Sometimes I have canon support, sometimes it’s just vibes, sometimes canon contradicts itself so I pick and choose. I have been made unhinged you cannot stop me <3

Going in order:

Kickin Hawk apparently doesn’t have an official alien race. That’s…..fun. Oh well! I believe that they understand what a child is and also experiences their own long term developmental cycle. I believe they are largely dependent on their parents for protection and raise their young and mid-large family groups with a complex social structure.

Incursean (Bullfrag) we know they have a complex social structure and raise their young. They are frog inspired but unlike Galvans I believe they are live birthed and are never actually tadpoles, but they might CALL their children tadpoles. But I believe they have a short-mid length childhood and born slightly self reliant. I believe they raise their young like a boot camp and they’re raised isolated from other alien races until old enough to join the Incursean armada.

Conductoids (Feedback) I believe are born to one or both parents who raise and protect their young an part ways after a short childhood. But do not change outside of aging and growing. They are a common spacefaring race and I believe they love wandering around and experiencing life. I believe they are one of the few races that Anodites get along with. I believe they are very good at adapting to new cultures and are often sought out for a wide variety of jobs. I believe their home world is either a near constant lightning storm or born from the fall out of another race experimenting with electrical grids and are “lighting brought to life”.

Atrocians (The Worst) they are the Panda/Sunfish/Tardigrade of the alien social sphere. Indestructible, not worth eating, and extremely bad at procreating. They’re smart enough to understand the idea of a child but are completely disinterested in them. If one manages to make a child it would leave it behind and technically born self reliant. If you can call them that.

Mole-Stache apparently have no species name or official home world :\ I feel they live in rocky terrain and dig tunnels to protect their young. Born defenseless they are reliant on their parents and their small communities with complex social structure.They do go through a short development cycle and not usually able to understand other races and their cycles if it doesn’t resemble theirs. Usually a private race that rarely becomes spacefaring.

Galileans (Gravattack /Gutrot) I believe are both Galileans or at least from the same home world as Gutrot has no species or home world. I believe they are self reliant and intelligent enough to understand what a child is in theory. I am not convinced they are born but if Taydenite is the “rarest living gem” then there is absolutely more so apply that concept here. They’re grown from a living gem or rock that is complex enough to create sustain sentient life

Astrodactyl I believe is born self reliant. I put them here because they vibe as THINKING they understand what a child is and would be smug about it while not at all understanding what a child is. I think they ironically have long and complex development cycles but cannot fully understand other aliens outside their own experiences. I believe they are commonly spacefaring and good at adapting to other worlds but not other alien cultures.

Toepick has no official alien race but I think they are Tulpa’s that are attempting to integrate in the intergalactic social sphere after being lonely for so long. I do not believe in this case that they have any single one home world and believe they are magically conceived from the raw psychic power of fear wherever sentient life exists. I believe they created their suits from scrap to attempt to protect anyone from looking at them and experience their worst fear. They are born self reliant and not sociable enough to understand what a child is. 

Nemuina (Pesky Dust) I believe are born magically where ever the edges of  places like Anodine or Ledgerdomain touch space that doesn’t naturally produce mana. I believe these “edge worlds” create “sleeping domains” that are viewed as odd or trippy to outsiders and dangerous if you’re not born there due to outsiders falling asleep and never waking up. I believe Nemuina sprout from pods or flowers that they wear forever as their dress. I believe they are genderless and don’t have instinct to procreate but could in theory but never have. Rarely spacefaring and usually only do so if curious. 

Orthopterran (Crashhopper) born completely self reliant. Some mothers might watch over the hidden eggs but immediately leaves once they start hatching viewing them a safe enough. Commonly spacefaring.

Segmentasapiens (Bloxx) I love this stupid stupid guy but this???? IDC what anyone says it’s an artificially created life. It wasn’t meant to be living and breathing and it isn’t but as a limited species it absolutely is alive. It was intended to protect and serve in crisis like natural disasters or invasions and gained sentience as they became more complicated.

Ball Weevil is born self reliant and could never understand what a child is. Head empty ball is life. Not a spacefaring race outside of being taken as a pet or trophy as most aliens don’t view them as sentient. 

Icthyperambuloid (Walkatrout) lays eggs in water watches them for a bit or hides them then leaves. Born self reliant. Not a spacefaring race.

Vladat (Whampire) look I’m not a fan of any of the Halloween aliens outside of Lobans, but you can’t look me in the eyes and convince me they would care about their kids or any other kind of child. They absolutely understand what children are and do not care an ounce for them.

Atomix I feel is an extraordinarily rare Galilean and I believe they are also extraordinarily emotionally detached. I feel they understand what a child is and does not care for them either way.

[helluva-world-innit]

I want to keep this sideblog active even though it's taking me a long time to actually get the art done so I figured I'd make posts now and again not really to spoil anything but to just give some insight into my creative process and what I'm thinking when it comes to re-imagining the Helluvaverse. A sort of journal for Future Me as well as a creative accountability record for later, I guess.

To start, I'm going to talk about why I am choosing this universe to play with what with all the current information we have about the creators and with all the, frankly, much better universes to explore.

This got...really long. So, it's under a cut.

I Love Mess

Right out the gate, it's the flaws of these shows that fascinate me. As both a writer and someone who has always been interested in theology, I keep rotating them in my mind. They really are a perfect example of what not to do to keep people invested in the story you're trying to tell.

Hell...is not a new concept. Even outside of Christian doctrine, humans have had an afterlife responsible for untold suffering since time immemorial. Not even necessarily because we like the concept of people who have hurt/annoyed/ignored us getting their comeuppance someday* but simply because we are such complex creatures living such rich lives. The idea of that all being gone someday and never getting answers or knowing what our "score" was/how we ranked against others...it bothers us. It bothers us deeply. It bothers us even more if we think all the suffering we undergo in life is completely random and there is no rhyme or reason for it other than pure fucking chance.

So, we dig our little monkey claws into the idea there is something more than us and more than this. The eternal reward and the eternal punishment. Not all religions do this, but the idea is still deeply pervasive to the point where even the Modern New Age movement applies it despite claiming to operate outside of such restrictive binaries.

People already fear death. Add a spicy little bit of going to "the bad place" on top of that and you have power over their whole lives. And yet.

None of that depth is explored in the Helluvaverse. None that we have seen so far. And yes, I am including the Hazbin pilot in that. Why? As others have put it, why even have these shows take place in Hell at all? These could have taken place on an alien planet or in an alternate reality or utopia/dystopia. Not to compare apples to lemon meringue pie, but Nimona took place in an alternate universe with a utopia teeming with dystopian elements and is absolutely delightful, despite having a character that is totally okay with hurting others and mass destruction. Granted, it's a movie from a webcomic that is adapted for a much shorter runtime, but that...sort of makes it worse, actually.

If you can get your point across in far less time and still add so much fun and have relatable characters and story beats for an adult audience than the one with a wholeass webseries and (as far we still know) an incoming show with a moderately impressive studio...then I just don't know what to tell you.

2. I Saw The Angel Trapped In The Marble And I Grabbed A Sledge Hammer

Despite the above mini rant, I do think there is good to be found here. Actually, there's a lot of good here. Too bad we never get to sit with and explore it before we are rushed off to yet another plot thread or character introduction that goes the fuck end of nowhere. There are ways to do that sort of random humor that the creators are going for** but it does need careful and considerate handling and--pfffft-- that's totally not going to happen here. Also, if you want drama at the same time you want to just fuck around and make off-color jokes, what you end up getting is less people caring about the stakes set up and more...well...

Yeah. It has it's place but, uh...I don't think that's here. Even if it is, there is a way to do this and make it satisfying to an audience. A mature audience even, which for all that the team insists this is the audience they write for, there is a reason minors gravitate to it more. You really don't have to think much about anything onscreen or grapple with hard questions when watching. Other than 'wtf are they wearing?'

Not saying kids can't have complicated emotions or engage with material that forces them to think (they spend the majority of their day at a place designed to do exactly that until they are almost adults, I mean, think about it), but children are drawn to the taboo like moths to a candle. Doesn't matter if they get burned by it, they don't have the life experience to know how much it can hurt them yet.

I personally don't care about appealing to children. I can't promise this rewrite will appeal to an adult audience either, but I have certainly enjoyed researching things for it more than I have enjoyed the entirety of Helluva Boss S2 so far so do with that what you will.

3. The Circus Is In Town but I'm The Only Clown Here

I have a confession to make. I really, really, really, REALLY like clowns. And circuses. And clowns in circuses. No idea why. If I had to take a guess, The Big Comfy Couch and a circus I saw when I was really young set me on my way. I was also someone who dreamed of running away to a circus and becoming a clown like many kids who have no idea wtf they're on about. The bright colors, fun food, animals, and image of a bright and fun place that can just pop up anywhere and disappear when a town gets old or hostile? What's not to love?

A circus can also be used as a metaphor for a magical place outside of time where people either go to be entertained or tortured for however long it lasts. Plus, you have the long, real world history of circuses and traveling shows as being rife with exploitation and abuse while also providing a place of support and solidarity with the outcast members of society to take in consideration too. There are so many ways to make this work. In fact, many have! Have a list of other media that uses clowns and circus themes to talk about Hell and afterlife:

The Devil's Carnival

Homestuck and its spinoff game: Hiveswap

Insane Clown Posse

Spawn

Wendell & Wild

Honorable shoutout to the Cirque Du Freak book series. Not technically Hell related but the circus is still a prominent gateway to a supernatural underworld for the main character so it deserves a spot.

4. Have Ideas, Will Create

I am not the best at drawing. Not even in the third best place. I've stopped and started the process my whole life and really haven't progressed as much as I wanted to this year. Much as I hate to admit it, the Helluvaverse inspired me to give it an honest try since my writing skill is in a good place at the moment. Slowly, I've been practicing and making goals around my art and what I am creating both on a fan level and on an original level.

I want to keep getting better. While I'm dabbling in animation, I have never really told stories in a way that didn't solely rely on words. For the first time, I am honestly considering making the stories that have left me stalled out on the side of the novelist highway since I decided I wanted to be a writer into comics. Nothing outrageous or anything, I don't plan on quitting my day job but I would love to actually turn the stories in my head into more tangible shapes than just words one day.

Let's be real, I will probably never be able to retire, so this is definitely something I can work on while I'm struggling with a 9 to 5 I don't really care about and trying to survive. I figure the Helluvaverse gives me lots to play with and sharpen my skills on. Something that, even if it doesn't turn out all that great, then at least I had fun developing it and I got to learn and grow while making it. I have so many ideas and have already linked a lot of them together to start outlining and drawing up a fanon I can follow to keep things (hopefully) pretty consistent.

In Conclusion

I just finally feel like I'm at a place in my life where external pressure and art skill matter less to me than just making something. Anything. Making as much as I can to sort of make up for how much time I spent depressed and hating myself and convinced that Twilight was a good series (it's really not, from a writing standpoint. It's terrible.). Even if I never finish what I have planned, that I did anything at all is a feat. Lots of people say they can do better, but do they bother? In my experience, no. I want to be a botherer now.

*although, that is a big theme in the version of Hell Viv pulls from: The Divine Comedy a.k.a. Dante's Inferno. Seriously, give it a read sometime. It's laden with all kinds of 'you're here because you're ugly and i hate you' type sentiments

**Brandon Rogers actually knows how to do this. No idea where his writing chops go when it comes to HB, though. It's a niche sort of humor, true, but he reminds me of John Waters a lot.

[borahaejenn]

💜Dear Bangtan and ARMY💜

  Yo. Hello Bangtan and ARMY!!!!! Haha how was your week been so far? Mine was entertaining mostly because of Jin. Lol I kept watching “Jin’s Traditional Alcohol Journey” each night and I also got to watch Joonie and Pharrell’s interview I got a couple of things I wanted to talk about lol A lot of good points got brought up and a lot of jokes had me laughing. Lol But, have you been keeping warm, lately? I got this double blanket thing going on with my bed because I have what feels like a giant comforter and I got this giant Mexican blanket under lol yes I mean the San Marcos ones and since I run hot I have not been putting the heater on and I feel just right. I have been adding the heater on at night because it gets way colder at night over here but I kept waking up in a hot sweat at 4 am each night that I decided to turn it off to see what would happen and I felt so comfortable with my two blankets without the heater on lol Sleeping with a shirt is enough for me lol like ya’ll I tried wearing sweats only to take them off out of frustration from the heat in the dead of night. I think I am another species. Lol But it’s cool. 🤣

    Please make sure you don’t add the ac because if you sweat like me and add the ac you could get sick from the sweat and cold. It’s better if you keep the heater off and just stack up on blankets. Just roll up into a giant cocoon like me and it will hit the spot. 👍

    And Jungkookkkkkk!!! Are you here???? I did a video for you to wish you the best in Qatar. I really am proud of you, honey. Go, baby!!! GoALLLLLLLL!!! Lol it is a pun hahahaha But, when you went kicking the air and making a goal before getting on the plane I got all excited and tried to do the same. Lol 😂yassssss!!!!!!! But, this is insane because you are doing it on your own just like Bangtan has been doing different things on their own and I AM SO HAPPY FOR YOU! I send a lot of love and support!! I am rooting for you, darling. LET’S GOOO! Please have fun, enjoy it, and eat well. 🤤 Come back safely. FIGHTING, JUNGKOOK!!!!!! You are our bright BUN! SHINE HARD!!! ✨🐰💪hehe

    For films, hehe I got to catch up to the ALIENS and Aliens and Predators universe and finally saw PREY. I loved it. I recommend it if you enjoy sci-fi films like me. The predator in that film was insanely sick!!! I noticed each time the creature is created differently and this one was awesome with more details and taller than the others. Props to the creators of the faces and costumes because it was nice. I enjoy seeing the changes and how each time the predator looks different. I dig it. I realized that the predators are different because they are different types but I was not as aware until now. Lol  What I  also enjoyed was the action, but just the way the hunting and fighting were portrayed. It really pays homage to the way people would hunt during the times when we didn’t have the tools and technology we do now and it was more about skill, senses, and analytical thought. It reminded me of the concept that you can have all the best tools in the world and the most expensive tech but if you don’t know how to use them well or properly to the advantage they could be used for, it is useless. It’s like having a bow and arrow and you are in front of a bear. You think you can’t win the fight, but it's not about strength, it is about how well you can use your skill and bow and arrow properly in the fight that could just save you. The film got me thinking about how a lot of things we have are useless because we are not using them the way we could. Lol You can have the strength to hurt someone but if your opponent has better skill in fighting the course of the fight can change. Lol Having something does not mean anything. Lol How you apply it and put it to use is what matters. The whole film this homie girl is the one who takes this predator down and it is insane. I love how they show the process of that final kill. I also love the character Naru’s relationship with her dog, Sarii. The idea of respecting animals and nature is very big in the film through different points. I dig it. The film is bloody so be warned lol Also, I kept laughing each time the predator kept collecting skulls by taking out the whole spinal cord from its victims lol after watching the films for so long I can’t help myself. It’s gory but I just laugh because homie literally walks around with the skulls on his belt like in Yu-Gi-Oh with the cards lmaooooo as a teenager I found it funny and even now I laugh. You can make a drinking game of how many times the homie just pulls another spine out in the film lol But, yes. Don’t watch if you don’t like gore.

     Let me get into first the Pharrell and Joonie interview. I wanted to talk about how I got chills with it because I got to read about the 90% from ARMY, but I finally sat down for a bit to listen to the whole video intently. Lol Here are some things that spoke to me:

-The fact that the whole interview you could tell Joonie was excited and you can feel it. His questions to another artist coming in as an artist is just so wholesome and so organic. I love this idea of artists being the ones who interview each other because you get more real and have a more natural conversation.  It is like seeing two people learn from each other and be very raw and honest about how they feel without it having to be generic like a normal interview. I enjoyed it and was into it because of the feeling it gave me. Plus, both you and Pharrell asked each other good questions. I loved it.

-The way Pharrell was so chill with Joonie speaking on his own terms and letting him speak what he means in English even though it could be hard because it is true, when you speak in your own tongue it is easier to be more expressive of what you want to say, but when you speak and try another language it can be a bit hard to express something even though what you want to say feels very exciting and like it wants to come out. Joonie, you are amazing. Your nerves are built differently. I dig it. I can only imagine if I ever tried to speak what I mean in Korean to you in front of you and it did not come out as I wanted it to and just being nervous to convey it. In English I am good but it would be different if I stepped into your shoes.

-The idea of “The pain to confess.” It reminded me of how emotionally it can get heavy when you write something for someone and yet when it is done it just goes out into the air and you feel that empty feeling of “now what?” I wonder if ya’ll ever feel it as a grieving process each time you release something because it is like it is out and now you are stuck with feelings you felt to make something and then it is done. Like where do those feelings go?  I wonder if that is something you have to figure out how to grieve and let go on its own. I feel like a lot of times that is why artists need their space from time to time. I feel that grieving is also in letting go of the feelings you had that you are stuck with until you learn to let them go with time. It is poetic in a sense.

-Namjoon, when you confessed to getting depressed and at times overwhelmed by the heavy energy of people at big events in a general sense I was happy to hear your honesty. Thank you for speaking about that. I loved hearing you say it. I also liked how Pharrell made it spiritual and about energy and how he said he puts his own boundaries at times because it can get really heavy on him. I really believe in the power of energy really expanding and projecting on people that are artists as well and that is why I always say to do meditation and prayer with protection and balance of your energy each time you go out in public because projection is real and although you can say that you want to take everyone’s feelings in, it is not always healthy for your energy and you have to be okay with saying, “I love you, but I can’t take it all in.” It can burn you out. It’s okay to say no. I love that you admitted that you handle the nerves by feeling a sense of purpose like the idea of being a “public servant” as Pharrell said, but loving yourself is also protecting your energy when you feel like you can’t hold it all in. Being of service to yourself first is also being of service to others because you can have that empathy while also protecting the gates to your energy and who you allow in and not. You are not a bad person for saying no and I hope you can also know that you are not doing a disservice to ARMY for not being able to handle everyone’s feelings. You are human like you said and it's okay to let us all also carry that weight with you by telling us when it can be a lot and you need to step back. Your nerves can build strength but they also have their limits if you don’t let them decompress properly. As a person who has been through anxiety, I learned that the hard way. I want to do a lot for people but I just can’t at times and it takes a lot of strength to sit yourself down and not have to stand up for everything.

-The way Pharrell waited since 2018 to approach you in 2022 is peak Aries behavior lol you know he was serious the minute he said “I didn’t want to be aggressive about it.” He knew to wait and go for it when the time was right and look at y’all now. People with Aries as their sun sign or even those who have heavy placements of it are aggressive with what they want to do by nature and will go for it lol the fact that he held back that long SPEAKS VOLUMES. 😂 I respect it. I am like that with personal goals and people I want in my life for a long time. I don't rush it and as an impatient person, I will have patience when I am more serious about certain people and things I want to do than just rushing it. It really speaks of how highly I want to be around certain people and things. And yes, Pharrell in this interview made me proud to be an Aries. He was born literally in the same week as me and just two days before on the 5th of April. I know this because back in high school as soon as my mom got me into astrology I looked up famous people who are Aries and he came up. Lol He radiates RAM energy and he is owning it so much these days.🙌

-The VIRGOXARIES vibes in the interview made my day. The way Pharrell spoke and the growth in his tone and the idea of energy and frequencies are very Aries. When he said, “You have got to hear a different side” and “Just try it,” I was like, YES.  The Aries motto is along the lines of “why not?” We are youthful in not just our nature but also in how we perceive and think things and that’s how our thought process is it matures with us into adulthood it gets much stronger in feeling. Our impulsive nature turns intuitive and that impatience turns into a game of mindfulness. We will have that thought or person for a while in our minds like we never forget lol, but we strike passionately when we feel it is right to go for it.

