#more spaces and a unified shared space. would be cool

[dasketcherz]

thought i'd share my thought process for this fun lil piece / outfit in full display that i whipped out for beckory on valentines cuz i really had a lotta fun making it <3

OKAY first off, big thanks to @leaky-heart for helpin me gather some really cool outfit refs and for lending me resources where I can find a ref for bonnie's guitar in a 3d space. Thank you bestie, yar a life saver <3

Second, @/littleleaflings' jacket—goated af, will never stop gushin bout it aaaaAAA <3

Okay so looking at freddy & bonnie's designs—i am in love with how their dominant and accent colors are opposite of each other like a yin and yang situation. So i absolutely tried to incorporate that when rearranging the palette unto beckory's outfit

Fronnie's colors arent the only contrasting elements about them. Aside from their earrings, even their symbols are a pair—i love how freddy's is a lighting bolt but he is also associated with stars on the side cuz of his branding. While bonnie's is a star but he also has lightning bolts on the side (the purple accent in his fit) to match freddy

And to sprinkle a bit of beckory flair, i put stripe lines across their pants (if you look back on my ref sheet for the squad, the three amigos all have stripes somewhere in their fits, i purposely designed that to be their thing) just to also unify the patterns from their top

i gave tony a scarf to match greg's bow tie accessory. Its a combo homage to bonnie's headband and bunny ears in a way (cuz the ribbons on its ends look like droopy rabbit ears) i gave them gloves to compensate being unable to add punk bracelets on em cuz it would be too much for the overall look (same logic applies to the star shades, its to match with the top hat)

Also this was such a pure coincidence but i also realized beckory wears their fazwatches in the same placement as fronnie wears their earrings on. That actually makes me very happy, i think its a really cool coincidence

And as yall can see, Greg's jacket initially had stars on his sleeves (like it does in the ref), but i decided against putting it in the final cuz im startin to think it might look cluttered and hard to read from afar and tbh, I really liked how the translucent sleeves turned out... I didnt want the star pattern to cover it up lol

And thats pretty much it, thank you coming to my ted talk!! <3

if youre interested to see more of my art process compilation like this you can check over on my ko-fi page, you can support me by buying me a latte cuz I am planning to post more exclusive stuff like this over there in the future so I hope yall look forward to that! I deeply appreciate yall and thank you so much in advance!!

[queensectonia]

last night i was reminded of one of my extremely few Hater Moments (lighthearted) about this series and i never got around to fully articulating my thoughts on it, so it is once again time for our regularly-scheduled kirby rant:

the spider sectonia reveal was poorly-executed on every level.

to start with, this plot element was introduced when the series was in its worst throes of Not Putting The Fucking Lore In The Fucking Games, but I will happily concede that this reveal was at least in a game; just not the game it should have been in.

I almost wonder if the Sectonia Clone as a whole was a leftover from the fact that Robobot started out development as Triple Deluxe 2, but considering that a) TD2 was dropped pretty early on and b) Robobot is just full to the brim with fanservice and callbacks anyway, I don't feel there's much evidence for such a theory.

at any rate, reducing the otherwise very intriguing reveal of Sectonia's prior form to a blink-and-you'll-miss-it easter egg in an entirely different game is pretty... underwhelming. we've had plenty of "reveals" or cool nods and expansions to other lorebits in similar easter eggs, but none of them were nearly as important as "oh, by the way, here's what the character whose whole arc revolves around personal and physical image used to look like! in a totally unrelated game!"

but that's the tamest complaint. that's just the accessibility of this information, which could have been better but certainly could have been worse.

the biggest problem is Sectonia's design. it's bad. it is just not good, fellas. she is literally just genderbent Taranza. it fails visually, it fails conceptually, and it fails really hard story-wise.

this design was so uninspired that when people in the EN sphere first saw it, tons of people thought it just was Taranza. then when we got screenshots, model rips, etc., it was still so painfully similar to Taranza that it made people assume HAL was saying Taranza and Sectonia were related - which turned into just as much of a shitfight as you might think.

even if this weren't attached to such a crucial character reveal, it's just downright a bad design! instead of taking even the slightest efforts to differentiate Sectonia from Taranza, they did the laziest, most barebones "uhhhhhh what if taranza But Girl" design shift possible. she's wearing the exact same outfit as Taranza, just palette-swapped. so little effort went into both the concepting stage and the modelling stage. she's just Taranza's model with the merest tweaks to make sure you know this is a Girl Spider.

genuinely, I would be a hundred times more amenable to this entire plot point if HAL had just bothered to give her an actual design.

but the problem is, making Sectonia a spider kind of just fucks everything about her story and contradicts itself at multiple points.

the aesthetic and theme language in TD is very clear. this is one of the biggest strengths that both it and Robobot share - the identity and literary through-lines of both games pervade every single visual element of them. Robobot tells its tale of capitalistic tech-fuelled colonialism through every part of the game from level backgrounds, to enemy designs, right down to surgical decisions like mechanising the pinwheel tree that was such a fond image from KRtD. every tiny thing bore the mark of the HWC, whether metaphorically or literally, such that you spent the entire game never forgetting that there was one unified force behind all of this, and Haltmann at the end of the game was the culmination of this aesthetic.

TD did the exact same. every part of TD sells that it's a fantastical fairytale romp through a series of themed locations with a connecting thread of the invading Antr* force.

*(this is a way better romanisation than "antler" this is my hill)

if anything, I'd argue that TD's design language in this respect is tighter than Robobot's, because Robobot had a fairly broad theme of "industrialisation and hi-tech space future sci-fi" to draw its foes from, whereas TD had to condense its antagonists under the stricter banner of "evil insect army".

and they did incredibly. every point of design about the Antrs points straight to Sectonia and draws from her in some way or another. it's absolutely seamless. she's the perfect logical endpoint of Antr design from every angle: she's the literal queen bee of this insect hive and the perfect expression of their anatomy. she's bigger than the biggest Antr. she's more developed. she's more powerful. they were so careful and thorough about this design conceit that Antrs have multiple stages that all march straight up to Sectonia. we go from the tiny bronto burt and waddle dee clones with their little wings and eyes that seem so familiar, to the Antr soldiers, all the way up to the Lord Antrs who are one step away from Sectonia. they have stripes and facial markings to echo hers. it's all wrapped up with the genius bow of combining ants, bees, and wasps: they're all hymenoptera! the metaphor goes even deeper than that because there's a species of wasp that parasitizes spiders! controls them, even!

... except no actually, we've decided she's a spider too and all of that buildup and artful design means nothing.

it's awful. it's taking what is far and away one of the best-executed designs in the series and saying that all of that buildup and blatant connection of ideas meant nothing.

but that's just the visual end of it. Sectonia actually being a spider makes no sense in the lore, either.

first of all, TD's incredible design sense and artistic direction applies to Taranza as well. while he's obviously derivative of Magolor, within the context of TD he's clearly meant to evoke the sky fairies. he's designed to look much more like them than any of the insect characters. he's got the same body type, he moves the same way as them, he's a sky fairy with a spider theme. the game draws visual parallels between him and the sky fairies more than once; this is not unintentional.

this is part of what makes Taranza's role as Sectonia's right hand more impactful: he's only insect adjacent, and the design language would have you believe he's more closely related to the fairies than the insects, so him being with the bad guys is notable and interesting.

so why would a spider character be the ruling monarch of the insect hive? why would the line go ant, bigger ant, fancy ant, armoured ant, spider, wasp?

I mean, shit dude, the miiverse posts directly tell us that Sectonia used to "look like her insect underlings". it really feels like the decision to make her be a spider was a total spur-of-the-moment one, between how badly it interacts with the rest of the story and how lazy the design was. Sectonia's backstory had a couple of holes in it regarding the actual timeline of things, but those were just mysteries regarding what order everything happened in. she was both a bodyjacker and a good queen at one point, which don't exactly jive, so it becomes interesting to think about how those two facts coexist. on the other hand, her being a spider just gets shoehorned in there for no apparent reason other than to... heighten her connection to Taranza?

and that just dovetails into the complete mockery HAL made of Taranza's character development after TD, and THAT is a rant for another time.

there was just no point to it all. Sectonia being a spider adds nothing, removes a bunch of nuance and intrigue, and muddies both her story and the background world of TD.

[patchwork-crow-writes]

Personally I've been assuming that there used to be one big Dark World, but that when Darkners were sealed away, this Dark World was... both shattered and put into stasis, or that time flowed differently there somehow. So in the unified Dark World, Darkners from different Dark Worlds could have a history--like King and Queen, or Spamton, Jevil, Mike, and Tenna. Creating a Dark Fountain does not revive the whole Dark World, only a small part, but who knows what happens when you take all those shattered pieces and gather them together...

Hey, I wonder what other thematically-relevant persons or hidden items or concepts with darkness might be described as 'shattered' which get explored more thoroughly in Deltarune than in Undertale. I wonder if reuniting the pieces of one or more other shattered things for Purposes. Oh well, I'm sure it's totally irrelevant.

Oooh, that's an interesting take, particularly with the notion of something being "shattered"... or someONE, I suppose, in the case of Gaster! It makes you wonder what would happen in the instance that all the parts are brought back together... hopefully nothing that might portend the end of the world or anything like that. Surely not :P

The idea of a big dark world that used to exist before is also really interesting to me - kind of like an alternate-dimension version of Pangaea. I would presume such a space would be entirely separate from the light world - i.e. not dependent upon overriding a location in the light world to exist - which would actually allow the various disparate characters from different worlds to have shared history. The way I'd see it working in this scenario is that each character - King, Queen, Mike, etc - would exist more as an idea or concept, that interrelates differently with other such concepts - so King and Queen would of course correlate in this way. Then when the classroom and librarby dark worlds were created, those concept-characters inhabited the objects that most closely correlated to the ideas they represented. In essence that would divorce (haha!) the darkner from its light-world object and allow that shared history to genuinely exist, which is kinda cool!

Always enjoy thinking and talking about this stuff, so thanks for sharing your perspective! Really interesting to see all the different theories swirling around right now :)

[animehouse-moe]

Mobile Suit Gundam - The Witch From Mercury S2 Episode 11: Unrelenting Tenderness

Ah, nothing like being stressed out for an entire episode as to whether or not Suletta will succumb to the high permet score, or if Guel will end up killed by Lauda or kill another family member, or if our Elan will go off and die like the others, or this that and the other thing, all to get faked out for the real danger/moment. Incredible work on the episode that skirts around a more high level narrative to instead approach characters head on to unify them for this "final" episode to come, so certainly lots to talk about!

Well actually, sort of unexpectedly, the episode starts with a Calibarn vs Aerial fight that's showing off to the max. Of course, Suletta and Eri are having their chat about ideals and what's right/what they should be doing, but I'm pretty sure most people understand what's going on, so I'll just share how absolutely cool the fighting is for these scenes.

The pacing is wild, and given the scale of the combat, I think the decision to take the objects further away from the viewer so details matter less was a great idea. It allows for incredible pace in the fight without worry of being perfect, or taking absolute ages to complete. Plus, the way the fight's constructed in three dimensional space, you still get close ups and flybys past the camera that allow you a closer glimpse into the combat. Just really, really well orchestrated combat for the feel that was desired of it.

Similarly, I love how well designed the combat style of the Calibarn is. If you notice through the sequence, Suletta isn't actually retaliating against the Gund Bits at all, rather she's purely evading them. As you'd expect of Calibarn. It's main form of movement is also its source of combat power as the, as I like to call it, "broomstick" is used for high powered propulsion through the fight. And I think that's a super cool idea for a design, especially with how this episode show it off.

But anyways, the fight rages on as Lauda engages with Guel, the Earth House + Elan + Bel, and Felsi all sortie to enter the fray as we cut to the opening.

Following the opening, and a bit more dancing around with various characters to establish where they are/what they're doing, the data storm of Quiet Zero suddenly begins to wane/fail. This is a really cool piece that reminds viewers of where Quiet Zero began. Under the supervision of Miorine's mother Notrette. It also reminds viewers about the fact that Delling Rembran continued the Quiet Zero project in secrecy, but disavowed the existence of Gundams. Anyways, I present to you the notion that Notrette still exists in the Data Storm, and that she's the one interfering with Prospera and Eri. Ericht's frustration in regards to the data storm stalling out are directed at someone, nothing something, but another person that shares a similar goal/ideal to Ericht. Prospera's comment on pest control. It all implies a lot of things, and there's not many others that would check enough boxes aside from Notrette.

We temporarily shift from Quiet Zero towards a very interesting conversation with the Space Assembly League. Given what we've known with the last while in regards to the league, I wouldn't say it was expected, but it was certainly a possibility that they would stick their nose into the situation in full. What I find most interesting about it is how much this opens up the world of GWitch. The existence of a massive space laser that's a "tool for transferring energy", and the idea that civil unrest and discord still exists on Earth, coupled with the fact that Shaddiq's character arc hasn't actually been concluded. There's a lot of moving pieces that say, "but we're not done yet!", so I'm very curious to see what comes from their involvement and the various politics surrounding the league as well as Earth.

