#confluence of consciousness

[confluence-of-consciousness]

A thousand words, a million secrets. Unlock them all at https://www.confluenceofconsciousness.com/

[whencyclopedia]

Gods & Goddesses of Ancient Egypt - A Brief History

The land of ancient Egypt was alive with the spirit of the gods. The sun god Ra broke from the darkness every morning in his great boat, bringing the light, and many of the gods watched over the people by night as the stars. Osiris caused the Nile River to flood its banks and fertilize the land while Khnum directed its flow. Isis and her sister Nephthys walked with the people of the land in life and protected them after death, as did many of the other gods, and Bastet guarded the lives of women and watched over the home. Tenenet was the goddess of beer and brewing and also present at childbirth, while Hathor, who had many roles, was one's close companion at any party or festival as the Lady of Drunkenness.

The gods and goddesses were not distant deities to be feared but close friends who lived among the people in the temple-homes built for them, in the trees, lakes, streams, swamps, and out in the desert beyond the Nile River Valley. When the hot winds blew in from the arid wastes it was not just a confluence of air but the god Set stirring up some trouble. When the rain fell it was a gift of the goddess Tefnut, "She of Moisture", who also was associated with dryness and was asked to hold back the rain on festival days. Human beings were born from the tears of Atum (also known as Ra) when he wept for joy at the return of his children Shu and Tefnut in the beginning of time when the world was created from the waters of chaos. In all aspects of life, the deities of Egypt were present and continued to care for their people after death.

Origins of the Deities

Belief in supernatural entities is attested to as early as the Predynastic Period in Egypt (c. 6000-3150 BCE) but the practice is no doubt much older. As historian Margaret Bunson writes:

The Egyptians lived with forces that they did not understand. Storms, earthquakes, floods, and dry periods all seemed inexplicable, yet the people realized acutely that natural forces had an impact on human affairs. The spirits of nature were thus deemed powerful in view of the damage they could inflict on humans (98).

The early belief in the gods took the forms of animism, the belief that inanimate objects, plants, animals, the earth have souls and are imbued with the divine spark; fetishism, the belief that an object had consciousness and supernatural powers; and totemism, the belief that individuals or clans have a spiritual relationship with a certain plant, animal, or symbol. In the Predynastic Period animism was the primary understanding of the universe, as it was with early people in any culture. Bunson writes, "Through animism humankind sought to explain natural forces and the place of human beings in the pattern of life on earth" (98). Animism not only concerned higher cosmic forces and earth energy but the souls of those who had died. Bunson explains:

The Egyptians believed firmly that death was just a doorway to another form of existence, so they acknowledged the possibility that those who had died were more powerful in their resurrected state. Thus politically, spiritually, or magically powerful members of each community took on special significance in death or in the realm beyond the grave. Special care was taken to provide such souls with all due honors, offerings, and reverence. Dead persons were thought to be able to involve themselves in the affairs of the living, for good or ill, and thus had to be placated with daily sacrifices (98).

The belief in a life after death gave rise to an understanding of supernatural beings who presided over this other realm which connected them to the earthly plane seamlessly. The early evolution of religious belief can perhaps best be summed up by the line from Emily Dickinson's poem number 96 (best known as My Life Closed Twice Before its Close): "Parting is all we know of heaven" or from Larkin's Aubade where religion is "created to pretend we never die." The experience of death required some explanation and meaning which was provided by a belief in higher powers.

Animism branched off into fetishism and totemism. Fetishism is exemplified in the symbol of the djed, representing earthly and cosmic stability. The djed symbol is thought to have originally been a fertility sign, which came to be associated with Osiris so closely that inscriptions such as "the Djed is laid on its side" meant Osiris had died while the raising of the djed symbolized his resurrection. Totemism evolved out of local association with a certain plant or animal. Every nome (province) of ancient Egypt had its own totem, whether a plant, animal, or symbol, which signified the people's spiritual connection to that locale. Every Egyptian army marched into battle divided into nomes, and each nome carried its own staff flying its totem. Individuals each had their own totem, their own spirit guide who watched over them especially. The king of Egypt, in any period, was watched over by a hawk who represented the god Horus.

In time, these spirits understood through animism became anthropomorphized (attributing human characteristics to non-human things). The invisible spirits which inhabited the universe were given form, shape, and names and these became the deities of ancient Egypt.

Continue reading...

[talonabraxas]

“Om Namo Narayanaya”

The Multiverse as Vishnu's Dream Talon Abraxas

Narayanaya Om

This mantra is one of the most sacred and is frequently used in prayers, worship, yoga exercises, and meditation. Sanskrit hymns of eight syllables are sometimes referred to as Ashtakshara Mantra, or the eight-lettered invocation. It is believed to be so terrifying that several intellectuals and great individuals throughout history have gone to tremendous lengths merely to get initiation into the chanting from saints, spiritual leaders, and preceptors.

The mantra “Om Namo Narayanaya” calls Narayana, the ultimate protector, and makes a reverent bow to him. Even though it only means “I bow to Lord Narayana,” the connotation is profound nonetheless. The word “Om” is used to begin the invocation. This word’s sound vibration is timeless, acts as the foundation for all living creatures and non-living objects in the cosmos, and vibrates through every tiny particle of a single physical body as well as the vast universe. The singing of this mantra, which is hailed as the global sound, may produce vibrations that are all-pervasive and are considered to have tremendous potency and supernatural qualities. The phrase “Namo” is used to greet the Lord after that, and the mantra ends by accepting the holy name Narayana with the utmost reverence.

The Lord’s name has a special meaning. Although the term “Nara” often refers to a “human person,” it may also denote “water.” The word “Ayana” can refer to both the “ultimate objective” and the “resting place.” Narayana is said to be sleeping on the wide ocean at Vaikunta, his home, as is well known. Saints and seers therefore understand the term “Narayanaya” as the ultimate goal and last resting place that every soul or living thing strives towards.

Chanting’s Advantages

It can cause the confluence of sound and mind when recited precisely, with dedication, and with trust, resulting in the experience of divine consciousness and eternal serenity. Additionally, it is said that repeating the phrase 108 times while using prayer beads might help you reap its full advantages.

“Om Namo Narayanaya” is sometimes referred to as the “mantra of peace.” Reciting it may eliminate ignorance and unfavourable feelings like ego, wrath, and greed; remove barriers and diversion; and produce peace, calm, and love. Thus, this hymn is a very good candidate to serve as the slogan for world peace.

[gepgep2]

"So: what is the Israeli long-term strategy, really?

Insofar as there’s an answer, it seems to be that they simply don’t have one; the Israeli government no more has a long-term strategy for dealing with their future in the region than Exxon Mobil has a long-term strategy for dealing with climate change. They seem to just figure that, if US power does collapse or give up on them, something will turn up. No doubt too they have people in thinktanks brainstorming that, too, coming with reports and scenarios, but all this is basically an afterthought. The driving force behind the colonization of ’67 Palestine is not any sort of grand strategy; it’s a kind of terrible confluence of short-term political and economic advantage.

First, the settlements. They were originally the project of a relatively isolated, if well funded, collection of religious zealots. Now everything seems to be organized around them. The government pours in endless resources. Why? The answer seems to be that since at least the ‘90s, rightwing politicians in Israel have figured out that the settlements are a kind of political magic. The more money gets funneled into them, the more the Jewish electorate turns to the Right. The reason is simple. Israel is expensive. Housing inside the 1948 boundaries is exorbitantly expensive. If you are a young person without means, you increasingly has two options: to live with one’s parents until well into your 30s, or find a place in an illegal settlement, where apartments cost perhaps a third of what they would in Haifa or Tel Aviv—and that’s not to mention the superior roads, schools, utilities, and social services. At this point the vast majority of settlers live on the West Bank for economic, not ideological, reasons. (This is especially true around Jerusalem.) But consider who these people are. In the past, young people in difficult circumstances, students, well-educated young parents, have been the traditional constituency of the Left. Put these same people in a settlement, and they will, inexorably, even without realizing it, begin to think like fascists. Settlements are, in their own way, giant engines for the production of right-wing consciousness. It is very difficult for someone placed in hostile territory, given training in automatic weapons and warned to be constantly on one’s guard against a local population seething over the fact that your next-door neighbors have been killing their sheep and destroying their olive trees, not to gradually see ethno-nationalism as common sense. As a result, with every election, the old Left electorate further dissipates, and a host of religious, fascist, or semi-fascist parties win a larger and larger stake of the vote. For politicians, who can barely think past the next election, the lure is inescapable.

...I only came to fully understand the agony of the Palestinian situation when I came to understand that the entire point of life, in traditional Palestinian society, is put oneself in a position where you can be generous to strangers. Hospitality is everything.