We go by what we feel and want in a youthful yet “gut-feeling” matter and that is what leads us to our path.  Pharrell really brought up a good point about going with the flow of what he felt is needed and lacking than following what others may expect him to go with, or what is “conventional” in our world and I dig his energy. I love when he said, “I channel what I feel like is missing” and “When I channel other people and I surrender to what the music needs and not let my ego or feelings get involved.” Like Pharrell gets energies and frequencies so well and it says a lot about him as an artist with music. He not just speaks of it in literal terms but also spiritually within himself and I dig it. He goes for the unconventional and rams are the most unconventional people you will ever meet. That is our way. Where people may ask “Why do you talk like that? Why do you wear that? Why would you say that? Why would you go that way when you can do this? Why do you not do this? Why do you want me to see things this way? Why are you asking too many questions? Why are you too much? Why don’t you stop? Why do you think this way? Are you crazy, Do you really think I can do this? Etc.” An Aries baby is always going to answer you with another question like this one: “Why not?” Lol we are curious by nature and we just keep letting that curiosity flow. We pour a crap ton of our energy into that curiosity because we hold a lot of it. Where people freak out or doubt, we are the most chill and willing to accept it and try to understand it because we are just curious about everything and why it is that way. When Pharrell spoke I felt so freaking seen even though he was talking In terms of music. lol Joonie, you were just so curious and interested in his thought process and the way he works with frequencies and even beyond as he is like your idol lol and Pharrell was interested in your tact and ability to handle so much and do much in a short amount of time. Like it was humbling to see Pharrell even say that he respects Bangtan and artists who can go out and be in the presence of the masses when he was thinking to himself that he could not do that yet. It was like he was learning from you and he was inspiring you. It was cool energy y’all had going on. I love that combo. That is where the Virgo x Aries connection is. I think it makes for a dope team. There are differences in both of you that could fill the gaps that you both are looking to fill as artists. There is gold in that. I hope over time you can find the sweet spot in what you love to do and speak about it with heart as Pharrell does. I say this because later down the line what you love and what is really sweet to you will mold greatly and change with time. What really makes you feel that sweet spot in your work is most likely still out there waiting to be discovered until you get to it. I cry so hard because people always say how very different both signs are and how they could never work together in all types of relationships (platonic, romantic, business, partnerships, work, and even sibling bonds)but I met so many couples and read about many that are Virgo and Aries and they have been together for a long time even to this day and they speak so sincerely of each other and it is beautiful, and I have seen a lot of successful business where the founders are both signs as well. Lmaoo Like y’all I was intrigued to have found out that my coworker has been engaged to her high school sweetheart and she is a Virgo and her fiancée is an Aries, Harry Connick Jr. is a Virgo and his wife Jill Goodacre Connick is an Aries and the homie Stephen King is a Virgo and his wife Tabitha King is an Aries too, then the homie Keanu Reeves is a Virgo and his girlfriend Alexandra Grant is an Aries too. Then take Keira Knightley I love her but I never knew she was an Aries all this time and she is married to her husband James Righton who is also a Virgo. lol I support it. I don’t go asking people for their signs nor do I look for them unless I am doing some research like this lol but I was so surprised yet intrigued. I and my sister are also a clear example of how the Virgo and Aries energy works in terms of sibling relationships, lol we get along so well after a couple years of unlearning and learning how to work with our differences and strengths. We even read each other’s minds better than when we were kids. Lol sometimes I crave something and when I ask my sister if she wants to eat out she reads the words out of my mind. It’s insane. I learn from her and she learns new things from me and we are always asking each other questions. We both cook together from time to time and we talk about a lot of random things. We always find something to go on about and when she is serious I always find a way to make her laugh with some of the most inappropriate and random things ever. 🤣 We enjoy our company a lot and when we travel together she is always up for anything I explored so many restaurants and places because of her. Lol While I’m a countryside bumpkin she is a city girl and she showed me SF and museums through her eyes and she enjoys a lot of the arts. I learned a lot because of her. She goes to concerts and raves with me and actually enjoys it. I go with her to the symphony and the latest art exhibitions and I enjoy it. Lol we learned to be okay with being different and being next to each other through those differences. She also enjoys it when I let her speak and I just listen to her for hours and whenever she freaks out she relies on me to bring her back to earth. She feels comfortable in my words and I feel comfort in her needing me in her life. I enjoy even being the smallest of comfort to her even if it’s listening to her so she can also be heard too. We also love food. So, when we are hungry we just say we are and we get food. No questions asked. She helps my fire simmer with her earthy presence 😂She is the only person that ever tells me to stop cursing and I do it just for her lol but when I’m talking to myself again I curse back again. Lmao my sister doesn’t like it when I curse all the time so she tells me if I could lay it low and I do. Haha I laugh when she tells me that my jokes are too much because she laughs anyways lol

 And when we argue we communicate way better these days than in the past. We haven’t argued in a long time lol and when something seems off we aren’t as afraid to speak up right then and there and ask each other what we meant by what we said or what we are doing that day.  We trust each other enough to know that we both deserve the truth about how we feel and we respect that. We try not to hold back anymore. She knows I deserve the truth and I know she deserves it too even if it may sting a little but we don’t keep it to ourselves. We make it a conversation that teaches both of us instead of it making us feel insecure about each other’s actions. I love it. Our sister bond is lit. The Virgo and Aries together are here to stay. I don’t care what anyone says anymore lol two mysterious and deep signs that are opposites but attract really well in many different ways it’s just how you work with that flow that matters.  I read in this book before that an Aries and a Virgo is a very beautiful and strong connection but only if and only if they can see each other’s differences and learn to study each other sincerely and be willing to take the time to understand those differences deeply enough to appreciate them and coexist naturally with them.

  Because both are also naturally mysterious in nature, both signs like to explore that type of mystery in others so it becomes a connection of sincere passion because both signs want to explore more of each other. It is a connection of unraveling different things and it becomes more interesting and worth it over time. But it just depends on people and if they feel up to that. One thing that stuck with me from a couple that I also read about once is this dude who is a Virgo and his wife is an Aries lol: "She brings so much into my life. More than she will ever know. I enjoy unraveling myself with her." It was so sweet but I love how deeply a lot of these people speak about their partners. It is always something poetic and deep that you don't hear a lot of people express these days. It made my heart swell. lol My sister once said that she is thankful that I am in her life because I hear her out and she has not had someone do that for her before. I almost cried because as her sister I felt I was finally doing my purpose as her sibling.  It was a full circle moment and she gave me a big hug. I rarely get hugs but I let her that time and it felt different.

     Bottom line let a Virgo into your life and let them guide you and teach you. They are the greatest teachers if you let them show you. Let an Aries into your life and let them inspire and change you. They are the ones who will lead you to your true individuality if you break down your conventional walls with them. You need guidance to change you and you need teaching to inspire you. And you also need change to guide you and you need the inspiration to teach you. See opposites do attract. I love this! Lol But, let it be noted that this is not the case for everyone lol when the connection is there and it is healthy that is where it will work best. One thing that stuck with me from a couple that I also read about once is this dude who is a Virgo and his wife is an Aries lol: "She brings so much into my life. She enriches me more than she will ever know. I enjoy unraveling myself with her." It was so sweet but I love how deeply a lot of these people speak about their partners. It is always something poetic and deep that you don't hear a lot of people express these days. It made my heart swell. lol My sister once said that she is thankful that I am in her life because I hear her out and she has not had someone do that for her before. I almost cried because as her sister I felt I was finally doing my purpose as her sibling.  It was a full circle moment and she gave me a big hug. I rarely get hugs but I let her that time and it felt different. As an Aries surrounded all my life by Virgos I just want to say, Virgos offer me a sense of purpose and peace that I don't think I could have ever built in me alone. I feel secure, respected, valued, and soulfully connected to the Virgos in my life. They always took what I could offer in my words and presence and added more to it. Where I was rough they added a layer of softness and compassion into the mix. I enjoy learning from them. Being cared for by a Virgo is like knowing you passed the actual vibes because they don't let just anyone in their lives and you can feel that they are serious about you. They don't play. I love that feeling of security. I feel like I met my independent match who gets it. To me Virgos make you feel like you are their whole world when they really are serious with you. I don’t like taking advantage of that. They are precious to me because of that. I feel even more inclined to protect them for that reason lol Also, they care if you actually ate in the day and ask you. My grandma always did and my sister still does. They really are Earth Angels. This is a shout-out to all the ARMYs and Bangtan with Virgo placements lol and yes Bangtan I saw a peak into your birth charts and y'all got Virgo in there. lol 

-I read this from an ARMY, but this added to the connection as well, but there was a lot of ARMY that agreed with the fact that it was nice to see Joonie and his frustrations,  doubts, and feelings be validated by someone he has looked up to and also is in the same line of work. It was like seeing Joonie finally get a huge weight off his chest and feeling more optimistic and hopeful and I agree too. The interview felt healing. I was happy to see Joonie asking serious questions and getting serious advice from someone he has admired and listened to for a long time. I felt like no one could have made him more secure about how he feels about music like someone who has gone through it too,  like Pharrell. I was happy for you Joonie.  😊

These words are just it, “Continue to move forward. Continue to be curious. And don’t put any kind of unnecessary pressure on what it is that you do…stay along for the ride.” That is the Ram way. Lol Pharrell knows the vibes y’all. I would like to add, “Nothing is ever for sure. Don’t expect much but also don’t doubt what is possible because at any moment things can change. You just got to keep your heart and mind open. Be open to the changes you are going through and honor the now because down the line you will be thankful you stayed.” Hehe ✌️

   I loved the interview and you both are real ones Joonie. I hope y’all stay connected.👍 I shall now switch it to talking about Jin. Haha Let’s talk alcohol.  I don’t drink it, but I did enjoy seeing it be made and the process. It reminded me of my chemistry lab days with the distillation and sanitation procedures. We use to take germs off flasks alike to the way the giant pot was being sanitized lol

Hearing the history of traditional Korean alcohol through Mr.Baek and Park Rokdam reminded me of how the sciences have been with us for a long time and we didn’t think about it. People say you would never use physics or chemistry in the real world but this just proves that wrong as well. Because without those two we could not make alcohol at all, nor could we drive, make clothes, ride a train, cook, or ride a plane. It was nice to hear how the sciences were just something that felt natural and logical in the traditional setting. It makes you feel thankful for a lot of things. Our ancestors didn’t need a book to understand thermodynamics or the concept of sanitation, it was all hands-on and natural to survive. It is awesome. Haha 😂 the BTS CREW did do an awesome job with the editing and clips and yes JIN, they deserve more. Lol You spoke the truth lol here are some things I enjoyed so far:

-Mr. Baek. Yes, he is just a gold mine of humor and random antics that I relate to. I love the vibe y’all have going on. He is really chill to talk to and I enjoyed his sarcasm and criticism throughout the process. I could not. He is also very straightforward and he reminded me of my dad in that sense. Cool thing is Mr.Baek is one year younger than my dad lol it’s awesome! My dad is a 1965 baby and I saw Mr. Baek is a 1966 baby. The way he pointed out you dropping the rice and making fun of your detailed comments. Lol you went along with it so naturally. I love it. His face at 10:24 and 10:36 was all of ARMY when we heard THE ASTRONAUT for the first time it is just that good. The facial expression transition just said so much Lol the minute he put his hands to his face I was like “MR. BAEK KNOWS WHAT IS COOKING AND HE KNOWS WE ARE ALL GOING TO FEAST GOOD.”Lol 😂 the way he said, “It gets much brighter.” Had me crying because it does give that feeling. Lol but it also went with the scenery too lol 😂

-“This is your red carpet” lmaooooo the jacket on the floor. If you did that to me I would stare at it and take my hoodie off and do the same to you lol 😂

-I love how with Coldplay, y’all made a song that just hits for anybody. Mr. Baek literally said, “Even I like this, and I barely know music.” It said a lot just by his comment. I dig it.💜

-“People who like to drink want to brew their own alcohol” I agree with this statement but with cheese lol. When I was a kid I learned how to make cheese from scratch because of my grandma. I don’t remember how to do it fully now but back then I saw the process unfold and it was awesome.  I loved cheese as a kid and one time I saw her making it with the milk my grandpa got that morning from the farm back in Mexico it is insane how she did it each morning to add it to the food she would make for my grandpa lol texture was different but much heartier than store-bought ones. Mr. Baek has a point lol

-This quote is just poetic in regard to the art of crafting traditional alcohol: “Alcohol must start with flavor and scent, and finish with grace.” It's beautiful.😭 It’s like with love, “Love must start with feeling and sincerity, and continue with gratitude.” It is a selfless act and one of choice and each time we engage in it we experience gratitude in the presence of it. I just thought of that just now. Lol I am writing with softness today. Haha

-“If one has failed a lot, one could be known as the best.” This is a good one I get what you mean by the best not in a cocky way but in the essence that you are ahead of someone who hasn’t even tried it in the first place. You become the best at something when you have the courage to even take the first leap. 😁 Park Rokdam is very humble.  I think he was getting to that point because he spoke of how he knows well what he is doing because he dared to try it many times in the first place. I like that thought.👍

-“Everything requires effort in this world.” Yes, Jin. Lol I love how the BTS CREW added this “[Making anything needs one’s sincerity]” 😌

-The slight tilt toward the camera with that small DNA cameo had me laughing. 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂

-“It would be bad if I accidentally spilled all of this.” Lmaoooooooooooooooo Jin you are so chaotic it’s hilarious. I would laugh at Mr. Baek’s reaction if you did lol 😂 The jokes would not stop. Lol

-I love how the BTS CREW put this for you “[Jin is a perfectionist]” I was laughing because in my mind I would have put this instead:“[Nah, he just loves his alcohol] [Jin did not come to play with his MAKGEOLLI]” lmaooo

-“I could eat forever” Mr.Baek GETS IT.👏👏👏👏👏👏 I know he cooks for a living too but this is me all day every day these days lol 😂 Jin, didn’t you say once that if it tastes good it is zero calories? That goes with this lol 😂 I just found out that Mr. Baek is also a Virgo lol it makes sense. I feel like I am being linked up with my food people. haha 

-When Mr. Baek took the rice paddle and started eating the rice off of it, it reminded me of my mom when she is making chicken tamales and she mixes the tamale sauce with the chicken and some of it sticks to the paddle and I just eat the chicken with the sauce like there is no tomorrow lol 😂 GOOD TIMES. When I mooch off my mom's spoons during the holiday cooking season. 😭😭😭🙌

-I found it aesthetically pleasing when the rice was going through the cooling process and you just laid it down from the wet towel and it was like a blooming lotus.😭 It was laid out so pretty with the light steam. I loved it. Haha

-When it got the fermenting and yeast process it reminded me of the rice drink we make in Mexico called Atole. Rice gets cooked a specific way with milk creamer and cinnamon into this smooth and hot holiday drink. It’s lovely.🤤 A lot of people drink it during this time. It’s one of the best rice drinks we make lol

-The jokes between Park Rokdam and Mr. Baek are wholesome. You can tell they are cool with each other I was laughing when he was talking about dying early if you drink too much alcohol lmaooo and Mr. Baek was like “if I don’t drink alcohol my nerves will die” he was like “don’t be hating on my lifestyle bruh” and Park Rokdam was like “I am just spilling facts homie, no cap. I’ve been making alcohol for years I know what I’m talking about.” Lol 😂 That was my interpretation lol

-“[The first man to sing to a pot]” lol 😆 And we got to witness this in our lifetime lol Jin I can’t.  “Now that you heard me sing, you have to taste good, okay?” CUTE. 🥰 I can’t believe you said this. It’s adorable, it reminds me of how I talk to my plants to make them grow more. Lol 😂

 I can’t wait for the next episode! It really is refreshing to see you do something you wanted to try Jin. Thank you for making a lot of content I have been enjoying it so far and it is very peaceful to see. Fighting, Jin! 💪

   Also, I saw the observation log with Wootteo and I also have to say now that I am happy y’all got nominated with Coldplay for MY UNIVERSE. And for the YET TO COME music video. Also well deserved. ✨Hehe I just wanted to bring what Chris Martin said to you it made my heart melt: “But we can make it brilliant together.” There was a sincere and endearing tone to the way he said it and I love the energy you both had making The Astronaut. It reminded me that together we can make brilliant things happen even if at times we may feel stuck. ☺️ It was a nice takeaway message. And also, Jin you are also just as meticulous as Chris Martin Hyung lol 😂 I saw the way you were really engaged with the merch and checking it all out and asking questions, I like how you even asked the staff if they would wear something like the design they showed you and it really spoke numbers of how you can be very honest yet very realistic about certain things you want to give to ARMY and also as yourself. I respect it. Also, your smile at 4:56 in the video made me happy.😊 Oh and Jin you may think you are “absent-minded” but I don’t think so, I see the way you pay attention to detail even caring for the members on stage and off and that is not absent-minded to me. You may not think complex thoughts but you still manage to care quite wholeheartedly in regard to complex circumstances and situations. I love it.😇 Jin, you are our forever prince. The story reminded me of the Little Prince but with the ending changed. Instead of the Prince leaving The Rose to go explore other planets he stays with The Rose because he finally learned to appreciate it. The Rose lives on knowing that her vanity was forgiven and validated by the Little Prince and so she goes on knowing that the Little Prince and her are solid and even if he does leave to go explore other planets, she knows he will always come back to her. 😭 The Rose has something to live for, hope. The Astronaut has that feeling for me.💜 Like Mr. Baek said, it gets brighter and the feeling is like that. hehe You did it justice, honey. Thank you for working hard, Jin. You are loved well in this house. 💕 Also, you run pretty Jin. lol From a runner like me that is a compliment. lol

   I wrote a lot this week. But, I had a lot of random thoughts. I shall go now haha I got some videos of me showing you my walk back from my mini mountain hike lol and for JK too. Watch me fail to kick the air and enjoy it as I do lol 😂 Please make sure to stay warm this season, don’t forget lotion because it is getting dryer these days, and take it easy with the ac (looks at Jimin lol), and make sure you eat well my loves. EAT SOMETHING DELICIOUS, YOU DID WELL THIS WEEK.💪I love you. I PURPLE U. And yeah Taehyung I will watch your live lol I was waiting for the subs and I want to take my time and not rush it haha 😂And Hobi I AM EXCITED FOR YOUR MAMA PERFORMANCE!!!! I see Y'ALL. I am happy. 😭😭😭😭😭 Bye bye!  

With mucho AMOR,

Your Jennifer 🌻✌️🐰✌️🌻

HEHE LET’S GO, KOOK! 🤟😜🤟

[genuflectx]

Axiom’s End

This is a little review of an AMAZING book I just finished reading that exophilia lovers (and just sci-fi lovers in general) may enjoy to get in on, if not already! 

Parts of this review will have spoilers, but I will place the spoilery review under a cut (though some basic plot premises are discussed before the cut, they are not major spoilers)! So if you want a quick review read on, and for the more detailed spoilery review check under the cut. It includes a small snip of one page of the book to hopefully entice you.

When it comes to books my search for truly engaging alien novels has been... a waste of time at best. And this story here simply didn’t pop up under my searches for, er, alien human romance novels, so you likely won’t find it by searching that either. I only discovered it by seeing the sparse fanart of it on Tumblr, which made me read it’s synopsis on wikipedia and wonder how on EARTH I had not come across this yet, as a terato blog.

So, Axiom’s End is a first contact story, but it is character driven, and all the characters (especially the main cast) are emotional and well developed. However I have a warning some may want to heed; it is existential and is aware of it. If you can’t handle a heavy feeling of dread, which several chapters tend to exude, might not be the story for you.

Do you like creepy, deathly still dragon-insect-robots with questionable morals staring you down? Ohhh boy, I sure do. The main alien character, Ampersand, and his species, are not humanoid. They are in the sense of having two arms two legs two eyes, etc, but otherwise are distinctly different and alien and- did I mention Ampersand is 9 feet tall? And some of his species are even taller? Woof. There aren’t any re-colored humans with four arms and a six pack here.

Through the story the main human Cora plays as Ampersand’s interpreter, being the only one who has the means to understand him. That means they are required to be rather... close. The juxtaposition between her human inflections and idea of ethics greatly clashes with Ampersand’s own blunt way of speaking and concept of right or wrong. When you’ve lived so many hundreds of years and have advanced nearly beyond comprehension that’ll do it to ya. How she and the alien get along and what the talk about is something I’ll leave under the cut. All you need to know is I friggin’ loved it. Best thing yet, book 2 comes out this October and is open for preorder!!

NOW, SPOILER TIME:

^ Random page of the book of Cora and Ampersand speaking. ^

Ellis wanted to make this species nearly incomprehensible to human values, and god did she do it, and somehow even managed to do it while still making you love-hate them. Ampersand (and by extension his people) are so clinical and “logical” that they will lie by omission and not say sorry when found out, because if it benefited him why should he? Though we don’t dig into the other aliens’ personalities much, so I’ll focus on Amper.