Now, onto the most nerve-wracking and stressful part of the episode: Lauda vs Guel. My heart was in my throat this whole time. The conversation, the Gundam vs Mobile Suit, the flashback. So much of it. I'd been stressed since we saw Lauda show up in the last episode, and they certainly drew it out in today's, but the character development for Lauda in particular was outstanding.

The whole idea of the being the younger brother that just wanted to stand beside his sibling but never could rings so clearly with his words. That Guel chose Miorine over his own brother, that Guel killed their father and never told Lauda, that Guel left Lauda just as quickly as he returned. All he wants is the big brother that accepted him all those years ago, the big brother that give him the gift of a family, someone to look up to, someone to go running to when times were tough. It's an incredibly emotional piece that builds off of Guel's similar encounter with his father. It had me so scared. Going back into Lauda's memories to find Guel hug and accept Lauda, and then returning to see Guel's Dilanza embrace Lauda's Schwarzette in the same way as sparks fly and you sense the end of Guel.

I'll never forgive GWitch for scaring me that badly, but thank God Felsi had already rocketed out in her mobile suit to break up the fight. But yeah, Gigabob continues his tear of being the best boy this season, and brings his little brother Lauda under his wing finally. Incredible piece that gives Guel the chance to right the wrongs of his past with his father, and to step into the light with his burden lightened.

So with the most nerve-wracking sequence finished, we return to Earth House and Co who have infiltrated Quiet Zero and are trying to shut it down. It's tense and high stakes, and there's great moments like Bel standing up to Prospera, who represents the sins that Bel herself bears.

The real moment though is Miorine (and Notrette to a degree). Miorine is tasked with inputting the shut down code for Quiet Zero, which was originally 'Quod Erat Demonstrandum', or in the literal translation 'What Was To Be Shown'. Typically, it's used at the end of math proofs as a way to conclude them, so an interesting addition in the form of originally 'concluding' Quiet Zero while staying true to Notrette's penchant for latin phrases.

Of course, Prospera changed the code so it doesn't work, but like Eri hinted at earlier, Notrette isn't completely gone, and is still helping her daughter Miorine by providing a backdoor to which only she would know the answer: part of the genetic code of the tomatoes that her mother left behind. A really sweet piece that speaks to Notrette's love for Miorine, but also like I said further proves the existence of her within Quiet Zero/the Data Storm.

Truthfully, I think the introduction of Notrette via the data storm helps bring Suletta (and by extension Prospera) and Miorine closer as lead characters. Giving them something that's been lost, and that they struggle with through similar aspects allows them to be placed on equal footing while providing different approaches/ understandings to their unique situations.

But anyways, Quiet Zero gets shut down and the Benerit Group/Earth House/sorta Space Assembly League succeeds in their goal of defeating it. But the Space Assembly League at the top has a different idea, as they turn that weapon on Quiet Zero and fire, leaving Eri on her own to protect everyone.

I really like this piece, specifically because it's Eri's decision. It's Ericht moving to protect her mother and her little sister, and their friends and family. It's not Eri acting for the sake of Prospera, or under her order or wishes, it's one of the few scenes where Eri acts under her own agency and desire. And within that, it's incredibly ironic that she ends up destroyed.

And our episode ends here. Aerial destroyed, Quiet Zero shut down, no defenses, no protections as they stare down the barrel of the universe's most dangerous weapon.

A dire situation, one that seems to have little hope of surviving for our characters involved, but let me show you these details first.

Starting off with Prospera, her permet pattern is different. The shape is decidedly different from the usual that we see from all the other pilots/characters. Alongside that, she's not actually piloting or directly interacting with a Gundam or anything, so it shouldn't be visible in the first place. So why can we see it, and why is it different? Well, for one, she seems to use it as a way to connect/interact with Ericht and Aerial, but more than that I feel it's connected to Carbo Nado and Prospera's past with her that was teased in the prologue.

Secondly, I think it's easy to forget how Suletta refers to Aerial/Ericht, and how we're shown the girl/Gundam. Suletta commonly uses 'Miina' to refer to Aerial and her Gund Bits, which means "everyone". Suletta sees, experiences, and understands Aerial as a multitude of Ericht's, and we see them that way as well. Even in this episode we see several Ericht's that take the place/form of Gund Bits.

And if you pay attention to the wreckage, you'll notice that some of the Gund Bits from Aerial are still intact, floating around Suletta and Calibarn.

So I'm sure most know what this means, but Eri is still alive. Aerial is gone, but Ericht lives on through her Gund Bits, and will ultimately integrated with Suletta and Calibarn to form a defense against the Giant Space Laser ™️.

And that's the end of the episode, this time. For sure. Definitely. I'm really quite interested to see what they do with this final upcoming episode though. There's the potential to expand the scope of GWitch to place further focus on Earth through the Space Assembly and Shaddiq, but there's also the opportunity to call it a day with the final episode with whatever the outcome may be from that. It's a good position to find themselves in, and I think I'll be relatively satisfied with whatever they do there. So many character arcs have been resolved, and goals reached between them all. But it also doesn't mean there's an entire world for them to explore out there, for new challenges to arise or progression to be made, particularly with characters like Shaddiq and Miorine. Only time will tell though, and with a countdown of one week, we won't be left waiting long to find out.

[fireemblems24]

Golden Wildfire Ch 13

I am slowly making my way through these.

STORY

Guys, not going to lie. This backtracking is boring as fuck. But at least Claude keeps taking Ls.

I also can't fathom why you wouldn't just send some of your army. Like why all of them? Claude is an idiot for this.

But we all knew he was after his oh so potent counter argument vs Sylvain lamo.

Yeah, it's the same TWSITD stuff Edelgard backtracked for. How dull.

Haha, Shez can say she thinks it's the Knights of Serios and Claude's like "they're not that low." So then why are you so desperate to murder all of them?

They're nicer to Shez than the Black Eagles were though, where he practically got treated like a guilty enemy and threatened and interrogated. Still think AG is by far the best route for Shez, but I'm not biased at all lamo.

MAP/SIDE BATTLES

I don't think Linhardt wants to be here lol.

I liked Holst better when he was a meme mystery character. What they did with him is so dreadfully dull.

It's pretty rich to hear them judge people for attacking villages when they just did the exact same thing.

Cool to see Lysithea's past be relevant again.

This is the exact same thing as SB. I swear Claude always just gets railroaded into someone else's plot.

At least Claude realizes this happened because of the war instead of dodo bird Edelgard who thinks TWSITD doesn't want the Empire to unify everyone (which, they do so . . .)

SHEZ & HOLST A

Holst goofed up. Shez lecture him. They split up and head back.

Holst falls asleep waiting for Shez to get back.

Nothing interesting happens.

MARIANNE & LEONIE B

Leonie failed to catch something and runs into Marianne heading into the stables.

Guys, Leonie also eats the weeds.

They talk about a flower they both like that Leonie also picked just because she liked it. Marianne gets poetic about it.

Leonie gives it to Marianne, who wants to share it with everyone.

Leonie doesn't take Marianne literally when she claims the birds told her something.

LEONIE & HILDA B

Leonie tried perfume and Hilda's happy. It's one Hilda made herself.

If I hear "Eau de Leonie" one more time, I'll have heard it twice more than I want too.

Leonie rejects it. It's not for her. Hilda's not offended. Hilda just wanted Leonie to have something special.

Leonie compromises and says she'll just wear it on special occasions.

Hilda wants them to wear different scents that smell better when mixed together. They both talk about how weird that sounds, but Leonie's still game to try because she's a trooper.

HILDA & MARIANNE A

Really weird to see a support talk about how religious Marianne is in GW. Where she doesn't blink twice at the idea that Rhea is all that's wrong in the world and must die.

Marianne asks why Hilda's always so nice and brings up the first support. Which mentions Judith so ... awkward. My bad playing skills strike lamo.

Hilda thinks having Marianne around makes her life easier andis just "the best." Marihilda fans eating good.

Marianne always emotionally supports Hilda without even knowing it and makes Hilda feel warm inside.

It's a pretty sweet support all things told.

FINAL BATTLE

Okaaay, so this starts with them wanting to go see an opera. That's . . . . not how I thought this would start. Well, they're fighting the bandits. And their fans are playing soldier to fight bandits.

Is this . . . really what the main battle is about this chapter? Golden Wildfire really doesn't have anything to do, does it?

I spent hours fighting side battles and preparing units to basically have Dorothea's and Manuela's paralogue joke story end up the main battle. Wow.

They were really like, oh shit, GW has one less chapter. Oh, I know, let's have them fight bandits to protect opera singers and their delulu fans. Like, why.

Well, at the end it has some semblance of relevance by having TWSITD show up. But yeah . . .

No one got any answers (Shez and Lysithea, specifically)

Now Arval and Shez are in that weird space dimension.

Edelgard is requesting reinforcements at the school. Rhea might be there.

xxx

[jade-of-mourning]

i just really want to see mako & bolin dragging korra around her first night market after a game. every tacky vendor of metal-wire walls and flappy colorful canvas is an entire new world to her, draped in cheaply-made clothes chasing the latest fashions and carefully-wrought jewelry made by the hands of their sellers, trinkets and magnets adorning spinning racks. there are so many voices and smells overlapping, not a unified din like the arena tends to become, and bolin is bargaining the price of a hat for her that she didn't ask for and mako is shoving paper bags of greasy foods into her hands. bolin drops the hat on her head and when she steps off into a dark space between buildings where motorcycles are haphazardly parked, trying to find air again, he returns wielding sticks of tanghulu and sweet potato balls. mako slips after them and asks if she wants a drink, and she says sure, anything you think is good; you're the expert here, and he flashes her a rare smile before weaving back into the crowd with the ease of someone used to navigating faceless armies. bolin stole her bag of fishcakes on sticks and is eating them noisily to remind her of the company she has, and she tries the sweet potato balls fried just for her, soft and chewy and sugar on her tongue. korra doesn't know these snacks — she's a child of the south, nurtured by ice and storming whiteout, bannock in fish stews of carefully stored spices, wooden sweetness on her tongue in akutaq of cloudberry — but she thinks she'd like to learn to know them.

it's an odd drink that mako brings back for her by the haphazardly-parked motorcycles, drowned in jelly more than liquid, and korra savors every cool swallow sliding down her throat and the sweetness filling her heart. the brothers are pouring copious amounts of hot sauce packets into a plastic tray of noodle and offer her the splintered chopsticks, and she takes them in calloused hands and it burns the spaces between her teeth like fire against the celestial lights. what sort of insane would you need to be to enjoy this? she demands indignantly and mako just shrugs and shovels a large portion into his mouth. bolin scowls and adds more hot sauce, taking his own dig at the increasingly reddening dish, and it goes on back and forth like that until korra can't hold back her laugh. it fills the city horizon, the night market, and korra thinks beneath the glowing red signs screaming their wares that this is where people must come alive.

and she would like to feel so suddenly alone, to let her isolation swallow her up whole as a child to jelly drinks; but she doesn't, not in the company of mako and bolin sharing with her the city they lost and gained everything from — from the city that can now be hers.

[mermaidsonearth]

THE THUNDERBIRD RETURNS

Transition from Fourth To Fifth World: The "Thunder Beings" Return

by Richard Boylan, Ph.D.

At the Native American Star Knowledge Conference held in South Dakota in June, 1996, senior Oglala Sioux spiritual elder Looks-For-Buffalo (Floyd Hand) revealed that ancient prophecies are now coming true. These prophecies, heralding immense changes for humankind, point to the imminent return of the Star Nations, what the white man would call extraterrestrial cultures.

The Hopi, Sioux and other tribal traditions hold that at this point in history, we are about to transition from the current pattern of civilization to a radically-different way of living. This change is so profound that it is called the passage from the Fourth (current) World to the Fifth World! By "world", the native traditions refer to a slow gradual rise of the human population to a period of widely-shared cultural and technological high civilization. The implications of these indigenous teachings are staggering. For this means that we humans have gone through three previous Worlds, in which our ancestors rose to a peak of civilized living, only to crash back to a primitive level.

From halfway around the Earth comes additional corroborative information. Mac Ruka, a Maori spiritual teacher, has toured America at the behest of his Maori people to share their ancient history. Ruka tells of a civilization, Mu, from which the Maori came. This civilization once reached ascendancy in the Melanesian Pacific, before it destroyed itself and its island empire sank beneath the ocean. Fragmentary memory of this empire still resides in the mythic history of the West as a place called Lemuria. And what of that other high civilization, Atlantis, which the Greek philosopher Plato stated he learned about from Egyptian historians? Were Atlantis and Lemuria the Second and Third Worlds which the Native American oral histories refer to?