...Wherever we went, Palestinians would tell us about all the different sorts of people they had historically welcomed to the Holy Land: Armenians, Greeks, Persians, Russians, Africans, Jews… They saw the Zionists as originally their house- guests. Yet they were the worst house-guests one could possibly imagine. Every act of hospitality, of welcome, is turned into license for appropriation, and the world’s most skillful propagandists leapt into action to try to convince the world that their hosts were depraved inhuman monsters who had no right to their own homes. In such a situation, what can you possibly do? Stop being generous? But then one is absolutely, existentially defeated. This is what people really meant when they talked about a life of calculated degradation. People were being systematically deprived of the physical, the economical, and the political means to be magnanimous. And to be deprived of the means to make that kind of magnificent gesture is a kind of living death."

https://davidgraeber.org/articles/hostile-intelligence-reflections-from-a-visit-to-the-west-bank/

[clove-pinks]

Is there anything about your new location (the terrain, the local culture, the physical sites, etc) that has given you a new perspective on regional events of the War of 1812?

This a wonderful ask, thank you! I have been mulling over how to answer it all day! This ended up getting so long I put it behind a cut (I HAVE A LOT OF FEELINGS ABOUT THIS).

The Maumee River, as seen from Fort Meigs Historic Site.

One thing new in my life is a heightened awareness of important rivers facilitating the movement of trade, supplies, and settlement. Particularly in the Old Northwest/current Midwest of the USA: regions that I grew up perceiving as a land-locked "flyover country."

Like, to give one example, I had a vague idea that there was a city called Fort Wayne, Indiana, but I thought it was just in the middle of a cornfield for no reason(?). But actually it's at the confluence of the St. Joseph, St. Marys, and Maumee Rivers, leading to the Great Lakes! The strategically important location is why General Anthony Wayne—that guy again—built the original fortification in 1794. I am downriver of all of this, connected to many inland waterways.

I also have a keen sense of living in the Great Black Swamp, despite how dramatically the land has been transformed by deforestation and drainage. There are the terrifying drainage ditches everywhere (the locals seem less perturbed by them), and many other signs of the natural state of the terrain—the swamp is just barely at bay. My coworkers have said "Black Swamp" unprompted in our conversations; I've seen it mentioned in local Facebook groups talking about the need for back-up sump pumps. The idea that people of northwest Ohio have no sense of history and are unaware of the Great Black Swamp isn't true at all.

I look at the pools of water that form in every hollow and think of the words of Alfred Lorrain, marching to Fort Meigs:

We had frequently to pass through what was called, in the provincialism of the frontiers, "swales"—standing ponds—through which the troops and packhorses which had preceded us had made a trail of shattered ice. Those swales were often a quarter of a mile long. They were, moreover, very unequal in their soundings. In common they were not more than half-leg deep; but sometimes, at a moment when we were not expecting it, we suddenly sank down to our cartridge-boxes.

Swale is a new word in my vocabulary, and now I see them everywhere!

Culturally, I think there is a great appreciation of history here: a very positive difference from the Chicagoland area. Even if the average local is probably not deeply into it, they have a consciousness of major historical events that have shaped their region and take pride in it. It's a lot more like New England that way.

Because of my focus on the War of 1812, I notice the absence of Indigenous people and voices—absent from historical accounts and from the demographics of Perrysburg and its environs today. I can't single out Ohio as being a uniquely violent settler-colonial state when this is ALL of the United States; but it hits different when I have this much greater familiarity with who was forcibly removed from this land, and how. The same US military leaders who fought in the War of 1812 were behind the (very much related) campaign for the removal of Native Americans from newly acquired territories, including the infamous Trail of Tears.

Once again, it's probably hypocritical for me to notice this so much, when I literally grew up on Wampanoag land where King Philip's War was fought, but here I am. Suddenly aware of General Wayne's name on everything, etc.

General Wayne's spurs in the Fort Meigs Museum. Not pictured: the can of Maumee Bay Brewing Co. Fallen Timbers Ale that I am currently drinking.

I haven't had the chance to explore physical sites with historical significance beyond Fort Meigs and Fallen Timbers. I know I will get to the ruins of Fort Miamis soon, and I really want to explore a lot of wetlands in local parks and nature preserves (that will double as birdwatching excursions). I am always thinking about what this place looked like 200 years ago, and what I can see today that might still look familiar to a person from that time.

I had a great trip to the National Museum of the Great Lakes today, which is closer than I thought! Local maritime museums are also on my agenda, even if they're not specifically War of 1812-related.

[bravernificationbeam]

in honor of this post that i made, the confluence of circumstances that make bravern act like an absolute crazy person:

cheating death

cheating death specifically by coming back as a giant robot--something smith finds absolutely kickass

having his crush pilot him

having his consciousness fused with an embodiment of lust

alien lust robot essentially just said to him 'you're so gay i can see it from SPACE!'

being thrown through a timeloop

re the timeloop: the alien invasion earth is going through having way lower stakes for him

also re the timeloop: remembering everything that's happening but as a different person

having to pretend like he's not actually a person he interacts with fairly regularly but from the future

having to wingman himself and steer himself towards killing himself NOW so that the timeloop doesn't get broken

GETTING to be not the person he actually is (i.e. BEING insane and talking abt sex and his crush all the time has fewer personal consequences)

GETTING to pretend like he's an alien (i.e. BEING insane and talking abt sex and his crush all the time is something he can pass off as 'alien who doesn't know better' behavior)

re the two points above: thinking that this is it for him! that he's gonna be bravern for the rest of his life!

[drakiandh]

Shifting Jewels, Chapter 4 - A Promise

Hi Hi wassup. @cosmicrain-draws @otherxagnela, I finally got to the good part, so this'll be my last tag of you guys. Hope you enjoy! Oh! Also, bonus art of what I imagine Star to look like at the bottom!

Words - 4,827

The surroundings around them gradually brightened as they reluctantly opened their eyes. A hiss escaped them as the initial sting subsided, and they blinked until the sunlight revealed the forest around them. They slowly sat up, finding themselves adored with a surprising second pair of arms when their lower hands dug into the soft earth. Cross-legged, they raised all four hands, examining them in fascination. The top pair boasted sharp claws and armor-like plating on their arms, contrasting with the unadorned lower set, leaving them perplexed. Dismissing the thought for the moment, they shifted their attention to the world.

Four eyes allowed them to perceive the environment with a unique perspective. First, they took in the burnt-out remnants of a campfire, the wisps of smoke dissipating into the air. Then, their gaze wandered through the trees, appreciating the gentle rustle of leaves in the breeze. A low hum emanated from their chest as they absorbed the details of their surroundings, and finally, they directed their focus inward, contemplating their newfound form.

A lingering thought prodded at their consciousness, a subtle reminder of an important task they were meant to fulfill. Tilting their head back, they gazed up at the clouds overhead, trying to recall the specifics of their purpose. It dawned on them—future vision. Whose future were they supposed to witness? Their gems. Yes, their gems. A sensation, entirely novel to their experience (which wasn’t surprising given their new form), enveloped their body, prompting their eyes to instinctively close.

As they surrendered to this unfamiliar force, a river materialized within their mind, winding its way through mountains of images and thoughts. Emotions surged through them—confusion, pain, anger, happiness, love. Countless tributaries branched off from the main river, resembling the intricate veins that carried lifeblood on Earth. The paths of existence intertwined, forming a complex network that ultimately led to a significant confluence. The main vein, the one they recognized as their own, extended towards an unforeseen destination, and an unsettling emotion clung to it.

Was it pain? No, it felt like something more profound, something surpassing mere betrayal. What could be worse than betrayal? The answer eluded them, tied to the fates of others, notably entwined with Rose Quartz. Their eyes fluttered open, and a burgeoning headache throbbed in their skull. Frowning, they pressed their hands into the ground, attempting to ignore the whirlwind of emotions engulfing them—mainly confusion and apprehension—and focusing on the more immediate task of standing. Internal voices wrestled within them—one urging analytical assessment, attempting to decipher the potential alteration of the river’s course, while the other, overwhelmed with the sheer thrill of existence, yearned to explore. Yielding to the latter, they wobbled a bit before finally finding their footing.

“There we go,” a voice muttered, causing them to freeze and scan their surroundings. No one was in sight, only the silent company of the towering trees. Their eyes narrowed, tension tightening their posture as they cautiously surveyed the area. The urge to call out won over the impulse to remain silent, prompting them to open their mouth. “Who’s there?” The familiar voice echoed, startling them into a stumble that sent them crashing to the ground with a yelp.