Ampersand is hundreds and hundreds of years old, living through torture, surviving an alien planet, suffering the feeling of death when Cefo killed himself (and, later, when the 2nd one dies). He is, beneath a cold exterior, damaged and emotional, perhaps at first even attempting to pretend he wasn’t (through cold indifference) until Cora challenged him. He is manipulative, a walking contradiction, and at the end of it all, hiding his vulnerability. As an example, at one part closer to the end he lashes out when Cora is angry at him, and later expresses, to the best of his species abilities, a regret for his anger. So he KNOWS he has emotional flaws, but doesn’t start really admitting them till maybe ehh 75% into the book, roughly.

As we move through the story he goes from being so afraid of Cora that he keeps a ten foot distance and freezes when she looks at him, to not needing to be told twice before curling up beside her on a hospital bed. Even if he didn’t see humans as persons, he clearly did not want the planet to be destroyed by his people, and that does show a level of empathy for humans outside of Cora. Or... it could all be coldly logical to him (humans pose no real threat, thus, it would be illogical to warrant a genocide of the Earth- or is that just what he might tell himself?).

As you read you’ll begin to feel like Cora. The back and forth feeling of wanting to know more, of wanting to apply humanity to Ampersand and his people, but then getting ice water in your face when his actions remind you that he is in no way human. We may never fully understand the depth or shallowness of his empathy, and perhaps the closest thing comes in his immediate response to Cora of I do value you and his carefulness with petting her to comfort her. Though, even then, this statement does not express clear cut emotion. “Value” to Ampersand is not “value” to a human. Is she valued as a thing/asset or as a person? 

Also to make this clear since you came all this way for spoilers. Though I don’t know just how deeply it goes, or how synonymous it is to human romantic relationships, Cora and Ampersand become a thing by the end. The closest they could come to a romantic relationship, at least, with Ampersand bonding to Cora and snuggling up with her on a bed. 

I yap about Ampersand enough (he’s cool but not the only main character!!). Cora has her own traumas and issues outside of Ampersand. I imagine they will be expanded further in the second book, as in the first book her family trauma is mostly directed around she and her aunt. She had feelings and painful memories of her father, but in book 1 her father is a distant person, affecting the course of the story but she’s too far away (and busy) to have the means to confront him. And the rest of her family are in custody till the end, leaving them as a motivation for Cora, though nothing she can deal with immediately due to their distance. So while she has a LOT to go through book one is very alien-focused, with parts dedicated to Cora and her aunt, and her father as a far-off figure who changes the story but is never directly there in front of Cora. However, with the synopsis of book 2 already out, it’s clear her father may become even more of a plot point, with Cora being made to meet Nils’s informant.

Not only do I love this story as a terato fan, but it’s the only book I have devoured in three days. It kept me wanting to know what would happen next because I was so attached to everyone. Ellis is very thorough and this world is huge- a cumulation of a 10 year old story she’s had, only come to fruition in 2020. I CANNOT wait for book two! It comes out THIS OCTOBER and I will absolutely be pre-ording it!!

[centaurianthropology]

A List of Older Fandoms for Quarantine Viewing

I thought it might be fun to put out a list of older fandoms or smaller fandoms that might be of interest to folks here.  As we’re all still stuck with quarantine, perhaps you’re looking for some new/old media?  Perhaps this list could help?

This is halfway between a rec list and a charting of my own fandom history.  For anyone looking for some new fandoms to check out that are various flavors of interesting and a little older, check ‘em out! 

Feel free to add your own!

In no specific order (other than maybe my DVD shelf??)

Patrick O’Brien books/Master and Commander - this was a fairly good-sized fandom back when the movie ‘Master and Commander’ came out.  A must-watch for anyone who likes historical fiction, age of sail, and powerful homoeroticism.

David Drake’s Royal Cinnabar Navy series - did you ever want Master and Commander in space, but Stephen Maturin is a librarian named Adele Mundy who is a sharpshooter and utterly terrifying and wonderful and beloved ace representation?  Fair warning: this series contains grapic descriptions of violence from an author who’s still working through his Vietnam PTSD.  Here be dragons.

Adam Adamant Lives! -  an Edwardian adventurer got frozen in a block of ice by his arch-nemesis The Face, thawed out in 1969, and now fights crime with a young woman sidekick and an actor-turned-butler who spouts limericks.  It is a completely insane show and joyously dumb.  Everyone involved is having a whale of a time.  It’s hard to come by, but so worth watching it for the pure silliness.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer - I can’t believe this has become a fandom some people haven’t heard of, but here we are, far enough out from the massive cultural impact of Buffy that I need to remind folks.  1990s series about a cheerleader-turned-vampire slayer, struggling with both the supernatural and with high school (which is much worse).  

Angel - spinoff of Buffy, and in some ways my preferred series?  It has so many problems, and the writing of seasons 3 and 4 is quite weak, but the characters are strong, the stories are solid, and Alexis Denisof’s Wesley Wyndam-Pryce remains one of my favorite character arcs in television.

Marble Hornets - here’s another fandom that doesn’t feel like it should be old, but it’s now over a decade since its premiere.  One of the early webseries, Marble Hornets is still one of the best.  Well done horror with occasionally iffy amateur acting, easily overcome with a surprising touch for cinematography.  I’m a sucker for amateur film, especially when it’s well done and ambitious.

Babylon 5 - This was the first fandom I posted about on here, and still one of my great loves.  Arcs before arcs on television were a thing.  Huge overarching stories playing out over seasons.  Great political intrigue on a space station.  The grandest, most tragic Shakespearean romance that ever played out between two middle-aged alien diplomats.  

Carnivale - HBO prestige show before they had prestige shows.  Bought the DVDs on the cover art alone, and they were so worth it: “1934.  The Dustbowl.  The last great age of magic.”  Like most HBO shows, every possible content warning does probably apply to this show, though it’s not nearly as extreme as Game of Thrones, so if you could watch that, you can probably watch Carnivale.

Firefly - space western courtesy of Joss Whedon.  Only one series long, but really well done.  Probably Whedon’s best work.

Homicide: Life on the Streets - early 1990s police procedural with a twist: it wanted to be a very accurate, realistic portrayal of a homicide unit, based on a documentary novel.  The characters all feel real, you’re certain they all smell like cigarettes, coffee, and sweat.  Also, can we applaud a show that has a female homicide detective who doesn’t wear makeup, has frizzy red hair, and never wears heels?  Kay Howard is such a fantastic character.  Frank Pembleton and Tim Bayliss and John Munch and Gee are all such wonderful, real characters.  Another great show for prestige-television-before-it-existed.

The Last Detective - British detective series about a detective who gets small, mournful cases ignored by everyone else and solves them mostly through dogged work rather than brilliance.  This show is the most melancholy show I have ever seen, shockingly good in the quietest way possible, and remains one of my favorite detective series ever.

M*A*S*H - have you ever wanted a proper tragicomedy billed as a sitcom?  There’s a reason this show is still considered the greatest sitcom ever made.  Fair warning: the early seasons really haven’t aged well, and a lot of the comedy doesn’t land.  But if you’re willing to stick with it to the later seasons, you’ll find a show that shifts toward one of the greatest tragicomedies ever.  

Sapphire and Steel - 1970s/1980s British horror/sci-fi show about two mysterious beings that appear to resolve science fiction reinterpretations of horror concepts.  Despite a shoestring budget, the writing is phenomenal, and the acting is perfect, particularly the icy intimacy between the two leads, David McCallum and Joanna Lumley.

Sherlock Holmes - before the modern interpretations, there was the 1980s series starring Jeremy Brett.  If you want the single most accurate interpretation of Conan Doyle’s work, with characters who feel and look like they’ve stepped off the page (and the series that singlehandedly rehabilitated the character of Inspector Lestrade), this series is a must-watch.  This has been my go-to comfort viewing for years.

    Also, if you’re a Sherlock Holmes nut, and you’re desperate for more content, and willing to navigate a Cyrillic DVD menu for subtitles, might I suggest the late 70s Russian Sherlock Holmes series?  Vasiliy Livanov’s Holmes is such a different interpretation of the character, and he’s a delight.  And Vitaliy Solomin’s Watson is possibly my favorite Watson ever.  He’s so done with everything.

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine - sort of the forgotten middle child of the Star Trek series, but in many ways it’s one of the most ambitious.  It was a rival/developed at the same time and somewhat by the same team as Babylon 5, so there are some striking similarities (space station, overarching stories, etc), but while B5 manages the political intrigue better, DS9 does a war better.  It’s the darkest of the Star Trek series, investigating the more tarnished edges of the utopia.  The characters are more deeply developed and flawed, and I love them all.  Andrew Robinson’s portrayal of tailor-with-a-mysterious-past Garak is probably the best character Star Trek ever created in any series.

Hope those of you looking for new things to watch and dig into might find something in this list!

[thesilkenlair]

(Casey Here!)

As much D&D as I play, you'd imagine I would eventually get around to illustrating some of their most iconic monsters! Which is to say, the ones that I personally find the most iconic. Which is to say, the ones I memorized when I was reading my dad's monster manual at age nine. Purple worm - Sandworms never go out of style. I've seen a lot of rad designs for this bugger over the editions, but I favor the slightly less reptilian older takes for this particular critter. It's kinda basic, but sometimes that's what you want. It's like a shark or a crocodile: Just flat out unchanged across the ages. Hook horror - I've heard it rumored that Gygax used a small Gigan figure to represent this monster. I can't verify that, but it definitely sounds right. Hook horrors are one of the very first things you meet when you play around in the caves, and they kind of remind me of the Father Deep monsters of the Hork Bajir homeworld that way. Mind flayer - Mind flayers! Basically, take all of your Dracula conventions and dip them in a fresh coat of Lovecraft. There's that old "decadent aristocratic upper caste system who literally eats the poor, but still somehow comes across as less evil than the actual real life 1%" setup that will never stop being relevant. Though personally, I see mind flayers as the first alternative for folks who want to play that monster-who-feels-the-urge-to-eat-their-friends-but-refuses-to-do-it shtick but don't want to deal with vampire baggage. You know, the furry option! ... Slimy? Rubbery? Do we have a word for anthro-cephalopods? I'm only a casual furry. Gelatinous cube - I'm not apologizing for giving this one a slot. Froghemoth - So, back when I participated in my very first long-term campaign, I played a druid. You've met Talia before. Naturally, I was chomping at the bit for the day I finally got to turn her into a froghemoth, and celebrated the day my wish was finally granted and she was allowed to chug human-supremacist-cultists like popcorn. Yeah, okay, the froghemoth is one of the classic vore-monsters. But it's a charming design in its own right. Kind of a freaky Hanna Barbara critter, like you'd see Space Ghost fighting. No matter how many artists draw it, they can never shake that inherent goofiness that third edition tried so hard to purge. I would probably cram them somewhere onto Fronterra if I was sure they were public domain. As is, I'm 99% certain that this is what Visser Three turned into when he ate Elfangor. Tarrasque - D&D's original kaiju! Kind of just takes the name and nothing else when it comes to its mythological origins, but I don't mind. The Tarrasque is that endgame "let's test the players" final boss monster... Or at least it's supposed to be. My DM reskinned it for our final Pathfinder session, and one of the PCs still nearly killed it in a single turn. Also, he let Talia turn into one, so maybe Pathfinder is just bullshit? Regardless, the Tarrasque has one of those simple, iconic designs. I've heard rumors it was based on the concept art for Fallout's deathclaws, and like the Gigan-figure, I can't verify this in any way. With its reptilian features, twin horns, spiny carapace and grabby fingies, it has an undeniable lizardlike quality that I can't help but find charming. Kinda feels like a more refined version of Zilla? Though for an insatiable eating machine, I notice a lot of artists give it very little belly to work with. Come on, this guy eats entire cities! Give him somewhere to put it! Rust monster - An icon of icons, the rust monster! Drawing its origin from a bizarre Chinese "dinosaur" toy, later designs have made it more insectoid in appearance, but never feeling QUITE like anything Earthly. It's the four limbs. Between the four limbs and the tail, it's hard to tell if it's an arthropod mimicking a vertebrate or the other way around. I'm pretty sure this is part of what inspired my ossaderm creatures for Fronterra. Also, Ryla can turn into one in our campaign. I have no shortage of havoc to wreak when the opportunity comes. Behir - Dragons in D&D are kind of... extra. Godlike beings, paragons of whatever personality trait they represent. Whenever there's something uber powerful in D&D, it gets compared to dragons. It makes them kind of unapproachable. Behirs provide all the essentials of a dragon - Serpentine body, scaly skin, horns, sapience, breath weapon, taste for human flesh - wrapped up in a smaller, weirder, IMO cooler package. You know, your Lambton Worms. A lot easier to port in and out of adventures, a lot less of an event when they show up, but still a formidable force in their own right. I like the behir. The behir knows how to taunt me just the right amount. Bulette - Another Chinese "dinosaur" figure monster, the bulette is actually another one I associate with Talia. Whenever we faced a problem that didn't have a glaringly and immediately obvious solution, she would turn into a bulette, whether it was for beating up robots, digging through obstacles, trampling smurfs, navigating labyrinths, distracting slashers with cute dog tricks... it was kind of her signature form. But shenanigans aside, the bulette is just an excellent monster. While the "land shark" shtick may be common, there's a lot more going on with the bulette's design. It's rumored to be a mad wizard's creation, as he combined a snapping turtle with an armadillo and mixed in a helping of demon blood to taste. Personally, I always considered that to be a neat little rumor to flesh out the world, but never assumed it to be true. The bulette just feels too naturalistic for that. Like some kind of protomammal or crocodylomorph, or weird triassic monstrosity. Magic and demons and dragons and so on DO affect the ecosystem. I always figured the bulette was just something that evolved to compete in this new biosphere. Owlbear - This one, on the other hand, I fully believe the "mad wizard was bored" explanation. Another chinasaur critter, the owlbear is frequently made fun of. What makes it scarier than a regular bear? It can't fly, so why have owl parts at all? Why trade fangs for a beak in what is at best a latural move? Well, first of all, fuck you, owls are creepy motherfuckers, and that alone is enough to justify it. But secondly, that's part of its charm. Besides some improved vision, the owl DOESN'T make it more dangerous. What makes the owlbear dangerous is that it's an insane, Frankensteinian monstrosity roaming uncontrolled through the wilderness! It doesn't need weaponry, its sheer temperament is enough to make it a worthy opponent. Sure, the practical threat might not be hugely above that of a bear, but storytelling isn't about numbers. Any asshole can go outside and get eaten by a bear. The owlbear is part of this world. The owlbear is a reminder of what magic can do. Someone somewhere actually made this thing, for whatever reason, and now the world is irrevocably changed because of it. Owlbears go beyond practicality. They bring the lore! Also, bears don't have very good eyesight, so the big owl eyes probably make them better hunters. Flumph - Is that a Japanese-style martian? Do we just have aliens in D&D? Dear lord, I love them! Okay, the flumph has got a sizable hatedom. And that hatedom can eat my ass, because the flumph is precious and perfect just the way it is! Flumphs are designed as a sort of sidekick-type creature. They're not very good fighters, but they bring knowledge and lore to the table. Whether they're aliens from some far off star, seeking your aid to prevent catastrophe, or psionic natives of the Underdark eager to bask in your positivity and hopefully stick it to the tyrants they're forced to share real estate with. My group generally treats them as straight up aliens, benevolent but strange. Course, we're all pretty strange, so we get along just fine. Otyugh - Okay so, the aberration creature type implies that this is something from another world that doesn't belong. And yet otyughs, which are aberrations, are an essential part of this world's ecosystem? Okay, I can buy the idea that an alien organism adapted to our world and is now a key part of it. Fronterra's got a TON of that. It just feels like after a point, the otyugh would be considered a beast? Otyughs are great. Every ecosystem needs a decomposer, and every fantasy story needs at least one dive into the sewers. Otyughs provide both, and are intelligent enough to keep the plot moving if it hits a snag. There's always going to be garbage, refuse, carrion, decay, things that need to be broken down and processed. Carrion crawler - The carrion crawler is pretty similar to the otyugh in that it's technically not considered a beast, and therefor must have its origins elsewhere, but feels so integrated into the ecosystem that it just feels like it belongs. They usually can't talk, so they're not just reskinned otyughs, but I still consider them pretty essential. Otyughs find a singular spot where waste is dumped and shovel it down at their leisure, while carrion crawlers skulk through the tunnels, actively seeking their food. The crawler got one of the most radical redesigns on the transition from second to third edition, but I can't really choose a single favorite. The oldschool tentacle-faced cutworm looks like it could be a real animal, while the googly-eyed Halloween decoration feels like it could be from another world, merely having set up shop here. Could there name apply to two wholly different creatures? If so, then I'm not sure which one mine would be considered. I kinda mashed them together into something that doesn't quite feel like either. But I like it for what it is. Maybe I'll sneak it onto Fronterra. Aboleth - Tentacled, telepathic sea creatures who turn humans into slimy minions, who remember everything their race has ever seen, and who are always plotting something behind the scenes. Yeah, the aboleths really crank up the Lovecraft elements. Actually, between the mind flayers, the flumphs and the aboleths, even the most oldschool D&D covered quite a few essential Lovecraftian bases. The flayers are your corrupt yet still recognizable humanoids who can be considered truly evil, the flumphs are benevolent-yet-bizarre guardians who know more than you, and the aboleths are the truly unknowable, sinister intellects. The fact that they can barely function on land honestly only adds to that, IMO. They're inherently difficult for a party to reach, and they offer some nice underwater adventure seeds. Not enough adventures go underwater. There's this perception that the ocean is bad for storytelling because so many writers lack the creativity to make it work. I wanna run an underwater adventure now. Beholder - Icon of icons! THE D&D monster! The beholder! Paranoid, jumpy, always five steps ahead and twenty steps perpendicular! Beholds are fun in just about every way. Between their wacky, diverse designs, their elaborate lairs, their eccentric personalities, their bizarre powers, you're never gonna run out of fun with beholders. Remorhaz - It's always been a thing that bothered me with environment-based monsters. Why does the ice monster who lives in the cold use ice as a weapon? Aren't most of the things it encounters going to be resistant to the cold? Sure, a cone of cold will still kill a polar bear, but a lot of the monsters in the tundra are outright immune to cold. A while dragon's not going to get much use out of its breath weapon fighting frost worms and frost giants. That's one reason the remorhaz sticks out to be. We have an icy tundra beast whose insides are a scorching furnace, which it can intensify and weaponize as it sees fit. Which also conveniently explains why its design - a sort of cobra-esque centipede - invokes warm-weather creatures, despite its icy environment. It's a nice subversion of the usual tropes, plus it's just a memorable, cool looking critter to begin with. On a smaller note, the remorhaz feels like a good loophole for Ryla's "no cold weather morphs" rule. Turning into something elementally affiliated with ice is no good, but a non-magical monster that survives the cold by superheating its insides? That seems perfectly viable to me!

[rogue-hammer]

ENTRY #2: ELDAR (PART 1)

“I watched the Forging of the Widow Makers, the 12 swords of Kaine, I watched as one was stolen and hidden far away.”

Eldar. The ancient Race, one time masters of the Galaxy and Seers without equal.

ELVES IN SPACE! SPACE….Space….space…

Believe it or not there is quite the history to this race outside of the typical hum drum of being the most powerful psykers, or, dumbasses who gave birth to Slaanesh. The history of the Eldar and their varied kin goes all the way back to Rogue Trader, and their lore has seen many an interesting tale told. The question is, do you have what it takes to make something out of it all?

Will you follow the Path of Asuryani?

Become a Exodite?

Mayhap an Outcast?

Or have you followed the path of Damnation?

#1 Study the history and model scope of the Eldar

As much as I love poking fun at any Knife ear, and their fans, I admit to a love of how otherworldly GW have made the Eldar over the years.

Going all the way back to the RT era, when the eldar where mostly but Corsairs and Enigmatic Xenos who seemed to materialize from the ether and sow discord for some unknowable reason, to the Golden Era of GW where these space elves where given a giant and truly inspiring background of triumph, a fall, loss, and desperate measures taken to keep their now dying race alive in the face of a hostile Galaxy.

For this reason I suggest to anyone interested in Eldar as a faction, to go back in time and visit some old books and codexes, as well as the classical ranges of minis.