If our present "Fourth-World" high civilization is about to fall and be swept away, we would do well to learn from the history held by these native teachers. For, as philosopher George Santayana has said, "Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it." Let us examine in more detail what those master keepers of oral tradition, the Hopi, reveal about our previous Worlds. [1]

The First World was called Tokpela ("Endless Space"). The First People understood that although they had human parents, their real parents were the universal entities which had created them through their parents: Father Sun and Mother Earth. Each learned that they had two aspects: as a member of an earthly family and clan, and as a citizen of the great universe. Gradually the First People forgot to respect their creator. They began to use the vibratory centers of their body [chakras] only for earthly purposes. They began to perceive differences and separation between people and animals, and between different ethnic, linguistic and religious groups. The animals began to draw away from people. The First People began to divide up and draw away from each other. They became warlike and fought. The First World's fatal flaw, then, was forgetting the unifying Oneness of all creation.

But there were a few in every group who held to the original spiritual enlightened path. These were directed by Spirit to migrate to a special underground location. Then, the First World was destroyed by fire: volcanoes erupting and fire raining down from the sky, until there was nothing left but the few faithful people inside the Earth.

After a long time the world cooled off, and a Second World emerged. There was land where water had been, and water where land had been. When the faithful remnant emerged from underground, there was nothing to remind them of the previous wicked world.

They emerged into the Second World, Tokpa ("Dark Midnight"), a big land. The people spread across the land. They communicated telepathically. But this time, the animals stayed apart from them. As the Second World people developed material goods to barter, they became greedy, and traded for things they didn't need and became avaricious. They began to quarrel and fight, and wars broke out. The Second World's fatal flaw, then, was absorption in greed and materialism.

But again, there were a few people who kept faithful to the path of spiritual awareness. And, again, Spirit directed these people to go to a safe underground place. Then Spirit commanded the twin entities who safeguard the Earth's North and South Poles to leave their posts and stop keeping the Earth properly rotating. The Earth teetered off balance, spun around crazily, and rolled over twice. Mountains plunged into seas with a great splash; seas and lakes sloshed over the land. Then the world became cold and lifeless, and froze into solid ice.

Eventually, Spirit ordered the polar entities back to the ends of the Earth's axis. With a great splintering of ice and a shudder, the Earth began rotating again. The ice melted, and the world warmed to life.

Spirit created the Third World, Kuskurza [meaning lost over time][Mu?], arranging land and seas, mountains and plains, and all forms of life. Then Spirit sent a message to the few faithful people underground that it was time to emerge. These survivors multiplied and created great cities, eventually countries, and a whole civilization. But then they became completely occupied with their own earthly plans. They created craft shaped like a shield that could fly, and used them to fly to big cities and attack them. Soon many peoples and countries were engaged in aerial warfare. These Third People also engaged in degraded sexual practices. The Third World's fatalflaw, then, was misusing flight for aerial warfare and misusing sex for promiscuity.

So Spirit directed the few people who lived according to wisdom that they should build vessels and store food in them. Then rainwater was loosed all over the Earth. Waves higher than mountains rolled in upon the land. Continents broke asunder and sank beneath the seas.

Meanwhile, Spirit directed the faithful survivors to travel first to one, then to another island, until finally they reached the Fourth World, Tuwaqachi ("Complete World"). After they had hopscotched across the islands to arrive in the Fourth World, those islands sank into the sea.

That Fourth World is this present world we live in. The survivors spread across the broad lands, and gradually began building up the high civilizations which surround us today. Since this Fourth World is the one we have grown up in, we are aware of the behaviors of those in it. It can accurately be said that, after an initial time of fidelity to the path of wise consciousness, many have fallen into a low level of consciousness. In fact, it can honestly be stated that many people of this Fourth World have fallen into the fatal flaws of the three previous Worlds: forgetting the Oneness of all creation, sinking into greed and materialism, and engaging in promiscuity and aerial mass warfare. But we have added an additional serious element: mass destruction of Earth and its ecological systems. Thus, the Fourth World's fatal flaws are: all of the previous Worlds' ones, plus ecocide, the killing of one's own environment.

And now this Fourth World is coming to an end. Some of the signs indicating this are: extinctions of plant and animal species; poisoning of lands by toxic materials; pollution of the seas; and thinning of the upper atmosphere, "ozone holes", letting in excessive ultraviolet energy, which in turn is killing plant life, causing cancer in humans, and die-offs of phytoplankton, the source of 90%of the oxygen necessary for life. Global warming is destabilizing climates, and upsetting the ecosystems that plants, animals and humans live in.

As the Fourth World careens towards its end, a major new factor is entering the equation: a widespread series of contacts by various Star Visitor cultures with human individuals. What are these Star Visitors communicating when they make contact? They express grave concern for how we are killing our planet and therefore ourselves. Their concern extends to the warfare we are almost continually engaged in, and the other forms of violence going on: including people allowing whole populations to die of starvation or disease, while affluent countries stand by. The Star Visitors want us to take responsibility and turn these situations around, before it is too late.

But the Star Visitors also have come to make us aware that we are not alone; and that our rightful place is to be participants in the larger, cosmic family of intelligent peoples spread across the universe. But first we must eliminate our fatal flaws and reorder our lifestyle. We must live with consciousness of our oneness with all creatures, and with the Creative Source. We must lay aside our greed and materialism, and learn to live more simply and without undue attachments. We must reject promiscuity, and exercise love with consciousness of the sacredness of sexuality. We must set aside aerial mass warfare, and begin to settle differences by diplomacy, by setting good example, by positive peer pressure, and by empowering all peoples. We need to start treating Earth and its ecosystems like our Mother, with respect and cherishing.

As at the end of the previous Worlds, there will be a faithful remnant of this Fourth World who will survive, while the others perish. The Hopi Prophecies say what will happen soon. World War III will be started in the East. Much of the United States will be destroyed, land and people, by nuclear weapon radioactivity. The Four corners area around the Hopi will be preserved as an oasis, to which refugees will flee. But what about those elaborate underground shelters which FEMA [2] has been secretly constructing for the elite to survive in during the coming Earth Changes? The Hopi Prophecy says that underground shelters are a fallacy this time. "It is only materialistic people who seek to make shelters. Those who are at peace in their hearts already are in the great shelter of life."

What will the Fifth World to which we are headed be like? The Prophecy gives a brief glimpse of what is in store. "Those who take no part in the making of world division by ideology are ready to resume life in another World, be they of the Black, White, Red or Yellow race. They are all one, brothers [and sisters]." As for this Fourth World, "Material matters will be destroyed by spiritual beings, who shall remain to create one world and one nation under one power, that of the Creator." The Prophecy goes on to declare the stage we are in now. "The emergence to the future Fifth World has begun. It is being made of the humble people of little nations, tribes and racial minorities. You can read this in the Earth itself. Plant forms from previous Worlds are beginning to spring up as seeds. The same kind of seeds are being planted in the sky as stars. The same kind of seeds are being planted in our hearts. All these are the same." [3]

We are entering the time of Great Purification, as Earth prepares to transition to the Fifth World. This is a period of Earth Changes: major earthquakes, tidal waves, many volcanoes erupting, land subsidence, emergence of new land, climatic changes, disease pandemics, and widespread starvation. Catastrophes of human origin are also in the offing, including: warfare involving weapons of mass destruction, including nuclear, rioting and looting, collapse of monetary systems, and forced migrations. As with the previous Worlds, there will be those who want to cling to the old ways of the Fourth World and resist the need to change. We see them all around us now. And just as surely there will be those who seek to live in harmony with the rest of creation. Sensitive co-existence with other life is not ecological romanticism or fuzzy metaphysics. It is recognition of the true extent of family.

During this transition more than ever before, each of us is being called to serve the Great Spirit, that Center of Consciousness from which everything derives its being. Each of us has an important role during this Great Purification. We need to help find ways for nations, races and tribes to put aside differences, and join together for the good of everyone. We need to help plant and animal species survive. We have to bring to an end the pollution of Earth, and return to our proper role as caretakers of Earth's ecosystems. We need to lay aside the "success" lifestyle of greed and materialism, and learn to adopt a lifestyle of "just enough" and "good enough". We need to move away from the twin follies of promiscuity and puritanism, and learn to reverence sex as the delightful yet sacred activity of appropriately joining opposites to create a higher truth. And we need to lay aside the weapons of war, and operate with that compassion, understanding and economic justice which make for peace.

Where ultimately is this human voyage through a succession of Worlds headed? The Prophecy says that at the center of the universe, there is a place where all the nations originated. It is in the Star Nations galaxy. Before we arrive there, we will transit through nine Worlds.

Native American tradition honors the existence of Thunder Beings. These Thunder Beings are understood by Native Americans to be messengers from the powers on high, the Star People (extraterrestrial visitors). The Thunder Beings are a force for both dissolution and re-creation. In the Plains Indian tradition, a person who has a visit by a Thunder Being, in person, in vision or in dream, becomes a heyoka, a "contrary". [4] This heyoka then customarily soon starts behaving in a way opposite to the conventions of the dominant culture. The heyoka does so, precisely in order to wake up society to see that there are other and fresher ways of doing things. Thus, the heyokais the human counterpart of the Thunder Beings, who repeatedly dissolve the existing order and fashion a new arrangement from the pieces.

As we transition from the Fourth into the Fifth World, it occurs to me that not all heyokasare Plains Indians. Some have yellow skin, others black, others white. These heyokas of every color are experiencers, and have been changed by their experience of extraterrestrial contact by messengers from the sky (Thunder Beings). As modern-day heyokas, experiencers are charged to live as active witnesses against the ignorance and corruption of the Fourth World, and to live as witnesses of the Fifth World which is emerging. In doing so, modern heyokas honor the Thunder Beings, the Star Nations, who have come as cosmic midwives to help us birth the Fifth World.

And there are others, too, who have not had a personal extraterrestrial encounter, but who are actively helping humanity move towards cosmic citizenship, and helping usher in the Fifth World society. These are heyokas as well.

In Winter, 1996, high in the Rockies west of Fort Collins, Colorado, a Star Visions Conference was convened by Lakota-Dakota spiritual advisor Standing Elk. There numerous speakers talked about our imminent transition from the current Fourth World to a new Fifth World. On the evening of November 9th, Conference ceremonial leadership switched from Native American males to the women. A Cherokee grandmother recited Crazy Horse's prophecy about these very times, as the Old Age (Fourth World) closes. Then, after a series of moving prayers and ritual declarations, the grandmother Elders made a startling official ceremonial declaration: the old era (Fourth World)was ended, and the new age (Fifth World) was being born! A joyous explosion of tumultuous celebration broke out all over the conference auditorium. After a half-hour, the grandmother Elders were finally able to call the conference back to order. The Elders then declared that this new Fifth World would have as its hallmark the attributes of positive feminine energy. They explained that the Fourth World, which had been hallmarked by male energy dominance, had had its time, and made its contributions. Now that World is passing away. The grandmothers pointed out that the Fifth World being born must not be one of separatist female dominance, but rather one of forming a renewed society of women and men as equals. Fifth World society is shaped by the feminine paths of cooperation, nonaggression, inclusiveness, noncompetitiveness, service rather than dominance, use of psychic and spiritual gifts as well as technology, and living in conscious harmony with nature's ways. [5]

The next morning, a major Colorado newspaper, the Rocky Mountain News, carried the story that "a bold group at Estes Park Center [Star Vision Conference] had declared an end to the current era and the beginning of a Fifth Dimension [World] reality." Word of formal declaration of the birth of the Fifth World was beginning to spread out to the wider society. This process will take time. But it is important to realize that the Fifth World has already begun. Just as the Period of Purification which will end the Fourth World has already begun. During this painful but exciting period of transition, each of us must stand up and choose: status quo, or helping usher in the Fifth World.

Finally, permit me to share with you a personal Thunder Being experience, and then my understanding of the role of heyokas in the Fifth World.

Some years ago I did a hanblechia (vision quest) in the desert near Death Valley. During my isolation, I was presented with a image of a Thunderbird formed by the shadow of a cloud on a snowfield atop a nearby mountain. The image remained a long time, then finally dissipated. The skeptical part of my mind at first tried to minimize this event. However, an hour later another identical Thunderbird image appeared on the same snowfield, and persisted quite a while. I could not escape the implication for my vision quest: a calling to the path of the heyoka. Later my encounter with Star People confirmed this heyoka journey.

Any and all of you who choose to work to bring in the Fifth World are in my opinionheyokas. Recognize your calling in your behaviors. And then let's get down to work in fashioning this Fifth World. The negative power of the Fourth World cannot be annihilated. It can only be transmuted,by being confronted by the simplicity and cosmic consciousness of the Fifth World's midwives, the heyokas, you (if you wish). We are not alone in this task. The Thunder Beings (Star Visitors) have come to awaken us, test us, and help us transmute. As heyokas, our role is to confront the Fourth World's negative energies, channel and transmute them into cooperative, spiritual, nonaggressive, inclusive, noncompetitive, service-oriented, dominance-rejecting, psychic, highly-conscious, natural and harmonious energies.