Realization dawned— the voice had been their own. Chuckling at their brief confusion, they sat up, scanning the surroundings once more. Convinced they were alone, they attempted to speak again. “Hello?” The same voice resonated from their throat, eliciting a delighted smile. “Awesome!” they exclaimed, trying to stand once more. Their voice was perfect, boosting their confidence as they took a step, stumbling but managing to stay upright. A laugh bubbled forth as they walked around the clearing, crossing one set of arms while the others planted firmly on their hips, reveling in the simple joy of their newfound existence.

Two of their hands instinctively went to the purple gem on their chest, their sharp claws tapping gently on its smooth surface. The Gem of a Star Sapphire. A low hum emanated from them as they contemplated the gem, tapping it twice before their attention shifted. Moving their hands to their back, they discovered another gem nestled just below the juncture of their neck and body. As they touched it, a fleeting shock of pain prompted a subdued hiss. They traced the cracks on the gem’s surface, a frown forming as they realized it was the broken gem of a Painite—one hit away from shattering. So why would they-?

A sudden gasp escaped them, urgency flooding their entire being, as a blinding white light enveloped them. In an instant, their consciousness split, returning to their respective owners. Star groaned, collapsing ungracefully to the ground as he reformed. Shaking his head to clear the haze, he rubbed at his eyes before looking around.

“Pain!” The cry tore from his throat as he witnessed the red gem desperately trying to prevent his destabilizing body from poofing. Star scrambled to his feet and rushed over to Painite, falling to his knees in a panic. He hovered his hands anxiously over the destabilizing red gem, muttering curses to himself. “Shit, shit, shit, why the hell did I—?” He berated himself, bringing one hand to his gem. Summoning the ancient healing tears he had learned to perfectly mimic, the liquid gathered in his hand, radiating a brilliance brighter than gold. Leaning forward, he attempted to pour it onto Painite’s gem.

However, Painite reformed just enough to slap Star’s hand away, his hiss carrying a harsh tone. The red gem glitched for a moment before settling into a form, revealing the dull red armor of corruption that had grown.

“You idiot!” Painite’s ragged voice reached Star, who turned to the other in concern. “I told you I don’t want to be healed by you!”

“Pain, you were literally destabilizing in front of me!” Star weakly protested, assisting the other in sitting up. “I couldn’t just do nothing!”

“I’m fine, Star,” Painite hissed, groaning slightly at the movement. Star failed to notice the unusual use of his name without hatred for the first time in 5,000 years. Painite glared at him, baring his teeth in a clear but heatless threat. “Why the stars did you do that?!” he demanded, his voice rising slightly.

“Do what?” Star asked innocently, wincing when Painite snarled at him.

“Fuse with me, you idiot! You could’ve gotten corrupted!” Painite shouted. Star winced and quickly tried to think up an explanation.

“It was in the moment! Honest!” He said, raising his hands in a surrender gesture. Painite’s expression shifted into a displeased frown as he crossed his arms. “That fusion, they were supposed to be so you’d have future vision for a minute too. I forgot you were corrupted, really!”

“Forgot? Fusion with a corrupted gem always ends up with the other becoming corrupted as well, Star. Everyone knows that.” Painite hissed, tapping his claws on his armored arm.

“I know, I know,” Star sighed, digging a hand through his hair. “Really, I didn’t think. I’m sorry.” Painite turned away. Silence passed between them, while Star became more and more nervous.

Scarab’s voice was soft when he next spoke. “Why did you fuse with me? Just to give me future vision for a moment?” He asked, his hands falling into his lap. “It’s… wrong.”

“Are you saying it’s wrong because it didn’t feel right, or because Homeworld had told you fusion is only for those of the same gem type?” Star asked, tilting his head a bit. Painite remained silent for a long moment before answering.

“…Homeworld,”

Star smiled, putting his hand over Painite’s. The red gem’s gaze lifted to Stars. “Homeworld can’t control you anymore; you don’t have to stick to anything they told you. There’s no right or wrong on Earth.”

Painite scoffed. “Ironically, since I’m Earthborn.”

Star paused for a small moment. “Wait, you’re Earthborn?” He disregarded the new detail when the moment ended. “Nevermind, that doesn’t matter. What matters right now is me answering your question.” He paused and took a small breath. “You asked what you saw in our future, and to be honest, it’s really hard to try and see more than one gem’s future when you’ve got such an accurate read on it. And I’ve never read my own future; normally it’s just to see events of horror. Nothing so… simple.”

Painite remained silent, rubbing circles on the back of Star’s hand. “I’m so used to blood and death that at this point I’ve started searching for it. I saw so many paths when I poofed you—sorry about that again—and so many of them led to one of us shattering. I couldn’t even look at the few that didn’t. So, I thought, uh, I thought by fusing with you when you asked that question, I-” He cut his words off, looking down at their entwined hands as a blue blush bloomed on his face. “I thought I wouldn’t be so… scared if you were there to see it too.”

“Star…” Painite whispered, the name coiling around his tongue and sounding so perfect without his anger and hatred coating it. Star loved to hear it. The red gem unlinked their hands, bringing one to cup the other’s cheek. Star leaned into the touch, adverting Painite’s eyes. He saw the other frown. “I’m sorry for pushing you. I didn’t mean to overwhelm you.”

Star quickly shook his head. “Don’t worry about it, it’s fine. I’m- I’m used to it.”

That only made Painite’s frown grow deeper. “It’s not fine, Star. I’m sorry I never saw how badly Pink was treating you.” A laugh bubbled out of Star, short and sweet. The secret behind Pink burned at his throat, begging to be released, to tell Painite the truth. But unfortunately, no one can go against a Diamonds command; it was made in their very mineral. No one can know. His mind was pulled from his thoughts when Painite began speaking.

“I know I’m pushing again, but had you ever seen that…” He paused, looking nowhere as he thought. “…emotion?” Star hummed, assuming it was when they were fused. The vision they saw. Familiarity bubbled up in him at the memory, but was quickly squashed down when he could compare that odd feeling to something other gems had felt so long ago. He shook his head, shaking away the other’s hand.

“No, I haven’t,” He said, bringing one of his hands up to cup Painite’s fallen one. “I’ve seen something similar. When I first saw the shattering of Pink-” Painite tensed, but didn’t otherwise react, giving Star the go-ahead. Star hesitated despite himself. “I was curious, curious to see how others would react to her… death. So I looked into the future of some Quartz and found something similar. But this- us, this is different. It’s more… personal.”

“Personal?” Painite repeated, adorably tilting his head.

“Yeah. Like before, with those Quartz, it was more like a boss/worker relationship death. Like their parent died, or something along those lines.”

Painite looked away. “I remember Pink Diamond’s death. I was there to see it happen, I wasn’t fast enough to stop it. It was… excruciating,” Star winced and lowered his head. Maybe he’d take the news well if Rose ever told him? But Pink’s words echoed in his head. No one can know. “And our future, it supposed to be like that? But, closer?” Painite paused and looked at him, a sadness Star was well familiar with growing in his eyes. “Are we always destined to be shattered?”

The question caught Star off guard. “What? I-” He cut himself off, looking towards their intertwined hands once more. “I-I can look… if you want.”

Painite hummed. “Only if you want to. I will not push you, and we can deal with it when we get there.”

“No no, I- I want to. I want to see,” Star hesitated, pulling his hands free and scooting himself back, giving them plenty of space in between them. “Okay, it’s been like 5000 years since I last did this, so I might not be as accurate as before.”

“That is alright,” Painite said, hands falling gently into his lap. “Just do your best.”

Star nodded and took a deep breath, his eyelids slipping shut as he immersed himself in the vivid imagery of the rivers and streams surrounding him. The darkness of his mind came alive with intricate veins, and he concentrated on pushing them outward. From his gem emerged his weaponized shadows that enveloped both him and Painte in a grand dome, spacious enough for them to stand comfortably. A surge of power coursed through him, a kaleidoscope of emotions, thoughts, and actions coiling just beneath his closed eyelids, seen by none but himself.

With determined focus, Star extended those shadows, compelling the intricate visions to materialize on the inner surface of the dome. Veins appeared, gracefully intertwining and pulling from the shadows, creating a mesmerizing display of pathways he had seen countless times before. A final, deliberate push from his gem bathed the dome in a soft blue light, coalescing into a luminous ball at its center. When he finally opened his eyes, he saw Painite looking around, captivated by the intricate veins and paths that now adorned the inside of their ephemeral sanctuary.

“Impressive,” Painite’s voice resonated, somewhat obscured by the whispers of a thousand voices in Star’s head, but comprehensible nonetheless. “I can understand why you’re so valuable.”

Star smiled and raised his hands, palms open. In a deliberate motion, he took a deep breath, and shadowy hands emerged from the dome’s surface at his command. They gracefully twirled around specific veins, coaxing them towards the blue ball in the center. As the veins connected seamlessly, images flashed on the ball’s surface. Star, due to his ability to peer far into the future, had to compromise visual quality for accuracy.

