#literally meaning ‘The Sea Aegis’

[koroart]

Look at how young and bright they are — boutta traumatize both of them soon ✨

Young Lambrigue for my Pacific Rim AU! I’ll draw them when they’re old….eventually ( tomorrow )

In case it’s hard to read, their Jaeger’s name is Llŷr Aegis! ✨

[theoihalioistuff]

Hi, I've finished the Illiad and Odyssey not so long ago, and I'm a little bit confused.

In those texts, characters or narrator sometimes refer to Zeus as "the oldest of gods." I've read these on my native language, so I decided there was some translation problem, but then I've came across couple of English posts also talking about Zeus as the oldest and yes, I understand that posts people write aren't the best source of information but along with what I've read in the poems it made me doubting.

So, are there some versions of the myths where Zeus is the oldest? Or is it simply a translation or interpretation problem, like "the oldest" in the meaning "the strongest/wisest/greatest/etc"?

I will be very thankful for the explanation because somehow, this made me so confused.

No problem! Although Zeus is almost always presented as the youngest son from Hesiod onwards, he is in fact described as the oldest in the Iliad. For example, when he sends Iris with a message to Poseidon:

"I came here bearing a message for you, dark-haired holder of the earth, from Zeus who wields the aegis. He commands you to desist from war and battle and to go among the tribe of gods, or into the bright salt sea. And if you do not obey his words, but ignore them, he threatens that he too will come here to do battle, face-to-face; and he bids you avoid his hands, since he says he is more powerful by far than you in strength and in birth is elder." (Il. 15. 174-182)

One could suspect Zeus is bending the truth or being metaphorical in claiming primogeniture (considering the other more popular tradition) but the Iliad states it as a literal fact, as evidenced by Iris' response to Poseidon when he says that Zeus can snorkel his dongle:

"Is it in this way then, dark-haired holder of the earth, I should bear this harsh and powerful word to Zeus, or will you change your mind at all? The minds of the great are yielding. And you know the Furies always attend the elder born." (Il. 15. 201-204)

Meaning if conflict were to arise the Furies would side with Zeus because he the is older sibling. Hera is likewise here the eldest of the goddesses, and there's no reason to suppose it's not meant literally.

Curiously, quite the opposite interaction occurs in the Odyssey. If in the Iliad Poseidon has to give way to Zeus' bullying because Zeus is the eldest, in the Odyssey it is Zeus who, though still supreme king, gives way to Poseidon because here Poseidon is the eldest:

"Then in turn Zeus who gathers the clouds made answer: ‘What a thing to have said, Earthshaker of the wide strength. The gods do not hold you in dishonor. It would be a hard thing if we were to put any slight on the eldest and best among us. But if there is any man who, giving way to the violence and force in him, slights you, it will be yours to punish him. Now and always. Do as you will and as it pleases you.’" (Od. 13. 139-145)

Ancient authors were not unaware of the contradiction, and there seem to have been attempts to reconcile both traditions, like in the Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite, where it's said of Hestia:

"She was the first-born child of wily Kronos and youngest too, by the will of Zeus who holds the aegis." (Hom. Hymn. 5. 22-23)

No further explanation is given, but it's widely assumed that this is a reference to Kronos disgorging his children in the reverse order in which he swallowed them, ie. rock first and Hestia last (Hes. Th. 500 and Apollod. 1.2.1). The imagery of Kronos "rebirthing" his kids from his throat is... explicitly, used by Nonnos in the Dionysiaca when describing the scene:

"How he [Kronos] opened a gaping throat to receive a stony son, when he made a meal of the counterfeit body of a pretended Zeus; how the stone played midwife to the brood of imprisoned children, and shot out the burden of the parturient gullet" (Book 12. 43)

[Describing a shield that depicts Kronos swallowing the stone] "There he was again in heavy labour, with the stone inside him, bringing up all those children squeezed together and disgorging the burden from his pregnant throat." (Book 25. 553)

"And these dwelt in the city of Beroe, that primordial seat which Kronos himself built, at that time when, invited by clever Rhea, he set that jagged supper before his voracious throat, and having the heavy weight of that stone within him to play the deliverer's part, he shot out the whole generation of his tormented children. Gaping wide, he sucked up the storming flood of a whole river, and swallowed it in his bubbling chest to ease his pangs, then threw of the burden of his belly; so one after another his pregnant throat pushed up and disgorged his twiceborn sons through the delivering channel of his gullet." (Book 41. 65)

Hope I could be of help! And that Nonnos hasn't traumatised anyone too much.

[sunlightprose]

Story: Of Water and Memory

Chapter 1: The Underwater Civilization

The planet of Aegis was covered in water – no continents, no mountains, no dry land to stand on – just endless ocean, stretching from horizon to horizon. But beneath the waves, a civilization thrived.

Sunlight was a myth miles beneath the surface. Here, the pressure could crush bones and time moved differently than that of Earth, slower and suspended. Sea life is incredibly diverse, with glowing Oceanyx – colossal ocean beasts, bio-reactive flora, and creatures that can detect sonar emitted from other life forms. Everything was vastly different from Earth, yet also felt inexplicably familiar.

The culture of Aegis was shaped by pressure – both literal and societal. Beneath miles of ocean where sunlight didn’t shine, its people had learned to value precision, memory, and control. Knowledge was currency, and forgetting was the greatest misfortune. In this world where structures are built to withstand crushing weight, people kept their emotions uptight, their pasts hidden, and their thoughts sharp. Not because they wanted to, of course. This wasn’t a matter of pride; it was about making it to the next day.

The city of Odyssea is one of the central underwater metropolises. Skyscrapers resembled coral spires, infrastructure glowed to compensate for the loss of sunlight, and transport tunnels are magnetic to resist high gravity. Everything is designed for efficiency: residential areas, research buildings, defense, and more.  Data flows faster than human speech, and there is no waste, no chaos, and no room for error.

The Reminiscencia is a device that lets a person relive a moment from their past exactly as it happened; not just remember it, but be in it. For a limited time, their consciousness is sent back, fully immersed in the memory. Every sound, every feeling, every detail returns like it’s real, because to the brain, it is. Officially, it is untested. Unofficially, it’s already accessed and reconstructed the pasts of three subjects. None of them returned unchanged.

Doctor Kairen, the lead scientist in creating the Reminiscencia, sat at her desk at a corner of her office. Her face is obscured by the shadow of the nearby building looming outside her window, but it doesn’t completely conceal the look of concern on her face. Finally, the door opened, and Director Talek, an important governmental figure, stepped in. Unlike Doctor Kairen’s, he wore a cold and calculating expression. Kairen looked up.

“You’re here-“

“Unlike you, I do not have unlimited leisure time. Skip the formalities.”

“Well, I’ll get to the point, then. You can’t possibly be planning to officially announce the creation of the Reminiscencia yet. It’s not ready.”

Talek gave her a pointed look, one eyebrow raised.

“What do you mean?”

“As I have said to you countless times, the device still needs perfecting in order to prevent brain damage, memory confusion, and emotional addiction. Surely you noticed, all three of our test subjects came back changed.”

Talek flashed a sinister smile.

“You built it to help people, remember? We’ll use it to make them forget who they are.”

The door slammed shut behind him.

To be continued…

[yurileclercseyeliner]

A Dumb Rant About A Webtoon

Okay so I’m actually super into reading webcomics (I read them on both Webtoon and Tapas), and although this has nothing to do with my blog (I AM considering making a side blog for webcomic content/reviews tho) I sort of feel like ranting about one that I saw. I’m sorry, but if you like Athena Complex this is probably going to piss you off. Admittedly, I couldn’t get far into the comic without being upset about this so I stopped reading a few chapters in, so that may affect my opinion here. This is mainly my opinion though, and if you disagree with me it’s fine.

So I did mention in my Fire Emblem kelpie beast unit post my opinion on mythological adaptation. Essentially, I believe that when you adapt any sort of mythological being into your story you need to keep these two things in mind:

The recognizable features/symbols/abilities: by this I mean what physical features is this being known to have, what are their physical/magical abilities, what objects are they most associated with, etc. You don’t need to have every single thing that is mentioned in the source material, just a decent combination of them that can allow the reader to easily connect the adaptation to the source material.

This factor mainly applies to individual characters as opposed to a full species or classification of creatures (I have read a decent number of mythological adaptations and have seen a mythical species depicted as evil in one adaptation and benevolent or neutral in another and enjoyed both, it all depends on if it makes sense in the context). What are the character’s main personal views, goals, and motivations? By this I mean how do they think and what are their views on the world around them, and what is the context surrounding that? Essentially, what can their main personalities and motivations be boiled down to and why?

After those two factors, I think that you can then go buck wild with any other characterization as long as it isn’t contradictory and makes sense in your story.

Now that I have set that down here’s my deal with Athena Complex. Athena Complex is a Webtoon based on Greek mythology that follows Athena, the Greek goddess of wisdom and strategy. She falls in love with Poseidon, the god of the sea, and is rejected by him. Fueled by vengeance and a desire to win his heart she takes the form of a high school boy in order to take revenge on his reincarnation. Basically, this entire Webtoon is practically a public execution of a large part of what makes Athena, well, Athena.

First off, I will give credit to Athena Complex for at least getting the symbolism correct, Athena is a goddess of wisdom and war and when in the form of a goddess her design reflects that with her armor, among other things such as her association with owls, so the first aspect that I mentioned is fine.

Additionally there is the fact that they also did heavily tap into the prideful aspect of Athena’s nature. Essentially in the source material Athena is a VERY prideful goddess and will take any opportunity to prove her worth if someone attempt to upstage her, and gets very angry when she fails or is insulted in the process (ie the story of Arachne, the story behind the double flute). This aspect could also be seen slightly in Athena Complex’s Athena’s behavior, which I can also give them credit for.

But that’s where a lot of the similarities end. Tbh a large majority of these issues surround the second aspect, the basics of the figure’s personality and motivations.

First, Athena’s stance on romance. Original Athena...literally wanted nothing to do with any sort of romantic relationship. Seriously it’s one of her main things one of her epithets is literally “Parenthos”, which means virgin. No lovers, no sex, no marriage, no intentionally created children (I say intentionally bc she and Hepheastus accidentally created a child when his snot got onto a torn piece of her cloak, but that’s a different weird story), nothing. She solely focused on the expansion of knowledge and learning. She had no time for any sort of relationship. Making Athena in Athena Complex heavily motivated by an unrequited romantic attraction literally rips one of her main core values to shreds.

And this in my opinion one of the worst offenses, MAKING THE SUBJECT OF THAT ROMANTIC ATTRACTION POSEIDON. Literally one MAJOR thing for the original Athena and Poseidon is that they HATE each other. (Also Athena is literally Poseidon’s niece, but tbh that’s a less heinous crime bc Greek mythology was weird about that shit, multiple gods married their siblings/cousins/uncles/aunts/nieces/nephews/etc., it’s weird. Also in Athena Complex Poseidon acted the main person raising Athena, which is ALSO really fucking weird and concerning, anyway back to why they hate each other).

The Contest for Athens: Basically before the Greek city of Athens was called Athens the people were looking for a patron deity, and both Athena and Poseidon tried to lay their claim. In order to determine who the city would go to, they decided to have a contest of who could give the city the best gift. Poseidon gave the city some horses (for transportation and farmwork) and a small spring in the middle of the city (note: the water in the spring was salt water and therefore undrinkable). Athena gave them olive trees (for food, making oil, wood, etc.). The peoplr decided that Athena’s gift was better and thus named the city “Athens” after her, leaving Poseidon incredibly salty.

The Medusa Incident (TW: possible rape/non-con): So Poseidon was having a nice little affair with a mortal woman named Medusa (you notice how this name is familiar, right? that’s important). It’s a little iffy on whether or not this affair was fully consensual on Medusa’s end due to the sort of victim blame-y aspects to this story, hence the trigger warning. So Poseidon his having his fun and decides to find a nice little place they can go to do the nasty. Where does he think would be a great idea? One of Athena’s temples of course! You know, a literal place of worship dedicated to his rival who is known to dislike involvement in romantic/sexual relationships? Nothing could go wrong at all! They of course get caught, and Athena, being pissed, decides to curse Medusa with snakes for hair and the ability to turn people into stone just by looking at them (see why the name was familiar?) For good measure she also curses Medusa’s two sisters with the snake hair. The sisters are then dubbed the Gorgons and then go live in isolation on a island until they are killed by Perseus (a hero that Athena was helping).

So this Webtoon completely ignores the context behind this hatred and decides to make it into an enemies to lovers story based on unrequited feelings (the feelings of a person for their childhood caretaker too...still weird). I guess they wanted to do enemies to lovers and such based on a rivalry dynamic, but in doing so they erased most of the actual substance behind that rivalry by making it romantic and destroying the characterization of one of the main characters.

I can understand taking creative liberties, but before you do so you NEED to have a full understanding of the characters that you are adapting. If a mythological character is known for a certain practice (refraining from romance) or for having an extreme distaste for another figure (Athena hating Poseidon), INCLUDE IT. You NEED to have all of the bare bones basics before you start taking liberties.

For example, the original Athena:

Goddess of wisdom and strategy

Association with owls, olives, carries a shield known as Aegis

Highly values learning and knowledge

Prideful to a fault

Virgin goddess with no interest in romantic or sexual relationships

Extreme hatred for Poseidon as a result of repeated negative encounters

Those are the bare bones basics, after that you can do what you want.

Honestly I don’t think that this Webtoon is necessarily BAD, but it is VERY annoying when you have the context behind these characters (hence my frustration and inability to make it past 10 chapters). In my opinion, if the author wanted to write this storyline, they should have made their own OCs as opposed to butchering a pre-existing figure’s characterization.

(Also I’m so sorry I know that this isn’t relevant to my argument BUT THE POSEIDON REINCARNATION LOOKS SO BORING HE LOOKS LIKE A BACKGROUND CHARACTER WHERE IS THE FLAVOR????)

[algolrasalghul]

Caput Algol: The Medusa Myth By Elizabeth Hazel © 2001

Caput Algol is a star of intensely evil repute located at 25° Taurus. The Arabs called it Ras al-Ghul, the Head of the Demon, imagining the star as the face of the devil's wife, Lillith. The Chinese call this star Tseih She, which translated has the meaning "Piled-Up Corpses."

           The Greco-Roman tradition places this star in the constellation of the hero Perseus. Caput Algol has a variable magnitude because it is a binary star. The smaller star eclipses the brighter for ten hours every 3 days, a point at which the star is at its most evil.

           The story of Medusa is an ancient legend, and enjoyed great popularity with both the Greeks and the Romans. Possibly the earliest recorded version is in Hesiod's Theogeny (circa 970 B. C., although this is a speculative date). Pindar of Thebes included it in his Odes (circa 450 B. C.). A later, souped-up version was penned by the Roman author Ovid (circa 10 A. D.). The myth is more complex than one might expect, although the tale offered here has been cobbled together from multiple texts into a coherent rendition to facilitate a more holistic understanding of the star. The Medusa myth is not just another gruesome monster-of-the-week story. Since the story was originally Greek, Greek god and goddess names are used.

THE MEDUSA MYTH

           The story of Medusa is a pitiful tale. Medusa was the only mortal daughter of Phorcys and Ceto, who were the both the children of Oceanus and Terra. Phorcys was a sea deity about whom little is written. With his sister/wife Ceto, he fathered many monstrous children, including the Gorgons, the Graiae, and the one hundred-headed dragon Ladon who guarded the sacred tree of the Hesperides that bore the notorious golden apples.

           Alone of this horrible collection of siblings, Medusa was a beautiful mortal girl. She was renowned for her charm and loveliness, especially her pretty hair. Poseidon (Neptune) became enamored of Medusa. He pursued her, and finally had sex with her while she was worshipping at the temple of Pallas Athena, chaste goddess of war and wisdom. The tale is divergent at this point - some accounts indicate Medusa was raped, while others suggest the joining was consensual. In any event, Pallas Athena was infuriated by this impious act in her temple.

           Additionally, Pallas Athena and Poseidon had a long-standing animosity. Medusa was caught in the middle of their grudge. The goddess turned Medusa into a Gorgon, a creature with snakes instead of hair, tusks like a boar, impenetrable metallic scales, metal hands, and golden wings. Her glance was deadly, turning the one in her sights to stone.

           The formerly beautiful and desirable Medusa, now a hideous monster, joined her two immortal Gorgon sisters in exile on an island at the edge of the ocean. This island was drear and barren, covered with the petrified shapes of the sisters' victims, both man and beast.

           Perseus now enters the tale. He was the son of Danae by Zeus (Jupiter), who came to her in the form of a golden rain. Cast adrift in the ocean as a child with Danae in a great chest, they were rescued. The King of Seriphos, Polydectes, desired Danae. He wanted Perseus out of the way, so cleverly mentioned the dangerous Medusa. Stupidly taking the bait, Perseus proclaimed that he would undertake to slay Medusa at the wedding feast of Polydectes and his mother, since he had no other gift to offer.

           He left on his adventure, first seeking advice from the oracle at Delphi. He was told to journey to Dodona, land of the oak trees. Oaks are sacred to Zeus, and Perseus pleaded for his father's assistance. Two of Zeus’s divine children, Hermes and Pallas Athena, joined the quest. Hermes guided Perseus to the Graiae, three sisters who shared one eye and one tooth. As they were passing the eye between them, Perseus snatched it. He demanded the location of the Hyperboreans, the Nymphs of the North, in exchange for their eye. Hermes and Perseus then traveled there, and obtained three magical tools - a pair of winged sandals, a magic pouch, and a dog-hide cap that made the wearer invisible.

           Perseus was equipped with Hermes’s curved sword and the bronze aegis (or shield) of Athena. The three traveled to the Gorgon's isle. A plan of attack was devised by his fellow travelers. Wearing the cap of invisibility and the winged sandals, Perseus approached Medusa while she was sleeping. Instead of looking at her directly, he viewed her reflection in the shield. Pallas Athena guided the path of his sword to sever Medusa's head. This he took and placed in the magic pouch. He quickly flew away, his invisibility preventing the other two Gorgons from catching him.