As we do so, and thereby evolve forward, the vibratory rate of the biological and consciousness energy fields within us increases. I have noticed that people of like vibratory rate can "hear" and feel each other's inner consciousness level. And here is a miracle. A higher-vibrating person (or heyoka, if you will) is like a tuning fork, tending to create a higher matching (sympathetic) vibration rate in others around who are functioning at a lower (Fourth World) vibratory/consciousness level. Just like a soprano's high note can cause a crystal glass to vibrate, so heyokas can cause Fourth Worlders around them to tend to increase their vibratory rate. But Fourth Worlders have choices. They can go along with the higher vibratory/ consciousness rate, and transition into the Fifth World. Or they can resist and, like the glass, "shatter", as their outlook is increasingly dissonant with the emerging Fifth World. If they remove themselves from all contact with Fifth World people, they may buy some little time, but in the end they will still have to choose.

As for the heyoka midwives of the Fifth World, recognize that your role is in harmony with your fundamental way of being, and is therefore unavoidable. Therefore, I encourage you to operate at your highest vibration, and help usher in the Fifth World.

Another large component of the Transition to Fifth World is the transforming, or establishing from scratch, new social structures: truly-participatory democracies of ecologically-natural and manageable size; schools for Star Kids, and institutes of higher learning for Star Seed adults and regular humans who want to learn the new ways; transport systems which operate on Zero-Point Energy and incorporate antigravity fields as appropriate; an adjudication system which is fair and transparent and incorporates Star Seed psychic ways of determining the truth; truly-complementary health care incorporating psychic diagnosis and healing along with homeopathic and appropriate allopathic medicine; renewed recreation and entertainment modalities which reflect the family of humankind while valuing regional unique cultural contributions; truly-public utilities which utilize Zero-Point Energy and eco-friendly tapping of water and geothermal sources, and which use composting and biological disposal of waste products strategies; spiritual centers where people can gather for group meditation, group joint psychic exercises to bring help where needed at whatever distance, and to honor Source and Mother Earth being; and interstellar diplomatic and cultural-exchange campuses for interacting with our visiting Cosmic Cousins. The thing of it is: all of these technologies and modalities already exist, at least in prototype, and all we need is to work on insisting they become the model of future building projects, and the goal of renewal and reform projects.

[In an adjacent article, Life In the Emerging Fifth World , Dr. Richard Boylan explores some of the aspects of what this Fifth World which is now being created will look like, and how it may well be ushered in.]

End Notes

1. Waters, F. (1963, 1977). The Book of the Hopi. Penguin Books: New York.

2. The Federal Emergency Management Agency.

3. Waters, ibid.

4. Thunderhorse, I. and Le Vie, D., Jr. (1990). Return of the Thunderbeings. Bear & Co.

by Richard Boylan, Ph.D.

At the Native American Star Knowledge Conference held in South Dakota in June, 1996, senior Oglala Sioux spiritual elder Looks-For-Buffalo (Floyd Hand) revealed that ancient prophecies are now coming true. These prophecies, heralding immense changes for humankind, point to the imminent return of the Star Nations, what the white man would call extraterrestrial cultures.

The Hopi, Sioux and other tribal traditions hold that at this point in history, we are about to transition from the current pattern of civilization to a radically-different way of living. This change is so profound that it is called the passage from the Fourth (current) World to the Fifth World! By "world", the native traditions refer to a slow gradual rise of the human population to a period of widely-shared cultural and technological high civilization. The implications of these indigenous teachings are staggering. For this means that we humans have gone through three previous Worlds, in which our ancestors rose to a peak of civilized living, only to crash back to a primitive level.

From halfway around the Earth comes additional corroborative information. Mac Ruka, a Maori spiritual teacher, has toured America at the behest of his Maori people to share their ancient history. Ruka tells of a civilization, Mu, from which the Maori came. This civilization once reached ascendancy in the Melanesian Pacific, before it destroyed itself and its island empire sank beneath the ocean. Fragmentary memory of this empire still resides in the mythic history of the West as a place called Lemuria. And what of that other high civilization, Atlantis, which the Greek philosopher Plato stated he learned about from Egyptian historians? Were Atlantis and Lemuria the Second and Third Worlds which the Native American oral histories refer to?

If our present "Fourth-World" high civilization is about to fall and be swept away, we would do well to learn from the history held by these native teachers. For, as philosopher George Santayana has said, "Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it." Let us examine in more detail what those master keepers of oral tradition, the Hopi, reveal about our previous Worlds. [1]

The First World was called Tokpela ("Endless Space"). The First People understood that although they had human parents, their real parents were the universal entities which had created them through their parents: Father Sun and Mother Earth. Each learned that they had two aspects: as a member of an earthly family and clan, and as a citizen of the great universe. Gradually the First People forgot to respect their creator. They began to use the vibratory centers of their body [chakras] only for earthly purposes. They began to perceive differences and separation between people and animals, and between different ethnic, linguistic and religious groups. The animals began to draw away from people. The First People began to divide up and draw away from each other. They became warlike and fought. The First World's fatal flaw, then, was forgetting the unifying Oneness of all creation.

But there were a few in every group who held to the original spiritual enlightened path. These were directed by Spirit to migrate to a special underground location. Then, the First World was destroyed by fire: volcanoes erupting and fire raining down from the sky, until there was nothing left but the few faithful people inside the Earth.

After a long time the world cooled off, and a Second World emerged. There was land where water had been, and water where land had been. When the faithful remnant emerged from underground, there was nothing to remind them of the previous wicked world.

They emerged into the Second World, Tokpa ("Dark Midnight"), a big land. The people spread across the land. They communicated telepathically. But this time, the animals stayed apart from them. As the Second World people developed material goods to barter, they became greedy, and traded for things they didn't need and became avaricious. They began to quarrel and fight, and wars broke out. The Second World's fatal flaw, then, was absorption in greed and materialism.

But again, there were a few people who kept faithful to the path of spiritual awareness. And, again, Spirit directed these people to go to a safe underground place. Then Spirit commanded the twin entities who safeguard the Earth's North and South Poles to leave their posts and stop keeping the Earth properly rotating. The Earth teetered off balance, spun around crazily, and rolled over twice. Mountains plunged into seas with a great splash; seas and lakes sloshed over the land. Then the world became cold and lifeless, and froze into solid ice.

Eventually, Spirit ordered the polar entities back to the ends of the Earth's axis. With a great splintering of ice and a shudder, the Earth began rotating again. The ice melted, and the world warmed to life.

Spirit created the Third World, Kuskurza [meaning lost over time][Mu?], arranging land and seas, mountains and plains, and all forms of life. Then Spirit sent a message to the few faithful people underground that it was time to emerge. These survivors multiplied and created great cities, eventually countries, and a whole civilization. But then they became completely occupied with their own earthly plans. They created craft shaped like a shield that could fly, and used them to fly to big cities and attack them. Soon many peoples and countries were engaged in aerial warfare. These Third People also engaged in degraded sexual practices. The Third World's fatalflaw, then, was misusing flight for aerial warfare and misusing sex for promiscuity.

So Spirit directed the few people who lived according to wisdom that they should build vessels and store food in them. Then rainwater was loosed all over the Earth. Waves higher than mountains rolled in upon the land. Continents broke asunder and sank beneath the seas.

Meanwhile, Spirit directed the faithful survivors to travel first to one, then to another island, until finally they reached the Fourth World, Tuwaqachi ("Complete World"). After they had hopscotched across the islands to arrive in the Fourth World, those islands sank into the sea.

That Fourth World is this present world we live in. The survivors spread across the broad lands, and gradually began building up the high civilizations which surround us today. Since this Fourth World is the one we have grown up in, we are aware of the behaviors of those in it. It can accurately be said that, after an initial time of fidelity to the path of wise consciousness, many have fallen into a low level of consciousness. In fact, it can honestly be stated that many people of this Fourth World have fallen into the fatal flaws of the three previous Worlds: forgetting the Oneness of all creation, sinking into greed and materialism, and engaging in promiscuity and aerial mass warfare. But we have added an additional serious element: mass destruction of Earth and its ecological systems. Thus, the Fourth World's fatal flaws are: all of the previous Worlds' ones, plus ecocide, the killing of one's own environment.

And now this Fourth World is coming to an end. Some of the signs indicating this are: extinctions of plant and animal species; poisoning of lands by toxic materials; pollution of the seas; and thinning of the upper atmosphere, "ozone holes", letting in excessive ultraviolet energy, which in turn is killing plant life, causing cancer in humans, and die-offs of phytoplankton, the source of 90%of the oxygen necessary for life. Global warming is destabilizing climates, and upsetting the ecosystems that plants, animals and humans live in.

As the Fourth World careens towards its end, a major new factor is entering the equation: a widespread series of contacts by various Star Visitor cultures with human individuals. What are these Star Visitors communicating when they make contact? They express grave concern for how we are killing our planet and therefore ourselves. Their concern extends to the warfare we are almost continually engaged in, and the other forms of violence going on: including people allowing whole populations to die of starvation or disease, while affluent countries stand by. The Star Visitors want us to take responsibility and turn these situations around, before it is too late.

But the Star Visitors also have come to make us aware that we are not alone; and that our rightful place is to be participants in the larger, cosmic family of intelligent peoples spread across the universe. But first we must eliminate our fatal flaws and reorder our lifestyle. We must live with consciousness of our oneness with all creatures, and with the Creative Source. We must lay aside our greed and materialism, and learn to live more simply and without undue attachments. We must reject promiscuity, and exercise love with consciousness of the sacredness of sexuality. We must set aside aerial mass warfare, and begin to settle differences by diplomacy, by setting good example, by positive peer pressure, and by empowering all peoples. We need to start treating Earth and its ecosystems like our Mother, with respect and cherishing.

As at the end of the previous Worlds, there will be a faithful remnant of this Fourth World who will survive, while the others perish. The Hopi Prophecies say what will happen soon. World War III will be started in the East. Much of the United States will be destroyed, land and people, by nuclear weapon radioactivity. The Four corners area around the Hopi will be preserved as an oasis, to which refugees will flee. But what about those elaborate underground shelters which FEMA [2] has been secretly constructing for the elite to survive in during the coming Earth Changes? The Hopi Prophecy says that underground shelters are a fallacy this time. "It is only materialistic people who seek to make shelters. Those who are at peace in their hearts already are in the great shelter of life."

What will the Fifth World to which we are headed be like? The Prophecy gives a brief glimpse of what is in store. "Those who take no part in the making of world division by ideology are ready to resume life in another World, be they of the Black, White, Red or Yellow race. They are all one, brothers [and sisters]." As for this Fourth World, "Material matters will be destroyed by spiritual beings, who shall remain to create one world and one nation under one power, that of the Creator." The Prophecy goes on to declare the stage we are in now. "The emergence to the future Fifth World has begun. It is being made of the humble people of little nations, tribes and racial minorities. You can read this in the Earth itself. Plant forms from previous Worlds are beginning to spring up as seeds. The same kind of seeds are being planted in the sky as stars. The same kind of seeds are being planted in our hearts. All these are the same." [3]

We are entering the time of Great Purification, as Earth prepares to transition to the Fifth World. This is a period of Earth Changes: major earthquakes, tidal waves, many volcanoes erupting, land subsidence, emergence of new land, climatic changes, disease pandemics, and widespread starvation. Catastrophes of human origin are also in the offing, including: warfare involving weapons of mass destruction, including nuclear, rioting and looting, collapse of monetary systems, and forced migrations. As with the previous Worlds, there will be those who want to cling to the old ways of the Fourth World and resist the need to change. We see them all around us now. And just as surely there will be those who seek to live in harmony with the rest of creation. Sensitive co-existence with other life is not ecological romanticism or fuzzy metaphysics. It is recognition of the true extent of family.

During this transition more than ever before, each of us is being called to serve the Great Spirit, that Center of Consciousness from which everything derives its being. Each of us has an important role during this Great Purification. We need to help find ways for nations, races and tribes to put aside differences, and join together for the good of everyone. We need to help plant and animal species survive. We have to bring to an end the pollution of Earth, and return to our proper role as caretakers of Earth's ecosystems. We need to lay aside the "success" lifestyle of greed and materialism, and learn to adopt a lifestyle of "just enough" and "good enough". We need to move away from the twin follies of promiscuity and puritanism, and learn to reverence sex as the delightful yet sacred activity of appropriately joining opposites to create a higher truth. And we need to lay aside the weapons of war, and operate with that compassion, understanding and economic justice which make for peace.

Where ultimately is this human voyage through a succession of Worlds headed? The Prophecy says that at the center of the universe, there is a place where all the nations originated. It is in the Star Nations galaxy. Before we arrive there, we will transit through nine Worlds.