Eldar once looked the part of eerie and almost frightening Alien creatures from a time before man crawled forth from his birthworld.

#2 Throw out the meta

First things first. Many of us probably grew up knowing the Eldar in their Post 2nd ed form. From 3rd ed’s chopped down Codex, to the easily abused expansion, and finally culminating in the 4th/5th ed incarnation of what has basically been the Eldar mold in modern times.

Hordes of Aspect warriors, spam grav tanks, spam Wraith-units, Spam Psykers and yes now a days, Spam Wraith Knights.

Or if you lean to the dark side, ummm Spam Raiders. Yeah just, Spam Raiders.

To put it blunt, Eldar meta is probably the most boring of all git-tastic play styles in the game of 40k, challenged perhaps only by Tau.

Throw it out. Read the lore. Apply it.

Eldar don’t have Hordes of ravening Aspect warriors to send in waves at their opponents.

Raiders are cool, if you can afford to have them and risk losing them in a raid. And your not likely to toss your most veteran Kalabite warriors into an attritional grind against Mon’kei gaurdsmen.

Wraith constructs are a nigh unthinkable resource to ever waste, and oh yeah did we mention not every fucking Eldar Force takes an Avatar of Khaine as it requires a heavy cost in order to even summon one of those things?

The Aldaeri have an interesting and sophisticated way of waging war, and they have highly advanced tech and powers in order to over come their foes, even if your actually trying to put some theme into it.

Lets discuss some interesting ways to look at your Eldar, seperating them into the 2 official factions, as well as ways to whip up an Exodite army or Corsair force.

#3 Craftworld Eldar.

Craftworld eldar are the main stay of the Aldaeri race, and the one lots of people tend to flock to when it comes time to game. And why not? Aspect warriors? Wraith Constructs? Tons of psykers and Autarchs? Whats not to like?

So how does one go about making a CW Eldar army worthy of a true hobbiest?

First things first, find a theme that digs deep into the lore. Are you;

-A Craftworld Defense force, using the might of your titanic space fairing world’s militia forces to fight off attackers. Squads of Guardians/Storm Guardians, backed by mobile weapons platforms and War Walkers. Your troops sailing into combat aboard Wave serpents and Viper Attack craft, all under the covering fire of punishing Heavy weapons platforms? Remember that all Eldar serve in the defense of their CW, and guardian and basic military based tech in an Eldar army is still some of the best around ( The best in certain editions).

-A Specialized Craftworld force, highly trained in a certain area of combat? Crack open the old 3rd ed Codex Craftworlds sup. And find some excellent ways to theme an army based off the major worlds, or perhaps mix and match certain styles in order to create your own world, with a unique color scheme, heraldry and history streching back to the fall, or even farther. House rule in the various advantages and limits of the old CW sup. And enjoy playing with the different styles of balance. (Just do your friends a solid, don’t abuse it.)

-A Doomed host heading into the Eye of Terror? Many CW Eldar have made the perilous if not downright suicidal journey into the Eye. Within that hellish realm, the Crone Worlds lay, the ancient now consumed home worlds of the eldar. Within them are many secrets, Spirit stones and other relics the Eldar greatly desire to have returned to them. Is your army such a quest? A brave Warrior Autarch, or Visionary Farseer having gathered those warriors of the Aspect temples to fight through the horrors of Chaos and retrieve something of unimaginable value?

-The Fist of Asuryani mayhap? The biggest and most powerful weapons the Eldar can bring to bear, hammering their opponents into submission by sheer might of their advanced fire power? Fire Dragons and Dark Reapers scorching the earth and slagging enemy armor, while Prism tanks and War Walkers streak and sprint ahead unleashing salvos of lance and Shuriken firepower into the enemy ranks. Batteries of Heavy Platforms annihilating units from a distance all the while the ground infantry providing cover support to your valuable aspect squads.

-Perhaps the Quick Death is all you need. After all what is more fast and fleet than the Eldar? Eldar on fast moving grav vehicles of course! Jetbikes and Vipers, Falcon tanks combined with the Shining Spear Cavalry and swift Swooping Hawk and Shadow Specter Aspect warriors to run circles about your slower more primitive opponents, cutting and blasting them to pieces before they have a chance to react.

-Maybe you watched Predator one too many times and have a thing for Stalking and killing your enemy from the Shadows or from unexpected angles. The hidden strike is a component suited to the crafty Eldar race, able to hit opponents with Striking Scorpions and teleporting Warp Spiders. Speedy hard to hit Harlequins and deep striking Autarchs and Hawks can be used to to tie down valuable enemy units while Rangers pick off targets of value from the safety of range and cover.

However you manage it, always remember that the eldar war machine is a finely crafted tool, with all units having a value within the force, not just the big OP units that so many others enjoy spamming.

Choosing a backdrop for your army is an easy way to find what units to select for thematic purposes, from Militia, to Seer guardians, Maiden World security forces to simple insertion armies meant to retrieve something stolen by lesser races or eliminate a target of future threat seen by the visions of the seer councils or Lost Wraith Engines on a distant barren world, awakened by a roaming warlock and his followers. Any unit in your army can become a core idea for your force’s history and reason for fighting. Thats the beauty of an army whose whole design is one of unique characteristics and fighting styles.

#4 DARK ELDAR

The Dark Kin, The Damned Path, The Drukari.

Dark Eldar are certainly a far cry from their CW kin, yet they have lost none of the potency and ancient power of their race, and indeed are far more arrogant and vicious.

However, different as though they may be, finding a unique concept in the Dark Eldar may come with a bit of a challenge.

In the earliest days of 40k, the Eldar where a unified faction, and in so much where a bit of a melting pot of all of what we see today across their various sub armies. The Dark Eldar seem to have been born out of GW’s need to mirror the High/Dark Elf style of WHF, and so sliced away the more destructive and often times treacherous and debased acts of the RT-2nd ed Eldar and formed a faction that, while having its own unique character is a bit on the smaller and often mashed together side. But there is unpicked fruit in the thorn covered garden of ideas for Dark Eldar. Lets have a look at ways you can theme and structure your own Kabal, Coven or Cult, or an unholy alliance of the three.

-A new Kabal rises: An excellent theme often over looked by most players is the concept of a new and young Kabal, lead by an aspiring Archon, only just starting to take his/her place in the dark city. This lends an interesting way to re-model an army and veer away from the typical spam of Elite warrior units and raider craft and focus more on the unique character of each unit. Basic Warriors making up the core of your force, backed up by the toughened meat shields of Wracks, sent into battle by a Haemonculus that has attached himself to this rising star. Meanwhile your Archon sits secure in his own personal Raider the only one at first in the army, directing the flow of battle as he sends in payed off Street gangs of Hellion riders and Scourges to do the work he himself would not dare put himself at risk for, waiting until the enemy is bruised and bloody before descending down from his craft to feast on the pain, guarded by alien mercenaries kept for ease of their greed and less ambitious minds.

-Mayhap you enjoy the idea of just going full gang? An entire force of wild eyed crazed Reavers, Hellions and Scourges mounting up on wings and craft, screeching across real space in thuggish raids to secure flesh and power to rise about the lower scum of the city streets. The various elements banding together for mutual greater gain before fighting over their spoils giving rise to powerful Leaders that take the street alliance higher and higher into the spires of the Dark City.

-If lowly gangs and young archons don’t suit, then perhaps Highborn power and elite warrior code is more the poison of choice. Few can match the ferocity and skill with a blade that the dark kin possess. An army that worships the blade, made of Incubi, Veteran Wyches, Succubus’ and maybe even a powerful Archon, much a Swordsmen in their own right as any proud member of the Incubi Temple. Holding to a code of seeking out the greatest challenge to sharpen their blades against, engaging enemies head on with raider and Venom craft to quickly close and slaughter their way to infamy and higher praise in the ranks, shunning the pathetic court intrigue and power plays of the  other Kabals and cults, seeking only gain and perfection through bloody handed combat and death. A good alternative to the often typical Wych cult raid.

-Or the More Esoteric route? Haemonculus covens are all well and good, but do even these twisted flesh shapers come close to delving into the darkness that lies within the heart of the dark city? From the depths may rise an even more infernal and mysterious force for you to command. Born of the Beast masters who bend the creatures of the warp to their will, and the dreaded Mandrakes, sinister daemonic dark eldar who creep from the shadows and snatch their victims away. Truly an army lead by a Coven leader, so immersed in the dark arts of arcane science and flesh would be a terrible enemy to all sane life. Unleashing webway portals in the hearts of peaceful worlds, or worse, the middle of crowded hive cities for the vile things of the dark kin to reap bloody carnage on, dragging victims back to the benighted realm for sacrifice and experimentation too horrible to consider.  

-Take to the air perhaps and rule the skies above worlds who fear the dread shadow of your lightening speed craft as it passes over. An army made of Raider, Ravager and Fighter/bomber craft, even it’s troops never setting foot on the ground except to reek carnage in it’s aftermath, once all has been pulverized by shockwaves of horrifying munitions and bombing runs, the enemy position reduced to smoking craters of gore and blinded wreck. Their ears ringing with the echoing screech of your craft’s engines as they sore across the grim skies.

-Or maybe the final and most deadly of all weapons. Fear. Does your army not even dine to soil its hands in the proud defenses of your enemies? Do they instead send forth the most hideous and perverse works of the dark kin to shatter the mind, and break the soul before the body is even touched? Floating Talos and Chronos pain engines, their sanity blasting bodies shrouded by the dark wings of Shrikes and raider craft filled with wracks and beastial creatures ready to be unleashed once the damage is done. Medusae and other strange contraptions born of the Dark Eldar’s crazed intellect striding alongside Archons wielding the most horrifying weapons to inflict the worst possible trauma on a foe.

To quote the 3rd ed. Dark Eldar Book. The Dark Eldar are not nice. Not nice at all.

When considering the theme and characteristic of your army, not unlike your CW Eldar, ask yourself, what is the history of each unit on the table? Then consider what perversity and malign goals have brought them forth. Then, multiply that by something ten times worse. Are even a thousand Imperial souls merely an appetizer for your Archon who has fallen to such depths of need he must draw out even the most simple act of pain infliction to its most perfected measure?

Does your haemonculous make it a private goal to break and torture Astartes? His ambition to see the very limits the super enhanced minds and psychologies that a Space marine have can endure? Do they prefer the sweet meat of psykers, or the flesh of their more noble kin? Nothing, and I mean NOTHING, is bellow a Dark Eldar and their arrogant quest for self sustaining torture and arrogant aggrandizement.

To be continued in PART 2 (Exodites and Corsairs)

[ginnyzero]

Dad Advice, Originality, and Writing

About a year or so after I left college, I went to work for my father at his small parts machine shop “part time.” (That never happened.) I worked on the floor running a mill power, a drill and milling machine that could be programed with a computer (to make your life that much easier and faster.) Every job that came out of the office came with a job sheet and the job was broken down into where the job went on the floor. You were to use this sheet to mark down the day you worked on the job, your initials and how long it took. (This was supposedly to price the job.)

If the part was a part that the shop had done one hundred times before, the side of the sheet had an estimated amount of time that was based on the time that other employees before you had taken to do the job. Now, I was new. I’d never done any of this before. And so I remember asking my dad about those times and saying I knew that I couldn’t be that fast!

He told me: “Worry about what you’re doing. Don’t worry about what other people are doing.”

That advice came in really handy as I worked in the shop. I spent two years on the floor mostly running the mill power and focused on what I was doing and doing it to the best of my ability and not worrying about how fast I was or if I became the best mill power machinist ever. (Now, this did irritate some people for different reasons. Other people didn’t care. All I cared about is if my father, my boss, thought I was doing a good enough job. Period. Then I took over the office and I didn’t give a shit about how long it took them to complete jobs as long as the jobs were completed before they were due! Not an easy task given the way things were ordered.)

Now, I apply that advice to other areas of my life adding it to my lifetime perspective in writing and in general. Worry about what you’re doing. Don’t worry about what other people are doing.

Because, I can’t control other people. I can control me and I can control my reactions. That’s it.

Boundaries.

At this time since I had a job and a steady income I was buying a lot of traditionally published books and trying to find new authors to read. And I kept slamming up against kitchen sink urban fantasy with protags that actually weren’t what they said on the tin and had no shit clue what they were doing with all the archetypes and tropes that come from being a kitchen sink urban fantasy. The few that had original concepts, like Weather Wardens or Death’s Daughter, were grossly lacking in the good plot department. (Just my opinion.)

I, um, got fed up. I mean. I’d been fed up with kitchen sink urban fantasies for a while. At the same time, none of the high fantasy stuff was really catching my interest and the science fiction that wasn’t the “lone soldier fighting a war on an alien world” was really hard to find and as far as I know, still is. (And what I found was very plot focused and dry.) But I still liked werewolves. I still like vampires. I still like space operas. I still love high fantasy with elves and magic and bad fairytales.

After binge watching the first few seasons of the Sons of Anarchy and having watched the Expendables 2, I finally got an idea that had been a tiny spark in my brain from my college days about biker werewolves. But I wanted to be different. I wanted some “originality.” I wanted to have that Post-Apocalyptic Mad Max, Dredd mixed with Minority Report type of feel. But I still wanted it to be urban fantasy without it being “kitchen sink” with every vampire, fae, werewolf and other fantasy race in existence. And my love of Vampires and my love of Werewolves had a fight and a piece of advice from a college professor of “No Vampires” and that tiny spark of an idea of biker werewolves really blossomed into an idea.

Reading all that, it’s still not really original. Werewolves. Mad Max. Sons of Anarchy. The Expendables. Where is the originality in that? (Heathens may not expressly be the best example for this to be honest, but bear with me.)

But who would want to read yet another werewolf story? How is yet another book about werewolves even remotely original? I mean, I just typed it, it’s Expendables and Sons of Anarchy drawing from Dredd and Mad Max and Minority Report and there’s bits of Star Wars Wraith Squadron and Ratchet and Clank and Starship Troopers in there too actually and I mean, that sounds like a tangled mess of inspiration. All of this shit has been done before, who’s going to read that?

I didn’t really think about this when I started compiling ideas and really digging into research about werewolves and biker gangs and planning my post War World 3 setting. Because, I wasn’t worried about that. Other people could be worried about that, but I wasn’t worried about that. I knew I was genre mixing in an out of the box way that wasn’t on bookshelves in that combination even if the concepts themselves, the building blocks weren’t original.

Because, I’d already proved that people would want to read something like that through my own actions! I was the one going “I like kitchen sink urban fantasy,” and picking up the first three books of every series I could find that remotely interested me (and supporting those authors) in hopes of finding a new author to read that was entertaining as the authors I already had on my shelves.

It wasn’t the author’s fault that my tastes weren’t precisely lined up with what they were writing. They had a story they wanted to tell and if the blurbs of their story didn’t actually reflect what was in the pages or if the books had things that I didn’t like. I was free to stop buying them. These books are huge series, some have hit the double digits! People like them. They’re getting sales. Just because it’s not to my taste doesn’t mean they aren’t decent books.

I mean, look at licensed books such as Star Wars, Star Trek, Forgotten Realms and so on. These books are huge parts of the expanded universe franchises of those stories. People buy them. (I bought almost all the old EU of Star Wars.) People collect them. People saw the Star Wars movies and wanted more Star Wars and then bought books and comics and other merchandise for that franchise because they liked that thing. Science Fiction fans are likely to watch Star Trek, Star Wars, Battle Star Galactica, Star Gate, FarScape, Lexx, Firefly, KillJoys, Dark Matter, The 100 and anything they can get their hands on that’s space opera related because they like that sort of thing even if it’s the same type of thing in different trappings. Look at how many series Star Trek has and it’s all the same universe! SeaQuest and SeaQuest DSV was space opera IN THE OCEAN.

Maybe I was being out of the box in Joss Whedon does a Western in Space type of way, but it wasn’t wholly unoriginal.

My third perspective on this came from being in fandom. There is nothing quite being in fandom where fanfiction and fanart are encouraged and there are tons of people with tons of ideas and yet somehow there are 50 Coffeeshop AUs, or 100 Highschool AUs or good lord, the MERMAID AUS, “let’s write this missing section of canon” stories and “let’s get so and so together” stories and “this is what happened after this scene” stories. And lots of them, if not all of them, get views and likes and comments and kudos and so on and so forth. And sure, they have the same premise, but they aren’t all exactly the same. They have different styles. Different POVs, different events. They started out with the same building blocks and came up with different plots and ideas! (Now, whether they were any good is a matter of opinion, just like any sort of book writing.)

You see, people crave certain types of stories. Those are the stories they like. They’re comfy. They’re familiar. They’re old friends. They sit down with a certain type of story they know to an extent what is going to happen and no matter what type of story it is, they’ll more than likely enjoy it because it’s familiar and comfortable.

People don’t like the unfamiliar. They don’t like being uncomfortable. When someone sits down to read they’re sick, bored or lonely. They want to have the warmth of an old friend. They don’t care about originality. They just want to escape. They’re risk adverse.

Originality doesn’t appeal to the risk adverse.

Firefly was risky. Western in space. Cowboys Vs. Aliens is risky for the same reason, a science fiction western. Aliens in the old west! People aren’t always prepared to take that next step out of the box of genre conventions despite the masses and masses of amounts of different types of speculative fiction stories. You start adding things they don’t expect (like Western to Sci Fi) no matter how much Dark Tower they’ve read or Vampire Hunter D, they are likely to back up and go “I’m not ready for this!”

Not that originality is easy to find. I’m sure someone out there wrote the first “IN SPACE” story. Our stories are made from building blocks of old stories, myths, legends, fairy tales, stories we’ve read and the stories that go on around us in the world at the moment. (Truth being stranger than fiction.) Originality is a very difficult beast to come by.

The fourth perspective of this came from Fashion Design classes and Project Runway. If you give ten people the same inspiration, those same ten people are going to come up with ten different things because they’re bringing in their voice, their aesthetic and their experiences and style to the design. I don’t care if you have ten different “hard vs soft” designers. They are all going to “hard vs. soft” in a different way! Sadly, in my classes we never really experimented with this overtly! (One girl and I did have a similar inspiration for a design class once, Thailand. We were very different people and did very different things.)

Project Runway sometimes does this by giving the designers the same types of materials or the exact same brief. And it’s interesting to see how each of them actually run with it and what they turn out in the end for good or bad. (The more limiting the brief the more interesting to see how this plays out actually, often in unconventional challenges, but not always.)

This is the same with writing. Your kitchen sink urban fantasy isn’t going to be Jim Butcher’s or Patricia Briggs’ or Kim Harrison’s or at least another half dozen writers I have forgotten the names of. Your voice, your rules, your world building, the setting, the characters are all going to be a point of difference between your story and their story. The point of difference is your voice. Your writing style and your voice are your brand of writing.

So what if you’re writing another kitchen sink urban fantasy? There are lots of people out there that love kitchen sink urban fantasies. As long as you’re writing the best and most polished kitchen sink urban fantasy you can in your own style and voice, then don’t worry about the other people writing kitchen sink urban fantasies and not being original or that your writing is inferior.

You know what readers see, “MORE KITCHEN SINK URBAN FANTASY. MINE!”

It's the Two Cakes thing:

https://helpfulwritingstuff.tumblr.com/post/175643753023/lbibliophile-salt-of-the-ao3-pervocracy

Look, stealing from one person is plagiarism. (And I do mean word for word, idea for idea here.) Stealing from many people is research. And if you’re compared to someone else and it doesn’t matter for good or for ill, that’s great! That means there is an audience for your writing! So what if they don’t think you’re as good as the other author? Or maybe they think you’re better than that other author? Why does it matter? As long as you’re putting out the best possible work you can put out in your voice. You aren’t that other author! Don’t worry about them. Worry about you! You’ve got to move on to the next book and the next set of characters and the next idea.

You can’t control what readers (including editors) think about you or how they compare you to other authors. You control your reactions. Sure. Go ahead. Get emotional. Let the emotion run its course. Come back and see if you can learn anything from that critique. Or, you can accept that readers are critiquing for other readers and not you. They all have opinions. Everyone has opinions, it doesn’t mean they’re good or even applicable opinions! You have to find people to put around you that you trust know your vision and what you’re trying to convey to an audience and find that editor that pushes you to improve the way you write or the way you pitch. Worry about what you’re doing.