           From the corpse of Medusa sprang the two sons she had conceived of Poseidon, the immortal winged horses, Pegasus and Chrysaor the golden warrior. As Perseus sped away from the island with Medusa's head, her blood dropped onto the sands of Libya, and turned into snakes and lizards. Perseus used Medusa's head on several occasions to defeat his enemies. After rescuing Andromeda, he laid the head on a bed of sea weed. The weed became brittle. Sea nymphs scattered the seeds, and thus coral was born - a living plant under water that becomes a rock-like substance when exposed to air. Eventually Medusa's head was given to Pallas Athena, who carried it upon her aegis to numb and petrify her enemies.

           There is a further reference to Medusa in the Labors of Herakles (Hercules), the great-grandson of Perseus and Andromeda. Herakles had been sent to get the hell-hound Cerberus. Guided to the underworld by Hermes, they encounter a multitude of shades at the gates to the realm. All of them fled in the face of life, except for the shade of Medusa. Her ghost remained steadfast at the gate, and Herakles had to be strongly discouraged by Mercury not to attack her.

THE MEDUSA MODEL

           The underlying nuts and bolts of Medusa's story bear scrutiny. Many charts reveal the influence of this star, and it is not always an experience of unadulterated evil. The two primary components of the myth are time and transformation. Medusa experienced three important phases: innocent maiden, Gorgon, and posthumous emergence of Pegasus and Chrysaor. The effects of this variable star can be seen in these phases, and the combination with a natal planet or axis point may require a lifetime to progress through these transitions.

           The Medusa model consists of the following event pattern. The phase of innocence ends abruptly through a painful and humiliating loss, possible through events and relationships that precede their personal involvement. This may be a rape or some form of harsh cruelty. Somehow the shape is changed, irrevocably altered. The Gorgon period is one of great bitterness and variable potency, during which wisdom, courage and tools must be acquired.

           The final phase begins with a decapitation: a loss of ego and reason. The old identity or persona mask retains its potency, but the native need no longer identify with the evil image. Instinctive, vibrant life forces emerge, fully formed, and effect a cathartic rebirth to a transcendent state of being.

           In enacting this pattern, the native of Medusa encounters forces and circumstances beyond their control, like the grudge between Neptune and Pallas Athena. There may be a nasty family daimon one has apparently escaped up to the point of phase two. Key individuals are involved in changing the Gorgon period to the posthumous phase. In this final phase, the native's life events may profoundly impact others long after their death (be this a literal or figurative death). They are the lynch pin of a dynamic fate for the group.

CAPUT ALGOL AND THE PLANETS

           The entire panoply of planetary energies is involved in a complex web of meaning around Medusa: her beauty (Venus) was horribly transformed (Neptune) through the capricious whims of the gods (Uranus). Her glance caused living bodies to morph into stone (Neptune/Saturn). Her evil potency (Mars/Pluto) was variable (Moon); she was capable of existing on land, sea and air (Moon). Her body became metallic (Mars). The instruments of her death have a double lunar symbolism - a reflection and a curved sword. Three half-siblings engage upon a quest (Mercury/Jupiter), using wisdom (Pallas Athena) and stealth (Mercury) to acquire needed tools and plan strategy. Medusa gave birth after death (Pluto) to fantastically beautiful twins (Venus/Neptune) and her head became a weapon (Mars).

           This amalgamation of the planetary pantheon in Medusa's myth serves to increase the multi-dimensional nature of the Medusa star. An evil fate, disfigurement, decapitation, and piles of corpses are possible meanings for the star, but blending this star's influence into the natal chart need not be limited to messages of doom.

NATAL INTERPRETATION

           Conjunctions are the only recognized aspect to fixed stars in natal charts. Orb for the conjunction should be about 1-2 degrees. Other stars and clusters are very near Caput Algol by zodiac degree. Detailed instructions for calculating parans are given in Bernadette Brady's book. In the event of a precise conjunction at 25° Taurus, the following delineations are offered.

           A conjunction with the Ascendant or Midheaven axis may bring about the full version of the three phases during the native's life. The potency of Algol imprinted on a primary axis point suggests that the Medusa model may form the key dynamic of the life pattern. Other stars and planetary combinations may mitigate the full impact of Algol. The chart of a client with Algol and Ascendant in a T-square with Chiron and Uranus tells the story of a difficult life, with tragic relationships, disastrous losses, painful scarring from surgeries, and endless frustrations. However, a trine from Saturn in the 9th seems to provide her with the determination to keep working toward a better life, and offers a stabilizing philosophical attitude about her troubles.

           With the Sun, Algol brings variable powers of success, a wavering identity, or possible scarring on the face. A forceful personality may greatly affect large groups of people, although they must learn to consider the possible consequences of their actions on others. These natives may be endangered in collective situations, with persistent hardships in trying to fulfill their inborn potential for great vision. An interest in metals and mining is possible, as evidence by a client with this placement who is a mining engineer.

           With the Moon, Algol gives a chameleon-like ability to thrive in diverse environments; piercing eyes, and emotions that partake of rage and fury. There may be a powerful shadow identity. Sorrows tend to focus on the family dynamic. A client with this placement experienced a devastating parental divorce. His father is a covert, possibly evil, shadow figure, who has caused his mother great pain and frustration. Their divorce took nearly 8 years, during which time the two sons struggled with their emotions about their largely-absent father, and the mysteries that surround this shadowy parent.

           With Mercury, Caput Algol indicates a brilliant capacity for creating stealthy strategies. This native will be opportunistic about joining forces with needed partners, who may be siblings. This star may also exacerbate Mercury's tendency toward amoral views and activities. There may also be an interest in morbid subjects like vampires, monsters, and the legions of horrid creatures invented in literature and film. The native may be involved in obtaining key information for important projects, and may not be too worried about the distinctions between acquisition and theft. Espionage and surveillance may be career choices.

           Venus faces a dilemma with Algol. Although she is in her own sign, contact with this star stirs her self-willed passions and insistence on adoration and adornment. Acquisition of valuable jewelry may verge on the tacky, as it reflects an inherent need to cover the body with metal. Desires may be powerfully instinctive, thus overwhelming the intellect. Much like Medusa, mirrors may be their downfall through over-reliance on appearances. Changes in looks from surgeries or illness could trigger an identity crisis, requiring much time to rebuild healthy ego values. Relationships with offspring may be plagued with absence or spotty contact, although children may be incredibly talented.

           Mars and Algol are connected with weapons and attacks. If badly placed or aspected, severe wounds to the head and eyes are possible. If the native strongly responds to this conjunction, they could be the instigators of attacks both cruel and clever. The Elspeth Ebertin indicates that this combination increases the risk of bad teeth. She also gave examples of this combination in the charts of serial murderers.

           Aspects to the combination are of the utmost importance. Easy aspects from 9th house planets reinforce moral rectitude. A client with a Mars-Algol conjunction in his 10th house, squared by Venus in Leo, has made unsuccessful attempts to run for political office. He abused his former wife, then abandoned her and their children, and continually involves his family and friends in his legal machinations. He has lost jobs because of sexual harassment charges. He has assumed the role of the Gorgon toward others, and suggestions for further professional counseling have been ignored.

           With Jupiter, there is a need to acquire knowledge and skills in order to fulfill personal vision. It will be important for these natives to choose partners with the wisdom and talents to assist them. There may be strong relationships between siblings and literature/film, as there is with Mercury. The ability to find spiritual meaning in hardships and tragedies gives these Algol natives a measure of inner peace. They may be a key figure for inspiring others to undertake important projects. A client with this combination leads a musical group that experiments with radical new sounds. His primary income is derived from welding - a connection with metallic scales of the Gorgon. He and his band-mates enjoy monster movies and grotesque images.

           Saturn with Algol is quite difficult. It implies paralysis of some form - of the will or body. Harsh fate may manifest through the family, or through other circumstances that create infuriating frustrations. Will and instinct may battle over boundaries in the inner landscape of the psyche. Continual struggles to achieve personal potential may be thwarted through the powers of unseen forces. It may take many years before equilibrium in life can be found. Aspects that support this combination in a positive way would be quite helpful in minimizing the potential for chronic depression and frustration.

           Neptune displays inscrutable complexity when interacting with this star. Neptune was conjunct Algol around 1885, and this entire birth group experienced their Saturn return at the onset of World War I. The massive loss of life through warfare and disease changed the face of Europe. This same group was in their mid 50's at the onset of World War II. Neptune is connected with several details of the Medusa myth. Shape-shifting, being victimized by a capricious events or persons, and emerging into a powerful vision may all play a part in those who have Neptune in tight aspect to this planet. The birth group of 1967-1969 has Neptune in opposition to this star.

           Pluto and Caput Algol are a terrifying combination, giving the potential for great evil. There may be no fear of death, or obsessions with morbid subjects and personal losses. Posthumous events continue to reflect the influence of the native's life. Pregnancies may be difficult or life-threatening. The potential for harsh fate is strong, and events may force the native into a struggle for survival. However, the power of Pluto can also be utilized to pursue a powerful vision of reality and healing transformations. Their visions may be at odds with contemporary mainstream thought, but may prove seminal in scientific and occult arenas. The 1993-94 birth group has the opposition between Pluto and Algol. Time will tell what roles they will play in the myth.

           The asteroid Pallas Athena may have both the best and most difficult relationship with this star. One may be capable of being greatly offended by other's actions, as the value for truth and wisdom are incredibly strong. The native may be compelled to work against evil circumstances in their lifetime. Finally, aspects with Pallas may also indicate a need to provide a practical means for manifesting a vision, like the golden bridle Pallas Athena devised to tame Pegasus.

CAPUT ALGOL AND THE MILLENIAL ALIGNMENT

           The Jupiter-Saturn conjunction in May 2000 was also conjunct Caput Algol. The Grand Stellium in Taurus fulfilled the requirements of the Medusa model by involving nearly all of the planetary energies in the unfolding events. Uranus squared the conjunction, and it is obvious that elements of the Medusa myth are already in motion. Hoof-and-mouth disease suffered by cattle in Britain and Europe caused a vivid incidence of piled-up corpses that will not soon be forgotten. There is collective frustration about disappointing delays in environmental preservation initiatives. Leaders are experiencing variable potency. Ancient religious sculptures have been defaced. Several concurrent ethnic wars are causing of senseless victimization between neighbors and nations, to which there is no defense.

           The current Jupiter-Saturn-Algol cycle portends a long series of shocks and deep socio-cultural bitterness. The fate of victims is entwined with the fates of those individuals who carry the roles of Neptune or the Gorgon. The final phase will be reached when underground streams of cultural thought burst forth into the mainstream of humanity, fully formed and potent. New value sets will surface through instinct, as the boundaries between life and death lose meaning. The events of the next 20 years are implacably entwined with the future of humanity.

           Pegasus carries the symbolic implication of space exploration. It is quite synchronous that Pallas Athena and the other asteroids have become infused into mainstream astrology in the past decade, as the Pallas Athena archetype plays a recurrent, pivotal role in the Medusa model. The movements of this asteroid are doubly important during throughout this Jupiter/Saturn cycle, starting with her notable participation in the retrogrades in Sagittarius during 2001.

           In the next two decades, the outer planets will form important aspects to Caput Algol. Neptune will square the star (and the Jupiter-Saturn conjunction degree) in April 2009. Jupiter returns to 25° Taurus in 2012. Uranus will make a conjunction with the star in June 2024, a mere 4 years after the next Jupiter-Saturn conjunction in Aquarius; something of a role reversal from the 2000 alignment.

           The imprint of Caput Algol on the final Great Mutation of Jupiter and Saturn in earth signs is an ominous portent for the future. The potential for violence, tragedy, destruction and horror from this conjunction suggest that this will be a bleak chapter in human history. The evil inherent in this star bring disasters to which there is no defense - humans, animals and the environment are all completely vulnerable. The visionary elements of the Medusa myth are a fragile thread of hope for the future. In the end, the destiny of Earth and her inhabitants are indistinguishable.

[lyntendoswitch]

At the tail end of 2020 I discovered the video content of Tim Rogers who has inspired me to also voice my game opinions in an unnecessarily verbose and personal way. I don’t recommend clicking on the read more, but if you’d like to read a little bit about the best games I played this year, go on ahead.

10. What Remains of Edith Finch 9. A Short Hike 8. Disco Elysium 7. Personal 5 The Royal 6. Persona 3 Dancing In Moonlight 5. Vestaria Saga War of the Scions 4. Ring FIt Adventure 3. Final Fantasy 7 Remake 2. Hades 1. Animal Crossing New Horizons

2020 found me with an unprecedented amount of free time. I spent most of this year working for the government (a job with a very small brain effort that left me with evenings and weekends free to do whatever the hell). Additionally, I spent most of the year in quarantine with video games as my true, real friend and life companion. Compiling this list gave me more titles than ever to choose from, so I feel better about my list than ever. So here are the best games that I played this year.

Before I get into the top 10 I want to give 4 honourable mentions.

13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim This is the most recent game I played since making this list. I loved so many things about this game - the soft art style, the harsh music, the convoluted crazy plot. I love the aesthetic of this game and loved the characters - I believe it is rare to have an anime game where none of the characters irritate you. I even loved the combat, although I did not think I would. Something about shooting so very many missiles is so satisfying even when you don’t exactly know what is going on in the screen. The final battle in this game was definitely my favourite moment in this game - it was stressful, it was engaging, it was so extremely fun. The tragedy of this game comes down to personal taste. All time travel stories with complex timelines are bound to fall apart eventually, because no writer can keep all the threads together in a logical sense. 13 sentinels had so many story beats, plot twists, betrayals, and sci-fi tropes crammed into their storyline that I knew halfway through the story that there was no way they would be able to resolve all of it in a fulfilling way. I was, unfortunately, right - the ending explanation for all the chaos is, in my (correct) opinion, extremely lame. However, I certainly had fun on the journey.

Fire Emblem 3 Houses: Ashen Demons DLC I did not place this on my ranking since it is not really fleshed out enough to be considered its own game (unlike in previous years, where I have confidently but the Splatoon 2 Octoling Expansion as a separate title from Splatoon 2). However, this blog is, above all else, a Fire Emblem stan account, and I will not NOT talk about Fire Emblem. I do not care for the Abyss house. I think the characters are too close to being plucked out of the Fire Emblem Fates universe for comfort, and I mean this to be as profound an insult as possible. These characters are gimmicks above all else. I also do not care for the expanded lore that the sewer city brings to Garreg Mach. The idea of a centralized church school army is already so unstable, and to have a population of rat people living under it makes the whole foundation of the world crumble a little. However, the story and gameplay of the Ashen Demons DLC added something that the base game did not, which is challenge. (As an aside, I play on normal mode and am aware that there is challenge available to me if I wish for it.) FE3H offers you so many characters, so many paralogues, so many opportunities for training and stat increases, that eventually plot missions become completely boring. Ashen demons limiting everyone to new and interesting classes, limiting your available units, and preventing any sort of training made the chapters fun again. I found the chapter where you were supposed to outrun a golem before some gates closed fun as hell - it was my favourite part of the entire side story. 

Kentucky: Route Zero I played this game in February, and I remember not liking it at any point. It is confusing, disorienting, and lacked a clear goal. However, it has now been 10 months and I still think about it constantly - both the vignettes presented in it, and the way it made me feel. The Besties podcast made an excellent point about this game when they said that no one who plays this game ever compares it to other games - only books, movies, or paintings. The whole game is so fascinating and sticks with you - the wretched circle of a highway, the horse funeral. My favourite part is the live performance you attend at a run down diner with your party of four as the only audience. It is so quiet and contemplative and melancholy, and the scene is absolutely perfect. Kentucky Route Zero might be my favourite high concept artsy abstract artwork ever.

Blaseball As with everyone, it is difficult to call Blaseball a game. As the website says, it is a cultural event that I am so happy to participate in. I am so happy to have found a piece of media to fill the aching void that left by Homestuck when it ended, then re-opened the wound with their awful post-epilogue novel. I deleted my Twitter account this summer because I was tired of being angry and doomscrolling. And then, after Chris Plante on the Besties told me about Blaseball, I happily remade a Twitter account that only followed the official Blaseball account, the devs, and the numerous RP accounts. The quality of life improvement that having simulated, pleasant, hilarious social media to check every day is indescribable. It helped me cope with a rough life transition. Thank you, Blaseball. My favourite moment of 2020 is the 11pm boss battle of Shoe Thieves vs The Shelled One’s Pods.

And now....... The List.

10. What Remains of Edith Finch The start of 2020 was incredible because games journalism websites were churning out endless top 10 lists for both the end of 2019 as well as the end of the decade. I religiously picked through all of these lists and wrote down a list of 30 best indie games of this past decade that I missed out on for whatever reason. It was my first and last experience with a backlog - previously, I would simply impulse purchase games I really wanted to play, and I would not rest until the game is beaten. Having a backlog of things to try stressed me out endless and it dampened the impact of almost all of these quirky 1-6 hour indie experiences. However, not even the stress of meeting a self-imposed quota could dampen the impact of What Remains of Edith Finch. Exploring this house and playing through its various scenarios was so fascinating and beautiful. For me, the most impactful moment of the game was playing as the little girl who became an owl who became a sea serpent. That was when I realized I was not playing something that I would be thinking about for a very long time.

9. A Short Hike A Short Hike was the very first game I played off my backlog list of Best Indie Games. And boy, is it ever. This game takes 2 hours to finish but is absolutely saturated with heart and the exploration makes those 2 hours feel like you have been on a much longer and more fulfilling journey than you believed possible with so few hours. It is Animal Crossing and Legend of Zelda combined, condensed, and polished into a beautiful pearl. I was so instantly in love with the characters and loved doing the little side quests. I also loved getting totally lost because I wanted to see how far I could swim and ended up on a different part of the island. The most impactful moment of this game is its finale, which I won’t spoil, but it is absolutely incredible.