Native American tradition honors the existence of Thunder Beings. These Thunder Beings are understood by Native Americans to be messengers from the powers on high, the Star People (extraterrestrial visitors). The Thunder Beings are a force for both dissolution and re-creation. In the Plains Indian tradition, a person who has a visit by a Thunder Being, in person, in vision or in dream, becomes a heyoka, a "contrary". [4] This heyoka then customarily soon starts behaving in a way opposite to the conventions of the dominant culture. The heyoka does so, precisely in order to wake up society to see that there are other and fresher ways of doing things. Thus, the heyokais the human counterpart of the Thunder Beings, who repeatedly dissolve the existing order and fashion a new arrangement from the pieces.

As we transition from the Fourth into the Fifth World, it occurs to me that not all heyokasare Plains Indians. Some have yellow skin, others black, others white. These heyokas of every color are experiencers, and have been changed by their experience of extraterrestrial contact by messengers from the sky (Thunder Beings). As modern-day heyokas, experiencers are charged to live as active witnesses against the ignorance and corruption of the Fourth World, and to live as witnesses of the Fifth World which is emerging. In doing so, modern heyokas honor the Thunder Beings, the Star Nations, who have come as cosmic midwives to help us birth the Fifth World.

And there are others, too, who have not had a personal extraterrestrial encounter, but who are actively helping humanity move towards cosmic citizenship, and helping usher in the Fifth World society. These are heyokas as well.

In Winter, 1996, high in the Rockies west of Fort Collins, Colorado, a Star Visions Conference was convened by Lakota-Dakota spiritual advisor Standing Elk. There numerous speakers talked about our imminent transition from the current Fourth World to a new Fifth World. On the evening of November 9th, Conference ceremonial leadership switched from Native American males to the women. A Cherokee grandmother recited Crazy Horse's prophecy about these very times, as the Old Age (Fourth World) closes. Then, after a series of moving prayers and ritual declarations, the grandmother Elders made a startling official ceremonial declaration: the old era (Fourth World)was ended, and the new age (Fifth World) was being born! A joyous explosion of tumultuous celebration broke out all over the conference auditorium. After a half-hour, the grandmother Elders were finally able to call the conference back to order. The Elders then declared that this new Fifth World would have as its hallmark the attributes of positive feminine energy. They explained that the Fourth World, which had been hallmarked by male energy dominance, had had its time, and made its contributions. Now that World is passing away. The grandmothers pointed out that the Fifth World being born must not be one of separatist female dominance, but rather one of forming a renewed society of women and men as equals. Fifth World society is shaped by the feminine paths of cooperation, nonaggression, inclusiveness, noncompetitiveness, service rather than dominance, use of psychic and spiritual gifts as well as technology, and living in conscious harmony with nature's ways. [5]

The next morning, a major Colorado newspaper, the Rocky Mountain News, carried the story that "a bold group at Estes Park Center [Star Vision Conference] had declared an end to the current era and the beginning of a Fifth Dimension [World] reality." Word of formal declaration of the birth of the Fifth World was beginning to spread out to the wider society. This process will take time. But it is important to realize that the Fifth World has already begun. Just as the Period of Purification which will end the Fourth World has already begun. During this painful but exciting period of transition, each of us must stand up and choose: status quo, or helping usher in the Fifth World.

Finally, permit me to share with you a personal Thunder Being experience, and then my understanding of the role of heyokas in the Fifth World.

Some years ago I did a hanblechia (vision quest) in the desert near Death Valley. During my isolation, I was presented with a image of a Thunderbird formed by the shadow of a cloud on a snowfield atop a nearby mountain. The image remained a long time, then finally dissipated. The skeptical part of my mind at first tried to minimize this event. However, an hour later another identical Thunderbird image appeared on the same snowfield, and persisted quite a while. I could not escape the implication for my vision quest: a calling to the path of the heyoka. Later my encounter with Star People confirmed this heyoka journey.

Any and all of you who choose to work to bring in the Fifth World are in my opinionheyokas. Recognize your calling in your behaviors. And then let's get down to work in fashioning this Fifth World. The negative power of the Fourth World cannot be annihilated. It can only be transmuted,by being confronted by the simplicity and cosmic consciousness of the Fifth World's midwives, the heyokas, you (if you wish). We are not alone in this task. The Thunder Beings (Star Visitors) have come to awaken us, test us, and help us transmute. As heyokas, our role is to confront the Fourth World's negative energies, channel and transmute them into cooperative, spiritual, nonaggressive, inclusive, noncompetitive, service-oriented, dominance-rejecting, psychic, highly-conscious, natural and harmonious energies.

As we do so, and thereby evolve forward, the vibratory rate of the biological and consciousness energy fields within us increases. I have noticed that people of like vibratory rate can "hear" and feel each other's inner consciousness level. And here is a miracle. A higher-vibrating person (or heyoka, if you will) is like a tuning fork, tending to create a higher matching (sympathetic) vibration rate in others around who are functioning at a lower (Fourth World) vibratory/consciousness level. Just like a soprano's high note can cause a crystal glass to vibrate, so heyokas can cause Fourth Worlders around them to tend to increase their vibratory rate. But Fourth Worlders have choices. They can go along with the higher vibratory/ consciousness rate, and transition into the Fifth World. Or they can resist and, like the glass, "shatter", as their outlook is increasingly dissonant with the emerging Fifth World. If they remove themselves from all contact with Fifth World people, they may buy some little time, but in the end they will still have to choose.

As for the heyoka midwives of the Fifth World, recognize that your role is in harmony with your fundamental way of being, and is therefore unavoidable. Therefore, I encourage you to operate at your highest vibration, and help usher in the Fifth World.

Another large component of the Transition to Fifth World is the transforming, or establishing from scratch, new social structures: truly-participatory democracies of ecologically-natural and manageable size; schools for Star Kids, and institutes of higher learning for Star Seed adults and regular humans who want to learn the new ways; transport systems which operate on Zero-Point Energy and incorporate antigravity fields as appropriate; an adjudication system which is fair and transparent and incorporates Star Seed psychic ways of determining the truth; truly-complementary health care incorporating psychic diagnosis and healing along with homeopathic and appropriate allopathic medicine; renewed recreation and entertainment modalities which reflect the family of humankind while valuing regional unique cultural contributions; truly-public utilities which utilize Zero-Point Energy and eco-friendly tapping of water and geothermal sources, and which use composting and biological disposal of waste products strategies; spiritual centers where people can gather for group meditation, group joint psychic exercises to bring help where needed at whatever distance, and to honor Source and Mother Earth being; and interstellar diplomatic and cultural-exchange campuses for interacting with our visiting Cosmic Cousins. The thing of it is: all of these technologies and modalities already exist, at least in prototype, and all we need is to work on insisting they become the model of future building projects, and the goal of renewal and reform projects.

[In an adjacent article, Life In the Emerging Fifth World , Dr. Richard Boylan explores some of the aspects of what this Fifth World which is now being created will look like, and how it may well be ushered in.]

End Notes

1. Waters, F. (1963, 1977). The Book of the Hopi. Penguin Books: New York.

2. The Federal Emergency Management Agency.

3. Waters, ibid.

4. Thunderhorse, I. and Le Vie, D., Jr. (1990). Return of the Thunderbeings. Bear & Co.

Publishing: Santa FE, NM.

5. Boylan, R. J., (1996). Worlds In Transition: Report on the Star Visions Conference,��

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[oxygenbefore1775]

Quiet

for day 6 of jeankasaweek "starry night"

pairing: jean x mikasa

cw: post s2, pre-relationship

wc: 2.6k

summary: living at a secluded station as members of the newly formed levi squad, jean and mikasa found themselves assigned to a night of guard duty

a/n: they're being little dummies about the science behind the stars don't mind them; and again, there's zero relevancy to the prompt

Jean didn't even attempt to conceal his unease, letting the frown cut depeer into the skin, as he was walking away from Captain Levi. It was the same order he'd received, the one he knew all too well yet didn't expect to hear this time, now that their squad has been at this station for nearly a week. It's not that the lack of action was unbearable, it's the silence of the outer world which they were secluded from what was slowly fretting at Jean's sense. Even Captain didn't seem to know much as he stayed silent under the questioning stares of the squad during mealtime — that, or he was holding back the information, reluctant to share about the events of the outside.

Either way, no news were reaching the rest of the squad. In the desolation of nature, Jean's mind began to wander, though the mundane tasks were providing it with some sort of purchase. Just like in the gone times of Training Corps, Jean often mused to himself while watching the flow of the day filled with countless chores, spare the many of his comrades who didn't live to see this development. A fleeting smile always dropped from his lips at the grim memory. Everything has become much more somber since then.

Yet again Jean was to stand guard that night, leaving him to his own thoughts to consume him as the moon dragged across the sky at a snail pace. All too often this duty has been bestowed upon Jean, though it wasn't surprising, with this little amount of soldiers stationining here. Eren and Historia couldn't possibly be on guard since they were the ones to be protected, Connie and Sasha often stood during the day and leaving them two shifts in the row would be too cruel. The captain had to be available at all times thus was very rarely assigned the guard duty. That left only three of them — Jean, Armin and Mikasa.

This night, it was Jean and Mikasa's turn.

✧˖°⋆｡˚　　

Outside was pitch black, safe for the of stars, their white glow dousing the earth beneath, and a pair of lanterns yet their glow had barely enough strength to light the path let alone the space beyond the station's grounds. A muffled hiss escaped Jean's lips whenever he tripped over unnoticed rock on his way, lamenting his own lack of sight. Under these circumstances, sneaking into the house undetected would be a little challenge. The grip on his rifle tightening, Jean cast a sharp glance across the wide field. All dark, as far as the eye could see — lush foliage unified through color into one vast unmoving mass, it could certainly hide the potential intruders. He could stare at the horizon as much as he liked, straining his eyes in a futile attempt to make out silhouettes in the all-enveloping obscurity, by the time an uninvited visitor would come into his line of vision, it'd be too late.

It used to be much easier when they had only titans to look out for.

His sight no longer reliable under the shroud of the night, Jean turned to his hearing. This summer left the weeds bone-dry and crinkly so their rustling could be heard miles away. Were anyone to head towards their station through the fields, Jean would easily pick up on the discrepancy in the sound, the noise of the feet breaking the stalks alerting him of intruders.

But this night and all the nights before that, the atmosphere seemed peaceful. Undeterred and tranquil as the wind blew across the field, their movements light as Jean and Mikasa made their round around the station. Dead silence yet the sounds of shallow breathing kept grazing at his ear. His eyes shot to the side where Mikasa was walking beside him — her lips slightly parted to catch the cool moist air.

Dropping his swift gate to a trot, Jean turned his head to face her, "How are your ribs?" With those words, Mikasa rested her hand on her side as if to soothe the still tender wound.

Jean had no doubt in his mind about the severity of her injury. The moment that titan grabbed Mikasa etched vividly into his memory, like ink into the creases of parchment. Even now he could recall the crisp crack of her bones followed by her pained scream — all because she lost her cool at the mere sight of Eren. Jean's eyes sunk to the ground at the memories, the rush of adrenaline that day bleeding into the surge of embarassment. As he'd risen from his saddle to swing his blades at the titan, disrupting the formation, he'd also lost his cool at the mere sight of her then.

Her features were free of any emotion apart from silent determination as she continued stepping forward. "It's fine, they're healing already." A pause lingered between them before she spoke again, "You were hurt, too. Armin said that you got hit on the head and lost consciousness."

There was a shadow of exasperation pooling in her eyes as she looked at him. She hated the attention of the comrades that her injury brought her, harbouring the least concern for her own health and neglecting her rest that her condition required for healing. She was the first one to get up in the morning and run the chores, deaf to words full of concern coming from her comrades. Admirable as it was, Jean couldn't look past that blind disregard — Mikasa was indeed strong yet even her strength was finite.

In her eyes, Jean was yet another one to remind her of her limitations.

Jean retorted in impartial tone. "I merely hit my head," his gaze was full of harsh concern, "whereas you broke your ribs. Yes, they're healing but you needn't neglect yourself." With that, he ground to a halt, his lips pressing into a thin bloodless line as he put weight into each word he said. "If not for your own sake then for the sake of your comrades."

A glint of fleeting recognition passed in her eyes. She stood beside him, startled at his sudden fit of reproach. Like cracks, wrinkles appeared on the porcelain of her features, the yellow light of lantern adding depth to each crease.

"It's exactly for the sake of my comrades that I'm training." Mikasa pressed a hand to her chest in rebuke, lightning of simmering pain struck her, making her nose wrinkle at discomfort. "To remain strong and keep on fighting."

Yes, Mikasa was all of that — Jean was blind in order not to see this. Unfortunately, her own resolve was often too persistent, making her abandon the thoughts of herself.