Don’t worry about what the readers are doing outside of reading. You can’t control it.

And honestly, if they don’t like what you’re writing. They have fan fiction.

You, as a writer, don’t exist in a vacuum. You can bar yourself away from social media and society and write the most original concept you can think of writing and submit only to find out that someone else had the same type of concept even though you’ve never met and never read each other’s works. Why? There are a lot of ideas out there floating around. No one owns them. No one owns how they get to be combined. But your concept and their concept will be different in execution. The building blocks may be the same and maybe they built a fairy tale castle and you built a brooding manor house.

This is the universal consciousness of mankind. People all over the world coming up with permutations of the same building blocks over and over again and creating wonderful things that reflect their experiences and share their voice!

And if you let that get to you, that someone out there might have the same idea as you do. Then you’re going to be paralyzed and not write anything at all for fear of “not being original.”

Being original doesn’t matter. Execution matters. Your voice matters. Once you get past that originality is Queen then you can focus on you and your story. Worry about your voice and your execution and creating the best book possible for your audience, the people who want more of your type of comforting stories.

So, as daddy says, “Don’t worry about what others are doing. Worry about what you’re doing.” Because, that’s all you can control, you and your reactions.

As for me, I have my post-apocalyptic urban science fantasy adventure werewolf stories, my broken fairy tales, my sometime in the future kitchen sink urban fantasy bakery adventures, a urban fantasy magical horse game, and a straight out science fantasy space opera adventure thing to write. So many ideas, possibly none of them original all ripped out of building blocks of other things, but you know what, they have my voice and I don’t care. People who like that sort of thing will like those sorts of things.

Happy writing!

[butterflyinthewell]

Here is a giant post of the vocabulary I use when narrating from Godzilla’s perspective.  (Pardon my autistic infodumping...)

[Human perspective shot of Godzilla looming next to a building. We’re looking upward, so all you see is his huge chest, his chin, his stomach, his hips and his hands. He is looking straight ahead, so he would have to look down to see the viewer.]

--- * A lot of what’s written in this is based on my personal headcanons / speculations for / about Godzilla and his godzillasaur species, gleaned from 20+ years of being a Godzilla fan and a few things I read on the Godzilla wiki. *

Godzilla 2014 and KOTM are bringing in brand new Godzilla fans who may want to write fanfiction, so I wrote this out to give other / newer fanfic authors ideas for how to make up vocabulary for narrating Godzilla’s POV. I personally apply this to Heisei era Godzilla, but you can pick and choose things to apply to other versions as well. This is not a how-to, it’s more of a guide map. 

Godzilla can’t exactly narrate in words, so I use specific vocabulary for his narration to “paint” his perspective into a form readers can understand while still keeping it a little bit animalistic or alien. Terms that are capitalized are capitalized for 2 reasons: It’s something he “named” with a descriptor, or it’s knowledge about the world imparted on him by his Father when he was a baby. Things he doesn’t capitalize are casual terms, like we would say “my wife” or “that’s the sun up there in the sky.”

I treat Godzilla as sapient, self-aware and driven by thoughts and emotions as much as instinct. He has a distinct, individual personality. He harbors a deep connection to the Earth since he himself is a force of nature created in unnatural circumstances. At a glance he sees the world more primitively than we do because he has no understanding or need for modern human trappings like cell phones or cities, but dig deeper and his feelings about life are as complex as ours.

He gets a very interesting new perspective of the modern human world because of a nasty man named Goro Kurojima. Let’s just say “pieces of Mecha-King Ghidorah, SHRINK RAY, Godzilla becoming the size of an action figure” and leave it at that. The experience lets Godzilla realize humans put the same emphasis on family / connections that godzillasaurs do, but we kinda suck at showing it. ;)

A small note about the timeline goofiness thanks to Godzilla vs King Ghidorah: I spin it that trying to teleport the godzillasaur into the Bering Sea let him turn into a bigger, angrier Godzilla because of nuclear material that detonated when he ‘landed’ on it, so messing with time changed nothing in history other than his size. The 1984 attack and his battle with Biollante still happened. All Shindo’s submarine did was feed him and kill the anti-nuclear-energy-bacteria he got infected with in Godzilla vs Biollante. 

Another note: I will use godzillasaur to refer to Godzilla’s species in general. In his mind and heart he is still a dinosaur who has lived for a very, very, very long time and his father lived even longer still. He is ancient.

---

--- Stuff related to himself, his family or Shezilla ---

The Old Days = the time of the dinosaurs, which he greatly misses. He knows he can’t return to those days because his appearance will make normal godzillasaurs run away in fear.

The New World = modern times, a place where he feels forever foreign.

The Flash = the bright detonation of the underwater nuclear energy that mutated him.

The Change = the painful process of mutating. It was an extremely traumatic experience, so he gets really pissed off if something flashes bright white light straight in his eyes. Any other color, he doesn’t care, but white is awful and reminds him of the painful Change that came after the Flash. ----Side note: Right after the Change, he swam around the ocean feeding off of natural uranium deposits until they no longer sustained him, which led to him going ashore in ‘84. The rest is history.

The Fireball = the asteroid that led to the extinction of most dinosaurs. 

The Big Boom = the sound the asteroid made.

Long Sleep = hibernation

His Fire = the radioactivity that keeps him alive. When he is tiny and learns the ‘heat’ of his Fire can make humans sick, he tries to minimize his radioactive output when near people he likes. There is no way to make it safer when he is full size, but he will still try.

Feeding his Fire = when he’s absorbing radiation.

His Fire burning low / Fire Hunger = his body’s “low radiation warning” that signals he needs to go absorb more to maintain his internal fission. It feels like a mix of hunger and nausea and he feels his body getting weaker / stiffer when he needs to feed.

His Flame = his radioactive breath beam.

The Surge = his nuclear pulse. It’s a painful move for him, so he doesn’t like to do it very often.

The Scent = he has nerve fibers in the roof of his mouth that behave like a biological Geiger counter. To him it’s a scent that tingles, and the stronger the tingle the stronger the radioactivity. It’s directional, he will catch a whiff of Sustenance and track it by pointing his nose at the source. A studious observer will see him open his mouth slightly like cats do when he’s trying to pin down the exact location of a radioactive snack. It also helps him keep track of how Shezilla is doing. ----Side note: Godzilla has a very acute sense of smell, and when he’s tiny he uses smell along with sight and hearing to tell individual humans apart. He gets concerned when the lady humans he’s in contact with smell like blood because the concept of a period is beyond him, so he thinks they’re injured. It’s...kinda cute.

Sustenance = Radioactive anything he can absorb radiation from. Sometimes he swallows radioactive materials and sometimes he only needs to touch or be near them. He discovers he loves the taste of iodine-131 while he’s tiny and will slurp that up from a eye dropper like it’s candy.

Invisible light / Invisible colors = light from the ultraviolet spectrum, he’s a tetrachromat. He sees 'down’ into all the colors we can and ‘up’ into the ultraviolet spectrum. So he will see a rainbow the same way we do, but with more colors past violet. If you point a black light at him, the pits and grooves in his hide will fluoresce blue and purple. He sees these without the help of a black light. These colors are more concentrated on his hands, face, neck, chest, the edges of where his muscles bulge and the base of his dorsal spines to draw attention to these areas. Shezilla’s are in the same spots and glow pink and green. It’s these invisible colors that make them so attractive to each other, because it’s pretty.

Dark Light = x-rays and gamma rays, he perceives their effects on the environment (a blurry glow around the source) the way humans perceive certain colors as glowing under a black light.

Shining his Light = the act of lighting up his dorsal plates to impress Shezilla or alert her of his position in pitch darkness. If Shezilla does it, she’s showing him her Light.

His Thunder = the whoosh of his holosystolic heart murmur, which is due to a ventricular-septal defect. He can always hear this although it’s louder to him in quiet places or while he’s underwater.

His Lightning = the internal kick he feels from his biological nuclear reactor shocking his heart whenever its rhythm goes awry.

His Palsy / the Palsy = the spasms, limited range of motion and difficulty moving he experiences due to brain damage caused by his heart defect. His Palsy is being difficult when it hurts to move, when controlling a movement is hard or he uses a lot of effort to initiate movements, and it’s the reason he has a slow, lumbering gait. Its visible effects get more pronounced when he’s starving for radiation.

The Pangs = the chest pains he gets when his heart races towards fibrillation. This happens because the mutation caused his heart’s conduction system to form too many nerve branches around the hole between his ventricles. Sometimes they misfire, throwing chaos into his normally nice, rhythmic heartbeat. It tends to happen more when his heart beats fast. Fast for him is 50bpm or more. His resting heart rate is around 13 - 16bpm when he’s awake, drops to 10bpm when he’s in deep delta wave sleep and can go as low as 5bpm when he’s in deep hibernation. He gets up to 85bpm when the v-tach kicks in and that causes the Pangs. ----Side note: This is the sticking point of why the shrink ray is actually hurting Godzilla. When he’s tiny, his resting heart rate is close to 50bpm and jumps to 80 - 90bpm when he gets stressed, and can hit 120bpm when the v-tach kicks in and leads to fibrillation. It’s literally killing him because being smaller means his body isn’t at the critical mass it needs to be at to sustain his biological nuclear fission, which allows him to heal ridiculously fast and stay so unbelievably physically strong. His internal reactor isn’t a bottomless pit of energy, it can’t continue to zap him indefinitely.

Deep Sleep = the occasions when his heart fibrillates long enough that he loses consciousness. This was induced by the cadmium in 1984, which also stopped the internal shocks from happening, and he might have stayed down for good if that nuke didn’t go off in the sky and re-energize him.

Long Memory = his hyperthymestic memory, which is unusual even for his species; he is always journeying into his Long Memory and comparing today to The Old Days. 

His mate / beloved mate / Gift from the Wishing Star = Shezilla, who appeared to him one day out of seemingly nowhere. She is the most beautiful godzillasaur he has ever seen.

Wasting Sickness = cancer / tumors, called such because the sick person gets very thin and weak. He can smell the disease.

Mother = his saurian mother. She was blind and died of the Wasting Sickness when he was still a hatchling. In human terms, she had a brain tumor that caused terrible pain, caused her to have seizures and was in the process of destroying her optic nerves when she succumbed. It was his first exposure to death, but he was too Young to be traumatized by it like Father was.

Father = the first Godzilla who appeared in 1954 and was killed by the Oxygen Destroyer. He was at sea when the nuke mutated him, which woke him up into a state of disorientation and panic. He wandered across Odo island and Japan because he was in pain, scared and desperately looking for his son. Sadly, the little humans didn’t understand him when he popped his head over a hill and asked them if they saw his son. Instead, they ran away. He got angry and smashed through their strange forest in attempt to make them listen, and in response they killed him.  ----Side note: This Godzilla was the father of the ‘current’ Godzilla. His rampage across Japan is a direct result of the Futurians’ meddling because they caused him to search for his missing son instead of finding him where Shindo left him.

Metal One = MechaGodzilla

Little One = Baby Godzilla / Little Godzilla / Godzilla Jr. ----Side note: This godzillasaur is not Godzilla’s biological offspring, his real parents are long gone.

Pod = family

Marking = he has scent glands in the folds between his fingers that leave his scent behind when he scrapes his claws on something to mark an area as his. Part of why he destroys some of the same landmarks is they rebuild, which removes the scent, so he puts his scent back. ----Side note: A kaijuologist figured this out and notes that Godzilla is less likely to veer off his path and totally destroy a building that’s been sprayed with his scent after reconstruction, but it’s expensive to replicate the scent and most builders don’t apply it after rebuilding.

Patrolling = traveling old migration routes, which he uses the sun, stars and Earth’s magnetic fields to navigate through. Sometimes this takes him through cities, but most of the time he traverses rural areas or areas without any human population.

--- Beliefs ---

Spirit = soul / life force.

The Stars = the afterlife, eternity, Heaven, etc. He believes the stars in the sky are his ancestors’ Spirits, and the Milky Way is a giant forest everyone journeys to after they die.

The Wishing Star / Morning Star / Evening Star = Venus, whenever it’s up before dawn or after sunset. He reveres it the way people of faith revere their deity. He looked at it with longing any time he saw it in the sky, and believes doing so convinced it to give him Shezilla as a gift. Hence her being a Gift from the Wishing Star.

Evil Moon = a red, fully eclipsed moon. It is the antithesis of the Wishing Star. His Mother died during a lunar eclipse and the Fireball happened the day after one, so he associates lunar eclipses with bad things happening.

--- Nature stuff ---

Fire Mountain = volcano

Fire Mountain Smoke = ash or pyroclastic flow

Land Blood = magma and lava

Land Scab = lava that has cooled enough to stop glowing.

Land Heart = magma chambers deep under Earth’s crust

Land Song = the ultra low frequency vibrations of moving tectonic plates. He can hear ultra low and ultra high frequencies even beyond typical animals, so he hears distant earthquakes as music! (But they aren’t so nice when they happen underneath him, then it’s just shaking and noise.) He hears lava moving and knows a volcano is going to erupt long before it actually does. His hearing is magnified further underwater. He hears all the whale songs and dolphin clicks and any other noise that happens underwater, so when he dives he thinks the whole world sings to his heartbeat.

Land Scream = the ultra high and low frequency squeals that precede earthquakes under his current location. This hurts his ears, and instinct prompts him to try to leave the immediate area before the shaking starts.

Water Wind = tsunami, as experienced while underwater when it goes by. A big one can sweep him off course if he’s trying to swim through it. 

Flood Surge = tsunami, as experienced while on land or in shallow water. He can wade through it without a problem if the water is shallow enough to walk in. This can also refer to storm surge in the event of a hurricane making landfall.

Ancient Caves = prehistoric caves that are miles under the Earth’s crust. They are the closest thing he has to the world he remembers. Human eyes have never and will never see these enormous caverns. Sometimes he goes there and scrapes up precious stones (diamonds, rubies, emeralds, sapphires, quartz, etc.) to give to Shezilla as gifts because she likes the pretty colors.

Rain Smell / Thunder Smell = the scent in the air when conditions are favorable for rainy / stormy weather. In other words, petrichor.

Big Rains = monsoons

Sea Storms = hurricanes

Mating of Sea and Sky / Mating of Land and Sky = waterspouts / tornadoes, described as such because their formation looks similar to the mating process between godzillasaurs.

Crackle = the tingly feeling from his body emitting a streamer during a thunderstorm. If it finds a step leader, he gets struck by lightning. Lightning strikes are hot and noisy, but don’t cause anything more than some burns. A strike to the face can give him flashbacks of the Flash and anger him into destroying whatever is in his path at that very moment. 

Falling Cold = snow

Cold Land = polar ice caps and glaciers

Slippery Cold Land = ice

Warm Season / Hot Season / Cool Season / Cold Season = Spring, summer, fall, winter.

Long Cold Season = ice age

Draw = magnetic fields, which he is sensitive to and uses to navigate in conjunction with the position of the sun or stars. As you can imagine, anything that emits magnetic pulses or unnatural magnetic fields will disorient him and he’ll go find out what’s ‘wrong’. This, along with bird call recordings, was used to lure him up Mt. Mihara in ‘84.

Draw Up = north

Draw Down = south

Horizons = east if he’s not following the sun, west if he is following the sun.

--- Human stuff ---

Bugs, zappers and stingers = the aircraft, land vehicles and watercraft that shoot at him. Solid projectiles are stingers. The maser tanks are the zappers.

Silver forests / strange forests / glowing forests = cities, they’re called glowing at night because of the lights.

Shiny trees / strange trees / glowing trees = skyscrapers, they’re called glowing at night because of the lights.

Boxes = buildings that are squarer in shape or not tall like skyscrapers.

Tiny boxes = buildings that aren’t tall, like you see in suburban areas.

Caves / Caverns = the insides of human dwellings.

Weird rocks = furniture

Shiny rocks = tiles

Scented sand = cat litter, he doesn’t mind the strange smell. He “goes” in it when he’s tiny and buries the results like cats do because he still has the instinct to not alert predators. The cat litter is the clumping sort that blocks some of the radiation and makes it safer to clean up after him. ----------Side note: Anything from inside Godzilla’s body is dangerously radioactive when he’s full size, but less so when he’s small. You’ll get radiation sickness if you try to pet full size Godzilla while wearing anything less than a HAZMAT suit, but he can be picked up and handled safely in someone’s bare when he’s tiny. Still, people wear gloves to handle him as a precaution.

Not-dirty dirt = carpets / rugs

Mud that isn’t sticky / weird mud = bedspreads

Artificial suns = lights

Colorful Light Box / Image Box = TV sets and computer monitors.

Talking box / howling box = phones

Transparent box = the aquarium he’s kept in while tiny.

Colored vines = cords, wires, cables or ropes.

Metal vines = chains, both for jewelry and holding stuff.

Artificial claws = eating utensils, like silverware and chopsticks.

Their kill = the food humans eat. Most of it looks and smells totally unappetizing, but he expects at least a bite if they’re having meat or fish. He finds it confusing that humans can walk around a corner and reappear with food without any signs of a hunt.

Weird worms = noodles

Hot mud = coffee, it smells and tastes nasty to him. He will literally gag from the smell if it’s really strong.

Outer skins / outer shells = clothes / HAZMAT suits

Molting = changing clothes, he thinks humans molt way too often.

Eye covers = goggles

Eye frames = glasses, both Kenpachiro and Goro wear them although their choice of frames are different. (Goro’s are plastic fully rimmed black rectangular frames, Kenpachiro’s are thin titanium semi-rimmed wayfarer frames.) 

Marking sticks = pens or pencils

Marking shapes = written words (in Japanese), he recognizes they have significance to the humans by how they create and react to them, but doesn’t understand the connection between writing and language.

--- Communication ---

Old Tongue = in essence, godzillasaur “language”. He uses purposeful vocalizations, facial expressions and body movements to “talk” to the humans when he’s tiny because he sees the Kenpachiro’s group as his Pod. A whole ‘sentence’ may be expressed simultaneously. If I were to translate Godzilla’s ‘language’ in a movie, it would be as subtitles. Much of his behavior is communication. ----Side note: Humans unknowingly speak Old Tongue a lot via their body language, facial expressions and tones of voice, but he gets lost with speech and the fact that humans react to each others’ vocalizations more than their gestures. That said, he uses pattern recognition to grasp the meaning of a few individual words, like responding to the specific syllables humans attribute to him and looking at who says his name, and the word stop. He picks up on the hand gestures used to train him in the lab, too. ----Extra note: A quick and dirty bit of Old Tongue-- if Godzilla tilts his snout down and looks upward at you, he’s signaling that he doesn’t trust you by getting his snout out of his visual field to watch you more closely. If he throws his head back when he roars, he’s angry! 

Mind Song = telepathic communication. Godzilla communicates with Miki Saegusa through memories, emotions and sensory information because he knows when she’s touching his mind. He's able to decide whether to welcome her in or kick her out and block her off, but 99% of the time he welcomes her in.

Mouth sounds / jabbering noises / chattering = human speech... he knows it is a form of elaborate vocal communication. He finds it annoying, overly complex and confusing.

--- The naughty stuff ---

Kiss = the act of touching or nuzzling noses. A nose to nose touch is like a little peck, while rubbing their noses together is more intimate.

Impressing = the mating display behavior. He circles her, shows off his sharp teeth, shows off his dorsal spines and flexes a bit to show off his big, strong muscles. Then he brings her Sustenance or food. It’s very much the godzillasaur equivalent of a pick up line followed by a romantic dinner. If she rejects his offerings, she’s rejecting him. But if she flicks her tail to the side and rubs her head against his neck after he does all that? Ooh, baby, he’s gonna get lucky!

In Season = fertility, they both emit pheromones that stink like garbage to humans, but it’s perfume to them! Shezilla goes into season 4 times a year and it lasts a week. Godzilla goes into season once a year for a day without Shezilla present, but her going into season triggers his hormones to shift too and he’ll stay in season until she goes out of it. They get really freakin’ horny and twitchy when in each others’ presence. When apart, Godzilla tends to be a bit more aggressive because sexual frustration is a thing, and Shezilla hunts and eats more traditional fare (sharks / whales) to store extra nutrients in case she conceives and lays an egg. Also, you can’t tell by looking at Shezilla when she’s in season, but Godzilla’s dorsal spines get a little bit longer and his muscles bulk up. ----Side note: The reason Godzilla changes outwardly and Shezilla doesn’t is it’s the guy’s job to impress the girl. Their chances of actually conceiving are small because of the radiation in their cells and mutated DNA. Godzilla’s sperm cells are so hyperactive and fast-moving that kaijuologists can’t get an accurate count, and the state of Shezilla’s egg cells are unknown. The only reason kaijuologists got a sperm sample at all is because gravity is a thing and the excess dripped out as soon as Shezilla stood up again after Godzilla toppled her onto a building to do the deed for the first time. (They’re animals, they will do it anywhere if the mood strikes!)