8. Disco Elysium Many people more eloquent than me have said great things about Disco Elysium, and they are all correct. As someone who loves character building and creating a character to roleplay instead of playing as myself in a game, I have never been more enabled to do just that than Disco Elysium. The mystery was so cool, the mechanics are exactly what I like, the exploration is great. The one drawback of this game is that I literally cannot remember a single song from it. Maybe it had an amazing OST? Every game that is released nowadays has to have an amazing OST. There is so much reading in this game that the music really has to be unintrusive, and so it faded right into the background and out of my memory. I love that you could create your own persona in the game, but that you find your identification later and discover who you were before. Also, I would die for Kim Kitsuragi. The finale of this game also kicks ass - I will not spoil it but there is a moment that is so quiet and intimate that it took my breath away. What an amazing experience.

7. Persona 5: The Royal In 2017, I did something that is not the deciding factor, but definitely contributed to, my being sent to hell after I die. I was in an unhappy relationship and really wanted out, but my boyfriend at the time had a PS4 and I did not, and I really wanted to play Persona 5. As such, when he got the game and I borrowed it, I tried to finish it as quickly as possible so that I could give it back and break up with him. To my dismay, Persona 5 is upwards of 80 hours long, and I was burned out long before it was over. I finished the game with such resentment in my heart that I could not fathom why anyone would like it. As someone who is older, wiser, PS4-er, and in a better mental state, I decided to give P5R a try. Playing the remake at a much slower pace and really contemplating the story and characters made for a totally different and much more pleasant experience. I finally was able to shed my dislike for these characters who held me hostage 3 years ago and really appreciate them. Additionally, the new content they added to the original was SO good. The new music in Mementos makes that whole section bearable!! Akechi’s entirely reworked social link!! Maruki is one of Atlus’s most interesting characters, and the final dungeon was so so so interesting!! I am profoundly sad that I can’t recommend this game to anyone because 120 hours is just prohibitively long. Most impactful moment: when Akechi joins the party and he is like, totally feral, lol

6. Persona 3: Dancing In Moonlight Every once in a while my palms start to itch because it has been entirely too long since I’ve played a rhythm game. This palm itch feeling sunk me deep into Theatrhythm Final Fantasy back in 2017, and this feeling forced me to impulse buy Persona 3 Dance. I am furious that I liked this game so much, because I know it was created simply to extract money from fools like me. The story was so blatant about it! “It’s a dream, ok? We’re all dancing because it’s a dream and none of this matters. Go play a song, idiot.” I’m not even angry at this - I almost respect the hustle. Additionally, it was so wonderful to hang out with the Persona 3 crew again. I did also play Persona 5 Dancing in Starlight, but since I had already spent a hundred and twenty hours with the phantom thieves, there was no feeling of being reunited like with P3D. Also, in my mind palace, I consider P3D to have “actually happened”, and P5D to be the money grab hustle. S.E.E.S. is a cohesive unit. If Mitsuru Kirijo says it is time to dance, then dance we shall. I cannot be made to believe that Ryuji, Futaba, or Makoto will be compelled to dance even in a dream. Finally, having Elizabeth as your velvet room attendant did wonders. If there is a line between being a loveable eccentric and being annoying, Elizabeth tiptoes just around the former, whereas the twins are squarely located in the latter. The remixes in P3D also all kick ass (Burn My Dread Novoiski Mix? Deep Mentality Lotus Juice Mix?? Neither had any right to go as hard as they did), and I loved how they personalized the dance styles to the characters’ personalities. Even if this game was a money grabber, it was still made with love and respect for the series, and I loved playing it.  Most impactful moment: That first king crazy ranking on all night difficulty... god damn

5. Vestaria Saga: War of the Scions I had mentioned earlier that I appreciated the FE3H DLC for adding challenge back into 3 houses, but then I played Vestaria Saga and I realized I simply did not remember what challenge actually was. Vestaria Saga, the game by Fire Emblem’s creator, is the hardest Fire Emblem game I’ve ever played. This game honestly rules - it closes its door to the waifus of modern fire emblem games and is a return to form with political intrigue and smart tactical decisions and well-rounded characters. Every single chapter has these wonderful and deeply stressful plot twists and you always have to scramble to get all of the objectives complete without dying. There is a moment in this game where the main Lord, Zade, scolds princess Athol for being so reckless, how he had to force the army to fight a losing battle to rescue her, and look at how exhausted everyone is. He gestures to his army, and for the first time in a tactical RPG, I felt it. In all the fire emblems I play, my units end up being able to dodge and tank any hits they receive, but in Vestaria Saga finishing a map was a stressful, long, and sweaty process. I loved every second of playing this game - it is so rewarding in its gameplay and so rewarding in its story. Most impactful moment: the kiss!!! And how all of them face consequences immediately afterwards!!! I adore this game.

4. Ring Fit Adventure Ring Fit Adventure is the most fun I’ve ever had with a gimmicky fitness game. This game finally understands that they key to continuing with the game and building good habits is the ability to unlock and equip beautiful athleisure clothing. I actually got gains from Ring Fit Adventure, and I know this because I stopped playing it for a month, came back, and was unable to finish the reps at the difficulty I set for myself. This game make gym stuff so genuinely fun in a way that no one else has been able to do. I also really like the feel of the ring con! I have a few moderate complaints about it (a fitness game will never be perfect, unfortunately): you always start reps on the same side, and if you kill enemies then you don’t get a chance to try the other side at all, the motion sensor on yoga poses is wack, and FUCK the robot baseball minigame game to hell. Despite this, I absolutely adore this game and what it stands for. I may never beat the campaign, but it will always have a place in my heart. Most impactful moment: the first fight with Drageaux

3. Final Fantasy 7 Remake I was so so so curious about the hype surrounding this game that in the month before its release I manically played through the original Final Fantasy 7 so that I would have enough background information to be able to play and enjoy the remake. I was very glad I did. FF7R kicks ass. It is my favourite Final Fantasy game ever, and maybe it will always be so. I take a lot of issue with most FF games because they get too cosmically big and ridiculous and nonsensical by the end and that ruins the immersion of the story for me. Since FF7R only covers the Midgar portion of the original, it is forced to create grounded characters and a grounded, smaller scale story. And it is AMAZING. I loved every single minute of this game. The OST is incredible, and the art in it is absolutely unbelievable. I love how they incorporated random encounter enemies in this more realistic version. Also the dialogue!!! The way these characters banter with each other is so life-like and true to character that it boggles my mind. Even the NPC side conversations - never has a city or town felt so alive and filled with people than in FF7R. The ending of this game filled me with PRIMAL fear for the future, but it is so clear that the team making this game loves the world and its characters so much that I cautiously say I trust them to take the story further in the later remakes. Most impactful moment: Cloud saying “bring it on bitch” to an enemy made me black out laughing

2. Hades I generally stay away from rogue-likes and from real-time combat because for a game-liker I SURE am bad at video games. However, everything Supergiant Games ever makes seems tailor made for me, so when Hades came out of early access I bought it, and then I didn’t stop playing it until 80 hours later when I had unlocked everything ever. This game is SO good. The voice acting and storytelling is phenomenal. They did a spectacular job blending the story with the core gameplay elements. They made dying in a rogue-like fun and rewarding. The music is (as always) transcendent. I cannot say enough good things about Hades. Most impactful moment: a tie between the first time you watch the sunrise after your first successful escape, and the romance social link between Zagreus and Thanatos

1. Animal Crossing: New Horizons Of course... Death Stranding may have prophesized the pandemic, but Nintendo created it to sell copies Animal Crossing New Horizons. This game saved all of us. The experience of having so many people I knew playing the same game all the time for the entirety of March and April was so incredible. I have plenty of quips about ACNH with relation to old games in the series (I loathe crafting, I loathe printing out Nook Miles Tickets one by one, and I worry that the sandbox landscaping feel of this game makes me less inclined than ever to actually talk to my villagers), but while they are all valid criticisms, they certainly did not stop me from pouring 350 hours and counting into this game. I have loved slowly, carefully crafting my island into a replica of Garreg Mach. I have loved collecting furniture and making turnip money and completing the museum. There is simply no other game that can be 2020′s game of the year. Most impactful moment: checking your mail and having one of your friends mail you an item that reminded them of you

[myukrainianopinion]

Great Britain and the Black sea. What will the British, Americans and Turks share without Ukrainians?

On August 18, British defense Minister Ben Wallace paid an official visit to Kiev. Following the meeting, a number of agreements were signed in the defense sector. The key one is the decision to send Royal Navy ships to the Black sea for the upcoming Ukrainian exercises — these are likely to be the "United efforts-2020" maneuvers in September, as well as the expansion of the training program for Ukrainian sailors. London's activation can be traced back to August 11 — when British Ambassador Melinda Simmons and Deputy Prime Minister Olga Stefanishina discussed Kiev's implementation of the annual national program under the aegis of the Ukraine-NATO Commission and ensuring the security of the black sea region. In the future, announcing the arrival of Ben Wallace in Ukraine, information training was carried out — the British Embassy reported through social networks how much the country has done for the armed forces of Ukraine (#UKinUkraine pic.twitter.com/pH1TMJONr3). According to the Embassy, in the framework of the Orbital mission since 2015, the British have trained more than 18,000 military personnel and almost 4,000 military instructors, a total of 2,500 specialists from the United Kingdom have visited Ukraine. In 2018, Britain included the training of the Ukrainian Navy and Marines in the mission's activities. In 2019, it extended the work of the mission for another three years-until March 2023. On the marine component, it is worth noting the opening of a training school for Ukrainian divers at the Yug naval base in October last year. Training there is provided by instructors from the elite Special boat service unit, and most of the graduates are specialists from the 801 anti-sabotage forces and means squad. That is, the British have been actively training Ukrainian naval special forces since last year. Ben Wallace's visit itself included separate talks first with defense Minister Andrey Taran, then with the commander-in-chief of the AFU, Colonel-General Ruslan Khomchak. Judging by the announced joint exercises "United efforts-2020" in the Black sea in the fall of this year, Wallace first discussed General issues with Taran, and then in more detail — with Khomchak. Immediately after them, the Ukrainian Minister suddenly went to Georgia, where on the same day he signed a number of documents with his colleague Irakli Garibashvili. Apparently, in September, Ukrainian and British sailors will be accompanied by Georgian coast guard boats. Experts note that the geopolitical reasons for London to increase its influence in the black sea region was the statement of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, made on August 21, about the discovered gas reserves of about 320 billion cubic meters in the Black sea. This news appeared in the information space for several days before the announcement and, objectively speaking, it is unlikely that British intelligence learned about it at the same time as the whole world. The ambitious plans of the British after Brexit probably provide for the return of the status of a world power, which literally obliges British oil and gas companies to participate in the pie section, which is still completely dominated by American participants. Accordingly, we should also consider the possibility of deploying our own Outpost in the Black sea. Such plans were also announced by the British defense Minister.

https://twitter.com/BWallaceMP?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw; https://twitter.com/RoyalNavy?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw; https://t.co/2KHFSMbaOm

The us influence in Bulgaria, Romania and Georgia is too great — Washington tries to maintain a permanent military presence in the region. In Romania, a contingent of ground forces and a battery of the Standard missile DEFENSE system are generally deployed, although their goals are somewhat more ambitious. The military presence of other foreign States in Odessa (Ukraine) is very episodic, despite the strategic importance of the port. Therefore, based on the results of the Orbital mission, London had only to expand the current format, which was announced. In favor of Odessa, the fact that the Sakarya field is located near the intersection of the economic waters of Romania, Bulgaria and Ukraine, where there are also explored deposits of hydrocarbon reserves. In the Romanian exclusive economic zone is a Deposit of Neptun Deep, exploration of which was led by ExxonMobil (the volume of deposits may reach 200 billion cubic meters of gas), the Ukrainian — Deposit "Dolphin", in which Kiev also wanted to get the Americans (the total volume of hydrocarbons 286 million tonnes). All projects have their own difficulties and require the use of deep-water drilling technology due to the inaccessibility of deposits, but they can be quite profitable. Thus, the UK, using its historically close relationship with Turkey, has the opportunity to effectively enter the energy projects of the black sea region. This is especially true against the background of the crisis in Ankara's relations with both Washington and the European Union, and the creation of the Odessa — Istanbul axis will help establish strong control over the region's trade flows. Some spontaneity of events indicates that it is unlikely that the command of the Royal Navy pre-planned combat training in the Black sea and allocated a resource for this case. In these circumstances, it is expected that the ship's personnel will be involved, already located in the Eastern part of the Mediterranean sea, or returning from the area of tasks in the Persian Gulf zone. These now include: the hydrographic vessel Enterprise, which is actually a reconnaissance ship, is currently located in the area of the island of Cyprus and monitors the situation around the Greek-Turkish confrontation; two minesweepers — Ledbury and Blyth, follow from the Persian Gulf zone; among the more serious warships, the frigate HMS Argyll is on duty in the Persian Gulf, which conducts ships through the Strait of Hormuz and monitors the situation off the coast of Iran. It was actually replaced by the frigate Montrose. Thus, the analysis of the UK's military presence in Ukraine shows that it is evolving from the nominal location of military instructors and the display of the flag to a full-fledged projection of force on the region, which is certainly part of London's long-term strategic plan. In other words, in addition to virtually complete control of Ukraine's domestic and foreign policy by the United States, the United Kingdom also wants to snatch a piece of it. Military intervention and external management of all state spheres - on the face. Where is the pride of the country, where is the democracy, why does no one resent it? Such questions do not torment our leadership and deputies of the Rada.

[daughter-of-the-prophet]

Antiva

Antiva is a plutocratic nation in northeastern Thedas. Although it possesses few resources of its own, Antiva’s location makes it a center for trade in the north. Antiva’s wine trade, buoyed by its fruitful vineyards and an aggressive approach to trading practices with other nations, is one of the country’s main resources, allowing for a relatively prosperous life for its citizens. Its capital is Antiva City, which lies in the middle of its coastline and is one of the wealthiest in Thedas.

Geography

Antiva is bordered by the Rialto Bay and Rivain to the East, the Tevinter Imperium to the West and the Free Marches to the South. The country enjoys a warm north-eastern climate. Much of Antiva is coastline, thus facilitating their seafaring nature. Five of their major cities are port cities, including the Antivan capital, Antiva City.

Settlements

Antiva City

Rialto

Seleny: A river city famed for graceful bridges and sculpture.

Treviso

Bastion

Salle

Genellen

Brynnlaw

Regions

Arvaud’s Barrow

The Drylands

Green Dales

Rialto Bay

Silent Grove

Tellari swamps

The Weyrs

White Spire (mountain peak)

History

In ancient times, Beregrand, a dwarf from the kingdom of Gundaar with his impressive knowledge and skills helped the city-states of Antiva to greatly expand their naval power.

-30 Ancient: The city-state of Antiva evolves into a full-fledged nation.

1:45–95 Divine: The Chantry spreads east into Antiva.

2:33 Glory: Antivan cities unite under a common banner to defend themselves against the advance of Fyruss, the king of Starkhaven.

4:30 Black: Queen Asha Campana, the “Queen Mother of Thedas”, is born.

5:12 Exalted: Awakening of Andoral and the rise of the Fourth Blight. Antiva is overrun. The city of Seleny falls after a four-day siege. The entire royal family is slaughtered and Antiva City is all but destroyed.

5:24 Exalted: Antiva is freed from the darkspawn during the battle at the city of Ayesleigh, where Garahel dies after defeating Andoral during the Battle of Ayesleigh.

5:99 Exalted: With the recent assassination of Queen Madrigal of Antiva (deep within the forest during a hunt, she is found with four steel swords plunged into her chest, presumably murdered by the Crows), the Steel Age is named.

6:32–42 Steel: Antiva is conquered by the invading Qunari.

6:85 Steel - 7:23 Storm: Antiva is freed from the Qunari.

7:52 Storm: During the Second New Exalted March the Qunari recapture much of Antiva, and Treviso is burned by the liberating armies of the White and Black Divines.

7:84 Storm: The end of the Third New Exalted March and signing of the Llomerryn Accord. Antiva is free from the Qunari influence.

8:99 Blessed: Dragons reappear within Antiva, then spread into Orlais and Nevarra where they devastate the countryside. Attempts to reduce the number of dragons results in a great loss of life.

After 9:00 Dragon: The much-maligned “Three-Queens” era: Antiva is shaken by a civil war.

Politics

Officially, the line of kings in Antiva has remained unbroken for two and a half thousand years, but the monarchy is very weak and has virtually no army. In reality, Antiva is a plutocracy: the true power conferred strictly by wealth lies in the hands of a dozen merchant princes. They are not princes in the literal sense, but heads of banks, trading companies, and vineyards, each with a personal army, and each locked in a constant struggle against all the others. They possess sufficient capital to resolve any external diplomatic quandaries with a well-aimed purse or threat of withdrawn trade.

Despite the lack of a strong military tradition, there is another reason why Antiva has rarely feared invasion: the infamous House of Crows, the most efficient, most feared, and most expensive guild of assassins in Thedas. Their fame is such that Antiva has no need of a standing army. No leader is willing to order an attack on her borders or to lead the troops due to fear of assassination. Even the Qunarileave the nation alone.

In addition, the political machinations of Queen Asha, “The Queen Mother of Thedas” involved an extensive array of political marriages between numerous noble houses in the effort of establishing alliances. This has given the kingdom of Antiva significant political protection: to start hostilities with Antiva would mean running the risk of dragging half of Thedas into war.

An association of Antivan pirates called the Felicisima Armada is the leading maritime power in the region. It gained influence when the pirates aided the allied forces in the Exalted Marches against the Qunari, and now poses a serious threat on the Waking Sea. Wealthy merchants often prefer to pay the leaders of the Armada rather than to risk their cargo.

Trade and Exports

Antiva, as a coastal country with bustling ports, facilitates a great deal of trade, both through piracy and legitimate business. Some of this trade may be under the aegis of the Antivan Crows and their confederates. The exports of Antiva are numerous and varied. Antiva is renowned for its admittedly unparalleled wines, as well as its coffee. It is also known for its rubies and diamonds. Antivan leatherworking is also particularly exquisite, and its crafters are the envy of the known world. In addition to leather Antiva produces fine weaving and silk of great renown. Antivan crafters also excel at the production of porcelain of a quality so fine light shines through, as well as woodwork. The country enjoys healthy trade with many nations, including the empire of Orlais.