One of his eyebrows quirked, casting a shadow of doubt on her words. "You're strong, stronger than any of us in the squad," he re-assured her, "that's precisely why you shouldn't strain yourself, especially during times like these when we have nothing to do apart from guarding Eren and Historia."

His intense gaze wandered toward the south where Trost District stood. Jean felt his chest filling with unease, heavy and cold as lead. "Whatever Erwin's planning out there, I think it's going to be something very dangerous. Something that we've never encountered before."

His eyes returned to Mikasa, her figure blending into the darkness of the night surrounding them. "That's why we need you in your best shape. What if your condition only worsens because of your intense trainings? What if the time comes when all hell breaks loose, and you're not ready?"

There's just too much at stake, the sense of dread hanging over the squad like a dark stormy cloud. Jean hoped she'd understood as she looked back at him in a thoughtful silence. Her eyes flickered in the pale starlight, flashes appeared in the pools of gray steel.

Jean pulled back. An inviting smirk added more appeal to his features as he reached his arm forward, a silent suggestion to continue their nightly route.

"Just relax, Mikasa," he urged one last time. "As much as one can relax while on the secret mission and under Levi's command. There might be no time for it in the future." A smirk on his face vanished as quickly as it once appeared. "Maybe never."

Her step sounded light when she started walking beside him again. The downcast look of her face indicated the struggle that his suggestion stirred within her. Always restless, it was probably hard for her to throw away all her resolve in these fleeting days of tranquility. Yet, as they continued moving in the cool night air, the somber expression soon bled into shadow of a smile painting her features. If it wasn't for the clanging of rifles in their hands and the weight of the order, Jean could let go of his duty for a brief moment to take in the atmosphere, ethereal and all-forgiving.

Their round of the station was soon over, all they had to do for the remainder of the night was stand guard on the watchtower.

Tired to strain his eyes any further, Jean shifted his gaze from the unmoving ground to the sky. It remained just as dark, a canvas adorned with tapestry of stars. From the corner of his eye, he noticed Mikasa leaning on the railing, her rifle left standing against the wall. The pale light of the stars illuminating her face, soaking into the tussels of her black hair, made him steal a look.

She noticed his wandering gaze. Amusement lurked in her features as she continued to behold the sky stream. "I forgot how bright the stars could be." Her voice barely above whisper. "In the big cities you won't see them as often."

Although the subtle smile graced her lips, her brows furrowed at the sudden inflow of memories.

Jean couldn't have known that. A native of Trost, he had never even lifted his gaze towards the night sky as the bright city lights drowned out its beauty. Yet now, in the outskirts of civilization, the starlight shone brilliantly, rivaling the illumination of the bustling streets. He had been blind to this sight for nearly sixteen years, while she had beheld it nearly every day. As he turned to face her, a question teetered on the edge of his lips, ready to be released into the quiet night.

She was the one to lock gazes with him first. "Armin says that all the stars are just balls of gas hight in the sky."

Jean tilted his head, digesting the words. Armin told him the same on their nightly guard duty too. Yet, coming form Mikasa, it was the first time he entertained the concept.

A prying look was cast on his face. "Do you believe him?" Jean inquired.

She shrugged her shoulders. "No." Her voice carried a sense of contemplation, as if she'd already dedicated some time to this thought. His shadow of a smile mirrored her own.

Jean leaned against the railing, joining Mikasa's side. His mind shifted between her words and the constellations overhead. Although it was coming from Armin and as excited as he was to share this revelation with Jean, the concept of stars being mere balls of gas felt somewhat far-fetched to Jean. Scientific curiosity that plagued Armin and Hange alike, evaded him in that sense, proding him to resort to scepticism. How could something so beautiful and ethereal originate from something so trivial? Yet another look at her was stolen.

Maybe Mikasa saw that too. Her gaze softened significantly since the start of their watch, pools of her eyes full of reminiscing and nostalgia. He had heard from Eren and Armin about Mikasa's childhood spent in the woods, and in a place as remote as this, the memories must have flooded back to her. It was as if the starry night had awakened something within her, something that connected her to those distant moments of her past.

For a moment, all the frustration he'd been harbouring in the desolation of nature dissolved under the starry light. He wished for a piece of coal and parchment more than anything — he's never been too skilfull with the landscapes but the beauty of the sight relieved him of self-doubt.

The cool wind carried Mikasa's words as she broke the silence once again. "It's been a long time since a night like this." Looking away in the distance, she tucked an unruly strand behind her ear. "Quiet."

The silent agreement formed in Jean's gaze. Deep in the Wall interior, no night could be as calm as this for soldiers of their kind. They may be never treated to this moment of peace ever again. The looming mysteries surrounding Eren's Titan powers and Historia's enigmatic role only added to the air of uncertainty that surrounded them. The future smelled of blood. As they awaited their next mission, left at the mercy of Erwin's grand plan, Jean's heart cradled a glimmer of hope for their squad's lives. If not unharmed — as soldiers they couldn't expect such a luxury from their position — then in one peace at least.

Yet now, he could afford to push aside the grim thoughts plaguing his mind. The night was young and there still was their guard duty to attend to.

✧˖°⋆｡˚　

The sun hung high in the sky, casting its mercilessly bright rays upon Jean as he stirred from his slumber. As tiring as the night guard duty was, he was thankful that Captain Levi had granted them the permission of sleeping in until midday. Sweet dream coursing through his body, the noise from the outside disrupted any further attempts to catch few more hours of sleep, forcing him to start his day unless he wanted to be dragged out of bed, courtesy of Captain.

It was rare for him to be alone in the house. The squad's day busy, everyone must've left for their chores already. The smell coming from the kitchen pointed to the contrary, though.

Rubbing the sleep from his eyes, Jean entered the common area, curious as to who was busy at the stove. It couldn't be Sasha who was usually the one responsible for the meals, judging by the relative silence hanging in the air.

"Mikasa?" The sight of her standing in the kitchen caught him off guard. There was a single portion of breakfast served on the table, clearly not for her, seeing as she was already in her uniform and gear.

Perhaps it was her turn to cook breakfast and he simply forgot. Yet the late risers were usually expected to help themselves with the meal. Jean decided to hold back on the obvious question dancing on the tip of his tongue.

Captain's voice sounded off in the distance, requesting Mikasa's presence for the whatever mission awaited them. "They're going to run some tests on Eren again," she rushed to explain, neating up the plates on the table. "Everything here on this table is yours though."

As Mikasa hurriedly left the cabin, Jean stood there, momentarily stunned by her sudden departure. From the window, he watched her approach her horse, joined by Eren and the Captain, a mixture of curiosity and concern bubbling within him.

With a shrug, Jean approached the table and inspected the meal prepared for him. The aroma of freshly cooked food wafted through the air, tempting his empty stomach. Considering the mission Mikasa was about to embark on, the seeming orderliness of the table was at the least baffling to him.

Taking a seat at the table, Jean's eyes followed Mikasa's departure from the station on horse back. Their glances locked for the briefest of moments. Something obscure and elusive lingered in her features before she averted her gaze and focused back on the road.

[mamawasatesttube]

21, 30, 38, 40 <3

21. Share a favorite piece of comics lore.

the other night i gave my dad a whole spiel explaining how the second robin got mcmurderized because of one (1) dedicated hater in a phone poll. i think that's always a classic. but it's also entry-level comic lore and an easy answer kinda so hmmm...

maybe i'll go with one of my favorites to trot out and remind people of? kon was not originally related to lex luthor in any way shape or form that was a retcon done by geoff johns, who originally wrote into the superboy (1994) letters to the author section to be like "hey wouldnt it be cool if he was actually cloned from lex luthor?" and they were like "no." lmao

30. What's been a good change to comics status quo?

HMMM thats a toughie mostly because i've primarily only really read one era of comics (postcrisis)! i guess i could say crisis on infinite earths like,,, making one unified timeline was cool but i haven't read much precrisis so i feel like i can't actually commit to saying that. maybe... even though i have a LOT of issues with all the stuff going on w prime earth, it's cool to see more emerging stories by qpoc featuring qpoc leads!

38. What's your favorite comic book trope?

god i love identity shenanigans AND secret identity-related angst. (this is part of why clois hits so well for me.) i hate stories w characters who have secret identities that don't take it seriously or like, do that whole "lmao its just a mask someone could look at them and just know" thing. play in the space. PLAY IN THE SPACE. IT'S A FUN SPACE.

40. What's a comic that's so bad you ended up finding it funny?

lmaoooo. some parts of tt03 definitely hit this spot. not all though. but bits and pieces? yeah. hmm what else... parts of batgirl '08 also. maybe the first few issues of supergirl '05 (as in, the misogyny dripping off the page was so egregious i couldn't do anything but laugh i guess)? honestly lsdkfj most of the comics i've hated haven't sucked in the funny way more just in the "they would not fucking say that" way but. well. gestures at the cesspool of tt03. you KNOW they had the most toxic group chat of all time

[practically-an-x-man]

More about the Babylonian God adopted into Egypt?

Alright!

So there's a god called Tutu that entered the Egyptian pantheon during the Ptolemaic period, that I find to be very similar to the Babylonian god also named Tutu. Now, forgive me if these details are a little blurry, it's been a while since I was actually in my archaeology/anthropology classes so I might not have everything laid out perfectly in my mind like I used to.

*also just for the record I am not claiming to be an Egyptologist or have any genuine ground on this matter. It's just a theory from a very neurodivergent mythology nerd who happened to be an anthropology major for a while.

The first records of Tutu in Egypt date to about 600 BC. Egypt and Mesopotamia were both conquered by the Assyrians in 671 BC (unified political control, greater flow of ideas), and the Neo-Babylonians later took control around 609 BC. The Neo-Babylonians also sponsored both trade and war with Egypt, which increases the flow of ideas from one civilization to another. Babylon also fell as a civilization in 539 BC, so again - temporally, a lot of opportunity for overlap

Both gods are described to control similar godly domains. They were both invoked for the protection of holy spaces, such as shrines and temples, and were also a sort of "everyman's god" that could be invoked by ordinary people to ward off everyday misfortunes.

(more on this: the Egyptian Tutu was the god of tombs and the protector of sleeping people, and his symbols were often found in peoples' homes rather than temples, indicating he may have been invoked by ordinary people rather than priests or others trained in religion. The Babylonian Tutu was seen as the cleanser of shrines and holy spaces, and could be called on to relieve small misfortunes (which, I'd argue, could include nightmares))

3. There was evidence that Tutu was feared by the people of Egypt, whereas many of the other gods were viewed as more benevolent or fair. Now, this is off the top of my head and I'm by no means an Egyptologist, but the only other example of a feared god I can think of would be Apopis, and he was more of a great beast of destruction (like Typhon or Jormungandr) than what we'd think of as a true god. HOWEVER, Babylonian gods were often viewed as very cruel, and their relationship to humanity was that the gods created humanity to act as their workhorses. Babylonians also feared that if they fell out of the gods' favor, the gods would send war or famine as a warning. The Egyptian's stance on Tutu feels much more akin to the Babylonian gods than other Egyptian gods.

4. Of course, there's also the shared name, and that's what led me to investigating this further, but that's the weakest of my evidence (especially since I'm only glancingly familiar with Coptic and have very little knowledge of Akkadian so I can't confirm whether the translations are accurate or if the names just happen to line up because of the way they were translated)

I ended up doing a fair bit of research on this and even extended a few emails to an Egyptologist (Dr. Olaf Kaper) who's studied Tutu and wrote a few papers on him, but he didn't respond to my emails and eventually I got so busy with my other classwork that the idea fizzled out. There's not a lot of evidence on either form of Tutu, sadly, and I felt like I didn't have enough cited sources to support my claims, so I never actually wrote the paper. But I still think it's a cool idea :)

[epacer]

Crawford Connection

Beatlemania created San Diego 'Haircut Crisis' of 1965

When Ken Pernicano was 14-years-old, he was expelled from Crawford High for long hair.

Imagine getting expelled from high school for having long hair that didn't even touch your collar. In this Zevely Zone, I revisited San Diego's 'Haircut Crisis' of 1965.

We need to thank the CBS 8 video vault for producing another gem.

This time we head back to 1965 when the San Diego Unified School Board was quite literally splitting hairs. In the mid-1960s, when the Beatles were taking America by storm, a cloud of controversy enveloped San Diego.

Ken Prenicano, Class of 1968

When Ken Pernicano was 14 years old, he was in a band called 'The Other Four' and got hauled in front of the San Diego Unified School Board. "This is me," said Ken.

His hair did not even touch his collar.

"No. That's how long it was when I was kicked out of school," said Ken.

You read that right, in 1965 Ken was expelled from Crawford High for a haircut that these days most would call short. "Yes, Mr. Perry who is in this video was the principal at the time and yes, he said your hair is too long," said Ken who was never told how short they wanted his hair to be. "I guess probably shaved like his," said Ken.