Being One / Making Life = mating. They mate via cloacal kiss, but they do it in something similar to the human missionary position because that’s the best way to line their vents up. Shezilla’s dorsal spines are smaller because she is the one who lays on her back and helps her big, klutzy boyfriend get into position on top of her using her teeth and claws. It doesn’t hurt him at all, nature made the exact spots she bites and grips into erogenous zones that encourage him to keep going. His feet go under her thighs and flank her tail, which are erogenous zones for her. He lines his vent up with hers by feel, everts the muscular inner walls of his cloaca into her vent and her muscles grab on to achieve a proper seal. Mating for them isn’t a ’touch cloacas and done’ deal, they stay in position for several minutes. There’s no humping action either, it’s all driven by internal muscle contractions. ----Side note: In my headcanon Godzilla fucks without a dick, get over it.

Touching Spirits / Union = the sensation humans know as an orgasm. Their bodies relax instead of tense up when they feel it happen because the endorphin flood puts them into an altered state of consciousness, and it keeps them from popping apart prematurely. The most movement they’ll do is a lot of tail twitching. For Godzilla, the sensation triggers the muscle contractions for release, and for Shezilla it creates suction that moves the sperm where it’s supposed to go to fertilize an egg cell. They thrash around or groom each other afterward because they feel a tiny bit high as their endorphin rush comes to an end. -----Side note: She comes when he does because his triggers hers, so they always experience it together.

One = the godzillasaur equivalent to marriage, which is consummated the first time a pair mates.

Vent = the cloaca. It closes tight and can’t be seen when not in use for mating or expelling waste. It’s located right in front of where their tails join their body. Godzillasaurs stand upright, so that is why they mate facing each other.

Life Material = the goo inside unhatched eggs, though it can also refer to semen.

--- Specific people ---

(Canon characters)

The Deserter = Yasukai Shindo, who saluted him on Lagos Island and left him while he was wounded. He sees Shindo as the one who abandoned him to the pain of the mutation process and it’s why he looked into Shindo’s eyes through the window before he killed him with the same bright light that made him hurt. He wanted Shindo to know that he remembered and hated him. ----Side note: Shindo never realized what Godzilla was thinking when they looked at each other through the high rise window. He accepted his fate as divine retribution because he felt responsible for 'creating’ a bigger, meaner Godzilla.

The Mind Singer = Miki Saegusa, the psychic woman who confuses and intrigues him greatly. He remembers seeing her as an adult before he got mutated, but later he saw her as a child inside the train car he picked up and threw aside in ‘84. He knows humans grow bigger and their hair turns white or falls out when they get old, but from his perspective Miki is aging out of order. Time travel is a concept beyond him, so he will never understand that she traveled to the past with the Futurians.  -------Side note: Miki doesn’t harbor ill will towards Godzilla even though her entire family was with her and died when he dropped the train car. She sensed no malice or cruelty in him, he was an animal doing what animals do, and holding a grudge would be like being angry with an earthquake or a tornado. As time goes on and she comes in contact with Godzilla more often, she comes to realize he is intelligent in his own way and experiences a broad range of emotions just like humans. This gives her a deep compassion towards him; he is lonely in his difference, same as her.

(OCs)

The Odd One = Kenpachiro Satsuma, an (adult diagnosed!) autistic kaijuologist who is lanky, geeky and tends to look a bit disheveled most of the time. He is a widow who deeply misses Momoko, his deceased wife. This is the guy who studies Godzilla very closely (special interest) because he truly wants to understand how he lives, communicates and experiences the world. He believes Godzilla is capable of more emotion than just anger and that humans can learn to coexist peacefully with him. Kenpachiro is the man who cloned Shezilla, so he understands the grief Godzilla is suffering through after her death and he regrets causing him that pain.  ----Side note: Kenpachiro has a teenage son named Akira. He tries to be a good father to the kid, but doesn’t know how to connect with him. As a result, Akira is sometimes belligerent and misbehaves in attempt to get his father’s attention. Godzilla sees the rift between them and will try to bridge it because he misses his own father.

The Cruel One = Goro Kurojima. A buff, broad-shouldered, intimidating guy with salt-and-pepper hair and a bushy mustache. This guy is Kenpachiro’s rival. He is an abusive sadist who wants to make Godzilla suffer until he dies as payback for the loss of his family in 1954. He doesn’t differentiate the ‘current’ Godzilla from the 1954 monster even though they aren’t the same creature. He attributes only malice to Godzilla’s behavior and does not believe Godzilla is capable of anything but hatred. He has untreated PTSD. Godzilla can sense the hatred this man has for him and he doesn’t like it. -----Side note: Having PTSD is not what makes Goro an abusive, sadistic villain. His choices to hurt those around him for his own personal gain are what make him a villain. He was just a kid coming home from school when the first Godzilla reduced his house and mother to ash right in front of him and stepped on the fiery rubble. He saw his mother’s skin melt. It haunts him. The PTSD actually humanizes him and explains where his pain comes from without excusing his behavior. 

The Gentle One / Mama = Reiko Fukamori, a veterinarian / kaijuologist who has feelings for Kenpachiro. She is a very plain, unassuming woman who doesn’t realize the full extent of Goro’s nastiness until he gets Godzilla into his clutches, so she is the one who sets things in motion by sneaking Godzilla away from the lab and into Kenpachiro’s hands. Her gentleness reminds Godzilla of his saurian mother. She talks to him a lot, and he is able to tell by her tone that she means him no harm.   ------Side note: Reiko’s veterinary experience lets her figure out Godzilla’s high muscle tone is neurological and that his heart defect is a dangerous problem for him while he’s tiny. She knocks Kenpachiro’s socks off with her suggested solution to keep him alive until the shrink ray begins to wear off. She is the one who introduces Godzilla to iodine-131, which she gives via an eye dropper while training him to follow simple voice commands / gestures so he’s easier to work with. She is the only person Godzilla chirps at. Their relationship becomes very similar to Baby and Asuza from Godzilla vs MechaGodzilla II.

--- Example narration ---

--- Akira’s lava lamp causes tiny!Godzilla to have a flashback of his youth. Kenpachiro has a tooth from the original ‘54 Godzilla that he uses as a shelf. It’s mentioned, so I figured I should give context. ---

Reflections of the magical red globules flickered across Godzilla's eyes. It took him far back to The Old Days before the Fireball. A time when the sky was red and trees touched the clouds. Godzilla was very young and tiny with ribs that stood out on his flanks.

A Big Tooth with its short arms and bad breath lunged at him. He stared at its slavering teeth, unafraid. Suddenly, a nearly black shape streaked into view. Father caught him by the scruff of his neck and sprinted away from the danger. Young Godzilla relaxed against the reassuring touch. Father's hot breath tickled the back of his neck as he ran. Oblivious to the Big Tooth snapping at Father's heels, young Godzilla shrieked in delight. Father ran so fast! He watched the brown and green streaks of trees fly by. 

Then Father ducked into the underbrush. It was muddy and cold, but Father swam through it like water. The Big Tooth would not walk out on this mud. Defeated, it crashed back into the jungle to find more suitable prey. Father slowly wriggled free on the other side of the mud. Young Godzilla thought the squishing sound it made was funny, but Father put him down and beckoned for him to follow. So young Godzilla stumbled behind his father, nipping at his ankles. He followed him up a grassy hill overlooking mountains. He was so tired when he got to the top that he collapsed, panting. 

The smell in this area was horrible and glowing red rivers boiled in the valley below. Father told him the glowing red stuff was Land Blood that came from the Land Hearts inside Fire Mountains.

Father bent to lap the mud off his hands and arms. Young Godzilla purred and squirmed as the big sandpaper tongue scraped the mud off his hide. Then Father beckoned him away, for it was time to hunt.

Father took him back to the Fire Mountain at night. They stood together and watched the giant sprays of glowing Land Blood shoot towards the stars. It was nothing more than glowing red rain! He ran forward and tried to catch some on his tongue. Father roared at him to come back. Land Blood was dangerous and not a toy! It had the power to both create and destroy.

Many seasons later, when Godzilla met his Gift from the Wishing Star, he laid over her to Make Life, and at the moment of Union his body erupted like a Fire Mountain. Afterward, the fierceness in her eyes and the gentleness of her Kiss made him forget The New World he found so unfamiliar. They were One, now and forever.

Reality crystallized. He blinked and refocused his eyes. That was not Land Blood shooting up; that was red slime inside a human contraption. The tooth beside him was not the strong jaws of Father carrying him to safety. He took a step back and saw his own reflection staring at him instead of his mate’s beautiful face. 

He was little again...but he would never be like he was before the Flash. 

The humans who lived in this giant cave were the closest thing he had to a Pod. And by the look of it the Odd One did not pay close attention to his young. He was ignorant to the younger one’s needs for attention. This ignorance would soon drive them apart.

Godzilla howled past the bitterness in his throat. He turned away from his reflection. Brokenness happened everywhere he went, and it would never stop.

--- One last note ---

Godzilla makes eye contact and reads emotions through eyes much like neurotypical humans do. Eye contact won’t provoke him like it does most animals unless a hostile move follows. He can read the emotions in a human’s eyes if he gets close enough to see them, and humans who survive eye contact with him swear he stared into their soul. Because he does.

[Yasukai Shindo looks out the window of his high rise office at Godzilla, who is right outside looking in. They are looking into each others’ eyes, though Godzilla’s are in shadow. Godzilla looks into Shindo’s eyes as he kills him with his radioactive breath. Shindo opens his arms and accepts his fate.]

[noddytheornithopod]

Crash Team Racing: Nitro-Fueled skin ideas

Pretty much what it says. I might as well make a post for potential DLC skins Beenox could choose to add. If a character isn’t listed, it just means I haven’t got ideas for them. This is more just an open brainstorm too to list my ideas, lol.

To start, @LuchosFactory on twitter drew some awesome concept ideas so I’ll refer to them sometimes.

Crash Bandicoot:

As shown in the links, there’s Carbon Crash, Titans/Mind over Mutant era Crash, and biker Crash from Warped.

Special mention to the Dash Dingo one because that would be pretty fun

You have a whole host of CTTR skins if you really want ideas. This Reddit post illustrates this and other ideas on how Crash has been seen like Jetpack Crash and Crash from those promo images. Of the CTTR skins, the Skeleton Crash and Evil Crash would probably be the best (of course, that’s if you don’t make Evil Crash his own character one day).

Maybe a wombat colour scheme because, well, Willy the Wombat.

They love robot skins so maybe robo-Crash? :v

Coco Bandicoot:

I love all of the ideas in the concept from twitter: her biker look from the Warped cover, her Titans and Mind over Mutant looks, her N Tranced look and even Evil Coco (based on the idea from Twinsanity, again assuming she can’t be her own character).

Her Nitro Kart and Twinsanity design could be a kind of intermediary between her classic and Titans look.

If you really want to dig deep, you could use her Crash Boom Bang look. :P It actually looks similar to old Zembillas concept art, funnily enough.

If Crash gets a Warped pilot skin, Coco should too.

Maybe a hacker Coco, perhaps even a little Matrix inspired since she was gonna be like that in one Twinsanity concept.

Dr Neo Cortex:

From the link above, Sheriff Cortex is the most compelling concept to me.

Maybe some of his Warped looks we see in the past, like a Roman Cortex (the former even has an N Sane model), Pirate Cortex or Pharaoh Cortex.

IDK why but I like the idea of a formal Cortex, even if it’s just a simple suit or tux, lol.

I could also see him in a safari getup for some reason, lol.

Maybe something inspired by Victor Frankenstein given what I suggest for N. Gin and N. Brio later.

With all this talk about how he came from a circus family... clown Cortex?

IDK why but I can also imagine a goofy disco cortex. :P

Cortex as a military general like Tiny? IDK why but I can see lots working for him lol.

Dr N. Gin:

Again, a lot of great concept ideas drawn above, like Radical Entertainment era N. Gin (seriously I want that Gothic look), the CNK look with the red eye, the gas station look and even the idea of an inverted N. Gin is fun.

Twinsanity N. Gin with the yellowy skin would be cool too, though I guess we have green N. Gin lol.

Robot N. Gin if you want to go further.

Frankenstein’s monster or maybe Igor N. Gin?

I could see N. Gin as a pirate.

Steampunk N. Gin? N. Tropy already has that kind of aesthetic so why not, his rocket could be a steam chimney lol.

Tiny Tiger:

His gladiator appearance from Warped.

Look, I admit I’m not a fan of whatever Tiny was in Crash of the Titans (why is he a literal tiger???), but maybe he could have that green outfit he wore, maybe even with the Bengal tiger stripes.

Dingodile:

You have different coloured pants with his Wrath of Cortex, XS and Twinsanity looks.

Since he’s the “Australian” character even among all the Australian animals, maybe give him a khaki shirt or something, maybe even with a hat if you want, he can be the Dingodile hunter (there’s even Zembillas artwork of him in a shirt or overalls). :P

Ripper Roo:

We DO have gentleman Ripper Roo, but why not go further and give us a Dr Roo look from Crash 2?

Following that, you could also give him a skin with the long crazy hair.

Pinstripe Potoroo:

His Twinsanity suit would be pretty cool for something darker. His purple suit is close I guess, but still.

Maybe a version with a longcoat could work like this old design?

Dr Nefarious Tropy:

His white skin is actually not too dissimilar to his Twinsanity one, though if it can be differentiated then go there.

I’m sure you could come up with all sorts of time travel themed skins for him if you tried, maybe even stuff tied to different eras.

If Cortex and N. Gin can be robots then why not N. Tropy?

Fake Crash:

He has the green pants from the Vicarious Visions games I guess, lol.

Nitros Oxide:

Give him a fancy version of his usual outfit with a top hat like his CNK podium animatiton.

Some of his concept art is interesting, specifically the ones where he has a mask on. Maybe it’s like a space or explorer suit?

Look if he’s an alien, why not have a xenomorph themed skin? :P This is random but lol.

Penta Penguin:

How about look to actual penguins for ideas like Polar with bears and close relatives and Pura with cats? The ninja skin already looks a bit like a rockhopper.

Crunch Bandicoot:

Obviously you have his Mr T parody skin from Tag Team Racing.

Some sort of military outfit maybe could work?

His N Tranced design.

A few of his elemental designs could translate, most likely being the fire/lava Crunch.

Something inspired by his Titans and Mind over Mutant designs, specifically with the scars and more cyborg arm.

Zam:

Not much inspiration here, but they seem to like giving him dog motifs so that’s something.

Then again, maybe Zam would work better with a xenomorph inspired skin.

Real Velo:

Of course, hopefully we get Emperor Velo XXVII as a racer one day, but if not... skin based on it?

These alien characters can come in many colours so there’s something (same can apply to Zem). lol. Give me a purple Velo if you want to tack on a skin so I can be reminded of another purple Steve Blum voiced character (okay Blum doesn’t voice him in Nitro Fueled but whatever Garazeb Orrelios FTW).

N. Trance:

Some concepts here could be used. That weird black suit could be a form I guess.

Cracked egg. The link shows a Twinsanity idea where Evil Crash would eat from his head like an actual egg, so you could have the bandage barely covering a blatant crack, lol, or even just cracks by themselves without that.

Krunk:

Lots of potential colourful ornaments and primate inspirations.

Nash:

They’re taking fish inspirations, so they could look there.

Geary:

A black Geary? Or maybe even just a Silver Geary? Honestly any metal like bronze, copper, platinum, etc could work.

Tawna:

No. I know what some of you are probably thinking, but no.

Baby T:

Just give me a skin with feathers. Do whatever colours you like for his variants, just give me at least one with feathers, preferably something like a down or emu feathers.

Spyro:

You have all his different Reignited skins, just mine them. Even sunglasses one. :P

(From now we’re in purely speculative territory) Komodo Moe:

Obviously outfits that would complement Komodo Joe.

Dr Nitrus Brio:

You have his weird grey skinned version from Twinsanity, I guess.

His Mind over Mutant outfit could be different enough to warrant a skin?

Green monster N. Brio, that being if he doesn’t become his own character like baby Crash and Coco (honestly with those at least Cortex and N. Tropy should get baby versions lol).

Since the MCU is all the rage, maybe a Professor Hulk inspired skin in between his normal look and his green monster look.

Like N. Gin a Frankenstein’s monster N. Brio would be cool, or even an Igor look. Or maybe he could have a Frankenstein look like I suggested with Cortex?

Nina Cortex:

Obviously you have her Tag Team Racing skin (if Von Clutch and Pasadena come same applies to them I guess).

Besides her original appearance you could have her Titans one, which is different enough.

You also have the version for her that would’ve been developed for CNK if she made it in.

Rilla Roo:

This is really scraping the bottom of the barrel I admit, but I swear I heard about some cancelled game idea where he was gonna be in a circus getup?

Lab Assistant:

Look, the most iconic enemy from the Crash games could get a whole host of looks. Just look up any outfit they appear in, and boom, skin.

[scrollofthoth]

Preview

Big announcement coming soon. Here’s a transcript of an interview I did for Welcome to Tarotdise that will be posted soon. Wanted to share it with my folks here first.

How long have you been a practicing magician?

I’ve had in interest in mythology and the occult for as long as I can remember. It didn’t seem unusual then, but the public library where I grew up as a kid had a copy of Crowley’s Magick in Theory and Practice. I checked it out several times before it got stolen. Didn’t understand a word of it then. I remember making a magick-square talisman when I was in middle-school and doing a candle-magick love spell. A friend of mine brought a copy of Anton LaVey’s, The Satanic Rituals to school once. We tried to summon a demon out a drain in the boy’s locker room and ask it for magical power. Stupid kid stuff, but who knows, maybe it actually worked.

I did some magick in my twenties when I explored neo-paganism. But I didn’t become a serious practicing magician until 2010. I came to it after an existential crisis with the realization that I wasn’t the person I thought I was. I learned the self was a construct and I could be anything I wanted, so why not a magician?

 What first interested you in magick/the occult?

Dungeons & Dragons was definitely the gateway drug for me. Looking back, it’s hysterical how we all tried to argue in the 80s that D&D had nothing to do with the occult. Mythology, demons from the goetia, the concept of planer travel, it’s all in there. Gygax did his research well. It’s also interesting to note that RPGs give you many skills useful to a magician. Invoking other personalities, understanding how to structure a story for group participation, all the reading involved. I’ve met many magicians that still play one RPG or another. I still play regularly.

How would you describe your practice?

I call what I do, Emergent Animism. The Emergent part, I just wrote an entire book on that, but I’ll try my best to sum it up here. In Emergent Magick, the magus builds their own paradigm based on the results of their magical work. It’s not quite shifting paradigms, like Chaos Magick, but continuously adding to your core beliefs through magical experimentation. You then share that paradigm with a group of magi and develop a group paradigm. The goal is to create “tribes” of magi who use magick as their bond. We seek a future where people once again create their own culture, instead of having it sold to us, and have a means to create more open and equal societies.

The Animism part refers to my personal paradigm, which involves ancestor veneration, communicating with spirits of place, such as spirits of the land or physical objects, and alien spirits, such as demons and gods.

 What would you say your current big magickal goal is?

The big goal, something I think a lot of magicians share, is to immanentize the eschaton. To bring about that change in human consciousness and create a world based on acceptance, love, and freedom. But that’s a long term goal. I don’t know if we can actually achieve that goal. Maybe the eschaton is something that is just constantly unfolding before us. It takes lifetimes.

My current magical motto is, “Ego Sum Legio.” Which means, “I am Legion.” It expresses my will to build what I call a “Spirit Court.” A group of spirit allies that I can trust and turn to when I need to get shit done. Also, on some level, bringing upon the eschaton will require making peace not only with ourselves but with the spirits.

 What do you feel is your strongest magickal skill?