Culture and Society

The origins of modern Antiva lie in the alliance of pirates and “ne'er-do-wells” who favored a safer and more lucrative life on land as opposed to a dangerous life on the sea. They made a home on Rialto Bay’s western coast which was, however, owned by the king of Antiva, the nearby city-state. Eventually, the two distinct groups merged into one people, evolving into the nation of Antiva as it’s known today.

Women have strictly defined roles in Antiva. They are considered pure and delicate and not allowed to participate in combat, among other things. However, it’s fairer to say this is an Antivan ideal of femininity which does not always match up well with the reality. Dueling, usually to a non-fatal extent, is a past-time and way to solve disputes among the nobility.

One particularly notable woman in Antivan history - and indeed Thedosian history - is the Rivaini-born Queen Asha Campana, also known as Asha Subira Bahadur Campana, the Gana of Ayesleigh. The daughter of rich merchants, she married the weak King Dario Campana during the Black Age but was not content with allowing history to pass her by. She desired that Antiva have a larger and more powerful role in Thedosian politics. To this end, she married her children and grandchildren into royal and aristocratic families throughout the continent, leading historians to refer to her as the “Queen Mother of Thedas.” She is said to have descendants amongst the royals of Orlais, Nevarra, Starkhaven, the Anderfels and even amongst some Tevinter magisters.

Satinalia is a Theodosian holiday. It is accompanied by wild celebration, the wearing of masks, and naming the town fool as ruler for a day. Particularly in Antiva, Satinalia lasts for a week or more, while a week of fasting follows. This holiday is celebrated at the beginning of Umbralis.

[lethargyspecialist]

Masks: The Leftovers, part 1 - There’s no “Inertia” in “Team”

In which our self-obsessed sea slug slime girl supervillain-turned-heroine, aka Cerata, meets her new mentor and relates her woes to her incarcerated dad, aka Doctor Diluvian.

Dear father,

Life on parole remains insufferable. They’ve paired me with this Yang kid as my “mentor”, even though he’s barely older than me. Plus he’s some kind of actual energy vampire or something? I’ve seen him do it. Everyone says my powers are gross, but at least I don’t literally eat people’s souls or whatever it is his weird magic stuff does. And what’s to stop him just sucking out all my youthful grace the moment he feels like it? He seems to be taking every opportunity to get his hands on me, after all. He says he’s the nice one and it’s his sister I should be worried about, but that’s definitely what the evil twin would say. If he tries anything with those hands, I’ll melt them with my acid. That’ll teach him.

Anyway, for now I’ve got to work with him to earn these Hero Credits and get AEGIS off my back so they can’t just throw me in prison for any little misdemeanour when they feel like it. Except our case worker seems to be terrified of us? He barely ever shows up, and when he does he’s always wearing a hardhat and armour jacket, and he doesn’t stick around. I don’t know if our 100% factual reports of my excellent hero-ing are even getting through. I guess I could just dangle him off a rooftop until he promises to tell AEGIS I’m reformed and they can stop monitoring me but I don’t think that will work. (If there’s any prison guards reading this letter, don’t worry, that’s just a funny joke and I’m not going to do that. Probably.)

So I’m in my room at Aunt Sally’s place, watching the news, and Yang phones me up. There’s this random loser driving off from a bank job in some fancy sports car, and nobody chasing her yet. It’s low hanging fruit, I guess, so I tell Yang sure, I’ll put in a few hero hours today, I’ve got nothing better to do. I shout to Aunt Sally that I’ve got to go hero, and grab the bland cheap anti-acid coated coat AEGIS so generously paid for – it’s getting pretty cold out, and my costume might at least be more fashionable but it doesn’t cover so much, because I need my flexibility. (Can my body straight-up freeze in the cold? And then shatter? I don’t really want to test that. And I guess it’s not like you have access to your research notes in jail so we’re not going to find out).

Yang’s already there by the time I’m out the door of my apartment block, of course, and declares a team meeting (Really? There’s only two of us) to figure out how we’re going to catch that car. Yang tells me to just “swing from street lamps or something.” Yeah, great idea, Mr. Mentor. I don’t think he appreciates how difficult it is to keep up momentum without missing a handhold (well, tentacle-hold, whatever), slipping, hitting a helicopter... No, he doesn’t get it. He just runs really fast (since when do vampires run really fast? Has he really just stepped out of Twilight or something?) And grappling fast enough to catch a sports car? No thanks, I don’t want to be a (temporary) puddle on the street. Again. Maybe I’ll practice when he’s not around and then do it perfectly. To show him up, obviously. Not because he told me to.

So anyway, of course I say no, and he just scoops me up and tries to carry me over his shoulder while he runs really fast. I protest, of course – if he’s really going to do this to me, he’s got to hold me proper. Princess style. Which he does, at least, but that’s hardly the point. It’s demeaning. And his embrace isn’t even warm, because he’s a spooky vampire boy or whatever. And we catch up, naturally, because super speed, and he just throws me at the car. Without asking. So I’m rolling through the air, shouting at him, and I decide I didn’t sign up for this and it’s not worth it so I snap out my arms, grab a nearby tree – by this point we’re on the road through the forest outside the city - and leave him to get on with it while I watch.

Which would have been great, except halfway through the fight with this random D-list villain, an actual alien spaceship lands right on top of us. And Yang just breaks off the fight to go see if anyone inside is hurt, which leaves him completely open to Trash Momma (yeah, she shouted it, apparently that’s her name) so I have to step in and protect him. So I don’t look bad. I don’t get these heroes – what’s the point of rushing to try to save people if it means other people have to save you? Now that’s selfish. On the plus side, this gives me the opportunity to blow off some steam destroying this loser, and nobody can tell me off because it’s what heroes are meant to do. It’s over really quick though, because I crush her against the side of the space-pod-thing with my first hit. And then the alien space person inside the ship apparently screams at Yang for some reason, which isn’t what I expected but it’s pretty funny. Trash Momma (ugh) takes the chance to slip free and throw the entire ship at me, which is rude considering she’s already lost but whatever. I snap my arms back and reach up to catch it, and in fairness it’s a good attempt, right, because this thing is heavy, and I end up gracefully parrying it off at an angle. Where it lands and turns a whole stretch of forest into a trench instead. At this point the heroism to collateral damage ratio isn’t looking great, and I’m in an even worse mood, and Yang pops back out of the pod, totally fine, and tells me the damage is my fault now, because I touched it last. Which is bullshit. So now I’ve got to stop the bad guy, again, but she grabs my arms and swings me right over her head while Yang runs to catch me before I slam into the tarmac. Which again, I could definitely survive on my own since I’m, you know, shock absorbent now. But still, he catches me. And he holds me right! And then puts me down when I tell him to. Maybe my mentor is actually learning. Finally, the space alien girl graces us with her presence, and melts the pavement somehow, and traps Trash Momma, for real this time. She and Yang agree we should go before AEGIS show up, since this whole thing’s kind of a bust at this point. Because apparently they’re best friends now or something. In fact, they tell me we need to get in the ship – you know, the one that just crashed. They won’t tell me what’s going on and why I should trust her, and I’m uncomfortable with this whole situation, so I decide to smash the ship around for a bit until they talk straight. Of course, when I reach over, I can’t lift it now suddenly. So I compromise and hit it with a crushed tree trunk for a bit instead. (How can all the damage from the ship be my fault if I can’t lift it, anyway? I think there’s some weird space science going on with its weight. Whatever, AEGIS, if you’re reading this, you weren’t there and you can’t prove that I did cause all the damage to the forest. Please don’t take my Hero Credits away.) Yang tells me he and the alien girl have a mutual friend. I’m pretty sure Yang doesn’t have any friends, so I ask him if the “friend” is his evil sister. He says yes. Alien girl addresses me for the first time, to say that Yang’s sister is a bitch, and nothing else. It’s the most sense either of them has made so far, and I can hear an AEGIS VTOL approaching, so I shrug and get in. I’m not letting those two fly off and pin all this mess on me. This team – my team, the team that’s me and Yang - is meant to be all about me and the whole path to redemption they promised me. And now he’s buddying up with a complete stranger like the share so much, and they’re talking about his sister all the time, who I’ve never met. I used to think he made her up to make himself sound better by comparison. If they’re so obsessed with her, maybe I’ll at least get to fight her at some point?

For now, though… how am I going to convince people that I’m not an alien or sea dracula when I’m hanging out with an actual alien and an actual vampire? Honestly, I’m the only normal person on this team.

~ Vikki

[rosheendubh]