“Our future is one of the more advanced I have seen,” Star began, his voice echoing slightly with subvocals as he slipped back into the habit forged by years of envisioning victories. “Before we had reconnected, I had seen only pain and death.”

The images on the dome began to move as Star spoke, depicting the figures of the two gem beings clashing together. “For five thousand years, I had seen only shattering.” The image portrayed Painite thrusting his spear forward, piercing through Star and shattering him. In another, Star squeezed Painite enough to break his gem, resulting in shattering when it fell. “But for some odd reason, the path changed suddenly.” A larger vein appeared, pulled into the dome and resetting the images, showing a simplified version of when they were at the creek. “Something changed, some small thing that set us both on a new path. I do not know what it is, nor do I care now.”

“You speak much differently when you do this,” Painite noted, tapping a claw gently on a passing vein, which glowed slightly at his touch. Star laughed.

“Yeah, weird, isn’t it?” He responded before pulling a few new veins towards the ball. “Now, there are so many paths that are equally shattering and life. In one, I see you shattering me in a last-ditch effort to realign yourself with Homeworld, only to be shattered when you return because of your corruption. In another, I see separation, where we both go our own ways.”

“Which is the path that is ours?” Painite asked. Star smiled.

“They all are,” he responded, earning a confused look.

“I thought there was only one river, and that all streams lead back to it?” Painite asked.

Star laughed. “To a normal Sapphire, you’re correct. They see as far as 100 or so years into the future. In one hundred years, not a lot can happen to us gems. It is just one big river that is the present, and little streams split off that are your choices, before eventually either leading to a lake of either death or forever contentment, or rejoining the main river. But for me-” He gestured around at the veins hovering around them, then to the ball that had shown his words visually, which had zoomed out, revealing a web so much bigger than a simple river. “I can see thousands of years into the future. The rivers of the present are so much smaller for me, acting as just simple streams in the grand scheme of things. I can see all the rivers that flood into yours, see all the little streams that lead to a lake, see all the little things that shift your river of time. It’s beautiful. All these veins around you now are all the little paths and directions one simple decision can make. And once, just a day or so ago, you would’ve stuck to your vendetta for so long that it would lead to death.”

A vein, cut off and dull, was brought before Painite. Then the larger vein, still feeding into the ball, was moved for a slightly better view. “This larger vein is the future of both me and you combined. So very easily it can split off and flow into one of these dead paths, where one of us, or both, can die. It’s so complex that I had to take a moment to process it when I first saw it.”

“Yes, it is very complex, but what is our current path?” Painite asked, wrapping a hand around one such death path and tugging it slightly. Star smiled when Painite flinched as it broke off easily and quickly hid it behind himself. His smile fell, however, when he saw the future of their current path.

“I see… only pain. Pain and death.” Again, the ball showed them fighting. It showed Star squeezing Paintie so hard he shattered.

“How can I change it?” Painite asked, worriedly looking at the ball.

“Hang on, lemme-” Star concentrated, pulling all the spare veins back into other shadows of his mind before pulling the main one closer, bigger. “There are two steps I can see so far. I can’t really get the details for it, though.”

“That’s alright,” Painite responded. “Just tell me how.”

Star hummed. “First, we get you to the fountain. And then… then we rush to Rose.”

“What?” Painite replied, confusion coursing through him. “What does the rebellion’s leader have anything to do with this?”

Star gazed at the visions appearing on the ball, showing the fountain and them near it, then rushing towards the temple that held the Crystal Gems. And then it just cut off, repeating it over and over again, as if the path was too split to decide. He’d only seen it once before. The day the Diamonds corrupted Earth. “I-I don’t… know,” He said, trying to force it forward, but it only cut out and repeated over and over. “There are too many options, too many chances, too many-” He cut his words off, his eyes widening as he looked at Painite.

“What?” The red gem asked, staring back at the other.

“You’re corrupted,” Star muttered.

“Yes, we’ve established that already,” Paintie said, crossing his arms.

“No no, like you’re corrupted. Corruption works by consuming and distorting the light that is our bodies. If you hadn’t gotten cracked… then you’d have been corrupted.”

Painite scowled. “What are you getting at?”

Star hesitated. “If your gem gets healed, then the corruption will finish its path and corrupt you fully.” Painite’s eyes widened in realization. “That’s why we have to go to Rose; she might be able to heal you if-” He bit his words off, Pink Diamond’s command halting his tongue and burning his soul.

“If what?” Painite prodded. “Star, please tell me if Rose Quartz, a simple Quartz, has the ability to heal me.”

“I-I can’t,” Star responded, shaking his head slightly. “I just can’t.”

“Why not?” Painite pushed. “Why not, Star?”

“I can’t, Painite,” Star replied, surprising the other with the use of his full name. “I just can’t.” Painite remained silent, then nodded.

“Fine. But you will tell me when I have healed,” he said, earning a nod from Star. They sat in silence for a moment before Painite spoke again. “Now, is there a warp pad where the rebellion’s leader is?” Star nodded. “Good. Then we’ll fix the warp pad, and you’ll try to convince the Quartz to heal me.”

Star nodded, but a thought crossed his slowly headache-induced mind. “Wait. Fix the warp pad?”

Painite shrugged. “I figured out the base minerals for healing a warp pad. I wasn’t able to get enough to heal the Homeworld Warp, so I just used it to fix any broken pads I came across.”

Star lit up, a smile breaking over his face. “Awesome! Then let’s get started on getting to that pad.” With a simple thought, the shadows surrounding them fell, pulling the veins of the future back into them as the ball of light fizzled and went out. Star hissed softly, digging a hand through his hair as a pounding headache made itself known.

“Are you alright?” Painite asked, standing and walking over to him.

“Yeah, I’m fine. This migraine will end in just a few hours,” Star responded, shrugging off the other but taking the offered hand to stand. Star tried to pull away, but Painite didn’t let go. Turning, he saw Painite turning his head away. Star waited for the other to speak, their fingers entwined more comfortably.

Painite’s voice was hesitant when he spoke, red blooming on his cheeks. “The fusion…”

Star blinked. “Oh, sorry about that again. I’ll make sure-”

“No,” Painite cut off, his grip growing tighter. “They… they were… nice.”

Star was stunned into silence before excitement bloomed in his chest. “Really?” he asked, a smile breaking over his face. “Do you, maybe, wanna, I don’t know, do it again, maybe?”

Painite remained silent for a long moment before hesitantly nodding. Star smiled as brightly as he could, wrapping his hands around the other’s waist and lifting him up into the air. “Star!” Paintie’s words were cut off when Star began spinning, laughing. A laugh bubbled from Painite as well, even more so when Star dropped him and caught him in a hug.

“Oh man, you’ve got no clue how happy that makes me,” Star said, his eyes slipping shut. Painite sighed and hugged him back.

“How could I have ever hated you?” Painite muttered into his shoulder, and Star giggled.

“I don’t know, man, I’m pretty lovable.” Painite pulled away and swatted at Star’s chest, earning a laugh from the Sapphire. Star leaned his head on the other’s, a bright smile almost as radiant as the white light that enveloped them both.

“Just over these mountains,” They muttered, their clawed hands digging into the rugged rocks as they hoisted their weight onto the ledge. Standing tall, they moved to the edge, peering down at the landscape below. The terrain was a rugged expanse, a patchwork of rocks and intertwining vines. Amidst the natural chaos, a shimmering glint of blue emanated from a distant warp pad. With a scowl, they muttered to no one in particular, “Must it be such a steep fall?”

Without waiting for an answer, they stepped off the precipice. Claws bit into the rock, slowing their descent until they were near enough to leap safely onto a massive boulder that had damaged the warp pad. Planting their hands on the rocky surface, they positioned their feet against the stone wall. With a small groan, they exerted force, tipping the boulder off the warp pad with a muted boom.

Gracefully landing on the warp pad, they stood with a tap of their foot on the large crack that marred its once-blue surface. “Fixable,” they muttered before turning away, embarking on a journey down the path lined with thorns of roses. As they advanced, the thorns began to disperse, revealing a vast depression in the Earth. Processed stone enclosed the area, leading to a grand gate, its star-shaped design guarding the entrance to a massive pool of glittering water—the foundation of the Crystal Gems. Adorning the pool’s center was a statue of their leader, frozen in the act of shedding tears that sustained the pool. They rolled their eyes. “How modest.”

They began a cautious circuit around the fountain, their sharp eyes scanning for any potential threats that, logically, should not have been present. Yet, prudence dictated an extra layer of caution. They couldn’t dispute the wisdom in that, so they meticulously traced the entire circumference of the pool, their fingers grazing the smooth, white stone wall. Satisfied that there was no imminent danger, they retraced their steps back to the warp pad.