Everything comes down to writing for me. Through the word I create. I consider all writing to be a magical act. The universe was created with the word. When we name things, we have power over them. To me, it’s the most human ability. Other animals dance, make music, you can even teach an elephant to paint. But writing, as far as we know, remains unique to us talking apes. It’s the power of our ideas that shape our world, which we express in words. Money, nation-states, religions, all these things have no objective reality. We just made them up with words.

 Your weakest?

I’ve never had innate psychic ability. I don’t feel energy or a magical presence without putting some effort into it. While I have always been magically inclined, magick never came easy to me. I had to work for it. Even now, when I do tarot, I can’t just slap some cards on a table and read them. It always requires ritual. I need to deliberately shift my consciousness first before I can perceive anything beyond the physical. I’m fine with that. I’m willing to do the work. In some ways, it makes my magick more precise. While I have had plenty of strong synchronicities and a few straight up paranormal experiences, they only come after doing magick.

 What do you consider to be your most effective working/s?

Writing the novel, My Babylon, opened a lot of doors for me. I’ve gone back and re-read it recently. It’s not a great book, but it’s not horrible. I had written a lot of short stories and other things before that, but it was the first novel I completed. It proved to me personally what I was capable of. It was the first story I wrote that was really about me digging up my own emotions and trying to deal with them. It’s also a personal devotion to the Red Goddess, and earned me quite a bit of attention from Her. That has been both wonderful and terrifying, but never boring.

 Your most powerful?

For the past two years I have been given the honor of co-writing the main ritual for the Babalon Rising Festival. This last year, I also played a major role in the ritual. If you’ve never done ritual with 250+ thelemic pagans out in the middle of the woods at night, I highly recommend it. Numbers do matter. Most magicians only do ritual for themselves or maybe for a small group of people. Doing it with that many people raises it to a whole other level. I consider myself blessed for having the opportunity and look forward to doing it again in the future. This is why my own magical philosophy focuses so much on group ritual. There’s really nothing else like it.

 What paradigm or philosophy do you most align yourself with?

You can probably tell by now that I operate firmly in the Spirit Model. I believe that people can change things directly through magick, but that requires brute force. Spirits innately do things that living humans cannot. Spirits have a perspective beyond space and linear time. That insight often brings about results that are closer to your True Will instead of just delivering what you think you want.

Of course, Emergent Magick is my overriding magical philosophy. As Blake said, “I must create a system, or be enslaved by another man's. I will not reason and compare: my business is to create.”

 Is there one that particularly interests you that you would like to learn more about?

Shintoism, being a currently operating major religion with strong animist roots and principles, holds great interest for me. Not that I want to become a practicing Shinto priest. I want to take what that tradition has learned and apply it to my own Western heritage.

 Where do you find inspiration and motivation for your practice?

Like a lot of people, I just want to make the world a better place. I want to see and experience less suffering. I express this in all of my magick and even in my day job.

Inspiration has never been an issue for me. The myriad expressions of human culture have always fascinated me. That well springs eternal. Some scientists try to convince us of our insignificance in the universe. Nothing could be further from the truth. We hairless apes built pyramids. The mere fact that we contemplate the nature of our universe makes us special in a lot of ways.

The nature of our species fascinates me as well. What are we made to do? What makes us truly happy? I read a lot on pre-history, anthropology, primatology, and related subjects to try and grasp what it truly means to be human.

 Where do you find inspiration and motivation for your artwork?

When my decisions and actions run contrary to what I believe, it forces me to reexamine those beliefs. I need to know why I do the things I do. The best way to do that for me is art. Art never turns out exactly how you intended it. It’s always a journey. Things you see as mistakes at first turn out to be the parts you appreciate the most. Oftentimes, the big point you were trying to make is subsumed by the process, and you learn that maybe that wasn’t the important part to begin with. Art is Will made manifest.

 What do you find is the biggest challenge to your creations?

Writing is a lonely process. It’s an exercise in delayed gratification. Performing artists have it easy in that respect, although they have to practice like anyone else and are constantly subject to the approval of others. Graphic artists put in their time, but it’s generally a much shorter process. Writing a book means putting yourself in a chair alone, for days, months, and sometimes years before you have anything that even looks like a finished product. It leaves lots of room for self-doubt. The process is sometimes so long you immediately go back and look at it and think to yourself, “I know better now.” You never write a beautiful sentence and get applause. It always comes later. Often much later.

 What is your favorite medium, and what draws you to work with it?

With writing you can show the process much better than other mediums. Just like it takes a long time to create, it takes a long time to consume. You get to explain why you did what you did. The reader gets to learn along with you.

Stephen King once called writing genuine telepathy. I think that’s true. I can put a thought in someone’s head across time and space. It’s an amazing ability. You can do anything with writing. You can put a picture in someone’s head, a sound, or even a smell. That feeling will never be exactly what you intended as a writer, but that’s the beauty of it. It always gets filtered through the reader’s perspective. They get to participate in the creation of the story long after the words have been put on a page.

 What do you feel like you could improve on?

Any writer that cares about the art form is always trying to improve on their use of the language. It’s the beauty of the language that inspires just as much as the content. There’s always a way to make language more dynamic and interesting. Strunk & White’s first rule in the Elements of Style is, “Omit needless words.” That’s the battle. Which words do I truly need? What best illustrates the thoughts and feelings I want to inspire? How do I make something personal and conversational, but also with precision? You have to make people feel something before they will listen to you.

 Which item that we're carrying are you most proud of?

I love doing the year-long tarot readings. I treasure the moments when the same themes keep popping up and each time provide more clarity. Everyone I have done it for has become a personal friend of mine. You don’t go through something like that without bonding. I’ve gotten to know some amazing people that way.

 Is there anything you would like to branch out into either magickally or artistically?

The problem is I have too many branches already! RPGs, magick, and cooking already take up a lot of time. Writing novels and writing books about magick are really two separate things with much different approaches. I would like to learn some basic musical skills. I’m almost completely talentless in that department. I know I’ll never be great, but I just want to know enough to make a pleasing noise every once in a while. I do occasionally practice drawing and other graphic arts, but they are not my forte.

 Is there any advice you would like to offer from your own personal experience?

Do the work.

Research. Do magick. Contemplate. Repeat. There is no other way. You have to be doing magick. I would be happy if all of my customers learn to do their own tarot. I occasionally get readings from other magicians because another perspective can be useful. But nothing replaces being able to do it for yourself. The most powerful magick is always the magick you do for yourself. Know your limitations. If you know you don’t have the skills to build a magical tool, don’t be afraid to buy it. But if you have any inkling that you can do the work yourself, do that first.

[monstersdownthepath]

Digging around for 3.5 prestige classes is a lot harder than it should be, because the main site where they can all be found either has some kind of glitch preventing the search function from working, or is getting mangled by my various antimalware measures. In either case, I can still Google classes I already know and find them just fine. Which is how I got around to finding the Alienist again. An interesting name and concept, certainly, but what confuses me the most is why Paizo hasn't made their own version of it yet, given how much they love cosmic horror. The Alienist could use some love from Paizo, because at first glance it seems like a terrible class to take. Over the course of 10 levels, Alienists have class features dedicated to giving them a piddly 6 bonus HP, as well as features that "grant" -2 Wisdom (permenantly), and enormous penalties to Bluff, Diplomacy, and Handle Animal skill checks. Alienists also lose the ability to ever apply the Celestial or Fiendish templates to any creatures they summon. The tradeoff? Alienists apply the Pseudonatural template (the non-Epic version, thankfully) to everything they summon, automatically and without modifying the creature's base CR, in addition to other templates they may feel like using. The Pseudonatural template grants creatures staggering resilience in the form of DR, resistance to acid and electricity, and Spell Resistance, all of which scale with the creature's hit dice. They can also grant themselves True Strike once per day to assure their next attack will hit on anything but a 1, and assume a hideous form which penalizes all attacks against it. Alienists love the Pseudonatural template so much they can even apply it to their familiars. Alienists also become immortal and eventually gain a weakened form of the Pseudonatural template for themselves. But the real draw of the Alienist class is a significantly more boring but infinitely more practical power: an extra spell slot of their highest spell level. This special alien spell slot can only be used for summoning spells, but it's an extra slot nonetheless, and any caster worth their robes wants as many of those as they can get their hands on.

[theloreyouknow]

Happy Easter from the ancient Germanic goddess Eostre, and her adorable bird-turned-hare companion, who has laid colorful eggs as a symbol of fertility during a springtime festival held in the deity’s honor!

I mean, they seem lovely, I’m sure they would wish you a Happy Easter, even though there’s no substantive evidence that they were ever part of any folklore... yeah. Oof.  So bite the ears off that chocolate bunny, yank off that Easter bonnet, and let’s go-a myth-busting.

To begin, I should mention three things:

First, I am a skeptic at heart, and though I was raised in a Christian household, I've been a one-foot-over-the-line-into-atheism brand of agnostic for quite some time (20-ish years), and I tell you that to tell you this: I couldn't care less about the "IT'S PAGAN!" - "NO IT'S JUDEO-CHRISTIAN!" thing. I'm just reporting the facts.

Second, what I'm not going to get into here (minus passing mentions) are where modern Easter practices have come from, nor traditions involving hares in general/beyond Easter that have been passed down through largely unconfirmed folklore.

Third, this is a very conversational write-up because my love of academia aside, good night nurse, can their articles be snoozefests. Plus, some on the religious end of the spectrum can bend preachy, then at the atheist end they can bend snotty. This strives to be neither, just aims to be a fun, informative read.

Feedback is fuel, so - as always - be it for this or anything else coming from here, let me know what you think.

- THE NON-EXISTENT GODDESS & BEDE THE B.S.’ER - 

May as well kick off with the hard drop:

There is but one reference to a pagan goddess named Eostre, and its source leaves much to be desired.

An English monk called Bede wrote a book called "De temporum ratione" (“The Reckoning of Time”), in 725, and it was about this ongoing nattering amongst various Christian groups - we get to that in a sec - about when exactly Easter was, and by that I mean to say they were fussing over When did Jesus do his die-and-rise. So Bede's jam was working out a calculation for his fellow monks so this could be settled. And in doing all this, he goes to town on calendars in general.

He talked about the the traditional Old English names of the months, breaking down the etymology, and proposed that some seem to stem from agriculture cycles, such as Weodmonath ("weed month) = August, or Thrimilcemonath ("three milkings") = May. Okay. I don’t quite track with ya, Bedes, but I’m also not of 8th century stock.

Then he postulated on some he thought referred to Pagan tradition. There’s Halgemonath ("holy month) = September, for instance, Bede saying it was "a month of sacred rites” that had to do with harvest. Then he asserts two were named after goddesses: Hrethmonath = March,  after Hretha, and Eostremonath = April, after Eostre. The hitch in Bede's get-a-long? 

There's no references to a goddess called Eostre, like, anywhere. So what the what, Bede?!? The "what", according to some scholars, is that Bede didn't have the first damn clue as to where "Eostremonath" came from, so he made up the goddess to tie a nice little bow on his etymology fact droppage.

But fine, fine, fine - let's give the Bede-man an out, cotton to his assertion and say there was a goddess Eostre whom people honored via springtime get-togethers. Let's say her name was co-opted into English for a month of the year (wondering why Charlemagne - you know - the German dude who ended up Holy Roman emperor- would up and go with “Aprilis” when he modified the ol’ Julian calendar notwithstanding, because we’re going with Bede, here), and since it was "her" month, later got co-opted onto said month's big holiday. Great. 

Revised hitch: zero evidence of anything to do with this - symbols, rituals, ceremonies, take your pick - being associated with some Eostre in Anglo-Saxon England Pagan circles. So if Eostre was super popular, enough for Christians to do the co-opting, then there should be some evidence of the source.

Christians had been doing the Easter thing since, at minimum, the second century, before they would've met these Eostre devotees in order to snitch ideas from them. Point is, Easter as a Christian celebration has been happening for about 1300 years. There's records of all of it. This Eostre chick would've come up. And the old-school historians weren't hiding some big secret about theft of concepts from pagans, and how do we know that? Because they pony up when they have. Here's an example - you've heard of the Anglo-Saxon deities Woden and Thor, yeah? Wednesday and Thursday, meet your namesakes. 

And on the subject of other deities, Thor and Woden are paralleled in Germanic and proto-Christian traditions, and plenty more in other cultures (think Greek-Roman gods, how Aphrodite and Venus are essentially the same thing) with overlap like this, yet there's none for Bede's gals Eostre or Hretha.

Oh, did I not mention that? Bede probably invented the goddess Hretha, too.

Dang it, Bede!

Further down - because it's more in line with the bunny talk - I mention a dude who claimed he could kinda see a parallel with a Celt goddess, and it is such the shaky connection. Because it's based on the bizarre thing that is touted about Eostre and this bird that she turned into a rabbit. Yes, you read correctly - that’s covered below, too.

This Celt goddess Abnoba - based upon my admittedly cursory dive - is touted by numerous blogs and wikis and whatnot as a "goddess of the hunt" and, of course, being female, you know what's coming next. Throw a rock at any female deity in any culture, and any that you hit will have this on their CV: either they'll be primarily functioning as a goddess of fertility (and love and sexuality), or some/all of that'll be listed as a sub-function. What the hunting thing would have to do with Eostre/Ostara's shtick is beyond me, and the other factors, like I said, are evergreen lady godfigure traits.

Lookit, Bede wasn't exactly the best go-to for origin stories, he whiffed on other things. In his book, he says a winter shindig called Modranecht (Mōdraniht or Modranicht - Old English "Night of the Mothers" or "Mothers' Night") was called that because of "ceremonies they enacted [that] night". Well. Yeah.

Oh, Beeeeeede.

So what about Ostara? The alt version of Eostre's name? Well, a certain linguist, folklorist, and author named Jacob Grimm (yup, of those Grimms), seemed to want to believe that sneaky Bede, and he tried to find an explanation, saying in his 1835 book "Deutsche Mythologie" that maybe Eostre was some sort of local version - local to Bede, that is - of a "widespread" Germanic goddess. One whom Grimm named Ostara.

Make sure you caught that: not "who was named Ostara" or "who was called Ostara". Grimm named this mystery goddess himself. And historians can't find evidence of her, that she ever existed anywhere but in (heh) Grimm's fairy tale.

Dang it, Grimm! Stick to frightening children with mermaids, man.

To sum up: Ostara is purportedly in Germanic folklore, except she's not, at least, not anywhere but in Grimm's imagination, evidence-wise. Eostre was supposedly an Anglo-Saxon goddess, except she's not, because there's no evidence in Pagan sources, and the only Christian source she pops up in was ya boy Bede's book.

- PAGAN V. JUDEO-CHRISTIAN: TRADITIONS & MYTHS -

We touched on tradition/deity overlap a little above, but let's dig deeper. A common sentiment is that Easter was "changed" to being a Christian thing from a Pagan thing when Constantine "Christianized" the Roman Empire.

Nah.

Seems Constantine converted to Christianity in 312 and, interestingly, the next year he actually decreed there should be toleration of all religions, the point being to end the continued, albeit down to periodic, persecutions of Christians. But he didn't demand that the citizens under his rule convert - smart dude, he'd have alienated all the Pagans. Turns out, a healthy amount of the higher class folks were Pagan, and he needed their support/involvement. Granted, there were later edicts that shut down official state sponsorship of pagan cults (temples, meeting places, etc.) and public pagan ceremonies, but hey - you claim neutrality, it's gotta apply to all religious practices across the board. Well. Assuming he did the same regarding Christianity. But that's another topic.

Bottom line, the Roman Empire was not formally declared a Christian state til Theodosius, who proclaimed it as the official religion in 380. Constantine had died about 43 years prior. Still, I can possibly see where the rumor started, as Constantine seemed to be the first big-deal-figure who was open about his Christianity. And it might have also piggy-backed off of the work of the First Council of Nicea, which went down in 325. Y'know, not after he kicked the ol’ Roman situla. 

Basically, the Council aimed to settle disputes happening amongst the Christian churches, and while they were at it, they ruled on when celebrations of Easter should go down (see above, RE: Bede the Balla still dealing with it in his time), as this was, it seems, A Very Big Deal.

A dude named Eusebius - historian, later bishop, straight outta Caesarea - said there had been fussing happening all the way back to 190. The bonnets were bee-heavy because they (who is "they"? "They" are always such a PITA) couldn't decide whether to make Easter a whole week, a la the Jewish Passover, or just on a Sunday, since they were convinced Jesus died on a springtime Friday, meaning the rise happened on Sunday. The west side of the Empire was doing it up on just the one day, and the east was kickin' it all week. The Council ended up going with Sundays, and said this new jam would start on the first Sunday that followed the first full moon after March 21st.

Now, a mention in one of the cited sources below notes that some attest Passover itself has roots in a pre-historic Semitic spring festival, but I'm not going down that rabbit hole (heh), knock yourselves out. Point is, Easter is related to the aforementioned vernal equinox - that full moon thing - because it coincides with Passover. It's a Judeo-Christian thing, not a rip-off of a Pagan festival thing, best historians know via the evidence.

- HARES & BUNNIES & EGGS, OH MY! -

There's no eggs or animals of the rabbit persuasion in Biblical gospel narratives, so the assumption was it must have stemmed from a Pagan tradition. You’ll see things pop up in social media feeds, images touting (some) Christians’ claims that eggs symbolize Christ's rebirth (but.... what? And why? And.... whatever). There's evidence of medieval Christians decorating eggs and then eating them at Easter, and that actually might have a logical reason, at least, beyond folks of Ukrainian descent carrying on a tradition past generations might’ve carried over when migrating (more on that below).

Many religions across the board have guidelines - for some, heavy rules - surrounding fasting for lots of reasons (look it up yourself), and some of those are part of festivals and such throughout the liturgical calendar (a.k.a. - designated times for public community celebrations). In the evidence pile for Easter, there's a "festal letter" from this guy Athanasius in 330 who talks about a 40-day fast that ended on Easter Sunday. I'd like to point out here that this happened post-Nicean council decree, keep that in mind.

Why this is possibly of import is it turns out, Constantine had exiled Athanasius for being mouthy about grain or something, and he booked it back to Alexandria after Connie bit the dust.... only to be exiled again the next year when Connie, Jr. - Constanius - found out. But Athanasius was apparently a charmer, and knew how to take advantage of a situation, so he ends up in Rome under the protection of Connie's other son, Constans - ah, so I guess Connie, Jr.: The Sequel - who was emperor in the west. You know, the west, the crew who liked making Easter a one day throw-down vs. drawing it out. I would be delighted to learn that Athanasius was trying to get everybody on board with a long celebration just to shoot a post-mortem bird at Constantine. Atty-boy ended up being made a saint, so aside from that grain kerfuffle, appears he was a popular guy, had a "flock" as it were, which is how historians have all the Festal Letters, including ones talking about the date(s) of Easter parties and this fast.

And, again, "fast" can mean a variety of things - total abstaining, sure, but even Jesus would give you side-eye over 40 days of nothing, you ain't rising from anything after that - but lots of times it was just cutting out certain things, food or otherwise (hello, Lent). And many of those are specifically about food from animals, so there's meat, to be sure, but in addition to that, the products of animals, meaning milk, cheese, butter, and - say it with me, now - eggs.

No refrigerators means lots of wasted food, so the people had to eat up what they had and - duh - not slaughter for meat, don't milk the cows/goats, and don't make any butter or cheese. Easy. But chickens don't give a rat's ass about calendars and religion, they're gonna keep cranking out the goods and, again, not eating them in real time means a 40 day sulfur cloud looming over the area. Reason dictates they boiled them, problem solved. I mean, I wouldn’t crack open a month-old boiled egg, but folks of the before-years-had-four-integers variety had bellies that could handle a lot of things that would have us hugging porcelain thrones for weeks. That’s another discussion, one I cannot promise we’ll ever have.

It took a bazillion years to make cheese, and butter was no quick work, and neither was curing meat (look it up) - those wouldn't be ready for Sunday. And sure, you could pop out and milk something, lay waste to some cow for fresh steaks, but hell - to cover everybody, you'd have to knock off more than one. Way more than one, probably to the detriment of the sustainability of a mini-herd on a given family farm. Realistically, most of the feast would be any nasty, salted-out jerky somebody had leftover from pre-fast, more veg and fish and bread, which would all suck - but wait. WAIT. Eggs. 

Cock-a-darn-diggly-doodle-doo.