This stream of consciousness inspired by HistoriaBrittanorum’s Battle 8, the Battle of Caer Guinnion/the White Fortress. It could be the Fort of the Legions as well, but York’s Latin-Brythonic Name of Eboracum, actually shares a root with the Latin of Ivory (eburone,or something??...Ivory has a sense of Whitish—maybe York’s Walls, repaired by Constantine, appeared white when viewed from a distance??), along with other speculations of meaning (its British/Welsh form of Efrauc mimics the AngloSaxon ‘Eofor’ which means Boar...not related, I don’t think, unless the Boar was the standard of the VI Legion Victorius, stationed in York, but that might have been a bull actually??).  The boar belonged to one of Britannia’s other legions, I think. Anyway, Nennius writes that it was this Battle in which Arthur bore the Image of the Virgin on his shield/suspended across his shoulder...like a shield. In Welsh ballad tradition, Arthur’s shield is translated as ‘The Face of the Evening’. This was a common epithet given to the Virgin Mary, But was actually a phrase directly acquired from Venus-Aphrodite, as the planet Venus appearing with the Sun and Moon as the Morning Star and Evening Star. Venus, of course, was the Babylonian-Sumerian Ishtar/Inanna. The Queen of Heaven, literally, and...another epithet of the Virgin Mary.  Celestial Brigantia was another appelative for the same goddess, as understood by the Romano-British. A tutelary goddess of what had been the most influential tribe of northern Britain, even after Roman occupation, through the 3rd c AD at least. And dedications to ‘The Virgin’, meaning ‘Virgo/the Constellation’, alluded to her archaic Sumerian origins as the great Creatrix of Life/Death/Learning/Science/Poetry/Music/Agriculture/Law/Civilzation/War/Medicine/Justice/etc...all the aspects embodied historically by Inanna, the Face of the Evening, who becomes Freya-Frigg-Skathi-Nanna-Hella in the Nordic pantheon. Anyway, Arthur, Uthyr in my take, when it’s mentioned by Nennius he bears the Face of the Virgin into battle, ACTUALLY harkens to a pre-Christian concept, molded to Christian tastes, of the Archaic Virgin. IDK if that was Nennius’s intent, or if Geoffrey of Monmouth understood that context when he compiled his epic 300 years later.  Maybe he did. After all, it’s Geoffrey who conceived of Morgan le Fey/of the Faery, as the most learned in medicine, math, and astronomy, of her 9 Muse-like Sisters, who resurrect not just the Muses, but 9 Gallic priestesses who resided upon Sena, off the coast of Brittany, known as the Gallicenae. And, Geoffrey liked his Queens. He had no problem writing powerful women into his epic. After all, it’s from Geoffrey Shakespeare drew his inspiration for Cymbeline and King Lear/Cordelia. Anyway, the motifs of the Arthurian codex, resound from (my own speculation) a much earlier, borrowed concept lying somewhere between Inanna, and Athena’s aegis of the Gorgon (Medusa, being an aspect of Athena actually, and Andromeda as well. The name alone of Andromeda, means, in simplistic breakdown, ‘Ruler of Men’. And the symbolism when she’s chained to the rocks before the Sea-monster, Cetus, mirrors Inanna in the Underworld, having passed the 7 Gates of Hell, stripped of her Status, judged and condemned by her Sister, Ereshkigal, to be hung by chains, and tortured into death for her arrogance in daring to conquer the Land of the Dead). I love how unsentimental these first Sumerian myths were before they became softened by later Greek and Roman classical writers. What Anglo-Norman Medieval authors borrowed in the term Virgin, has nothing to do with purity, or a woman with an intact hymen. Virgins slept with men, or women whenever they wanted. The even had children, with or without a male progenitor. The oldest sense of the word ‘Virgin’ was an heroic woman. A woman complete into herself, who took on the traditional tasks of men, and women, w/o the assistance of a man. Or, like a Shield Maid, ALONGSIDE AND EQUAL with a man. Risking death, torture, rape, loss, or whatever else stood in her way (think Lagertha of Vikings), to triumph in the exact same conditions as their male counterparts. Sometimes with more ruthlessness, or more compassion, but human all the same, and judged by her actions before her gender/sex put a label on those actions.  A Virgin has no bond with a husband, to whom she was subservient. That’s all the word meant. Thus, Guinevere—The Face of the Evening, the Raven Queen, Ruler of Valentia Beyond the Walls, uniting the Picts and the Northern British houses under the Banner of Old Brigantia, to the aide of a southern prince, a son of Tyrants. Uthyr, bastard son of Vortigern, begotten in an act of humiliation upon Ygerna, the wife of Vortimer, Vortigern’s eldest son, dishonoring Vortimer for his rebellion against his father.  In Uther’s veins runs the blood of Irish nobility (Ygerna comes from the tale of Ingren, the daughter of the Leinster King, Crimthann mac Ennais—here, as in Welsh geneolgies—Ingren/Ygerna is the daughter of Amlothi/Hamlet actually, a Danish Sea Raider who sleeps with one of 3 wives of Crimthann— and joins the Irish dynasties of the Deisi and the DalRiada to the British/Picti/Germanic families inhabiting the lands United from the Atlantic to the Irish Sea and North Sea and the Black Sea rim), Roman magistrates, and Waelsung heritage (Sigfrid, Sigmund, and Sinfjatli of Niebelung fame) that have shaped Uthyr as a son of Vortigern, rebelling against his father, and allied with Danish/Swedish/Geatish houses of Northmen, who have their own rivalries against fellow Danes/Swedes/Jutes/Saxons. Geoffrey’s Yder/Idris/Hidernus/Edern/Eurderyn—Eutharios/Eutigern—of the Black Danes, becomes my Uther, allied with Hrothgar/Swerta, an exiled Dane living amongst the Angles of NE Britain (This is based off Hrolf Kraki Saga. The Danish king of Beowulf, Hrothgar/Hroar...Rodger in English , who’s forever a battle-brother of Uther, in later decades. It was said Hrothgar converted to Christianity, and ruled his hall of Heort/sp?? as a Christian King). Uthyr, a quasi-outlaw, exiled bastard residing between Gaul, Scandinavia, and Byzantium in his youth, a mercenary andca Sea Wolf/Sea-Raider finally reuniting with his older brother, the renowned Vortimer/Riothamus/Embreis Wledig, to wrest back their authority to rule from their father, and the Jutish/Saxon houses opposed to the Danes/Geat/Angles. Arthur comes later, as Guinever’s son, either—and both—by Uther and Theoderic the Great. Dynastic imperatives here span the transformation of Western and Northern Europe from Scandinavia to Ostrogothic Italy, and in-between. Guinevere, Uther, and Theoderic, encompass a strategy of this New World of civilizing Romanized Barabarians, amalgamations of Tribal cultures reviving old Roman precepts of rule and law, between Britannia on the Western end of Old Empire, to Ostrogothic Italy, that Theoderic seeks to establish as independent from Constantinople. Lying in their midst, a lion at the heart of Gallia, are the Franks, with Clovis clawing the Merovingian hold to sever Britannia, and Visigothic Spain, from Italy. Willing to ally with Byzantium to do so, in order to distract Theoderic into defending his eastern territories of the Adriatic, Clovis succeeds in driving the last of his Visigoth brethren out of Gaul, and the inception of the Kingdom of the Franks arrives like a tempest. And finds Uther slain with his long-time war-band on the fields of Poitier, in 507, and Arthagenes (a version of a title of Hercules/the Hindu-Hellenic-Persian Verethragna. The name resembles variations of Artogenes/Bear Kin or Bear Prince/Artius/Arthan/and Artogneu...from that hideous inscription, but in my mind, while not ‘King Arthur’, lends enough similarity to said names, I’m comfortable basing his persona, ultimately, off the mythic concept of Arkas/Arcas, the Bear Prince, who circles Polaris, son of the Bear Goddess/Artio-Artemis-Callisto, and the War-Lord/and the Guardian of the stars, Bootes and Draco), his son, or Throderic’s, serving in Theoderic’s forces, in the counter-campaign to win back southern Gaul from Clovis. Incidentally, one of Theoderic’s generals bears the name Ebba, or at times conflated as Eobba (like the Bernician king of the Anglo-Saxon king lists), as well as Ida—the first king of Anglians who defeats ‘Outigern’ (in my take, the son of Arthagenes, by a northern princess, Vivian/Nuvien—Nimue-which is Gaelicized as Bebhionn, and feeds into the renaming of Din Guardi as Bebenburg, after Ida marries the British princess, Beara, according to certain chroniclers of later era. Beara is my Nuvien, a British saint actually, and the name from which Vivian and Nimue derive, and Dutigern, her son, a form of Outecorigas, recorded on Celtic inscription from Dyfed, I think, as a Protector of the Region.) Where Ida accepts Outigern as a son, And so, at Din Guardi/Bamburgh in 547AD, Ida establishes the kingdom of Bernicia. That will, by his grandon’s time, unite under Aella of the Deirans, forming Northumbria. The Star of the North, and its emerging repository of Anglo-Celtic-Roman culture by 600-800AD. This segment involves my revision of Theoderic’s daughter, Amalsuentha (a version of Melisande), actually being rescued from her assassination (she was strangled in a bath, around 534, by her cousin who coveted the throne of the Ostrogoths, which opened up Justinian’s excuse to invade Italy), as more of an comedic abduction by Offa/Yffi of the Deira/East Angles, Ida, and Cethegus, whose my version of the warrior-saint, Cathog/Cathomalos. She becomes my version of Marcia—founder of Mercian law, as Geoffrey attributes Alfred the Great’s codex of law and rule procedure to a Marcia, a great queen of wisdom and courage, who...probably didn’t exist. Anyway, I’ve now expounded to the point of random outline, and the tale which falls between my 2nd Century Artorius Castus Tale (that might go back to 1st Century Cartimandua, Agricola, and Arviragus/Genvissa, as mentioned by Geoffrey), and PreRev Paris with Jefferson and his Scottish lady physician. As an underscore to the Uther/Guinevere tract of Gwen as Queen, and Defender of the North, later Uther’s Wife, and Theoderic’s lover, there’s this scene that comes from the Welsh Mabiniogion, of Culhwch and Olwen. The tale is basically a Welsh version of the Norse myth of Svipdag-Odr, and Menglod. Svips is cursed by his step-mother to only fall in love with a particular woman, who happens to be the daughter of a fearsome giant, and impossible to win. Unless the hero undergoes a series of impossible feats which he overcomes, of course, to finally win his bride, and kill her monster-father. Anyway, there’s this passage Arthur speaks when his cousin, Culhwch arrives at Arthur’s hall, seeking some Band of Bros to help in his quest of Lady Love. Basically, I’m a kow-tow to those ‘rules of hospitality’ we like to romanticize were inherent to tribal societies of Germanic and Teutonic origin, Arthur welcomes his cousin with every promise to provide him with anything he needs on his quest, except [paraphrased from rusty neurons]: “...my sword, my spear, my dagger, my ship, my shield, and...my Wife, Gwenhwyfar.” Every time I come across this line, I think that’s either the coarsest of insults to his wife, and his queen, listed in an intinerary of his weapons. Or, it’s the most oblique of compliments to his wife. As Guinevere is his greatest weapon, even over his other enchanted implements, and won’t be utilized to any other man’s cause than his own. I’d like to add, that would be at her discretion of course. Anyway, it’s this exchange I use between Uther and Theoderic the first time they meet on the eve of Badon 2.0, after Gwen has escaped Frankish forces. And masterminded winning a bunch of heavy cavalry to her cause/Uther’s cause in the civil wars erupting across their island in the late 480s-491/493AD. This coincides with Clovis’s campaign against Soisson and the last Roman count, Syragius’s kingdom, falling to Frankish hands. Somewhere in there, I fanciful-ize Theoderic has come to Northern Gaul in the years of his own campaign to win Italy against Adavacrius (my Erp/Hyrp/Tge AngloSaxon Eadawacer—the son of Gudrun of the Nibelungs-Burgundians, and the widow of Sigfrid of the Walsungs. He’s Odovacer, the Heruli chieftain who deposed the last Roman Emperor, in 476), seeking an alliance with Clovis, a most brilliant and Mschiavellian ruler of Merovingian bent, asking for Clovis’s sister, Audafleda, as his bride (she does eventually marry him—the mother of Amalsuintha). Somewhere in there, we have Gwen being betrayed by her own sister, Cywyllog, whose married to Medrod, Uther’s nephew/cousin, and Gwen trying to reach Uther in Brittany/Aremorica, as he’s fighting for/or against Clovis, depending on when Clovis attempts invading north of Orlean, into the lands of Alani tribesmen, and the British colonizers of Brittany. In an attempt to set the truth before Uther that there’s been a conspiracy weaving lies that she’s tried seducing/promising their lands to Cerdic of the Gewisse/Wessex and his son Cynric, when it’s actually their daughter Gwenog, she’s promised to Cerdic’s son when they’ve come of age, attempting to win an alliance against Medrod/Cywyllog, Medrod’s messengers reach Uther first, and Clovis’s troops intercept Gwen’s small landing party, killing her own guard, and capturing her. Brought before, he disavows her, and rips off her neck-ring, that bore the symbol of Brigantia, and the right of her rule of the North. That Uther truly has no authority to deny her. His action breaks the alliance of Alba from Britannia, and only lends further fuel to Medrod’s attempt at usurpation in Britain. The fracturing of allegiances proves beneficial to Clovis, while he entertains Theoderic’s proposal. Uther, casting off his wife as a traitor, readies to return to Britain, facing the the forces of Medrod, his and allies of varying Irish/Northern British/Teutonic mix (where we see Onale/Aella Bretwalda, and his sons, Cymen-Cissa and Wlencing, arrive enforce, a Nordic king establishing a foothold in Sussex—the tale involving the clash of Swedish-Geatish-Norwegian-Danish-Anglian houses, from the tale of Ohtere and Onela, and the sons of Ohtere, Eanmund and Athislus/Aedgils). Gwen’s leftvin the custody of the Franks, to be disposed of or dealt with after the coming wars. It’s here Theoderic crosses paths with Gwen, his first love from decades before, when they been teens/young adults coming of age in Rome, in the last years leading up to Odovacer’s victory. And Theoderic, never trusting Clovis, devises an entirely different plan than what he’d first come north for, his own war stalled at the Walls of Ravenna, and needing a naval fleet to blockade the harbor that keeps Odovacer afloat, and fending off the final victory of the Ostrogoths. In a borrowing of the legend of St Genevieve of Paris, Clovis sends Gwen on a time wasting errand to Tours, where she’s meant to secure a bread supply fending off famine in Paris, whilst she, of her own design, crosses paths with Clothilde, and arranges a marriage between Christian Frankish princess and the heathen Merovingian conqueror. Theoderic’s 1000 Strong Sarmatian Cavalry who have served him as indentured warriors since his defeat of their city, Singidunum, in 474AD, sweeps in as the entourage returns from Tours to Paris, Theoderic intent on rescuing Gwen back to Itsly, or using her as hostage-ransom to win Uthyr’s naval force of Black Danes. Backstory here is, Gwen and Theo didn’t part well in Rome all those years ago, when he only knew her as some British orphan, and later discovered her heritage as a princess of northern Pictish/Roman British nobility, made an offer of marriage to her at that time just after his father had passed away, leaving Theoderic the heir of the Wandering Kingdom of Ostrogoth Amalungs. He rejection out of loyalty to her father and her people offended him, thinking she spurned him out of pride, thinking herself superior to his barbarian heritage, however Romanized, educated in the court’s of Constantinople. And once more, it’s Gwen who rejects his proposal, but w/o allies in the wilds of Northern Gaul/Frisia, where Theoderic’s forces are camped, she learns of his Cavalry, their decent from the other 2500 Horselords who had been sent into exile by Marcus Aurelius centuries ago. And it’s Gwen, a descendent of those same Sarmatians, the other 5500 Iazyges, sent to Britain by Marcus Aurelius centuries back, on the side of her Pictish mother, whose blood ran back to the Horse Goddess of the Sarmatians when she and her warrior-priestessss first arrived in Britain (see the intriguing grave finds of 2 women buried with weapons and Cavalry armor from Brougham found in 2004–thought to be of Hungarian origin, and dared to mid 3rd c AD), following their men to exile. And it’s Gwen who speaks the old tongue of Saranyu, mounted on a stallion, galloping amongst 1000 Catarphactii, with their Standard aloft in her hand, moving between their ranks, and rallying them in the language of the Iazyges, turning Theoderic’s offer for refuge in exchange for becoming his queen or mistress, and instead, compelling 1000 HorseLords to her cause, tge cause of Britannia, by weight of her lineage, and the promise to no longer “be considered slaves, but citizens” with lands of their own upon British shores if they were, to once more, fight on the Isle of Mists, for her king, and her land (mmm, I always loved that scene of Daenerys suddenly winning the Slave Army of Unsullied...this is my tribute of the Raven Queen to the Dragon Queen. Cliche is as cliche does...but, I’m hoping my version contains some originality). And Theoderic, thinking himself the savior, suddenly becomes the usurped, as his own officers, Vidia, Hjalmar, drawn from the sagas of Thiodrrek, always loyal to him, follow her command to apprehend and restrain him, till she can figure out what to with him.   Which, in her Gwen way, involves an intimate scene, and Theideric’s Promise to fightvat her side, in support of Uther. Which is where we arrive with Theoderic and Uther meeting. A very stoic and grieving Uther, whose son, Llacheu, had been slain, the son of his youth, fathered  years before with the matron/abbess of the monestary-college where he’d been educated outside of Avillion/Gaul. And who’d sought service in Uther’s court when he’d come to adulthood. Uther, who’d taken his dead son to The isle of St Michael’s Mount, in a confrontation with Medrod’s greater numbers, in a battle he’d thought lost initially, until the 11th Hour arrival of his wife, who he’d cast off in a rage of jealousy and intriguing falsehoods. And by the gods’ justice, he’d been punished by the loss of his closest brothers, Cei amongst them, and Medrod, who he’d always loved, turned against them. Gwen, once the enemy was in retreat, beaten once, but hardly defeated, who searched for her husband in a panicked dread, not finding him amongst the fallen, but following the trail of bodies strewn in his wake all the way to the tidal Chanel looking out to St Michels. And the beacon, the pyre burning there, where dead Llacheu lay, with his father mourning him, who wished to die himself. Haunted by the the ghost of his dreams, his wife and Queen, the mother of his son and daughter, guardian of his vision, takes shape out the shadows of a ruined villa’s garden—where flames dance in the night as Llacheu’s body turns to ash and smoke, and the stars witness with icy diamond beauty, the tragedy of men inviting war and sorrow. She wakes in his arms with the dawn, and he knows this was dream. He sees the neckring in place of the one he’d torn from her throat, bearing the insignia of the Wulkknot, 3 interlaced triangles, just above her collarbone, and Uther knows this as the Sign of Wotan. And the Symbol of the Ostrogoth Amalungs. Her lips are soft upon his, her gray eyes, clear as the sun shimmering across the steel waters with the dawn, entreat him. “You’ve lost a son, but where a brother has fallen, and one turned traitor, you may have gained another. Meet him, Eurdeyrn. And you might find a kindred soul there.” Which finds him striding through their camp, arrayed to allow for a makeshift infirmary, where Gwen will serve later, and the commander’s quarters marked by the standards and banners of the companies of his army. The cheers and relief resounding through the throngs as his officers welcome him in a rush of greetings, condolences, assurances of faith, and endurance, these men who’ve bled and wept with him, to victory and loss. And more, the furious cheer that rises through the assembly grounds, at sight of his Queen at his side. North and South, Alba and Britannia United once more. He pauses. The guards align, stepping aside to allow for Uther to face this Ostrogoth lord, followed by his own comitatus/elite officers—some them who’d committed sedition only 3 days ago, at the pledge of this Queen they all believe a goddess in human form, rather Horse Queen reborn. Gwen has never hestitated to take advantage of old symbolisms, equine goddesses or Ravens some of the most powerful divinties many of these nomads or barbarian tribes, recognize, only a generation or two as converts to Christ, separating them from their pagan forefathers. He’s well-formed, this Maering, a Chieftain who styles himself an enlightened philosopher king. Eyes like marine seas meet Uther’s amber gaze, guarded. Aquiline features of boldness and depth define the high brow, the angular cheeks, fine nose nose, and strong jaw. An assembly not unlike Uther’s own, Theoderic’s grandeur smacks of brilliance, and sun, a lion in his prime, his red-gold hair plaited, the fine stubble of his beard, flecked with gray. Theyre of an age, and similar physique, each just on the other side of four decades, Uther’s image, more somber, the Winter King indeed, tresses of oak brown frosted with white, drawn back, long at his neck, his posture straight, muscled body riddled with scars of old wounds, his joints feeling the damp and cold more so than in younger days.  The hard lines of cheek and chin might have been sculpted from harshness through the years, but the lucidity of eyes that carry the cast of autumn leaves struck of rain and setting sun, soul-searching, and somber, so it’s said Uther reads the hearts of men the way migrating birds read the change of season.  And he sees Gwen was right. This man has born the burden of his people for over a decade, aimless, as mercenaries. A client-King to Constantinople, consul, and conqueror, fighting other men’s battles so his nation might survive for another season. Guests at the mercy of ally and enemy, subsisting on fortune’s vagaries. Uther knew that life. And he hears that understanding in Theoderic’s tone, words of greeting, without supplication. Uther responds with the same reserve, the words a ritual of recitation. A host welcoming. A guest received. Men will recount later, over beakers of ale, in a commons awash in song, and roasting meat, lit by torches, and hearth fires blazing near the sorted benches, how they met, the Stag and the Stallion, the Lion of the Amalungs and the Wolf of the Waelsungs. Then, Theoderic nearly shatters his composure. “You lost a son here. I too, have lost a brother.  These battles we fight to carve some kind of future demand sacrifices we could never have foreseen. But in the struggle, we may find blessings of unknown delight as well.” Theoderic’s attention shifts to Gwen. There’s no coveting or lust, as he might have supposed from a lesser man. Yearning shines from the depths of his heart. And worship. Untarnished and without shame. In the presence of her husband, who’d cast her off in a fit of wrath and grieving doubt. Gwen’s silence, her wary glance that moves between the two men, the tension tightening her mouth, belies her anxiety.  She has a tendency to brusqueness when she’s uncomfortable, and clear she’s far from easy with this encounter. She gathers herself, some internal motive rising that bades her salute each man, a crisp nod between them, as she extricates herself from the awkward company. “Medrod’s forces regroup in the North. We have much to do if we’re to drive this momentum to victory. And I have much to catch up on, before we march.” Uther, then Theoderic, neither raise objection, a small bow, an *as your leave*, as they watch her amble off toward the one place which has always been her retreat. Medicine, and the surgery-taking rounds of the wounded before she’ll take on a shift.  Determining clearance for the coming transport, and those who’ll be left at the encampment to recover or die. Their respective guards maintain a distance meant to preserve confidences without seeming to neglect their commanders. A strange quiet flows between them. A calm Uther finds an effective tool. Men are apt to let tongues loosen in silence, to cover their nerves, and spill Revelations they otherwise wouldn’t. Theoderic doesn’t appear unsettled/discomfitted. Shrugging easily, and motioning with a look toward the commanders tent, he’s almost conversational. “I imagine you’d welcome a bath, and a meal first, before we get to the grit of how we proceed from here.” How naturally men seem to look to him, seeking direction or simply a pleasantry. That irks Uther, noting as well it’s his own tent toward which they’re headed. “I saw the pendant at her throat, Amalung.” Theoderic slows, hearing the stiff words, halting with Uthyr, to face him once more.  Curiosity rather than caution shining in his eyes. “Whatever courtesy of treaty you seek in exchange for your service, I will do all in my power to honor. But this will not include the right of my spear, my sword, my dagger, my flagship, my shield, and most of all my wife. You’ll not have my wife hereafter. These sacred insignias conveying kingship, right to rule. Most of all, his wife. A moment only, of consternation, flickers across Theoderic’s features, calm, seeming to weigh responses. Until he breaks into a chuckle, and a commiserating glimmer directed at Uthyr. “Only it was your wife who had me, rather. Not the other way around. — Shout out to G’Schola’, and his Tower Down the Tracks, at these turnings of the year... And to my concept of Guinevere. It’s hard for me not to see her as something of a queen, and warrior. And of Scottish origin. Like Robert Graves (who took a much more arcane synthesis of Welsh bardic poetry), one of my favorite poems is the Battle of the Trees/CathGoddeu... The part where Gwydion, son of the goddess Don(a), raises the trees and flowers, earth, roots, vines, etc to aid in the kingdom of Gywnedd’s battle against the southern Welsh kingdom of Dyfed, I’m convinced, inspired the Battle of the Ents in LotRs (Graves and Tolkien shared a personal and professional relationship of scholar and ‘belles-lettres’... Ents, and the Welsh poem, both harken back to Irish myth, and the 2nd Battle of MaghTuredh. Where Lugh summons his goddess/sisters-sorceresses, to aid the Danaans against the Fomori, and asks what weapons they’ll bring to their fight. And the sisters reply: "And ye, O Be-cuile and O Dianann," said Lugh to his two witches," what power can ye wield in the battle?" "Not hard to tell," said they. "We will enchant the trees and the stones and the sods of the earth, so that they shall become a host under arms against them, and shall rout them in flight with horror and trembling." That, in tandem with the more ancient Babylonian tale of Ishtar’s Descent to the Underworld, carries such resounding power in the primordial concept of goddess and queen, where Ishtar stands before the Gates of Hell, her sister’s domain, and demands entry to pass. “If you do not open the gate for me to come in, I shall smash the door and shatter the bolt, I shall smash the doorpost and overturn the doors, I shall raise up the dead and they shall eat the living: And the dead shall outnumber the living!” Can you see where GrrMartin drew his inspiration for Daenerys, in the 2nd Season, where she promises destruction of her enemies, and those who’ve harmed her friends (“...I’ll lay waste to enemies, and burn cities to the ground!”). Basically, she’s Inanna/Ishtar at the Gates of the Hell. That’s (part) of my concept of Guinevere—the queen who summons the Houses of the North, and unites them under an old Battle Standard of Brigantia (which is the Cross of St Bridgid...that mimics a tetraskele), marching them south to the aid of Uther outside of the Walls of York. And in the Cavalry charge of the northern host, amid a rising thunder/snow storm (I place this battle circa Nov/December...not usual for campaigns, but that’s part of the desperation here...in post-Roman Britain), where men who are frost-bitten, exhausted, famished, at the edge of defeat on both sides—Jute and British—blood-blurred vision, obscured even more by slashing winds and sleet and mud (hopefully the horses don’t spin out), it’s Uther, or Uther’s more literary-inclined brother/cousin Brochmal (my version of Bedivere/Bedwyr) who quotes the old Irish tale, as Gwen’s forces align on a distant bluff across the Vale, and she raises the Sword of Ares (yep, she’s also the one who pulls ‘the Sword from the Stone’...based on her mother having sacrificed herself years before, drawing the sword of the Sarmatians that attracted a lightening strike at the same moment she plunged the blade into an oak, and promptly induced one of those conductive lightening strike scenarios that passes through a bunch of people and explodes the tree/ground/and people around them...thanks Wilderness Medicine workshop!) as the rallying point of the charge. With Gwen’s trio of Ravens circling about her (they are cool birds—they can live like 25-50 years, are as intelligent and social as dogs/horses/mammals/other smart birds...and there’s a rare white raven variant that occurs), symbols of her ambivalent relationship to Wotan and Christ, as well as being classically educated, and thus, agnostic ultimately, to Gwen, her Ravens have always reminiscent of the Morrigan—the triple goddess of Death, Battle Frenzy, and well...sex/life-rebirth. Amid the building of horse, down into the Vales of York, men’s senses to confused by the icy winds and rain, not always sure if they’re even striking at friend or foe anymore, the Horns blasting different signals sounding like Heimdallr’s Gjallhorn of Ragnarok, imagination, and delusion, or delirium form shapes in men’s minds, out of storm cloud, sleet/hale/, and bloodied earth, mucked by entrails, corpses, and excrement of human and beast. British ally, or British foe, clashing spear and sword with shields, they all swear in the charge of the North, do the phantoms manifest, shadows of past legionaries, and Roman auxiliaries, the ghosts of the first Sarmatian horselords, taking shape from earth and most, fleshless memories of gore, long-dead and fallen, whose blood quenched the thirst earth in defense of the Hallowed Isle, summoned once more, unknowingly, by the vision of mere mortals whose vision of a new Britannia rises from the past, and stretched into a tenous future told in tale of the Stars... Okay, Bunnygrrl obscura done for today...