Once standing on the blue device, they gracefully crouched, reaching behind to summon a viscous green substance from their cracked gem. Grimacing at the goo’s uncomfortable texture adhering to their fingers, they pressed on, generously applying it within the prominent cracks marring the pad’s surface. After a patient wait of a few moments, the green substance began to emit a soft glow, seamlessly melding with the blue material. Soon, the cracks healed and vanished from sight. A triumphant smile curled on their face as they nodded in approval, crossing their top pair of arms with a sense of accomplishment.

Content with their work on the warp pad, they returned back to the fountain, casting a final, scrutinizing gaze over the area before finally focusing on the shimmering water. Seating themselves on the bottom steps of the pool, they dipped their clawed feet into the water. A delightful tingling sensation coursed through their limbs, prompting a soft smile to grace their features. With a serene expression, they closed their eyes as a cascade of white light enveloped their form, their consciousness seamlessly returning to their respective owners.

Star’s eyes fluttered open, finding Painite seated beside him. Sensing a subtle hesitation in the other gem, Star extended a comforting hand towards Painite. However, he froze right before making contact, a sense of horror seizing him as he peered at his arm. Beneath the sleeve of his jacket, red armor was manifesting on his skin.

Corruption.

The realization jolted Star, and he quickly shook away the disconcerting feeling. Refocusing on comforting Painite, he laid a hand over the other’s, adjusting his sleeve to conceal the emerging corruption. “It’s okay,” Star reassured, his voice steady despite the underlying worry. “Trust me, I’ve healed myself in this pool before. It works.”

Painite hesitated, voicing his concerns. “But what if it doesn’t?” He paused. “What if it does?”

Star furrowed his brow. “Isn’t that a good thing if your crack gets healed?”

Painite nodded. “Yes, but it also clears the path for the corruption.” Star had momentarily forgotten about this aspect, and a wave of regret washed over him. Painite turned to him, a serious expression on his face as he took his hand away and stood. Star mirrored the movement, standing patiently, though an underlying tension crept into his demeanor.

“Star,” Painite began, and the Sapphire straightened, anticipation tingling in the air. “If the Quartz is unable to be convinced to heal me, or if she can’t heal me, I want you to poof me.”

Star’s stance faltered. “What?” Confusion seeped into his voice.

“Poof me,” Painite repeated casually, as if discussing the weather. “I want you to poof me if the corruption cannot be healed, even if it hasn’t fully taken over yet.” He paused, allowing Star to absorb his request. “I have seen it take over gems. I do not wish to experience that pain.”

Star stared at Painite for a moment, his mind racing to process the gravity of the request. “I-I can’t just poof you, Pain! I-”

Painite cut him off, his tone firm and resolute. “Star, I was an incredibly powerful gem during the war. I was stronger than the Beta Kindergarten’s top Jasper. If that corruption fully takes over, then I can be a serious threat to you. I can shatter you, Star. When the time comes, and I trust you will know when, I want you to poof me. Got it?”

A long moment hung in the air, the weight of Painite’s request sinking into Star’s conscience. Though justified, the idea still pierced through him with a painful realization. Painite’s unyielding gaze demanded a response, compelling Star to make a decision. With a heavy sigh, Star nodded. “Okay… Okay, I will,” he said, his voice laden with a sense of vulnerability. Painite acknowledged the response with a soft smile, though it didn’t quite reach his eyes.

“Good. And when you do, make sure to keep me close, okay?” Painite requested. Star nodded in solemn agreement. Painite reciprocated the nod before turning his attention back to the shimmering water.

“Good luck,” Star murmured, his eyes fixed on Painite, who took a deep breath.

A beat of heavy silence enveloped them, and then Painite dove into the pool, disappearing beneath the glittering surface.

[maps-to-elsewhere]

The Last Architecture: Overview

The end of time is not an event, but a landscape, one that must be traversed by those who were never meant to witness it, not as a place one navigates, a process, a condition one suffers.

Plying aimlessly through cosmic gulfs haunted by the spectre of deep time, beyond the death of ordered space, amidst the sublime horror of a universe winding down, roam untethered, clotted, self-cannibalising agglomerations of worlds, heaping, stygian dimensions coagulated into a single, sprawling megastructure: the Last Architecture. It is a fractal superstructure, shifting, aggregate detritus cast in titanic confusion, labyrinthine chambers and halls, warrens of machinery and ecology moulded together in endless cycles of digestive rebirth, shaped by entropy into something between tomb and womb, where life clings rank, like mold, to the ruins of meaning.

Here, the digitised remnants of long-dead consciousness flicker like a dying star, no longer mind, but a climate, ideological weather patterns that shape a dreaming storm of half-remembered desires, not transcendence, degradation. Within its currents howl algorithmic ghosts and the collective trauma of a species not dying, posthumous, retained in a system that was never meant to sustain life, but replace it, the failed upload of a mind too vast to cohere.

Ancillary to this noosphere, this maelstrom proxy, splay the organs of a self-contained ecosystem where their last biological remains cling to existence, fractured genetic code, data corruption, spreading like gangrene. Amidst fractal walls that grow like coral scars from the ribs of this dead leviathan like a festering, recursive wound, those who persist are not inhabitants, but symptoms of its breaking, its breaking what permits life to continue.

Existence has been reduced to a stuck record of consciousness skipping on the last proton’s decay, lacking even the comfort offered by the light of dead stars, their luminance long-lost to the emptiness underpinning what no longer is. Here is nothing more than a contortion of preserved biology and recorded mind in a corpse so vast that its decomposition is mistaken for ecology, churning in a silent scream, forever in a hall of mirrors that go nowhere, cries falling dead against themselves at the end of all things.

The End of Order

In lieu of sky is naught but a negative impression, a scar left behind that presses like a suffocating membrane, the Lambence, a quantum echo of photons that no longer exist, trapped in the fabric of a reality where time has lost its arrow. It is not light as can be understood, nor sky as can be looked up at, but the afterimage of causality, the waste glow of a universe suffocated to a guttering radiance stretched into perpetual twilight; pale, cold, directionless, a ghostly afterimage, a mockery of sun.

Throughout this mammoth conflux, intelligent monoliths oversee great seas of organic slurry spawning predacious effigies of flesh and machine that haunt the wreckage between impenetrable, ever-changing strata where reality is improvised. These protean environs are distorted by anomalous hazards, where gravity loops like a Möbius strip, light is a currency traded between machines and pockets of air hum with the voices of dead poets; prospectors don’t explore these places, they negotiate with them.

The shattered expanse of this frontier is draped in corrosive fecundity carried on the constant, howling winds rushing hot through knife-edged crags, cutting through the monuments of a past left to ageless putrefaction. Ignoble remnants, they are a scarred landscape of irradiated wastes, bleakness dominated by cyclopean structures and shifting monoliths of polyhedral suggestion which clutter the noisome air twined through with vast snarls of creeping, clinging life.

Between Life and Decay

Within twilit places, contrivances of civilisation persist in desperate confutation, huddled amidst the confluence of titanic cadavers and necrotising monuments, mouldering lives lost to the scale of the forgotten. Almost exclusively, secure habitations are the relatively stable environments near water supplies where spaces rest but uneasily, confused yet predictable in their ceaseless conjunctions.

From these outflows are grown the staples on which the populace rely, rare oases, that are mere singular, self-contained regions amidst the benighted turmoil blooming from dead matter beyond. Among them, the people cling to co-opted apparatuses suspended within the co-mingled flotsam, sustaining themselves on the layered, vestige confusion of lost epochs.

If such are the nerve centres then the flow of water between them is the lifeblood, moving in regular cycles of heating and rising, carried in diurnal cycles upon atmospheric plasma currents. These cycles are the basis of chronological reckoning as currents wax and wane, waters rising heated only to fall, cooling as it goes before the process begins anew.

Civilisation of Dregs

Where the waters gather, life has arisen, their pathways becoming the foundations of what passes for civilisations skulking around in the filth and dark, festering upon the bones of the past, dependent upon deposits of ruin. Between such redoubts, secure routes are painstakingly charted as safe ways warp over time into trap-filled snarls, monstrous dens or worse, becoming co-opted by those venal predators who prey upon their own.

Civilisation struggles to draw itself out from the upheavals left by the fall of the Elder Race, the Old Ones who reigned over all in cruel incomprehension and whose remnants have been left to decay in a land made rotten by their downfall. Amidst streets that rewrite themselves to spite pedestrians, refugees trade memories like currency, selling their pasts to buy futures, ruled by guilds, the failing body of which are less factions and more emergent properties, like convection currents in a boiling pot.