So, in the week before Easter, they'd have been boiling like crazy, one would think, as part of the prep for the major gullet-stuffing coming up that Sunday. There's references to the eggs getting glammed up to be extra festive at least as early as the 13th century, and I suppose it's not a stretch to say they were beyond happy to have at least one of their food options back on deck and wanted to make things extra special - you can’t really glitter up fish and potatoes, after all. In any event, the fast-related thing is the most logical regarding Easter-egg association, and as I mentioned, maybe a touch of family tradition, which brings me to the next part:

Wabbit season.

There's another book called "Deutsche Mythologie", from 1874, and the author, Adolf Holtzmann, talked about the German Easter hare - which, historians are certain of, is where the Easter bunny comes from - and speculated on its possible source. What he suggested is reportedly the first documented instance of a certain somebody, perhaps you've heard of her, spoiler alert: it's Ostara.

"The Easter Hare is inexplicable to to me, but probably the hare was the sacred animal of Ostara; just as there is a hare on the statue of [the Celtic goddess] Abnoba.”

We covered that random Abnoba comment above, but.... Adolf....what? So how did rabbits get hooked up to Ostara? And what’s up with the hare laying eggs?

By the way, the hare must once have been a bird, because it lays eggs....  

Well, sure, of course.

The essence of the current party line is that Ostara transformed a bird into a hare, and because it was once a bird, it retained its ability to lay eggs and to thank Osara for what she’d done - no clue why she did it, but if hare’s cool, I’m cool - it laid a bunch of colored eggs to spruce up her festival.

Fine. Moving forward. In 1883, a book by one K. A. Oberle hit the shelves - and if you speak 19th century German, wanna check out the original, godspeed - and he got super specific:

Some time ago the question was raised how it came that, according to South German still prevailing folk-lore, the Hare is believed by children to lay the Easter-eggs. I venture now to offer a probable answer to it. Originally the hare seems to have been a bird which the ancient Teutonic goddess Ostara (the Anglo-Saxon Eàstre or Eostre, as Bede calls her) transformed into a quadruped. For this reason the Hare, in grateful recollection of its former quality as bird and swift messenger of the Spring-Goddess, is able to lay eggs on her festival at Easter-time

As specific as that was? No specific sourcing. Minor shout-out to Bede, though. And there was a mention of a general source.... Holtzmann.

Great.

Shifting gears - but stay with me - to way-back-when in the Ukraine. They had a folk tale about the origins of pysanka, a.k.a. "painted eggs", but that definition is actually incorrect. Pysanka are not painted, they're "written on" via a beeswax-dyeing technique. They are absolutely stunning - the side of my family with Eastern European roots blessed us of the newer gen by passing down Christmas ornaments fashioned in this style, and they are my favorites. Here's a random google image of some of these works of art:

The wikipedia article on the history of pysanka has some decent citations, so I’m comfortable using it as a source. The Reader’s Digest version for their existence - based on passed-down folktales and analyzation done of symbols on what archaeological samples have been found - back in the pre-Christian era was warding off evil to keep the world going, keep nature growing, the ongoing “rebirth” of plants and animals, make the sun deity happy.

Because of that sun deity element - if it’s correct, because, again, brittle eggshells and faded symbols call for educated guesses vs. hard truths - of the pysanka thing, an argument could be made that it should be filed under Pagan. Then because the Eostre thing is touted as Pagan, and because nature springs back to life from winter in, well, spring, and (I’m assuming) because rabbits mate like their tails are on fire, the whole shebang was rolled into this big, fantastic ball of nature-goddess-bunny-rabbit-spring-equinox-pretty-eggs untruth.

Christians have melded stuff and mutated folktales and cultural traditions to suit their religion, no doubt, and I could write multiple articles on things Christians claim as fact that have no evidentiary basis; it just seems like here, as time rolled on, this is something that Pagans got duped by when legends - and some outright lies - got pushed as indisputable fact.

And as far as untruths go, this seems minor. It’s fun to guess at things, make up our own headcanon, but if we’ve got facts? If those facts disprove something we may have our hearts set on believing? Well, accepting them is part of being a grown-up. Which sucks. But here we are.

Besides, who cares, truly? Is this Easter customs thing really important? Isn’t the time spent with family and friends and people in your community what’s most important? Hell, be like Bede & Co.: make your own traditions. And anyway, SO MUCH CANDY is gonna be on sale tomorrow. #hail Eostre #goddess of chocolate bunnies #whose delicious ears #I shall happily chomp

We'll close with my favorite quote from my research:

"Some still claim Eostre's name is the root of the word oestrogen, ignoring that human eggs are microscopic and that the real etymology of oestrogen in fact relates to the gadfly."

Bet you didn't think this Easter tale would conclude with estrogen and gadflies, and yet, I can think of no stranger point upon which to end this convoluted tale.

Happy Hippity-Hops to you all!

------ SOURCES -------

Eleanor Parker - “Some Anglo-Saxon Easter Customs”

Tim O'Neill - “Easter, Ishtar, Eostre and Eggs”

Adrian Bott - “The Modern Myth of the Easter Bunny”

Steven Winick - 

“Ostara and the Hare: Not Ancient, but Not As Modern As Some Skeptics Think”

“On the Bunny Trail: In Search of the Easter Bunny”

“Here Comes Peter Cottontail: Some Cultural History”

H/T Tom Holland 

Images:

Silas Toball (left) & Sophie Gardiner (right)

Note:

All of these sources are robust and wonderful, however most of them are what I'd label "dense". The exception is the brief article by Mr. Bott, should you want an even more concise round-up than what I've presented here. Yes, compared to what’s linked, hand-to-Cadbury, my article was concise.

Should you want an A/V roundup, in 2016, Mr. Winick was featured in a segment on the (US show) CBS Sunday Morning, called "The Real Story of the Easter Bunny", and Eostre is discussed as well. [You can stop around the 2:50 mark, as from there they go on to discuss rabbits in general]

There are also additional sources referenced and/or linked in every citation above, should you want more clarification on their assertions.

[kacebox]

Shipping Just Sucks For Me

I’m going to share with you all here on Tumblr a little bit of frustration I have when it comes to enjoying whatever fictional dramas I do.  Be they TV shows or some film franchise, it always seems to be the same.

I didn’t know the term “shipping” even existed until about Summer 2004 when I started frequenting some L Word message boards.  It was a bit of internet language I wasn’t familiar with.  From there I was introduced to concepts like ship names, names based on whatever pairings, romantically or otherwise from some show or movie.  I remember an early favorite of mine was a friendship based one from TLW called AlShaDane, based on a trio of friends, Alice Pieszecki, Shane MacCutcheon, and Dana Fairbanks.  There was Dana/Lara and when that fell through, there was Alice/Dana aka Danish.

For TLW, the big one and the one that still persists to something else I was introduced to in 2004, FanFic was TiBette, Bette/Tina.  That was the first truly fierce, “ride or die” ship fandom I can recall and it’s still rather fierce.

Eventually I learned what I could of the terminology so I could apply it to my own fandom.  The L Word aka TLW was important in teaching me a lot of stuff I wasn’t familiar with, but also teaching something else important and that’s shipping disappointment, also fandom disappointment.

TLW prepared me to deal with a lot of bullshit I’ve noticed when it comes to the fandoms I represent.  Dana Fairbanks was my favorite character.  She had the most intriguing story overall as it concerned the main characters.  Naturally, she’s the one the writers decided to kill off in Season 3 while she was already in the middle of a gripping enough storyline involving herself, Alice, and Lara.  I had also become a fan of the Shane/Carmen pairing and of course that died at the end of Season 3.

I remember writing the first (and only successful) fanfic based on the trauma that I and some other fans had dealt with as a result of that season.  I’ve tried here and there to write some stuff since, but I’m fucking horrible at writing.

By the time TLW ended in 2009, it felt like a mercy killing and it would be a while before I was able to watch anything though I should point out I did watch FlashForward for the freak show effect of the plot.

2013 was when I finally started opening back up to watching any shows again, starting with Agents of SHIELD and The Blacklist.  Eventually I would catch up on some other shows I eventually became interested.  In 2015, Supergirl would burst on the scene and that show quickly went from curiosity to my favorite show, the reason why episodic TV was worth it.  I became a big fan of the Danvers sisters and how they dealt with the growing pains of Kara growing into being a superhero and the support and love from Alex who had always been there for her since Kara showed up at the Danvers’ doorstep.

Unfortunately, Supergirl had to deal with CBS during Season 1, but thankfully the show as able to move over to the CW where I figured things might open up.  I admit, my initial reaction to Maggie showing up had me at “Huh?”  Then I remembered, it probably wasn’t likely Maggie was gonna show up on Gotham and date the future Batwoman who herself has yet to appear on that show.

Then Season 2 came along and Alex and Maggie started interacting.  There was an instant chemistry to it.  Sanvers wasn’t like Olicity where I figured “Yeah I like it, but understand Oliver’s got that “destined loner” thing going against him (see: MacCutcheon, Shane).  Like I said, TLW prepared me for this shit.

Sure there’s Barry/Iris, but that’s cheating as OF COURSE they’re supposed to be together.  Then Sanvers happened.  Cue the Sigma song with Rita Ora, “Coming Home” and that first kiss.  It was Dana/Lara all over again for me.  I remember how that one ended.  Again, that show prepared me.

Yet still, here we are in 2017 and this amazing story with an amazing pairing of characters featuring actors with chemistry and empathy for the situation their characters are in yet we’re on the verge of the oil slick into the ravine, assuming it’s not there already.

Disappointment is disappointment and sure a good fanfic doesn’t hurt when it comes to distractions, but that can only get so far.  Heck at one point last year I attempted (and failed) to write some story where not only were Jessica Jones and Felicity Smoak were a couple, but Supergirl and Quake were also one, because just the idea of that impossible pairing was too good to pass up without at least giving it a shot.

Again though, it’s fanfic.  Anything may go there, but the writers of the official stuff still helm the controls.  Creative and the network dictate what they can with the official narrative and there’s not much we can do about it.  Based on my avatar as of this writing, it’s apparent that I’m a big Holtzbert fan as well, based on Jillian Holtzmann and Erin Gilbert from Ghostbusters (2016), my favorite of the Gb films.  Sadly, I don’t think that will ever be successfully addressed either in a sequel that might not ever happen to the comic adaptation that currently gets to form the narrative, courtesy of IDW Publishing.

Which brings me back to Sanvers.  Here’s what the current state of Supergirl has done to me.  Keep in mind, this is still my favorite show, but I’ve gone from watching the show as it airs to DVR’ing it for later to delaying watching it and the other shows I’m into.  I’m currently 2 weeks behind and this Monday it might be 3.  I’m still keeping up thanks to social media, but it sure does make me feel apprehensive about hitting Play.

Everything is veering towards an inevitable breakup and I’m none too pleased about this.  I get that Floriana Lima, who plays Maggie is up for checking out some other gigs while she can and that’s fine.  I get that Creative is more interested in teasing the Supercorp (Kara/Lena) fans while shoehorning Karamel (Kara/Mon-El) in even when they’re not together.

Don’t get me wrong Karamelers, I’m not anti-Karamel necessarily.  I think they’re good together.  It’s just not something I feel strongly about either way.  I love that Team Karamel is ride or die for their favorite couple.  I dig that.  I also dig Team Supercorp and they’re undying faith in a concept no doubt feel should be given a chance.  I know that feeling well.  Unfortunately, I also know what it’s like to be disappointed at such a chance not being taken.

I don’t like feeling strongly about ships.  Again, I learned from TLW that’s a quick access point to resentment toward strangers trying to write their narrative.  With the exception of some likes or whatnot on social media I’ve tried keeping all this in check, but I admit it’s getting harder to do that.  There’s this level of bile building up, a level that I haven’t felt since Losing the Light on March 12, 2006.  Trust me when I say I was not particularly pleasant that night.

If/when the big Sanvers breakup happens on Sg, I’ll likely find out about it before I get around to watching it and it’s still gonna suck. 

These people have lives.

These people have jobs to do.

These people are just trying to tell some story the best they can.

That’s me trying to remind myself to be rational.  That’s me trying to remind myself that ultimately this is fictional bullshit that should have no effect on my or anyone else’s life.

Then I remember how wrong I am.  Then I remember the families who shared their stories about how the Danvers sisters dynamic was huge for them, especially those with a birthed child and one adopted.  Then I remember the past year of reading just how powerful Alex’s coming out and the relationship with Maggie became instrumental in their lives.  I remember thinking to myself “Wow” when it came to others struggling to come out and struggling with acceptance, struggling with all of these real life issues that Chyler Leigh has been able to provide her acting prowess to as Alex and how meaningful the Alex/Maggie relationship became.

This wasn’t just some TiBette shit where people simply loved the chemistry in everything Jennifer Beals (Bette) and Laurel Holloman (Tina) brought to the table in making the rollercoaster ride of that relationship work on screen.  It wasn’t just about how natural they made it look, how organic it came off as.  Sanvers wasn’t just some crazy idea worth checking.  We weren’t interested in being baited.  We weren’t interested in Sg Creative declaring, “hey let’s try a lesbian thing on here and see how it goes.”  As the SEC football fans and marketing puts it, “it just means more.”  We had no interest in Sanvers being some kind of exploitation project to attract the GLAAD viewers.  For many of us it became personal, deeply personal.  I have a bad feeling that once all this plays out the way it’s apparently going to, that by the time they’re able to resolve it, it’s going to be too late.  When fans declare that “Sanvers is my endgame,” they’re not fucking kidding.  Something to understand about LGBTQ viewers, myself representing the “B” side to that.  We don’t like being dicked around.  We don’t have time for it.  We don’t have to be baited and we’re not interested in being thrown a damn scrap here and there. 

Whether Sg Creative meant it, they tapped into something that’s become meaningful for many of us.  For me it’s idealism mixed with some realism, which I realize is a bit crazy as it comes to a show about a flying white lady alien who among her superpowers is being able to do all that fighting and not get a single run in those tights.

Alex/Maggie is getting into Dana Fairbanks territory.  It’s getting into Losing the Light territory.  As much as creative has a right to tell their stories as best they can, I and other Sanvers supporters have a right to not be happy about it and be rather vocal about it.

I won’t allow for any ship to be my endgame. I just won’t.  That said, even with the now apprehensive viewing, there’s going to be that disappointment.  The previous decade, TLW made me realize that I was more of a fan for what the show could be than what it was.  Supergirl with all those powers and abilities is going to wind up being the same.  That just sucks.

Sanvers matters.  Sanvers fans should also matter.

[lati-will]

I Thought I Was “Awake” Until This Happened To Me

I was about 17 years old when I first heard about the December 2012 phenomenon. Although skeptical of doomsday theories and esoteric predictions, it was the trigger that led me down the internet rabbit hole, where I spent hours upon hours researching subjects ranging from alien beings communicating with planet Earth to our debt-based monetary system calling for a mass revolution.

I was never the same since. I knew these ideas seemed far-fetched to most people, yet within this maze of alternative information, I still was able to find gems of truth reminding me that there is more to life than what I’d been told. That I wasn’t “broken” just because I didn’t fit in this world or had talents that weren’t valued in school. That maybe it is society that is broken… and that my mission was to help transform it.

I am now 26 years old, and I still stand by what I said. I still feel deep within my bones that we are in the midst of a mass consciousness shift where the status quo is rapidly losing credibility. I still believe that a world where we destroy the Earth for profit and hoard wealth while others starve is unnecessary. I still believe I am here to shake things up and make a change. Yet I also believe that the whole new age/conspiracy whirlwind of information out there may be slowing down the very same personal and collective evolution it promotes.

“I can stand here and talk to you about the field of infinite possibilities, but what do you DO with that?” – Dan Millman

New Age and Conspiracy Information: Distracting Us From Our True Power and Purpose?

Don’t get me wrong: In no way do I want to discredit the value of information that helps highlight society’s ills and open the mind to new possibilities. It has been a crucial part of my own path… but one that I had to outgrow in order for me to truly grow up.

Let me explain. Learning about the latest government scheme, astrology forecast, and health craze has its place, but ultimately, it is not the thing that will MAKE you a better human being. It is not the thing that makes you a more caring and loving person, or bring you strength, spirit, and resiliency in challenging times. Dissecting the subject of quantum physics, knowing about the thirteen illuminati bloodlines, or scrutinizing a politician’s every move won’t necessarily help you be a positive player in your community, or bring you the focus and practical wisdom needed to get your life together. Information lives in your head. It is the quality of your being that determines how well you participate in the dance of life.

“Ultimately, information is as valuable as its usefulness to our daily lives.” – UpliftedLife.com

A Friend and Mentor Who Taught Me to Embrace the Basics

Ideas, words, and concepts are everywhere, flooding our newsfeeds on a second-to-second basis. The trick is to ask ourselves: Can I put this information to good use? Will this benefit my life? Can this help me grow into the best version of myself if I apply it?

My dear friend and mentor Kosta Stoyanoff, the founder of Uplifted Life, has continually reminded me of this ever since I met him in 2015. He also reminded me that all the inspiring quotes I post on Facebook or truths I intellectually understand will never replace the value of even the tiniest and seemingly ordinary steps I can take within my own life. Things like washing the dishes with care, eating a meal slowly, being grateful for what I have, taking more deep breaths throughout the day, being attentive and caring to my wonderful mother, and taking more time to really be there for the “little things” in life.

He would tell me that these small humbling shifts in my attention, perspective, thoughts, and attitude would not only add up to a HUGE shift in my health, abundance, and happiness levels, but would become the solid foundation on which I could begin doing truly meaningful work from a space of love rather than ego.

“The beginnings of all great things are small.” – Cicero

Now you’d think Kosta’s loving advice made it easy for me to commit to making those fundamental shifts. But the truth is, I wasn’t ready. I couldn’t slow down my monkey mind just yet. Although I nodded in agreement, my ego squirmed at the idea, and I instead spent another year searching for more — for something “bigger,” more glamorous, and more revolutionary than simply getting in touch with “ordinary” life…

I thought I needed to spend more time digging into childhood traumas and past lives to justify my wounds. I still searched for miracle supplements that would fix the health issues I was experiencing. I got involved in ambitious projects that I believed would change the world — without me having to change. I searched for everything and anything except what would bring me face to face with my own power and responsibility to transform from the inside out.

At the end of that year, I was more confused and disillusioned than ever before. My health had plummeted. My stress levels were still high. I was everything but at peace with myself — even after all the dizzying “self-work” I thought I was doing. That’s when I reached out to my good ol’ trusty friend Kosta again and said “I finally get it. I am ready to go back to the basics.“

“You don’t truly understand something until you apply it. Same goes for wisdom.” – UpliftedLife.com

When I Finally Began to Walk the Talk

Little by little, I began contemplating the ways in which I lived my life. I noticed just how much of my attention was fragmented in dozens of useless places — from false relationships to mindless smartphone usage. I began observing how often I would engage in defeatist self-talk despite all my “positive” Facebook posts. I saw how my mind would create an abundance of stories about what’s “missing” in my life, while ignoring the wonderful blessings all around me. And finally, I realized that the same amount of power, belief, and attention I put in negative thought patterns could instead be uses to fuel more positive perspectives and beneficial daily habits. It sure sounds simple, and it is! But it seems as though for most of us, the challenge of a lifetime is to let go of our attachment to an old story of self that gets in the way of us remembering and applying the most basic of truths.

“It is easy to think about complex things, but often difficult to apply the simplest things. The former can be entertaining, but the latter is where we get to grow and transform our lives.” – UpliftedLife.com

It’s Not About You

We think that “self-development” is all about getting our own lives straight. And yes, that’s a wonderful benefit! But the real beauty in becoming the best version of ourselves is how it positively impacts the lives of those around us. Whether you are a stay-at-home mom, serve coffee for a living, or run a major corporation, evolving into your highest, most loving, and kindest self is no small feat. It means children who will grow up to be wiser and more loving citizens of Earth. It means customers who will go back to their workspaces and families with a lighter heart. It means companies who will shift from self-serving motives to a greater purpose.

This is why going back to the basics is more than just a “cute thought.” When applied and embodied, they change your life. And when millions live by them, they change the world.

“Whether you accept it or not, each life is linked to all life. Your state of being, thoughts, words and actions create a ripple effect; much like a stone thrown into a pond. The quality of that ripple effect… is your legacy.”

By: Elina St-Onge