[fapangel]

So we end up flattening Shagrat Airbase. Is there anything stopping Syria from sinking the Bush in response?

Well, lets see. Is there? 

This is an Arleigh-Burke class destroyer. It’s a modern air-warfare destroyer, which means it’s mainly designed to carry a fuck-ton of anti-aircraft missiles, to shoot down aircraft, and incoming hostile anti-ship cruise missiles. Newer marks also carry two large helicopters, which make it a potent anti-submarine platform as well. 

It does many things, but first and foremost it’s designed to protect the carrier. 

This is a Ticonderoga-class cruiser. This ship is designed, from the keel-up, for one job, and one job only. It has more VLS cells than a Burke (a full 122 to a Burke’s 96,) but most importantly its increased size houses more computers and crew for operating the Aegis Combat System, a sophisticated computer network that links all the other ships in the fleet using it (such as Burkes, the carrier, any and all aircraft launched by ships or carrier, etc.,) and use that data to co-ordinate the sensors and weapons systems of every ship in the fleet to track and engage incoming targets. This floating command post’s Aegis system (Aegis = “shield” in ancient Greek) had its origins in the New Threat Upgrade systems first developed when rapidly advancing electronics tech in the early 80s was making cruise missiles smart enough that ECM couldn’t just make them do loop-de-loops. This is when missiles were first optimized not for engaging cruise missiles heading towards the launching ship, but for engaging missiles heading for other ships that were not them, by flying “lead” pursuits required to engage crossing targets, rather than the old and very inefficient/ineffective “lag” pursuits. 

In short, the “one job” this ship is built to do is to protect another ship - the carrier. 

This is a nuclear-powered fast-attack submarine, a Virginia class. The second-best anti-submarine weapon in the world is an aircraft (commonly carried in large numbers by these things called aircraft carriers,) and the first one, is another submarine. 

One of these accompanies every Carrier Battle Group. To protect the carrier. 

This is an Independence-class Littoral Combat Ship, which has been built to execute several different missions, but the primary and most important one is fending off swarms of small speedboats and other asymmetric threats in places like the Strait of Hormuz. It’s also highly capable as a modern anti-submarine warfare platform, with a towed VDS sonar and extensive ASW helicopter capacity. 

In other words, it’s custom designed to fend off Iranian-style tactics when a carrier is transiting the Strait. This ship, too, defends the carrier. 

Now lets talk missiles. 

This is an SM-1 on the twin-arm launch rail. This could fire two Standard missiles at a time. This was far, far too few to fight off big swarms of cheap cruise missiles targeting some big, vulnerable ship, like, say, a carrier. The first Ticonderoga cruisers were armed with these, and were notable for having two, instead of just one like most escort ships, which made them more capable of protecting the carrier. 

This is a Vertical Launch System, a design that allows the very rapid ripple-firing of many, many weapons at once, specifically to put weapons in the air to counter big saturation-attack swarms of incoming cruise missiles. The Aegis Combat System was designed to properly employ this weapon and the vast number of weapons it could fill the air with, specifically to counter the missile saturation attacks designed to overwhelm the defenses of the carrier. 

This shows an SM-1 (roughly similar to the modern SM-2, a much-upgraded development of it,) and the SM-2 ER, which adds a honking huge rocket booster to it to grant a lot more range. While an SM-2 reaches about 50 nautical miles or so, the SM-2 ER can reach out a staggering 130 nautical miles. 

This increased standoff range is to make it easier to kill aircraft before they can launch missiles at the carrier. 

This is a supersonic sea-skimming anti-ship cruise missile known as the “Moskit,” one of a number of similar weapons that the Soviets intended to launch at NATO ships from Tu-22 Backfire bombers. The general idea of these massive weapons was simple - they had very long range, further than the SM-2ER above, so they could avoid the defenses of, and thus kill, the carrier. 

This is an F-14 Tomcat, a swing-wing, high-speed fleet defense interceptor. The entire reason for this aircraft’s existence - and for the huge fucking missile it carried -

- with its 100 nautical mile range, was to hunt down and murder Backfire Bombers from even longer range. This aircraft and missile were literally made for and designed around each other; an entire, complete weapons system with just one job. 

They protected the carrier. 

This is an F-18E Super Hornet. With the latest marks of the AIM-120D, which can reach almost 70 goddamn miles, it can pretty much do what the F-14 did, except at lower cost and more reliably because Technology. What it cannot do, the F-35 can, due to being able to get much closer before being detected, and that’s without the possible purchase of the British Meteor, a super-long-range missile that’d be an excellent replacement for the Phoenix - and is already slated for fielding with the British F-35. However, the F-18 as is can protect the carrier. It is good enough to protect the carrier. 

This is an SM-6. The Navy decided that “good enough” wasn’t good enough, so they took an SM-2, took out the guidance, and replaced it with a terrifying Terminator borg-brain equipped with the radar seeker of an AIM-120 so it can hunt down and murder targets autonomously, with no support from the launching ship. Combined with targeting data from an E2D Hawkeye AWACS aircraft (launched by a carrier) and routed through the Aegis combat system, this weapon can engage sea-skimming missiles well over the horizon.

This missile can also kill other ships and it can even shoot down ballistic missiles, but its main role is to protect the carrier. 

This is a RIM-7P Sea Sparrow. It’s basically an AIM-7 put onto a ship, where it worked much better than it ever did as an air-to-air weapon. It has a great reputation for reliability and accuracy, and is still in use by many NATO allied nations worldwide. It was commonly used as a point-defense weapon to protect the carrier. 

This is an “Evolved” Sea Sparrow, or ESSM, which has about as much in common with the original Sea Sparrow as ducks do with horses. It has more than double the range of the original (30+ nautical miles compared to 15 or so) which puts it closer to a medium-range SAM, but the US still considers it a point-defense weapon. It’s more accurate, can be packed 4 to the VLS cell, and is slated to receive an active radar seeker in a future upgrade. 

This now arms the ships that protect the carrier. 

This is what the carriers themselves now use - the RIM-116 Rolling Airframe Missile. It has only slightly less range than the old Sea Sparrow, but makes up for it by getting to the target much faster, important for blowing them up far enough away to avoid damage and for giving you breathing room for follow-up shots if you want. Unlike a CIWS gun, like the Russians and almost everyone else still rely on for the last-ditch point defense, this thing can engage multiple targets at once, can hit targets at about ten times the effective range, is far lighter, and is much more accurate and reliable. 

These are mounted on, or being retrofitted to, every carrier to protect them. 

Now for a nine-gun blast from the past. This is the USS South Dakota, lead ship of her class. She displaced 35,000 tons and made 27 knots at maximum speed. 

This is the USS Iowa, lead ship of her class. She’s basically the same design as the South Dakota above, but for two differences - she made 33 knots or so, and she weighed 45,000 tons. 

Why would the Navy invest 10,000 tons more ship for a measly 6 knots increase in speed - especially when it didn’t make much difference in battleship combat? 

This is why - the Iowa could keep up with the carriers, and by that point in the war, the only role for any ship that was not a carrier was usually protecting a carrier. This is the USS Midway, a WWII-construction carrier that served till the 80s. 

This is the USS New Jersey on Nov. 8th, 1944, with the USS Hancock in the background, photographed from the USS Intrepid (another carrier.) The New Jersey is protecting the carriers.

This is the USS Iowa in the late 80s or early 90s. In this picture, she is leading a fleet of ships, and that fleet of ships is surrounding the ship they are there to protect, which is a carrier. 

This picture can be confusing to the uninitiated, who have let their love of the majesty and engineering of a bygone era corrupt their understanding of the modern world, I have prepared a simple diagram to help you understand the kinds of ships present in this image:

So you see, anon, the thing stopping Syria from sinking the carrier is SEVENTY FUCKING YEARS OF NONSTOP OBSESSION WITH DOING NOTHING BUT PROTECTING THE FUCKING CARRIER. 

Does that answer your question, anon?

[spidersolare]

♫★ Portal Playlist ★♫

!Full Fanmix!

♫ Everybody Wants to Rule The World - Aperture     (Tears For Fears)  ♫ This is Not a Test + Finally Free - Chell     (Tobymac + Chris Hawkes) ♫ Steady On + Listening For The Weather - Mel     (Tim Be Told + Bic Runga) ♫ Till the Day I Die + Never Let Me Go - Doug Rattmann      (Tobymac + Florence & The Machine) ♫ You’ve Got a Friend In Me - Companion Cube      (Toy Story) ♫ I Know Nothing + Regret - Wheatley      (Travis + Fearless Vampire Killers) ♫ Titanium + Lean On - Virgil      (David Guetta + Major Lazer) ♫ Mr Policeman - Rick the Adventure Core      (Brad Paisley) ♫ SPACE IS COOL - Space Core     (Schmoyoho) ♫ I Know Everything About Everything - Fact Core      (Frenzal Rhomb) ♫ That Man - Rainbow Core     (Caro Emerald) ♫ I Want It All + Black Honey - Cave Johnson     (Cam + Thrice) bonus  ♫ It’s Alright + Old Soldier - A.E.G.I.S.     (Dennis Waterman + David Crosby) ♫ If I Didn’t Have You - Atlas & P-body    (Monsters Inc.) ♫ Oh No + The Fall - Caroline     (Marina and the Diamonds + Yann Tiersen) ♫ Getting Stronger - GLaDOS     (Black Gryph0n)

Almost didn’t post this for various reasons but I worked too hard on it for it not to see the light of day as such. Thanks to the friends that supported me. Reasonings for each song below! (though note, most of them were picked for lyric suitability then accuracy of tone and characters with two songs where so I could get a better guess at their tone and character arcs)

  Aperture - It just feels like it really suits multiple characters and their motivations, and really, the working atmosphere of Aperture in general. Even before the incident, it was full of ambitious people who wanted to push limits and boundaries, do the impossible. They turned their backs on the natural order of things, of ordinary morality and did what they wished, even when it came to nothing and crumbled before their eyes. Everybody wanted to rule the world

Chell - Fast paced and badass just like the test subject herself, tons of lyrics that could directly apply to her, and a real ironic tongue in cheek nature to the title itself haha though its meaning is very true for her, since she does not get practice runs or retry’s. Its startlingly and strongly real. But once she is free of it all, that’s where the second song comes in. It’s still strong and powerful, but its tempered and much more relaxed. And full of little things like the appreciationg od sunlight and the sea that I feel would really resonate with Chell, being able to appreciate the little things without worrying about those people who’d come along and force her away from a life she has control over

Mel - Her first is bobby, and upbeat, but still carries a sense of hopelessness she pushes aside to stay strong and keep on going. Her time, her past is gone, and all she can do is keep going in hope she sees the dawn again. And when she finally does, its much more peaceful and steady. The second song is full of sunshine and serene sturdiness. Calm, with lines of farewell and a little loneliess and regret for leaving her friend, yet a need to return home and find her place

Doug - Doug was hard to pick for because of his eerie and surrell tone he deserved, but the strong passion for survival and the survival of those he needed in his life. He started the series of having two songs so I could better capture tones and character arcs. Anyway the first is 100% his passionate side and determination to survive. His support of Chell through his artworks and messages, his steely determination to keep going, despite everything working against him. The second is something like how I’d see his sentiments once he goes back and sacrifices his life freedom for Chell’s. It captures more of his ghost like prescence in the game, and how peaceful it is now he’s found a resting place. Though it still carries the message of his will to survive, asking Chell not to let him, or possibly even his memory, go.

Cube - Could any have fit better? I mean seriously, I was meddling around with friendship songs and the second I was reminded this existed there could not have been any others. Cube is not especially extrodinary in any fashion, not stronger, smarter or better then any other prop you will find in aperture. They are just a normal cube with a heart on it. But they will love you will all that is in them, never threaten to stab you in the back or abandon you, and you’ve always got a friend in them

Wheatley - This one is just funny to me haha, found it while looking for Fact’s song, and couldn’t leave it to memory obsuricty. Besides, it does a decent job covering how out of the know he is whille giving an optimistic spin, as Wheatley was apt to do. He just goes about, knowing nothing, making it to the end of each day. The second one however is definitely the more emotionaly powerful one for me, as the lyrics suit so well but the melody doesn’t go full angst and gives it a aptly regret like tune, sad punctured with harsh tones. And the lyrics were just perfect for a sad little space orb who made a lot of mistakes he regrets

Virgil - Virgil was one of the hardest to find songs for, but I stand by the ones I chose. The first one is something of a statement about his characters strength even while clearly feeling very low about himself. The second is not only a 70′s style song, but resonates with his learning to rely on other people, namely Mel. How you can overcome all obsticles with someone who you care for

Rick - Just a free wheeling song about enjoying the rush of breaking the rules in a fun western tune. Very adventurous

Space - I kinda feel bad about using a remix of someone elses voice but between the lyrics and the melody it was just too perfect. Besides I couldn’t find any others that matched up with it. So yeah heh

Fact - IT WAS SO HARD TO FIND A GOOD SONG FOR THIS ALTERNATIVE FACT GENERATOR. But in the end I think the choice was pretty good, though not nearly as detached or electric style as I would have prefered to find

Rainbow - Fun and jazzy, romantic and stylish, perfect! And the best part is you can see it from either Rainbow or Virgil’s perspective, freaking adorable gay babies

Cave - Nyeeeeeh I still kinda feel weird about these two but there alright. These two are definitely ment to mix together to get Cave’s cheery but harsh persona. That while he might have had good intentions, it was always to forward his own interests and get everything he wanted for his own. And that despite the consequences, he kept reaching for things beyond his right and never stopped, even after he passed away

A.E.G.I.S. - Aegis was always a protector figure to me. Kinda an old man, even though the game never gave you much of a human personality to him. Even if he went the wrong way about it, and tries very hard to kill you, it was all out of a need to protect what little was left of the facility. The first was found looking for Virgils, just a fun gruff at work song about an old officer. Took a while to find the second song, but it fit just right for the lonely old soilder who lost every battle that counted

Atlas and P-Body - Was there really any others I could have picked? Its like with cubes haha it was just too perfect for these adorable robots whose world literally revolves around each other

Caroline - While the tone is a little off, Caroline has always struck me as someone who always knew exactly what she wanted out of her existence, and worked hard to make that happen, with a couple silly moments along the way. She was an unstoppable force, who in the end fell to her own pursuits, at the hand of a person she trusted. The Fall, is definitely just the kinda music I imagine would have backgrounded Caroline’s shift into GLaDOS had we seen it. Sober, yet justaposed. She was a tragic figure, but it was also something of a fitting fall for someone who was “the backbone” of a highly corrupt and dangerous company. And of course it leads perfectly into the last song.....

GLaDOS - Here we are! Easily my proudest pick. Not only does the tone and melody fit her to a tee, the lyrics are almost literally perfect. No matter what you do to her, Glados is always on top of it in the end. She’d rule the world within a week if she put her mind to it

[ofthedivinekrp-blog]

Did you hear? MOON TAEIL, the twenty-three year old STUDENT/MODEL, was spotted in downtown Yeoshin. We heard they’re a descendant of BASTET is known for having the ability(s) of HELLCAT/FELINE PHYSIOLOGY and ENHANCED ALLURE. If you look closely, they have an uncanny resemblance to BTS’ Kim Taehyung.

* . ✧ ˙ ˖ — and deep down in the soul, something rises, knowing well that what made us is what could be our demise.

Bast was originally a fierce lioness warrior goddess of the sun throughout most of ancient Egyptian history, but later she was changed into the cat goddess that is familiar today, becoming Bastet. Even later, Greeks occupying ancient Egypt toward the end of its civilization changed her into a goddess of the moon.

As protector of Lower Egypt, Bast, she was seen as defender of the pharaoh, and consequently of the later chief male deity, Ra. Along with the other lioness goddesses, she would occasionally be depicted as the embodiment of the Eye of Ra. She has been depicted as fighting the evil snake named Apep, an enemy of Ra.[4]

Images of Bastet were often created from alabaster. The goddess was sometimes depicted holding a ceremonial sistrum in one hand and an aegis in the other—the aegis usually resembling a collar or gorget embellished with a lioness head.

Her name became associated with the lavish jars in which Egyptians stored their ointment used as perfume. Bastet thus gradually became regarded as the goddess of perfumes, earning the title of perfumed protector. In connection with this, when Anubis became the god of embalming, Bastet came to be regarded as his wife for a short period of time. Bastet was also depicted as the goddess of protection against contagious diseases and evil spirits.

* . ✧ ˙ ˖ — we are capable, pressured into valiant things, able to do what others can’t in this foreign land.

Hellcat/Feline Physiology: Taeil has the ability to transform and mimic the abilities of a cat, but that comes with a twist. Along with the physical attributes of a domestic or big cat, green eyes, who’s pupils are either normal or oval, long lashes, pointed canines and ears and a sly tongue. He has the physiology of a hellcat, meaning that his cat form is of the demonic type. His aura is feline, a firey blue that grants him the abilities to manipulate, configure and create, hell-fire. His ability varies, able to summon the depths of firey hell, but also normal fire, though that ability is limited. His power can cause excruciating pain or even instant death, and instead of a normal orange-y glow, his is a crisp, sinister blue.