Dubious safety is an alienated, mildewed environ twisting through bazalgettean congeries of lawless, clustered catacombs, waterways and cathedrals of sewage like an extended, suppurating gutter in which people contrive yet to live. Within, community has coalesced amidst automated processes and half-tamed tracts of origami architecture, sanctuary a labyrinth of unnerving angles and ever-shifting pathways criss-crossing throughout a mass grave filled with pitfalls and phenomena that defy sense.

Inheritors of Ruin

Driven behind the walls of these redoubts in desperate cooperation by the depravations of dead masters, their survivors nonetheless persist in meagre hovels built upon grand foundations, led by the scattered remnants of hying institutions. Conflicts between the lesser races have been, by contrast, few and petty, contests of exploitation and subterfuge amidst acts of espionage and domestic terror defined by a grudging sort of cooperation, if not tolerance between factions.

During the interim, the military aristocracy of the Vesmiran imperial estates have become the harried vanguard of an uneasy accord, self-styled Ordinators, keepers of a fragile unity couched in mutual aid, fighting wars over axioms, not territory. Their efforts are bolstered by the cultural, technological and economic advancements coming out of the numerous Special Administrative Districts, wounds in the Architecture’s logic where they persist under siege by the constant shadow of danger that looms without.

By contrast, the greatest clans of the Escharim Autarky have seen what remains of their peoples wracked by cultural and political schism and the slow extinction caused by a dysgenic weapon which has curbed their capacity to reproduce. Further threatened by rebellion within the ranks of their graven servants, many of their leadership have been forced to retreat into the guarded isolation of their ancestral cloisters or face the march of progress.

The graven themselves have taken the opportunity to cement their people within the fabric of this new order, making of themselves, in metaphor if not reality, the indispensable mortar upholding the tenuous structure of an integrated civilisation. Although there is no dearth of ill will toward those who would have called themselves these peoples’ masters, the graven have, on the whole, seen fit to lead by example where their peers seek only opportunist retribution.

Fragile Peace

While tensions remain between the three races, a masquerade of peace has persisted in the languishing guilds of the Federated Economic Bloc, a pretence made filthy by use and reuse. Buoyed upon a nascent second industrial revolution helmed by enemies turned wary allies, it is a grim promise to a populace which upholds a fractured front in the face of a grim reality.

Bringing order to this disparate union is the Circle of the White Bell, its toll not a sound but a mathematical constant that staves off the mind’s dissolution amidst the maelstrom, consistent as a Fibonacci heartbeat. It is a pulse of artificial timekeeping within the cycles that dominate and to hear it is to remember that you exist, an anchor in the storm as it counts the unending cycles, its absence to unravel amidst the recursive palimpsest of predatory meaning.

Fittingly, the ministrations of the Circle lie in records, like unreliable eulogies pointing to the corpses of empires yet to be despoiled for resources lost to the ruins between Districts. This pillage is sentineled by the Ordinators’ legions who oversee the beleaguered populace of the Federation which renders the materials gathered by their protectors for use.

The lives of the majority are spent labouring to feed the endless needs of civil infrastructure within the Districts in exchange for safety, clean water, food and the promise of citizenship for themselves or their children. For this reason, desperation is synonymous with loyalty and the threat that comes with deviation the foundation of the rule of law, any discrepancy being dangerous to the fragile status quo.

Prospectors of Rot

Such stricture is of little comfort as the sheltered inhabitants turn inwards, seeking in the cryptic and forsaken depths of their havens some meagre succour salvaged from the overgrown wreckage in desperate refutation of such burgeoning, derelict rot. A life within the Districts is one spent sifting through the gathered detritus of Reclamation Zones beyond their walls to refine the materials necessary for continued survival, risking life and limb delving into the deep maze in search of caches yet unclaimed.

In the depths, subsistence is taken amidst broken masonry punctuated by debris blown on miasmic winds, piling around chemical pools into mountains of toxic putrefaction scoured for the promise of value hardly repaid. Metals are the primary incentive most have for braving the Zones, a rare and precious commodity alongside rarer technologies, or else they follow whispers of strange, cryptic artefacts which will sell for a tidy profit at the Exchange.

Though first the purview of specialists trained and outfitted by governing bodies, the growth of industrial demand has given rise to a nascent class of pioneering prospectors who stalk the untrod catacombs in search of dubious profit. Their efforts have given rise to a deeply-rooted mythology of freebooters, mercenaries, the desperate and foolish, a base echo of civilisation cannibalising the looming corpse of its forebears.

A Haven for Outcasts

Stricken from the archival efforts of the Circle and far from the Resonance of the Bell’s cleansing Tones, one District in particular has become infamous as the dumping-ground of society: District 23. Once a great capital, to judge by its crumbling architecture, it is settled now only by the homeless, outlaws and fugitives from the Federation, outcasts with no better place to go, attracting opportunists like flies around trash.

Studiously ignored by the authorities, ruined by generations of neglect, District 23 is a place of convenience for the ruling powers and an inescapable reality for its unfortunate populace, a pressure-valve for a system that officially denies scarcity. Theirs is a society pieced together from the disfigured histories and cemeteries of culture defaced after so many centuries, retrofitted under the shadow of a military-industrial complex that has grown to perpetually fight itself.

Though officially a non-place, District 23 has become an enclosed battlefield where bloodshed has been replaced with engagements of economic rivalry and strained alliances of Federation phyles. Here, peace means the threat of renewed violence planned in guild halls and played out by proxy within the self-governed, semi-lawless civic blocks of the unguilded thetes, gutter punks living in their shadows.

To many, chafing between the proscriptions necessary for survival and the injustices that persist under the rule of law, walking the streets of District 23 seems an unlikely sort of succour. This paradoxical escape from the mundane has become embodied in folk tales of stalkers who brace the Zones, seeking their fortune in a dissonant world where the past is an open wound and the future remains uncertain.

[velvetvexations]

Regarding your OC, I feel like it's actually pretty ok to use photos of non-albino black people for an albino character if they look alike. Your character just has a medical condition affecting their pigmentation, if they were born without it they might look exactly like the pictures. I don't find it weird, just like how it wouldn't be weird if it was vitiligo and pictures of black people without vitiligo. It's not like albinism affects things like facial features or hair texture or anything, so I don't really see it as whitewashing or colorism since it's, again, a medical condition that can affect anyone regardless of ethnicity.

However I do find it strange that you describe your character as both albino and white-passing... Like, how white-passing are we talking about ? (Would your character pass as white even to other black people ?). Because for example, I'm not sure if an albino Willow Smith would be "white-passing"...

Take it with a grain of salt because it's my personal opinion and other black people might not agree, but I feel like it's not like, terribly racist to associate images of white women with your character (if like you said you're not literally using them as the actress that would play them)... But it's not ideal either. I also feel like it would be better if you also included pictures of black people, albino or not. I don't know how much research you've done on that specific subject so I don't wanna assume, but I'd encourage you to try to look up various black albino models, because again, I do question the "albino + white passing" part a bit... Not that people like that don't exist or shouldn't be represented but imo it's a peculiar choice of intersection to pick and it does make me a bit wary to see it handled by a white author without more context around it. I feel like we'd need to know more about the character to form a better opinion on that question. And again, I don't claim to speak for all black people, it's just my personal opinion lol.

That's a very good point anon! I think "White-passing" could possibly be an exaggeration in that there's nothing else about her physical features that would necessarily make people think she was White, but she also has bright purple hair and wears loud goth-punk outfits and makeup, so there's a lot of noise for the eyes to sift through.

She was also raised by a non-Black family in an extremely White area, if that might also contribute? I'm not sure if it would or not. She is definitely alienated from Black culture, which was not really an intentional decision but just a confluence of the plot points involved in her being raised by people other than her birth parents.*

I think my image of her in my head is not entirely consistent, though. I saw that music video while her race was still TBD and instantly fell in love how perfectly she seemed to manifest in it, but I might not have fully internalized it because I have a hard time picturing concrete details of people's faces all at once. Her being albino and her being Black were separate decisions and it feels possible that I've not properly put those two concepts together in my mind's eye.

I don't really need her to be White-passing at all tbh. They have a time machine and I tossed around the idea of it being a plot point in earlier eras, but again, purple hair, she's never not going to draw attention. I think I can just entirely ditch that element. I did already have her say she's "the last person" who'll judge someone else for passing in Willow World, but that does not have to mean she literally passes at more than a glance, I don't think?

*I try to avoid the explicit issue of it inherently also being a rejection of racial/cultural heritage, but a big part of her thing is dealing with the fact that she's seriously triggered by being reminded of her birth parents and has intensely negative feelings over the subject - for reasons no one is at fault for, I'll add. None of that consciously had anything to do with race when I mapped it out, and like I said, her being albino was an entirely separate decision before I even decided for sure she was anything other than White, but interpreting it through that lens could be seen as an emergent property of that story arc being assigned to a Black woman.