Ken showed me numerous newspaper articles about the controversy.

As his hair continued to grow, so did the story that made the cover of the national magazine called Teen Screen. "The national haircut crisis. They say cut it off. We say cut it out," laughed Ken while reading the headlines.

His band shared the cover of a magazine with the Beatles. "Yes, that's crazy. 14 years old," said Ken who read part of the article to me. "While war rages on in Vietnam and astronauts walk in space some people Americans prefer to concern themselves with more important things, haircuts," read Ken.

The Other Four had a hit song called "Why" and recorded it at the same studio as the Beach Boys. "The Beach Boys, 1966, that was when we did Why," said Ken who watched Brian Wilson record his music.

I asked how long Wilson's hair was. "He had long sideburns from what I could remember," said Ken. Their song Why was listed as one of KDEO's top picks.

A flyer from the radio station showed the number one song on the list was My Generation by The Who and the number two song was Why by The Other Four. "Yes, Radio 91," said Ken. "It just brings back memories that it was so cool."

But you know who wasn't cool?

Getting sent to continuation school until the controversy died down. "I was finally allowed to return in my junior year," said Ken who did cut his hair.

Again, when I pointed out his haircut in question didn't even make it to his shoulder Ken said, "I know different times. This was a military town remember." They might not have been as popular as the Beatles but The Other Four stood up for what they believed got rewarded with fan mail. "Girls would send me locks of their hair," said Ken.

Before getting expelled, Ken offered to cut his hair, but the school board thought he'd still be too much of a distraction on campus, so they made him leave Crawford High anyway. *Reposted article from CBS 8 by Jeff Zevely on August 28, 2023.

[thinktosee]

AMERICAN EXCEPTIONALISM AND THE 4TH OF JULY

“Witness those ancient empires of the earth,

In highth of all their flowing wealth dissolved.

But men endued with this have oft attain’d

In lowest poverty to highest deeds….” (1)

-         John Milton (1608-1674), Paradise Regained, Book II

On this day, July 4th, Americans observe Independence Day. Naturally, they take deserved pride in this great country which they, through the centuries have built and shaped from the vast and rugged continent. It is also a time for re-affirming their fidelity to the priceless document that uniquely defines them as Americans. The U.S. Constitution firstly restores and reinforces the faith of the citizens in their government of the people, and to their way of life. It additionally unifies and promotes the most diverse society imaginable – ethnic, religious/ideological, social, behavioural and thought.

America was never intended and neither could it aspire to a utopian society, since this presumes a uniform or rigid state of existence, which goes against the American individualistic grain. It was and is however, a beacon and refuge for the displaced, hungry, discriminated, persecuted, ambitious and assorted adventurers and dreamers of this world. The country attracts the wealthiest and also the most marginalized among its immigrants. But somewhere in this mosaic scheme, Americans have since its founding, transformed it into a dynamic, wealthy, equal, individualistic, knowledgeable and open society. (During my first year of university in America in the 1980s, and to my pleasant surprise, I discovered that one could learn more about Singapore through the university’s library than was ever possible if one had lived there. I sense this is true to this day, since a free press remains elusive in authoritarian Singapore).

American social commentators had in the past and also most recently, stressed the providential or exceptional nature of the American Republic. This quite naturally stimulates debate, at times emotional, as this clear-eyed 2011 Foreign Policy essay by Harvard University Professor, Stephen M. Walt explains :

The Myth of American Exceptionalism – Foreign Policy

Whatever our beliefs may be in relation to American exceptionalism, allow me to share a few more thoughts to progress this discussion :

As I am writing this essay presently, the air-conditioner is silently freshening and cooling the living room towards an environment that is conducive to a pleasant escape from the tropical heat outdoors. Now, the modern air conditioner was invented in 1902 by a twenty-six-year-old graduate in Engineering from that famed U.S. Eastern establishment university, Cornell. Carrier is a brand name today, denoting high quality air-conditioners and refrigerators. Willis Carrier, the founder and inventor, would have been rightly proud. (2)

This old laptop which I use and have had since, gee…I dunno! It is still working fine however, and I write and read daily with it. A great partnership, it certainly is. Sara has been encouraging me to upgrade, especially, since oldie here has numerous lines or wrinkles across its face or screen. I think this is known in the trade as wear and tear. You know, the things that happen to our body when we hit 40. But I am told that we can upgrade ourselves now like the way that we do our laptop or cell phone. As microchip technology, first invented by the folks at Texas Instruments, (3) gets increasingly more powerful, sophisticated and fluid, upgrades seem like a retrievably attractive choice. We can be like our laptop or cell-phone, literally! Why, just ask that nice man who runs the real and not-so-real or cyber, space programmes (4) Mr. Musk has enormous experience shooting objects and folks into space, for real. Also, his Starlink satellites are cyber-joining people who reside in the remotest parts of the globe. One nice upshot of this connectivity is that children in these regions now get an enhanced formal education, like ours do. (5)

But enough about Mr. Musk. Let’s move on to my and many Singaporeans’ favourite subject - food. Burgers, buffalo wings and a chilled can of Coke, are my go-to-grub and beverage. As our last post shows, McDonald’s, the burger god is as American as the Pentagon. Its power and cultural influence in this world is as far and wide as the latter’s, befuddling authoritarians everywhere, especially since a Mac culture more than anything else, denotes choice. Mac always gives us an attractive range of choices.

Time Magazine informs us that Buffalo wings jumped onto our plate in 1964, in of course, the city of Buffalo, New York. (6) Thank Heavens for the inventors. Whenever I visit Sara and Hugh in Sydney, I’d make it a point to stop by a sports bar nearby to order a plate of hot and spicy buffalo wings, to go along with the Australian rules football, or if one prefers, globe-trotting NBA basketball (7) on the few television screens hanging from the ceiling. Some folks of course like a beer to go with the barbequed wings. At times though, I’d welcome a chilled can of Coke to accompany a spicy dish. (8)

Earlier this morning, as I was giving some thought to what to write for this 4th of July (apart from wishing Tom Cruise a belatedly Happy Birthday!), an old commercial advertisement jumped to mind. It was a time when I hit my teen years. Owning a pair of denim jeans was the rage then. There were only three makers or competitors – The American-made Levi’s (9) and Lee (10), and the Australian Amco (11) jeans. Levi’s was the market leader, especially the iconic 501s. And what’s more, they had the coolest advertisement. Why, just check this out :

Original Route 66 - Vintage Levi's Commercial (1976) - YouTube

Imagine the creative effort, courtesy of Madison Avenue I am guessing, that went into convincing us that donning a pair of Levi’s jeans made us look and sound cool. Kids were converted to this robustly new and evolving religion, man. Of course, the youth today may find the song, Get your kicks on Route 66 quite familiar. Yup, it was featured in the 2006 Hollywood animated movie, Cars. (12) Sara, David and I enjoyed watching it in the cinema then. The song about unbounded adventure across the vast and colourful American landscape was written in 1946 by Hollywood actor and musician, Bobby Troupe, as this 1999 NYT obituary discloses :

Bobby Troup, 80,  Route 66' Songwriter - The New York Times (nytimes.com)

On the question of virtue, while I am not convinced about American exceptionalism, I do however believe that America is exceptional or dominant indeed in some other areas, as explained in the foregoing. Better yet, try going about our life on any given day and see if it is at all possible to avoid any American invention, service, culture, movie, sports, technology, food, food, food……sorry, I am sounding like an AI machine. See? Get my drift? Google, Musk and Microsoft got to us through our love of convenience. And somewhere in these, Intel reigns quietly. 

This essay offers a glimpse of a tiny part of the vast American cultural landscape which is underpinned by hard work, dedication and inventiveness, which translate to reputable colleges, advanced technology, superb food, excellence in sports, and massively pleasing films and music. No wonder there were in excess of 948,000 international students enrolled in American universities and colleges in the academic year 2021-22. This was 4.7 percent of the total, according to Forbes Magazine.(13) Something must be exceptional about America. If not generally, then at least its cultural institutions.

Congratulations to the American People on the birthday of your Great Republic, and especially to Rick, Made and Ezra.

Sources/References

1.  Milton, John. Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained, p318. Airmont Publishing Co., Inc., 1968.

2.  Willis Carrier - the inventor of modern air-conditioning | Carrier air-conditioning, heating, and refrigeration

3.  Who Invented the Microchip? (thoughtco.com)

4.  Elon Musk Ramps Up A.I. Efforts, Even as He Warns of Dangers - The New York Times (nytimes.com)

5.  Starlink's Internet: A Game-Changer for Rural and Remote Communities (ts2.space)

6.  A Brief History of Buffalo Wings | Time

7. NBA History | Main Hub | NBA.com

8.  World’s First Coca-Cola was Served - This Month in Business History - Research Guides at Library of Congress (loc.gov)

9.  Levis History - Levi Strauss & Co : Levi Strauss & Co

10.  The History of Lee Jeans | Lee®

11.  Jeans made by Amco - MAAS Collection

12.  Cars (2006) - IMDb

13. International Student Enrollment Bouncing Back At American Colleges (forbes.com)

[denverneumann]

A lifestyle. Denver thought she might not mind a lifestyle like that - seeing the world, going where the wind took her. A true adventure, truly living as a citizen of the world and not just existing in the place you were born. "Yeah, I consider that cool," She told Mack.

Denver shrugged as she flipped between a few exhibit ideas, debating which one to share. "I want to do something interactive," she said. "And something that can really teach people that the Games are about more than just the glamor and the glory and the gore, you know? That there are real implications, and there's a reason they're used as a tool to maintain a united Panem. There was one Quell that was sectors, and I could do a spin off of that - divide the exhibit hall into sectors, each covering the time in between each Quell, and it's almost like a timeline, but it's cyclical, like a clock - sure there's uprisings, unrest, what have you, but it always begins and ends with everyone unified." Scope was the big issue with that exhibit idea. Denver would need far more space than they'd ever give to someone just starting out as a curator. But a girl could dream.

“No, it’s not— it’s not a job,” Mack clarified, though it was certainly hard work. “Freighthoppers are…transient. We move from one place to the next. Pick up odd jobs at different depots, maybe, mostly trade where we can." Steal, if they had to. "It’s— It's more of a lifestyle." But that wasn't important, really. That wasn't really what Denver wanted to talk about. "Oh, I don't know. I guess it depends on what you consider cool. Some of the trains pass under waterfalls, or over steep cliffs. There's part of the track where you can cliff-dive right off the traincar into the ocean in Four." It was dangerous, of course. Deadly, even, if the tide was too low. "That was pretty cool."

Mack nodded, trying to understand, trying to bite her tongue about how stupid the whole fucking thing was. "What would you curate? Like...what's an exhibit you would want to see put up?"

[milliesmusings314]

Headcanons on Gold and Red Rings, Chaos Emeralds, and Sonic's Iconic Forms

I've been wondering for a while about how the rings and Chaos Energy in the world of Sonic the Hedgehog might work, and I've come up with a few ideas that I'd love to explore.

Of course, my musings don't take into account all of the established canon, as some elements have been changed or discarded over the years, and said musings started before the two latest games in the franchise. But this is mostly just self-indulgent creativity anyways, isn't it? No need to think too hard about the absolutely pin-prick fine details of a franchise that's been ongoing for 31 years and counting, I'd be giving myself a massive headache if I tried.

So, without further ado, let me share how I like to imagine the way that rings and Chaos Energy work in the Sonic universe.

I like to imagine that the golden rings found throughout the zones are a physical manifestation of positive energy. Depending on the amount of positive energy present in a location, the rings can range from being abundant to scarce. For example, when nature is being oppressed and drained of life by the mad doctor Eggman's machines, the rings can become increasingly difficult to come by, as he saps the resources from the land and tramples on its life. In contrast, the buildup of negative energy in an area could lead to the manifestation of red rings, similar to those found in Sonic.EXE fan creations, especially their portrayal in "An Ordinary Sonic ROM Hack", but, y’know... without the crappypasta entity really being at all involved. These rings have the power to cancel out the collected golden rings, thereby weakening the player who is not protected by positive rings.

It would honestly be pretty cool to see SEGA add something akin to this, and develop this whole concept of positive and negative energies further, after involving positive and negative energy in the plot of Sonic Adventure 1 and not touching it again past that.

The Chaos Emeralds, on the other hand, possess limitless energy, but said energy is inherently chaotic and discordant. The Master Emerald, capable of unifying the chaotic energy, serves as a controller, enabling its user to create or destroy. If one uses the energy from the Chaos Emeralds without unification, the result is purely chaos and discordance, a mishmash of positive or negative energy.

Super Sonic is a result of harmonizing the energies of the Chaos Emeralds towards the positive end. You know the deal with that - fifty rings, seven emeralds, and you're golden. Literally.