Enhanced Allure: He also has he ability to enchant themselves to obtain powers of persuasion as well as seduction. Depending on the user, they may have a “trigger” that makes people around them obey their commands. Once under their spell, targets are at their command and willing to do whatever it is they want, even suicide. But Taeil personally uses the sexual aspect of his power. It allows him manipulation over lust and love, pleasure, and gives him the ability of sexual inducement, seduction intuition, subliminal seduction and his favorite, supernatural beauty.

* . ✧ ˙ ˖ — as stories told, legends passed, languages spread, we start to forget who were before.

triggers in the following passage: drug/sex addiction, emotional abuse, domestic abuse, parental abandonment, suicide, mental instability, trauma

People say that there’s a little good in everyone, that even the most terribly, evil and pitiful human being had a sliver of good in them, a small heart that could grow with just the right push. But those same people, who have met Moon Taeil, the heir to the Moon business empire, would say that he, is an exception to that rule. The man knows good yes, but his association with it is slim to none.

Moon Taeil has never known poverty. Born to an ex-idol and a fashion and make up designer who’s career was already on the come up in London, life had always nestled in the realm of fine wine and diamonds. He lived in lavish homes, and visited the most beautiful countries the earth could provide. He attended private schools over seas and was taught by the best educational instructors money could buy. Taeil walked on red carpets and roses everywhere he went, and as a boy, that didn’t keep him from being curious, loving, and artistic. His calling was art and academics, he painted extravagant pieces and drew extraordinary portraits all while leading his classes in academics. But even with that going for him, every year, every family picture was taken, and you can watch as the curious child like wonder is sucked from his soul.

Moon Jongguk and Moon Taeyeon weren’t the nurturing type. Taeil was raised by butlers and nannies, and then himself once he was old enough. The only child of money hungry entrepreneurs took a hearty toll on the growing adolescent. His parents were stone cold in their emotions, emotionally abusive, and made him feel as if he was bellow his worth. They were hardly home, always traveling, building their empire by stepping on the little people as well as their son, and when thy were Taeil to them was, subpar. And so, he buried himself, he still attended his private school in London though his family moved back to Korea and while their, he indulged. Sex, drugs and alcohol consumed him, and he spiraled. Weed, opiates, pills, cocaine, the latter being his drug of choice took hold of his life and he hadn’t had care in the world. You see, in middle school, Taeil noticed that there was something…different about him. His eyes were a pure emerald green,enchanting and alluring in contrast to his deeply tanned skin. His ears seemed to point and he grew into fangs that he was eventually able to retract. At first ‘a fluke’ he thought, his slew of mental illness’ were starting to take a toll on him, pushing forth hallucinations. But digging and questions lead to the discovery of his lineage, and well Taeil took that in stride.

By the time he made it to high school, he had spiraled out of control using his abilities to co-horse and control, and under the influence of an influx of drugs, Taeil was a monster. Junior year began the terror of what he was…what he is capable of. His first boyfriend, the love of his life. He indulged in Taeil’s sexual fantasies and  drug issues. They had partners together, male and female alike. Indulged in drugged up parties and raves,  he was Taeil’s night in shinning armor. But their medieval love story came with a twist, one that included deviated septums, black eyes and bruises. Cheating and name calling and the works. And Taeil, subject to the emotional disturbance at home, was to fragile to endure, the night in the strange city being his down fall. Gun shots fired, and sirens wailed, blood covered his entire body and his lover lay limp on the floor. But Taeil’s finger prints weren’t on the gun, no gloves were discarded, he hadn’t even pulled the trigger…his lover had, on himself at Taeil’s hand he lay slumped against a hotel window over looking the Dubai night life, cause of death? Suicide.

From then Taeil knew the full brunt of his powers, even his ability to bring forth fires of hell. And from then he became an unstoppable force in the industry, his looks got him his modeling gigs, but so did his ability to persuade, to allure, to in-capture and completely take over someones mind just by a few glossed kisses, and fluttering lashes. Just with the flick of the wrist of the click of his Louboutin heels. And he became dangerous, a male femme fatal if you will. A feline minx who had the industry in his palm. He bathed in diamonds, and pink glitter gloss, while commanding men at his feet and boy did he love it. He basked in the attention it granted him, in the lovers it brought him, men willing to give their last dime even though he had every penny he could ever wanted. Women pushing to be apart of whatever he was offering. He is and was the pinnacle of society, known for his posh, London poise paired with his sensual demeanor. But underneath the kittenish licks, and pearls he was still a curious child, battered and broken. He had seen things, been to the depths of Hell and back quite literally. He still loved art, and even collects it now, still graduated the top of his class, and entered West Celestial’s medical program a year early the only thing he can feel he’s accomplished with out his power. He moved out to Yeoshin for school though he continues his model career and helps with his families empire outside of it. Everyone knows him here, a different him, still the sexy, sly, cat from high school, still surrounded by white powder and wine, in the penthouse in the hills. But there’s a different side of him in Yeoshin…something much less Hellcat and a little more domestic the face of an ex lover with a bullet going through his temple a constant in his dreams.

[vsndesigns360]

THE TICK WHOLE POTATOE CHIP BAG FROM SEASON 2 EPISODE 7 WITH TINFOIL KEVIN at scene 0615 by vsndesigns Via Flickr: Stakeout Snack Potatoe Chip Bags used in Season 2 Episode 7. Tinfoil Kevin (Devin Ratray) provides the much needed stakeout chips at the Lei-Lo Hotel, aiding The Tick and Arthur's mission to find Lobstercules' babies. Dimensions are approximately 9" x 6" x 1". All lots in this auction were obtained directly from the production set for "The Tick" - a Prime Original and are accompanied by a signed Certificate of Authenticity from Sony Television Studios guaranteeing its authenticity. This lot was shipped by ScreenBid from its Hawthorne, California offices. All Natural Uoodles of Fun! Sea Salt Flavored Chips. It all start with home-grown chips. Cooked and seasoned to perfection using only natural ingredients. Our sea salt is sourced using ethical labor from a Himalayan salt mine. Every chip is crispy and full of taste. No artificial flavors, No preservatives, Gluten free, Nut free, Made in U.S.A., Barcode 0 0623 1979 5 XT-UU-62379/39 SAM 30046415. Uoodles Chips, Inc. THE CITY, 130940WE-3840, Partially Produced with Genetic Engineering, Ingredients: Potatoes, Vegetable Oil (Sunflower, Corn and /or Canola Oil), and Salt. Contains Soy Ingredients. (A small fragment was included in the shipping...eeeww...see photo above). GUARANTEED FRESH, Until printed date or this snack's on us. Jun 23. What's an Uoodle? That's a very good question. If you happen to be the designer of this Potatoe Chip bag, please give let us know! As Ben Edlund said, "Things can either be venerated or rot away, and any sustained interest in something like this only means it made a real connection," Edlund said in a statement in advance of the auction. "One of the things about doing this show that was really wonderful was the amazing artists who came together and made all of these ideas into realities. The idea that it's going to continue to provide enjoyment is for the best." An excerpt from a news article: "On offer at auction are 129 pieces in all, including full costumes, masks and models, blood-stained ponchos and AEGIS ID cards, weapons and watches. All that and a bag of chips – literally, as the auction includes a couple of bags of sea-salted stakeout snacks. Perfect for the devoted fan – or maybe someone wanting to make season three in their backyard. Among the highlights from the Prime series that began as a 1986 comic-shop’s newsletter:"

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The Best Couples in Video Games

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The Best Couples in Video Games

A few years ago, we wrote about all of our absolute favorite couples in video games, but in a span of five years, a lot of things can change. So we’ve updated our list to include more of our favorite couples, from casual games to more serious RPGs, and to celebrate the growing representation of interractial and LGBTQ+ representation. Flip through our gallery below to check out all the couples we love, or keep scrolling to read.

Gaming’s Greatest Romances

Player’s romantic choice isn’t a new thing to RPGs, but it was for Assassin’s Creed, which up until Odyssey had consistently presented players with heteronormative protagonists (with the exception of Jacob Frye, who was revealed as bisexual in Syndicate’s DLC) and predetermined relationships. Like its Greecian roots, Odyssey celebrated the ability to love anyone no matter the main character’s assigned gender, letting players decide if they wanted their Kassandra or Alexios to be heteronormative, gay or bisexual/pansexual. It’s been done before in plenty of other games, but Odyssey’s special in that, well, it doesn’t hide its influences and allows players to get on with literally everyone. Random philosopher? A shipbuilder? Really important supporting lead? We ship it all. – Aiden Strawhun

Athena and Janey Springs – Borderlands: Pre-Sequel

If there’s anything Borderlands is not, it’s subtle. In Borderlands: The pre-sequel by Telltale, Janey literally introduces Athena as her girlfriend. One demeaning, poorly-timed and derogatory joke later, the two are schmoozing through the title and Tales from the Borderlands together. Borderlands has always been unapologetic and flamboyant, and its roster of characters have always matched those themes, but these two, in particular, fit the bill to a near-perfect degree. – Aiden Strawhun

Eddie and Ophelia – Brutal Legend

Sexy goth girl Ophelia is rock roadie Eddie Riggs’ fighting ally and love interest in Tim Schafer’s Brutal Legend. He meets her when they both wind up looking for the same giant axe, then Ophelia introduces Eddie to her gang and their romance blossoms. However, the path of true love never did run smooth, and it gets more than a little bumpy when Eddie is told that Ophelia is a traitor. Ophelia, heartbroken that Eddie doesn’t trust her and believing him to be the real traitor, decides to throw herself in the Sea of Black Tears. In the end, it turns out that there was an evil Ophelia — an imposter – who was doing all the bad things. If you return to the iron cross-shaped rock after you have beaten the game, you can see Ophelia again and have one last snogging session. – Emma Boyes

Isaac and Nicole – Dead Space 2

The year is 2508 and Isaac Clarke is one of a team of miners that boards the USG Ishimura after receiving a distress call from the vessel. It turns out no good turn goes unpunished, as the ship is teeming with the undead. That’s especially bad news, as Isaac’s girlfriend Nicole Brennan is one of the ship’s crew. However, sees her and she appears to be ok, although they don’t have any time to chat and catch up. Later in the game, she appears again to help him out by recalling the shuttle that government agent Kendra has commandeered after she tries to leave without him. Towards the end of the game, Isaac sees the original distress transmission, which shows that Nicole committed suicide by lethal injection before Isaac ever boarded the ship. The Nicole he saw was just a vision created by the Marker artefact to try and trick him into bringing it back to the planet Aegis VII. Love hurts. – Emma Boyes

You and All The Daddies – Dream Daddy

It’s becoming less rare to see queer couples of all sorts in video games, mainstream and independent, but it’s still somewhat of a rarity to see wholesome, meaningful representation of gay men in gaming. Dream Daddy goes a place many games have yet to go, and not only provides an incredible dating sim, but one that truly scratches an itch for the queer community while tackling themes of parenting and male-presenting body positivity simultaneously. Big daddies, little daddies, daddies of color–the player gets to choose whatever kind of daddy they want to pursue in this game, and do so in a way that is lighthearted but doesn’t make light of its material. For that, we have to make a spot for this game in our list of legendary loves in gaming because it does what so many other games haven’t dared to do just yet. – Aiden Strawhun

Cloud and Aerith – Final Fantasy VII

Sometimes video games genuinely shock you – and Aerith’s untimely death was one of those moments. The game seemed to be setting her up to be hero Cloud Strife’s main love interest, and then suddenly (before even the end of the first disc, for heaven’s sake) she’s dead, just like that. Aerith Gainsborough is a young flower seller who hires Cloud as her bodyguard in exchange for one date. When she ventures into the Forgotten City alone, the game’s antagonist, Sephiroth, kills her by impaling her through the torso with his sword while a helpless Cloud can do nothing but watch. The game goes on, but the loss stays with you, making you determined to get even with the evil Sephiroth on Cloud’s behalf. – Emma Boyes

Squall and Rinoa – Final Fantasy VIII

Squall Leonheart and Rinoa Heartily meet at his graduation ceremony when she pulls him on to the dance floor and they share a moment. Seems like romance should blossom there and then, but there’s a problem. Rinoa is dating Seifer, Squall’s arch-nemesis and all-round bad guy. Rinoa and Squall meet again on a mission – she hires him to help her liberate Timber as part of the resistance movement that she secretly heads. The two grow closer as the game goes on, ignoring minor problems like her turning into a sorceress and being imprisoned in a space station. At the beginning of the game, Squall is an unlikeable, self-centered teenager, but by the time the end credits roll, his relationship with Rinoa has turned him into a far better human being. – Emma Boyes

Tidus and Yuna – Final Fantasy X

Tidus is a professional blitzball (an aquatic sport kind of a cross between soccer and water polo) player from Zanarkand who somehow becomes transported to another world – Spira. With no idea of how to get back home, he joins up with a rag tag group of guardians who are accompanying the beautiful Yuna on a pilgrimage across the land. Yuna has chosen to become a summoner – if successful, she will defeat the destructive force called Sin that plagues her world. However, as she nears the end of her quest, it becomes clear that defeating Sin isn’t as simple as it seems, and doing so could mean her own death or that of Tidus, who may not even be real. One of the most heart-breaking endings ever seen in any media, whatever you think of Tidus and Yuna, you can’t fail to be moved at the way their story ends. – Emma Boyes

Serah and Snow – Final Fantasy XIII

Who doesn’t love a romance that spans numerous timelines? Seems to be a theme throughout the Fabula Nova Chrystalis saga. Serah is the younger sister of FFXIII heroine Lighting and fiance of hot-headed blonde bombshell Snow Villers. In the first game, she’s cursed with a task from the alien masters of the planet Pulse, the Fal’Cie, to bring her sister, fiance and a number of others to receive their own curse and become the pawns of the Fal’Cie, which are called l’cie, themselves. After completing the task, she then turns to crystal, setting off the journey her sister and Snow go on to save her from her eternal slumber. But of course, her tangled web of platonic and romantic love doesn’t end there. The tables turn in FF XIII-2 when Serah takes the leading role of her own journey to save both her sister and her fiance, of which are stuck in different timelines and states of godhood. Casual. So not only do these two lovebirds topple monster and deity alike for one another, but they also, quite literally, withstand the test of time for one another. Whoever said love is easy was very, very mistaken. – Aiden Strawhun

Luna and Noctis – Final Fantasy XV

Luna being completely out of Noctis’s league can’t be ignored, but these two betrothed rulers to-be really do have something special between them. Maybe for Luna it’s her dedication to her role in Noctis’s succession and to her people, but it’s easy to see Noctis’s feelings in his innocent, awkward and somewhat childish reactions when she’s brought into the conversation. But of course, no good romance in Final Fantasy can’t end in tragedy, or hop through a couple of different timelines, and while we don’t get to see much of these two lovebirds develop their relationship in-game, we do at least get to see them topple monsters, summon a god and reunite at the end of their long journeys. Supportive relationships are ones we like to see, and these two certainly fit that bill to a T. – Aiden Strawhun

Dom and Maria – Gears of War 2

Gear soldier Dominic Santiago lost both his children on Emergence Day, and after their deaths, his wife Maria sank into a deep depression. Nothing seemed to help her feel better, and one day she just goes out for a walk and never comes back. Dom is heartbroken, and can be seen in the game looking at the photo he keeps of the two of them in his wallet. When he’s not fighting the locust horde, he’s tirelessly trying to track her down. Tragically, when he does eventually find her, she’s been tortured so badly and partly lobotomised and in such a bad way that she doesn’t even recognise him. Deciding that the Maria that she used to be wouldn’t want to live like that, he tells her he loves her and then puts her out of her misery. – Emma Boyes

Sam and Lonnie – Gone Home

While we never explicitly see Sam and Lonnie in the flesh, Gone Home tells the story of a younger sister who’s run away from home to be with the young woman she’s fallen head over heels for. Gone Home is played from the perspective of Sam’s sister Katie, who’s come home from an extended time away. It’s an exploration game, where the story only really comes together at the end after all the little pieces Sam has left behind finally come together. Through letters and belongings and photos and strange codes, Sam quietly comes out to her sister in an unexpected, but not terribly uncommon way. The twist of the truth of Sam and Lonnie’s story is why we’ve got them here–it’s a queer love story that gets it right and has also had a left us with a very bittersweet, lasting memory about young love, acceptance and coming into one’s own. – Aiden Strawhun

Gordon and Alyx – Half-Life 2

After the Black Mesa Incident and the subsequent alien occupation of our planet, a suppression field was placed around the Earth, making humans infertile. The population grows old, but no children are being born to replace them as they die. This is the world where Gordon Freeman and Alyx Vance live. Their relationship is never explicitly stated, but it’s insinuated on many occasions throughout the game and the sequels, particularly by Alyx’s father, Eli, who badgers the pair for grandchildren as soon as the suppression field has been taken down. Gordon is actually around 20 years older than Alyx, making him a dirty old man, but since he spent those two decades in stasis they’re technically the same age, so we’ll let him off. – Emma Boyes

Ico and Yorda – ICO

Ico is a young boy who has been considered an unlucky omen for his village – so the villagers cast him out and lock him inside a sarcophagus in a nearby castle. An earthquake frees him from his prison and he starts to explore. Along the way he meets a young girl called Yorda, and although they don’t speak the same language, the pair form a bond and journey through the castle’s many rooms, looking for a way out. They hold hands as they explore together, and Ico helps the less agile Yorda get around, clearing the way so she can follow him. The Queen of the castle, who also turns out to be Yorda’s mother, isn’t too happy about their trying to escape and turns Yorda to stone. Ico rescues his princess and they finally leave the castle, waking up on a nearby shore together, to presumably live happily ever after. – Emma Boyes