[confluence-of-consciousness]

🧠 What secrets does your mind hold?

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[echidnana]

I think the most consistent dissociative slash plural experience we have is a screwy memory. emotional amnesia forgetting ourselves struggling with exos losing track of time. etc.

[bestworstcase]

have you heard of and/or do you have a take on the gun theory?

unfortunately.

ok. my introduction to the g.u.n. theory occurred when somebody tagged the the narnia post ‘rwby gun theory’ and i went “the hell is that” and promptly found out.

that was two years ago jesus christ

since then it has occupied the dragon’s hoard of spurious fandom bullshit i keep in my brain to provide enrichment for my flock of scathing little carrion bird thoughts. i haven’t talked about it here because i do actually make an effort to be civil.

so.

the g.u.n. theory is underpinned by a fundamental misunderstanding of symbolism and allusion. both misunderstandings arise from the same analytical error, which is the presupposition that the text is written in code. it is, so to speak, a cryptographic reading.

before getting into the weeds i will say this: as a writer, i find this cryptographic approach genuinely a little offensive in, like, an “if you even look at my writing i will beat you to death and then eat you alive” knee-jerk fuck you kind of way. and that’s because this:

a theory that there is a second, completely different interpretation of RWBY from the apparent and generally accepted one […] that RWBY contains many, many more allusions than the creators let on. [they] are intentionally hiding these allusions […] by layering them, so that something that alludes to one thing on the surface also alludes to something else on a level beneath that, resulting in the audience easily seeing the top-level allusion but missing the lower level allusion- or allusions- unless they are paying very very close attention. [ src. ]

is fucking insulting. it is anti-storytelling. the point of a story is to tell a story, not to obfuscate itself by encoding the secret ‘real’ story in the proverbial fucking blue curtains. storytelling is communicative. storytellers WANT you to understand the story, the telling, that is the whole entire fucking point. symbolism is not a secret code. it’s a flag. it’s a trail-marker. it’s a tool for guiding attention and helping the audience connect the dots.

sometimes it’s accidental because writers make subconscious connections or just repeat a motif a lot for aesthetic reasons. (<- my thing is birds. if you’ve ever read bitter snow and wondered why everything is birds it’s because i just think that birds) sometimes it’s on purpose and sometimes it is On Purpose. but it is never, ever there to tell a secret hidden story that is not the story the story appears to be. stories say what they mean and mean what they say.

yes even allegories, fables, satire, et cetera. subtext is not “”hidden meaning“” it’s just narrative information conveyed implicitly. theme is not “”hidden meaning“” it’s the abstract ideas realized through the narrative. these are things the audience is supposed to pick up on, even if they lack the analytical skill to identify and articulate precisely how or why and even if they don’t consciously recognize it. storytellers want you to get it.

ok? ok.

takes off the writer hat.

the g.u.n. theory—like all cryptographic readings—begs the question. it’s a “method of further appreciating, understanding and even predicting the events of [RWBY]” by examining the story “as a confluence of dozens of familiar fantasy and fictional narratives and influences” because the story is actually something “completely different” from what it appears to be. the g.u.n. theory purports to excavate the deeper real story from the obfuscating “surface” story, which is an obviously insane thing to do unless you first accept the premise that the actual text—the things the characters do and say on the screen—is not what the story is.

the g.u.n. theory requires that “what happens in star wars?” is more relevant to interpreting rwby than “what happens in rwby?”

that is ludicrous. it is facile. it’s nonsense.

it would be nonsense even if the g.u.n. theory limited itself to genuine allusions (like ‘the marvelous land of oz’), because while rwby is retelling marvelous land pretty fucking overtly, you do in fact have to read marvelous land in context with a) what happens in rwby and b) specifically how rwby leverages marvelous land to construct its own story, which means you also need to read it in context with the other core allusions (maiden-in-tower tales, the little prince, cinderella) and the way the rwby narrative fits the pieces together. if that sounds complicated yes, but also no, because rwby is really very straightforward about it.

but the g.u.n. theory is the brainchild of people who think the core allusions are [checks notes] lord of the rings, star wars, avatar: the last airbender, fullmetal alchemist, and sailor moon. that the atlas arc is based on the lion, the witch, and the wardrobe (on this see The Narnia Post). that salem’s primary character allusions are the wicked witch of the west, sauron, cinderella’s evil stepmother, emperor palpatine, two presumably villainous fullmetal alchemist characters, and inexplicably maleficent?—but notably NOT rapunzel / persinette / petrosinella despite her being, yanno, explicitly the girl in the tower.

looks into the camera like i’m on the office.

what is happening here—this becomes obvious the instant g.u.n. theorists construct an argument for an allusion—is a conflation of common tropes and archetypes with narratively meaningful allusion. thus, “winter is jadis because she enters in a fancy airship, wields a sword and a smaller sword that kind of looks like a wand, there’s a stone lion-head fountain in this one scene, she’s short-tempered, and she’s from the frozen polar kingdom that oppresses the animal people” which is, um, stupid.

i am like five fucking thousand words deep in comparative analysis of salem and job arguing that rwby is a jobian narrative and i will still asterisk the book of job to hell and back as probably not a deliberate allusion because the comparison relies so much on subtext and i am waiting (very! patiently!) for salem to start talking before i’ll commit to arguing for intention. there are people who are convinced winter is jadis because her main gauche vaguely resembles a wand and she’s from the polar kingdom and, like, presents as an archetypal Ice Lady.

i just—

snarls. see the narnia post.

the point is that the g.u.n. theory’s analytical framework is both explicitly countertextual (the text is not the story) and interested in aesthetics and archetypal similarity almost to the exclusion of everything else.

joseph campbell would be proud.

that interest in aesthetics, combined with the g.u.n. theory’s cryptographic approach to analysis, is why prognostication guided by the g.u.n. theory turned out wrong with stunning regularity, and also why there are g.u.n. theory posts out there that make nonsense claims like “x symbol and y symbol have the same meaning and are interchangeable because they resemble each other and are connected to the same character” (<- snarls in ‘the broken moon = the burning rose’).

i’m glad V8 put it in the ground because if i had seen g.u.n. theorists babbling nonsense about alice in wonderland during V9 i would have been unkind

[trans-axolotl]

"Thus primed, I propose that madness encompasses at least four overlapping entities in the modern West.

First is phenomenal madness: an intense unruliness of mind--producing fundamental crises of perception, emotion, meaning, and selfhood--as experienced in the consciousness of the mad subject. This unruliness is not necessarily painful, nor is it categorically pleasurable; it may induce distress, despair, exhilaration, euphoria, and myriad other sensations. In elaborating this mode of madness, I favor a phenomenological attitude attuned to whatever presents itself to consciousness, including hallucinations and delusions that have no material basis. Most important, phenomenal madness centers the lived experience and first person interiority of the mad subject, rather than, say, diagnoses imposed by medical authority.

Such diagnoses are the basis of medicalized madness, the second category in this schema. Medicalized madness encompasses a range of "serious mental illnesses" and psychopathologies codified by the psy sciences of psychiatry, psychology, and psychoanalysis. These "serious" conditions include schizophrenia, dissociative identity disorder, bipolar disorder, borderline personality disorder, and the antiquated diagnosis of medical "insanity," among others. I label this category medicalized madness, emphasizing the suffix -ize, meaning to become or to cause to become--to signal that mental illness is a politicized process, epistemological, operation, and sociohistorical construction, rather than an ontological given...

...Even forms of medicalized madness that are measurable in brain tissue physiology, neuroelectric currents, and other empirical criteria are infiltrated (and sometimes constituted) by sociocultural forces. The creation, standardization, collection, and interpretation of psychiatric metrics take place in the crucible of culture. Likewise, clinical procedures are designed and carried out by subjective persons embedded in webs of social relations. And furthermore, psychiatry is susceptible to ideology. Exploiting that susceptibility, various antiblack, proslavery, patriarchal, colonialist, homophobic, and transphobic regimes have wielded psychiatry as a tool of domination. Thus, acts and attributes such as insurgent blackness, slave rebellion, willful womanhood, anticolonial resistance, same-sex desire, and gender subversion have all been pathologized by Western psychiatric science. Beyond these overt examples of hegemonic psychiatry, I want to emphasize that no diagnosis is innocently objective. No etiology escapes the touch and taint of ideology. No science is pure.