Hyper Sonic involves harmonizing the energy through the Master Emerald instead, before this energy somehow being purified and refined by the user. Hence the white quills that flash the colors of each of the emeralds - purity of energy combined with a resemblance to the energy’s source. This is the part I've thought the least about, but I still feel like this makes some amount of sense, or at least I hope it will.

Fleetway's version of Super Sonic, meanwhile, came about from the raw unharmonized combination of positive and negative energy within the Emeralds, resulting in disharmony, dissonance, discord… chaos, aptly enough, which is exactly what the transformation resulted in.

Drawing from the negative energies, finally, results in Dark Super Sonic. When Dark Sonic appeared, the only real source of negative energy anywhere near Sonic were the fake Chaos Emeralds. Sonic had previously been able to utilize Chaos Energy by using a fake Emerald that was created by Tails in Sonic Adventure 2, which allowed him to Chaos Control himself back onto the Space Colony ARK, but I personally doubt that Sonic would be able to sustain a real Super transformation with fake Emeralds, even if he had as many as he would normally need, especially since there were very obviously more than seven fake Emeralds visible during the scene in which Dark Super Sonic made its singular appearance. I’d probably say that Sonic has some innate positive energy enabled him, one, to utilize the fake Emerald to perform Chaos Control, and two, probably just to be as powerful (and don’t forget fast!) as he is by default.

This explains Sonic's ability to effortlessly use the Chaos Emeralds. With others, it appears to require either extensive training, such as with Tails in Sonic 3 & Knuckles, who was only able to transform once the energies were already harmonized through the Master Emerald, but became able to use only the Chaos Emeralds alone to transform once Mania came around, suggesting Tails’ adventures in the interim allowed him to somehow gradually unlock the understanding of how to harmonize the energy of these gems, or a deep knowledge and understanding of these gems, such as Knuckles after serving as the guardian of the Master Emerald for fifteen years by the time Sonic and his friends arrive.

Not only that, but it also explains positive energy of Sonic explains why the Dark transformation was easy to undo with just some words from Eggman. Unlike the Super transformation, which adds positive energy on top of positive, Sonic's innate positive energy actually hinders his Dark transformation. This is because his positive energy cancels out some of the negative energy, and since, once again, the supply of negative energy from the fake Emeralds is limited, the transformation wasn’t going to last very long if it were left to continue anyways, with how much of it Sonic was using up at once.

TL;DR: Gold rings represent positive energy, red rings represent negative energy, Chaos Emeralds contain chaotic energy that needs harmonization, Super Sonic is a positive harmony transformation, Fleetway's Super Sonic is unharmonized chaos, and Dark Sonic is a negative harmony transformation, hindered by Sonic's innate positive energy when the negative energy is limited.

[satans-left-asscheeky]

I made a very short post about this, but didn't elaborate on it:

How about Sole teaching their companions to drive after Sturges gets a prewar car working for them! :)

Hey! Love your blog so much! thanks for the ask :)

Maccready

"No way! think you can teach me how to drive so we can race this bad boy?"

Oh boyyy. See Mac has heard all about this wonderful thing called drag races and he's absolutely hooked... He'd want to paint a neon green racing stripe down it and give it a hideous leopard print interior. You know those guys who are super into cars? That's Mac... Sole really shouldn't have shown him the car because now he's addicted

Hancock

"Well would ya looky here. Can't wait to see the bastards in goodneighbors faces when I roll up in this thing"

Hancock gives mad fancy and cool car vibes. Like he'd totally have a sports car he loved dearly named after another founding father or some shit. red obviously. No but back to the prompt he thinks it's awesome, unlike Mac he doesn't want to race it because he doesn't wanna risk breaking it, but he does like it for practical and luxury uses.

Cait

"Would ya look at that. Let's take her out for a spin and see how fast it'll go!"

One word, reckless. Yet another racer. Don't let her and Mac around eachother or else it would cause a MASSIVE fued. Her car is always messy. Beer bottles, trash you name it its probably in there, but she loves it dearly. Probably sleeps in it.

Danse

"This will prove most useful to the brotherhood! Good job knight."

Doesn't the NCR canonically have cars? either way love or hate the brotherhood an army of armored men and women in vehicles is definitely an interesting step for the commonwealth... would they share the technology (especially since they weren't even the ones to figure it out)? or will they hord it? Given their history I'm far more inclined to say the latter is more probable. though that's not directly Danses fault.

Curie

"Oh this is most wonderful! With the car and the minutemen radio we can rush to injured citizens in no time. What an exciting advancement!"

She'd basically have her own personal ambulance. If word got out it would probably encourage the followers of the apocalypse to make their way west.

Deacon

"Woahhh.... how fast you think this thing can go?"

Though vocally he acts like he wants to race the car he knows what a rare opportunity this is and would only actually use it responsibly for the railroad. He's probably the safest driver and cringes hard at mac and Caits racing shenanigans

Piper

"Oh. My. God! This is such a huge step Blue! Do you realize how much this means?"

Cars are back! This means easier access to other regions of post apocalyptic America, better trade ruits, new writing opportunities and a huge step at rebuilding unified territories and expanding. This is truly amazing

Nick

"Most of the cases I cracked came from late night drives to clear my head. It's almost like a little bit of home just came back.... last time I felt that way was when I certain pre war vaultie asked for my help... seriously though kid tell Sturges thanks for me.... you two don't know how much this means...."

If he could Nick would be tearing up. When he first became a cop he was taught to have a safe space to retreat to when he needed to calm down, think or clear his head, and for him that had always been his car. One of the hardest parts of waking up in a post apocalyptic boston was finding his safe spot again and being able to feel comfortable and not on edge. Sole and Sturges just gave him back his safe spot and for that he'd grateful

Preston

Sturges, General! You know what this means right? We really can help are settlements at a minutes notice!!! Good job both of you."

Hes so excited! he'd never dreamed of ever having a car before and now he has one! There's so many places he wanted to go. He knew for sure he wanted to visit capital wastland and see all the monuments from before the war... he might just take nick and Mac to show him around... it'll be great

X6-88

*uninterested* "Congratulations ma'am/Sir....."

Hes indifferent. The institute had single handedly created teleportation and they were excited about a car? it just was strange to him. Are all humans this easily entertained?

[wing-ed-thing]

Longing (Madara x Reader)

Synopsis: Between the Senju, the Uchiha, and the village, you knew what your choice was.

Word Count: 1,365

Tags/Warnings: Tobirama isn’t a nice man but neither is Madara, Gender Neutral Reader, Senju!Reader, Tobirama’s Spouse!Reader, Cheating if you squint

Notes: I didn’t actually like the ending I put for the original. I was reading though it going “why are the characters doing that? That’s the most out of character I’ve ever written” so this one has an alternate ending

“You can’t talk about them like that.” You stood over his desk, palms splayed over the hardwood. And the Hokage office stood still, even more so at the late hour. Not a floorboard dared to creek as you challenged the second Hokage with fearlessness in your voice. Tobirama’s red irises glanced up at you for a split second before returning to his document. The corners of his lips turned downwards in his usual scowl. The candlelight illuminated your wide eyes and clenched teeth. You doubled down, never having been afraid of your husband. “Did you hear me, Tobirama? Talking about the Uchiha like that is unacceptable!”

“Hear what?” Of course he heard you. He heard you the first time, but Tobirama refused to glance up from his writing. You continued to glare at the top of his head, a smoldering beam of fury that even the ever-stoic Tobirama had difficulty ignoring. “Talk about them like what? We can’t afford niceties when a whole clan is plotting the downfall of the village from their basements.”

“Like that.” He finally looked up at you, but his pen kept writing if not at a slower pace. Your scowl matched his own. He grew heated, but returned back to his document. “Efforts to unify the village won’t happen if you keep talking like—”

—“the efforts to unify the village won’t happen if the Uchiha don’t stand down.” You reached over to physically stop his quill with your hand. His eyes had since shifted to yours. You gritted your teeth. Part of you remained doubting about the state of things. The village was fragile and you certainly were no politician. But neither was Tobirama so you supposed you stood on equal footing in that regard.

“What is that supposed to mean?” The words came out almost in an exasperated whisper. You were somewhere between anger, frustration, and worry. Ink bled out in a wide dot onto the parchment below. The black liquid overtook the writing under your hands. “They’ve already lost—”

—“which means that they’ll try to reclaim power whenever they perceive us as weak.” Tobirama gave you a once over, nose wrinkling. He pulled his hand away from yours and you recoiled back. “Like you’re acting right now. Like my brother is acting right now. Don’t make a matter of security into something it’s not. I thought that you of all people would want to protect this village—”

—“Of course I want to—”

— “Well you certainly don’t act like it.” Tobirama had since stood from his seat. He didn’t made any further movements. Rather, he glanced down at his hands, conscious of where they were and cognisant of not making any movements that weren’t too sudden. His voice grew lower. “Senju are not supposed to be weak. I did not choose a weakling to stand by my side, I chose a warrior. Of course I want to unite the village, but we have to make sure it’s safe first.”

You didn’t know how to respond.

You turned and headed for the exit of Tobirama’s office. He called after you, but you had already gone.

You always sat at the outskirts of the village when you needed to cool off. The terrain made your location difficult to get to and the cliffs gave you an immaculate view of your new home. Few buildings were actually completed. You could see the construction from where you sat, halted for the day as the sun set a few hours prior, but you could only imagine how beautiful everything would look by the time it was done. But the space was sometimes shared.

“Tobirama Senju’s lover,” a deep voice spoke somewhere behind you. “Sneaking off to see me yet again.” You didn’t bother to make an effort to turn. The wind blew slightly, your hair tickling you against your neck. He had been standing there for a while.

“I wouldn’t say that I’ve been sneaking off to see you, Madara.” You locked gazes as he came to sit down next to you. His gaze lingered. You looked back off into the distance. The stars were just starting to become visible. “I didn’t sign up for this. It’s getting to be too much. I’m not sure I can learn this fast.”

Madara said nothing. The two of you sat in silence as the bugs chirped in the forest behind you. You tucked a piece of hair behind your ear and leaned back. The earth felt soft and dry against your palms. Your head tilted up towards the sky and Madara studied you out of his peripheral. He had a habit of observing everything around him, his sharingan typically activated to drink it all in. What first came off to you as threatening, you hardly asked about anymore.

“You won’t change his mind,” he finally spoke. You hummed and more silence followed. The night grew visibly darker. The lights of the village shone below. It was a hopeful sort of shine. When you grew up in your clan, you occasionally had torches to lighten up the night. But in the village, people felt much safer. The fire warmed your sense of hope in unity.

You sat lost in the flames and Madara sat. Like most men in both the Senju and Uchiha tribes, was a physical being. He existed near you quietly and hummed along to your complaints. You considered yourself far more trusting of Madara than he likely was of you, not to say you trusted him completely. You supposed the dynamic was for good reason. After all, you trusted Hashirama and Madara had reason not to trust the Senju. You could understand that.

The stars shone on and Madara considered you back until he finally stood. You remained with your legs swinging off the side of the cliff. He paused, looking down at you.

“Leave him. He doesn’t deserve you.” You didn’t process his words, but as you turned your head, you were met with an outstretched palm. You glanced from his hand to his face, only visible under the moonlight and the low glow of the collection of light below. “We don’t belong in this village.” Your frown from before crept back onto your lips.

“You’re leaving…” Madara didn’t answer. “Why are you leaving?”

You rose as well, eschewing his offer to help you up. His arm returned to his side. Behind him, just beyond the treeline leaned his weapon against a fallen trunk. You never considered Madara one for jokes, but you had to be sure. You turned back to look at the village glowing in the night.

“I can’t come with you.” Your voice trailed off. You hardly recognized it in it’s softness. Perhaps he was right, but you had obligations to too many people. You couldn’t leave, you wouldn’t let yourself. The palpitations in your heart pounded against your veins. You knew you wouldn’t change your mind.

“Why not?” Madara reached for you again, but you pivoted from him, lost expression on your troubled face. If he tried to stop you, you might change your mind.

“I can’t. I have a duty to the village,” you said with more force. You looked up at him, defeated but sure. “This is what I have to do.” Madara didn’t fight you. His expression firmed and his hands clenched at his sides. He looked to the side, deep breath flooding his lungs which released in a huff. Perhaps he was at a loss as well.

“Is it because of him?” he asked.

“I have a commitment to my husband and a duty to him. I also have a duty to myself and what’s right. And what’s right is staying here. I just wish it was the right thing for you too.”

You looked into his dark eyes and found that you couldn’t read him. Although, you didn’t know many times where you could. He reached up, softly readjusting your hair. Madara lingered, gaze dancing from your eyes to somewhere around your forehead as if trying to commit your face to memory. He tucked a few pieces of hair behind your ear.

“Alright,” he said.

He retreated into the forest and you let him.

Thank you to all who liked, reblogged, followed and otherwise supported. Your support means so much and is greatly appreciated.