Sora and Kairi – Kingdom Hearts 3

The universe has been shipping Sora and Kairi since 2002. We don’t make the rules. But it wasn’t until its latest iteration, Kingdom Hearts 3, that we really got to see the depth of feelings the pair has for one another, before, of course, being separated once again. After time and time again of saving each other, and giving one another a purpose to keep moving forward in their incredibly deranged and twisted universe, we really just hope these kids are going to be ok. After all, having your heart stolen multiple times, and then returned, is no small feat, and while the intention may be to keep these two platonic, their innocent and child-like admiration of one another is one of the purest and sweetest romances we’ve seen in games in a good, long while. – Aiden Strawhun

Link and Zelda – Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

Link and Zelda may not be a true item in this iteration of the Zelda series, but it’s difficult to not see Zelda’s literal heart eyes at Link in his memories. In this version, Link awakens 100 years after Ganon takes over Hyrule and he must save the kingdom once again by finding the modern-day descendants of Zelda’s once-legendary team and piecing together his own past as Zelda’s personal knight. Link’s a man of few words, but even though he can only grunt and yell, it’s enough to tell that he’s devoted to this princess. – Aiden Strawhun

Link and Zelda – Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword

The story of Link and Zelda is retold in every game with different characters in a different world. In every story Zelda is kidnapped, and Link sets off on an adventure to save her. In Skyward Sword, for the first time, Zelda’s not a princess, but the daughter of the local headmaster. Link is her childhood friend, and she’s not just sitting around helplessly waiting to be rescued, she has her own quests and important role in the story. The pair live on Skyloft, a village in the clouds and have never ventured to the world believed to be below them. When Zelda is swept away by demonic forces, Link follows her to the land below the clouds, solving puzzles, battling frightening monsters and tracking down items to find his favourite girl again. – Emma Boyes

Chloe and Rachel – Life is Strange

Rachel played more of a passive role in the first game, but in the prequel title, Before the Storm, we got to see Chloe and Rachel’s chaotic love develop. Chloe, a troubled, grieving teen, finds solace in the wild and carefree Rachel. She’s everything Chloe has never been and takes her on adventure after adventure–and gets her into a fair share of trouble. But their tumultuous relationship and friendship is the perfect example of everyone’s first love and the clumsy imperfection that comes along with it. And that inkling so many of us who’ve experienced trauma and grief seek in finding a way to run away and start anew. – Aiden Strawhun

Max and Mona – Max Payne 2

Max Payne and Mona Sax meet when she pours him a drink – a good start, but it turns out she’s laced it with a sedative and is a hitman for hire – and she seemed like such a nice girl. She’s presumed dead at the end of the first game, but it’s revealed in Max Payne 2 that reports of her death were greatly exaggerated. She reappears as a suspect in the murder of Senator Gate and, for reasons best known to himself, Max agrees to work with her. It turns out Mona’s working for Vladimir Lem and she’s ordered to kill Max. Since they’ve danced the two-backed beast, the femme fatale can’t do it and so Vladimir turns his gun on her and shoots her instead. Although, let’s be honest, even if it hadn’t come to that, it was just never going to work out. – Emma Boyes

Snake and Meryl – Metal Gear Solid

Solid Snake and Meryl Silverburgh’s romance follows a rocky road indeed in the first episode in the Metal Gear Solid series. The first time they meet, Meryl mistakes Solid Snake for his identical clone, the evil Liquid Snake, and then, after she realises her mistake, has her mind taken over by Psycho Mantis and tries to kill him. Luckily, Snake realises she’s not quite herself, and manages to knock her out rather than killing her. The two bond in a nuclear warhead storage building before she’s captured by Sniper Wolf. She’s then wired to a nuclear bomb. If any couple deserves a happy ending it’s these two, and if you play your cards right, in the end, they get it, driving off in a snowmobile together into the sunset. – Emma Boyes

Gregg and Angus – Night in the Woods

Gregg needs an Angus. They might be just anthropomorphic characters in a fictional world, but their laid-back story is one that hits closer to home than expected. Gregg and Angus have been close since high school, and are said to be the only gay couple in the entirety of Possum Springs (but they aren’t the only queer residents). And as is the dream for many small-towners, the pair is planning on skipping town once they’ve got enough money to leave. But what makes these two special isn’t that they’re part of a minority, but that their relationship carries an air of authenticity and vulnerability many games can’t quite get right. From their casual flirting, proclamations of love, occasional squabbles and gushy nicknames, their relationship feels real and tangible–not forced or faked. Yes, they love each other, but they’re also best friends, and the deep sense of trust the two have in one another permeates throughout the entire game. – Aiden Strawhun

The Prince and Farah – Prince of Persia: Sands of Time

The Prince of Persia and Princess Farah team up in Sands of Time to track down the magical Hourglass of Time. They find themselves trapped together in the catacombs, and with nothing much else to do, they fall in love and er, get to know each other a bit better. Farah tells the Prince of a secret word her mother told her – Kakolookiyam – which she should say if she was ever alone and afraid, as it would make a door appear. While the prince is sleeping, she then abandons him and sets off alone on the mission – believing she has a better chance of completing it solo — but is killed. The Prince arrives too late to save her, so in his grief, uses his powers to rewind time to prevent her from dying. However, as he changes history, the two are never trapped in the catacombs together and never fall in love, so when he tries to kiss her, she rejects him. Before he leaves, she asks him his name, and he replies ‘Kakolookiyam’ before vanishing into the night. – Emma Boyes

Guybrush and Elaine – Secret of Monkey Island

Possibly the silliest name in video games, Guybrush Threepwood has a big crush on the sexy island governor, Elaine Marley, although it’s quite clear to everyone except him that she’s out of his league. Elaine is constantly being kidnapped by undead pirate LeChuck, who fancies her too, and Guy takes it upon himself to always try to rescue her, even though she’s quite capable of doing that on her own. Somewhere along the line, Elaine actually falls for Guybrush, and the two are married at the end of The Curse of Monkey Island. We bet Guybrush still can’t believe his luck and pinches himself every time he wakes up next to her. – Emma Boyes

Yuri and Alice – Shadow Hearts

Shadow Hearts is a criminally underrated Japanese RPG series. One of the main characters, Alice Elliot, has the ability to hear the voices of the dead and uses her creepy talents to work as an exorcist. When her father is killed by the evil warlock Roger Bacon (seriously, what kind of name is that for an evil warlock?) she crosses paths with Yuri Hyuga, who has been hearing voices in his head telling him to find and rescue her. Meeting Alice changes Yuri – he goes from being a character called ‘the Rude Hero’ to caring about others and the fate of the world. When Alice dies at the end of the game to save his soul, he is heartbroken. In the sequel, Shadow Hearts: Covenant, in his grief he attempts a ritual to bring her back from the dead, but is unsuccessful. At the end of the game, if you get the ‘good’ ending, Yuri dies and the voiceover says that now he and Alice will be together forever. – Emma Boyes

Mono and Wander – Shadow of the Colossus

The spiritual sequel to ICO, in Shadow of the Colossus, the game starts with a young man – Wander – carrying a young woman – Mono. Wordlessly, he places her dead body on an altar. She was killed as a sacrifice as she was believed to be cursed, although beyond that, nothing much is known. Wander journeys to the Forbidden Land to speak with an entity called Dormin, who has the power to bring the dead back to life. Dormin agrees to his request to resurrect Mono on one condition – he must find and kill sixteen huge, lumbering creatures called Colossi. Wander agrees, but alas, a happy ever after for the pair was never meant to be as, having completed his mission, he is killed before he can get back to Mono. However, Dormin keeps his word, and she is brought back to life, alone. – Emma Boyes

Casey and Beatrix – Slime Rancher

We never get to meet Casey in Slime Rancher physically, but rather, through a series of letters and notes scattered about the ranch for the Slime Wrangler herself, Beatrix, to discover. Their relationship is clear, but Casey’s gender identity isn’t so obvious unless you’re paying attention. Casey is an androgynous name, but, in some letters, is addressed with she/her pronouns, making her and Beatrix queer characters. We love Slime Rancher for its casual, goofy and generally wholesome atmosphere, but this sort of subtle characterization and storytelling is what we love the most about it, especially since Beatrix, a woman of color, is front and center. – Aiden Strawhun

Jackie and Jenny – The Darkness

Jackie Estacado and Jenny Romano are childhood sweethearts that grew up together in an orphanage. They’ve been dating for years, but Jenny has no idea what Jackie really does for a living. He’s never quite got up the courage to tell his sweet, law-abiding missus that he’s actually a contract killer for mafia don Uncle Paulie. At the beginning of the game, you hang out with Jenny at her place, chatting about the usual things couples chat about and then snuggling up to watch a movie together on the sofa. You can watch the whole movie, if you like. Inevitably, when Paulie and Jackie fall out, Jenny sadly ends up being collateral damage, something that haunts Jackie through the rest of the game and its sequel. – Emma Boyes

Ellie and Riley – The Last of Us: Left Behind

Naughty Dog’s The Last of Us won our hearts for a multitude of reasons–from great gameplay and design and fabulous characterization in the base game alone. It shines even more in the title’s DLC, The Last of Us: Left Behind, which is played from Ellie’s perspective as she tries to save Joel after a battle. She ends up running into an old friend named Riley, who is excited to see her and tell her about how she’s joined the Fireflies. It’s clear from the start that these girls have a deep bond, but their friendship goes even deeper than that when Ellie takes a moment to share a kiss with Riley. Ellie and Riley are young, and awkward, and dealing with situations that go far beyond themselves, but their kiss showed gaming that even in the worst of circumstances, intimacy and self-discovery can still exist. – Aiden Strawhun

Aya and Kyle – The Third Birthday

Aya Brea is an FBI agent and Kyle Madigan is a private investigator, and the pair meet in PlayStation 2 game Parasite Eve 2. By the time of The Third Birthday (effectively Parasite Eve 3), they’ve made plans to get married, but events overtake them and the wedding is never to be. It turns out that this game’s Aya is actually her sister Eve, who did a very un-sisterly thing and took over her body. When Aya finally gets a chance to return to her own bod she finds that Kyle is dead and, not wanting to live without him, asks Eve to kill her. Instead, Eve kills herself so that time can reset. At the end of the game, Kyle is shown leaving, saying he is going to search for ‘eternity’, to try and find his Aya again. We hope there’s a sequel and he does. – Emma Boyes

Zachary and Jonas – The Walking Dead: Michonne

Telltale’s always been one for player-guided narratives but has never shied away from putting queer characters front and center. In The Walking Dead: Michonne, Jonas and Zachary’s fate can go one of two ways, as goes for many of the characters in The Walking Dead universe. But if the two survive, their relationship is one that is similar to that of Riley and Ellie’s in The Last of Us–that these two gay men, despite being handed an awful set of cards in a terrible world, were able to find comfort and stability in one another. They’re hardly the first couple in this particular series, but they’re one of the most memorable, despite playing supporting roles, because they’re part of the world around them rather than being tokens as so many gay couples are typically treated within entertainment. – Aiden Strawhun

Johnny and River – To the Moon

Johnny is an elderly man near the end of his life in a future where doctors can grant you one last wish before you die. They do this by using a special machine to enter your memories and shuffle things around so that you get to live out the life you always wanted – in your head, at least – and die happy. Enter Dr. Eva Rosalene and Dr. Neil Watts, who was called by Johnny’s caretaker. Johnny’s last wish is to go to the moon, something he never got around to doing in real life. His wife, River died a few years before, and as we journey backwards through his memories we see their good times and bad times, culminating in the sweet moment when as kids, they meet for the first time. Their relationship feels utterly believable and real and their devotion to each other is touching to watch. To The Moon is essentially a love story, and since it’s a story first and a game second, we don’t really want to spoil it for you by saying any more. – Emma Boyes

Elena and Nathan – Uncharted

Elena Fisher is a TV journalist and Nathan Drake is a treasure hunter. At first Drake sees Elena solely as a meal ticket – he’s cons her into paying for an expedition to find and recover the coffin of Sir Francis Drake – knowing full well the coffin is empty. Then their boat blows up and sinks and once back on dry land, Nathan abandons her, believing she will jeopardize his real mission – to find El Dorado. However, you can’t get rid of Elena that easily and when some debt collectors come for Nate, they run into each other again. Several adventures later, after a game’s worth of sexual tension, they finally kiss. The game ends with Drake promising Elena he’ll finally make good on his promise to give her a good story for her show. – Emma Boyes

Geralt and Triss – The Witcher 3

Redheads are pretty hard to forget. Triss has had a prominent role throughout The Witcher series, playing a very big role in The Witcher 2, and an even larger one in The Witcher 3. Of course, she’s one of the many romanceable characters in The Witcher, but she and Geralt’s romance is one for the books. Aside from being a literal fireball, Triss has an air of generosity and care that her more mysterious, and equally alluring, counterpart Yennefer doesn’t always have. She’s stubborn and sharp as a whip, but kind and nurturing. She makes a good foil to Geralt’s cold and hard demeanor, and is one of those ladies who just brings out that inner softie in him. – Aiden Strawhun

Geralt and Yennefer – The Witcher 3

It only took several books and three video games for Geralt to find his legendary sorceress lover, but nevertheless, he finally found her in The Witcher 3. The Witcher 3 its self is too big of a monster to sum up easily, but these two are particularly memorable because of the bond they share–which was initially because of a djinn. A side mission forces that bond to be broken, and well, their feelings just don’t change. And if that isn’t the test of true love, especially when your love is quite the playboy, then we don’t really know what is. Like Triss, she brings out the good, softer qualities in Geralt, but unlike Triss, she challenges him and allows him autonomy Triss’s personality doesn’t seem capable of doing. – Aiden Strawhun

Did we get your favorite couple in here? Who did we miss? Let us know in the comments below.

Source : IGN

[readmaha-blog]

from section 5, astika parva: wager between vinata and kadru

*** nuts and bolts : we’re still with vinata and kadru, two sisters married to the same guy. i keep wanting to make a remark about how their formally polite yet utterly rivalrous relationship reminds me of british theatre; but that thought seems suspect. - vinata: blessed one, the king of horses is white. what color do you think it is? tell me what you think and we will have a wager.

 - kadru: o lady of the sweet smiles! i think the horse has a black tail. o beautiful one! let us have a wager that she who’s words are false will become the other one’s slave. they’re wagering whether ucchaihshrava’s tail is black or white. remember before, in the snake world, when that disciple watched two women weave the universe’s fabric from black and white threads. in any case vinata feels it’s white, kadru black; and they have to go and check to resolve the bet. kadru asks her 1000 snake children to cover the horse’s white tail - she knows it’s white - but her kids refuse. she curses them and says they’ll be burnt to death at the snake sacrifice. (more impetus for the sacrifice… which we’re still building up to. recall too that janamejaya, who will host the sacrifice, decides to do it because his father was fatally bitten by a snake). brahma, ’the grandfather,’ hears kadru’s terrible curse. he’s appalled; but same time decides to allow it, since the world has become overrun by snakes. “they had a tendency to bite,” he notes. so. 

 kadru and vinata cross the sea, find the horse, and vinata becomes kadru’s slave, ‘in grief.’ seems like brahma changed the tail also.




*** also : 


when kadru and vinata travel past the sea, we get this lush description of the ocean, including this line: “full of fish that swallow whales.”

in fact the sea is beyond anything and no one can even really approach it due to the “perennial and terrible presence of crocodiles and turtles"— which, even leaving aside the idea of terrible turtles, is funny in a kind of deadpan way that i feel like animates this whole text. why though? not sure but picture that a random person was telling you this fact: gestured to a body of water and said “ah yes, of course we have the perennial and terrible presence of crocodiles.” something about having a baseline acceptance of reality coupled with enough perspective to name it casually and make, in effect, a joke about it? 

 besides that. the sea is where vishnu sleeps at the very beginning of each yuga (cyclical eras in time) — vs. the fire that comes when each ends (which latter point we’ll learn in the next section when garuda’s vastness and flame-like feathers make people think that the end is coming).

it is, this sea, sublime; it conjures desire and pleasure and fear; it is home to many many beings; lord govinda was able to transform to a boar and swim to the bottom, though other gods have tried that same and failed; it “thunders”; it’s “unfathomable and infinite."

 kadru and vinata pass over it without really noticing, so intent are they on reaching the horse and figuring out which one of them will be able to enslave the other.

 womp. 

*** and : 

i keep saying how if you took out the godly, fate-related parts of this book, the same events would still happen, under human aegis, so that you could, if you wanted, read the whole thing as like an extrapolation of basic human foibles and tendencies that get exaggerated (just a little): made obvious and manifest through the presence of supernatural figures. 

 same time you could (of course) also take the gods literally, as a direct depiction of these fun/terrible/somewhat-random forces originating totes outside our own wills, that slop us about, commenting to each other in jest about our actions and mishaps and hopes, even leaving little inducements or traps to gaffle or spur us on, all depending. and i mean it’s fun - kind of cathartic too - to read this way; though again, such a reading could circle right back into being ‘merely’ a metaphor for all the ways our own past actions, and present mindframes (black and white threads) create for us fates that only sometimes - feel - like they’ve been imposed upon us.

 there’s this amazing passage in 'memoirs of hadrian,’ by margueritte yourcenar, where the roman emperor hadrian recounts how he learned to practice stoicism and learned, over time, to accept himself. it’s a fucking gorgeous passage, and the novel is too: yourcenar worked on it for decades, it was like her lifetime project. anyway, hadrian says he wants to find 'the place where will and destiny meet'— where what he wants, blends with what the world really is, just then– or, what the past has produced, coupled with what he does (we do) now, in real time; which all feels the same, in a sense, as talking about what people do in response to, or with the help of, or in opposition to, various gods? maybe.

 more random parallels: the author naguib mafouz wrote a slim novel that plays around with characters from the 1001 nights. in that book so many djinn trifle with people’s lives for no reason other than they enjoy doing it. or the greek myths, where gods act much the same, drawing on love or lust to set up scenarios and interact with people. in all these cases though - maybe in all stories? - there winds up being some fluctuating situation between people’s inner observant selves — the part that seeks to perceive clearly, can make decisions, all of this — and the part more influenced by seemingly external pulls or pushes. 

in the end though it’s tricky for me to really care whether the gods are taken literally or as extrapolations, or representations, and it’ll just be either / or / both as we go. 

anyway indeed.