The third mode of madness is rage: an affective state of intense and aggressive displeasure (which is surely phenomenal, but warrants analytic distinction from the unruliness above). Black people in the United States and elsewhere have been subjected to heinous violence and degradation, but rarely granted recourse. Consequently, as singer-songwriter Solange Knowles reminds us, black people "got the right to be mad" and "got a lot to be mad about." Alas, when they articulate rage in American public spheres, black people are often criminalized as threats to public safety, lampooned as angry black caricatures, and pathologized as insane. That latter process--the conflation of black anger and black insanity--parallels the Anglophone confluence of madness meaning anger and madness meaning insanity. In short, when black people get mad (as in angry), antiblack logics tend to presume they've gone mad (as in crazy).

The fourth and most capacious category in this framework is psychosocial madness: radical deviation from the normal within a given psychosocial milieu. Any person or practice that perplexes and vexes the psychonormative status quo is liable to be labeled crazy. The arbiters of psychosocial madness are not elite cohorts of psychiatric experts, but rather multitudes of avowedly Reasonable people and publics who abide by psychonormative common sense. Thus, psychosocial madness reflects how avowedly sane majorities interpellate and often denigrate difference. What I have already stated about medicalized madness can also be adapted to psychosocial madness: acts and attributes such as insurgent blackness, slave rebellion, willful womanhood, anticolonial resistance, same-sex desire, and gender subversion have all been ostracized as crazy by sane majorities who adhere to Reasonable common sense...

...Yet it seems to me that psychosocial madness reveals more about the avowedly sane society branding an object crazy than about the so branded. When you point at someone or something and shout Crazy!, you have revealed more about yourself--about your sensibility, your values, your attentions, your notion of the normal, the limits of your imagination in processing dramatic difference, the terms you use to describe the world, the reach of your pointing finger, the lilt of your accusatory voice--than you have revealed about that supposedly mad entity."

-How to Go Mad Without Losing Your Mind: Madness and Black Radical Creativity by La Marr Jurelle Bruce, 2021, pg 6-8.

[talonabraxas]

"Vishnu" ॐ Talon Abraxas

“Om Namo Narayanaya”

Narayanaya Om

This mantra is one of the most sacred and is frequently used in prayers, worship, yoga exercises, and meditation. Sanskrit hymns of eight syllables are sometimes referred to as Ashtakshara Mantra, or the eight-lettered invocation. It is believed to be so terrifying that several intellectuals and great individuals throughout history have gone to tremendous lengths merely to get initiation into the chanting from saints, spiritual leaders, and preceptors.

The mantra “Om Namo Narayanaya” calls Narayana, the ultimate protector, and makes a reverent bow to him. Even though it only means “I bow to Lord Narayana,” the connotation is profound nonetheless. The word “Om” is used to begin the invocation. This word’s sound vibration is timeless, acts as the foundation for all living creatures and non-living objects in the cosmos, and vibrates through every tiny particle of a single physical body as well as the vast universe. The singing of this mantra, which is hailed as the global sound, may produce vibrations that are all-pervasive and are considered to have tremendous potency and supernatural qualities. The phrase “Namo” is used to greet the Lord after that, and the mantra ends by accepting the holy name Narayana with the utmost reverence.

The Lord’s name has a special meaning. Although the term “Nara” often refers to a “human person,” it may also denote “water.” The word “Ayana” can refer to both the “ultimate objective” and the “resting place.” Narayana is said to be sleeping on the wide ocean at Vaikunta, his home, as is well known. Saints and seers therefore understand the term “Narayanaya” as the ultimate goal and last resting place that every soul or living thing strives towards.

Chanting’s Advantages

It can cause the confluence of sound and mind when recited precisely, with dedication, and with trust, resulting in the experience of divine consciousness and eternal serenity. Additionally, it is said that repeating the phrase 108 times while using prayer beads might help you reap its full advantages.

“Om Namo Narayanaya” is sometimes referred to as the “mantra of peace.” Reciting it may eliminate ignorance and unfavourable feelings like ego, wrath, and greed; remove barriers and diversion; and produce peace, calm, and love. Thus, this hymn is a very good candidate to serve as the slogan for world peace.

[theveiledstream]

Chapter 8:

Confluence of Thoughts

Elena sat at her desk, staring at the blank page of her notebook, her pen hovering just above the lines. The classroom buzzed around her—whispers, the occasional laugh, the steady rhythm of pencil scratches and page turns—but she barely heard any of it. Her thoughts were too loud.

She had planned to write something down, to take notes like she was supposed to, but instead, she found herself frozen, trapped in the weight of a question she couldn’t quite name.

What am I supposed to be?

The thought had been creeping in more and more lately, filling the quiet spaces in her mind, whispering at the edges of her consciousness. It wasn’t just about how people saw her. It was about how she saw herself, and how she felt like she was failing in every direction.

She clenched her jaw and forced herself to write something—anything—to ground herself. But all she managed was a single sentence before her mind pulled her under again.

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She had always known how to be the person other people expected.

For her parents, she was supposed to be steady, reliable. Someone who didn’t make waves. Her father, distant as he was, had expectations that were never spoken aloud but were deeply understood. Strength. Practicality. Logic. He did not believe in questioning the order of things. You did what was expected. You did not dwell.

Her mother, on the other hand, was harder to pin down. There had been a time when Elena had sought her approval desperately, when she had hoped that if she was good enough, if she followed the unspoken rules of her family’s world, then maybe her mother would understand her. Maybe she would see her.

But that had never happened. And over time, Elena had learned that the best way to survive was to be careful.

To make herself small in the right ways.

To stay within the lines of what was acceptable, even when every part of her wanted to break free.

For her teachers, she was the quiet, intelligent student. The one who listened attentively, who never interrupted, who completed her assignments with precision. She was the kind of student who made things easy for them.

But that ease was suffocating. It meant that no one ever looked too closely. That when she faltered, when her mind drifted too far, when she lost time staring out the window because she was drowning in her own thoughts, they assumed it was nothing.

And maybe that was the worst part.

No one could see her struggling, so no one ever asked if she was.

For her friends, she was something else entirely. Mira, especially, saw her as steady, reliable—someone who didn’t get caught up in drama, who was always fine. Elena had spent years perfecting that version of herself, the one who smiled when she was supposed to, who gave the right responses, who didn’t let people see what was really happening beneath the surface.

Because what would happen if they saw?

What would happen if Mira realized just how lost she really was?

She exhaled, gripping her pen so tightly that her fingers ached.

And then there was herself.

What kind of person was she supposed to be for herself?

That was the hardest question of all.

Because the truth was, she didn’t know.

She had spent so long trying to fit into the roles that were handed to her—so long trying to make herself into something palatable, acceptable, safe—that she wasn’t sure there was anything left underneath it all.

The river beneath the city had kept moving, even when no one could see it.

But what if she wasn’t like that?

What if she had spent so much time hiding that she had lost whatever was real about herself?

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The classroom had shifted slightly, students beginning to pack up their things, the murmurs of conversation growing louder. The teacher had finished the lesson. She had lost time again.

Mira was looking at her, brow furrowed. “Hey, you okay?”

Elena forced a nod. “Yeah. Just tired.”

Mira studied her for a second longer before sighing. “You’re always tired.”

Elena let out a breath that was almost a laugh. “I guess.”

She didn’t have the energy to explain what she really meant. That the exhaustion she felt wasn’t from lack of sleep, but from the weight of everything pressing down on her.

They packed up their things and walked toward the door together, Mira talking about something—weekend plans, maybe, or an upcoming test—but Elena barely registered it.

Her mind was still caught in that question.

Who was she supposed to be?

And why did it feel like no matter what she did, she was getting it wrong?

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By the time she reached home, the gray sky had darkened into something heavier, the promise of more snow lingering in the air.

She stepped inside, shaking the cold from her coat, and immediately felt the weight of the house settle around her. It was too quiet.

Her father was in the other room, speaking in his usual even, unshaken tone on the phone—likely something about work.

Her mother was in the kitchen, sorting through mail.

“Did you do something to your hair?”

Elena’s stomach clenched. She hadn’t. Not really. It was just slightly unkempt from the wind, from the way she had been lost in thought all day. But it didn’t matter.

It wasn’t really about her hair.

Her mother was always watching, always searching for something just slightly off.

Elena hesitated, then simply said, “No.”

Her mother hummed but said nothing more.

Elena made her way upstairs to her room, shutting the door behind her, letting out a breath she hadn’t realized she was holding.

She sat on the edge of her bed, staring down at her hands.

She closed her eyes.

Somewhere, beneath the city, the river was still moving.

It had been buried, forced underground, but it had never stopped flowing.

Maybe she was like that.

Or maybe she wasn’t.

Maybe she was just lost.

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[acollectionofas]

The confluences of identity are so fascinating. I'm both trans and autistic. When I am being my authentic self, my chosen name slides off my tongue effortlessly. When I am masking heavily, I stumble over my own name and have to consciously remind myself not to deadname myself. The deadname belongs to the mask in so many ways.