#primal became a zealot

[lord-squiggletits]

In the last salty asks post I unintentionally went on a tangent in the notes about how JRO wrote religious characters which is like actually something I want to bring up on its own so like

Is it just me or does JRO have some real misses when it comes to writing religious characters? Not like every religious character is badly written or evil, but like... several of the ones that are fall into really bad or unflattering/shallow stereotypes? It's hard to put my finger exactly on why I feel that way bc he does write some actually good religious characters (aka Cyclonus).

For example, characters like the Functionist Council and Star Saber are fine to me because I'm like. Well Functionism being religious in origin makes sense, it's an interesting interplay of how religion influences the state/how the state leverages religion to bend the populace to its own whims. Religious bad guys =/= all religious people bad. Star Saber is just some random zealot that wasn't meant to be that deep at all, and eh the Inquisition-type religious zealot can be cool even if it's just the vibes of it.

But then there's stuff like... Tyrest being a normal, rational, not particularly religious guy until he gets shot with a bullet that gives him brain damage, causing him to start ranting about Cyberutopia and thinking God is personally talking to him in his brain...? Like, idk, was it really the best idea for an antagonist to go "he is evil because he got brain damaged against his will w/o even knowing what really happened to him and also because he's brain damaged he's now literally delusional and became a religious (and genocidal) maniac." It comes off as really bad taste/not thinking the implications through as far as how it reflects on religious people (bc the whole "religious people are literally delusional and stupid to think that their gods could possibly exist" thing is tired and offensive). Not to mention kind of ableist w/ the whole "oh he became evil bc he got shot in the brain and now there's literally something wrong with his mind."

(Doesn't help that the MTMTE logbooks revealed that the original idea for Tyrest was to have his killswitch be about trying to identify and execute all of the criminals/"guilty people" on Cybertron, basically an extension of his role as Chief Justice which makes so much more sense and is way more interesting and compelling???? Certainly better than (gets brain damaged) "Ah I'm now going to genocide all cold constructs because God told me to")

And then Drift with spectralism which...which... basically the extent of that whole religion is the name of a single festival (the Lost Light festival the eponymous ship was named after), and some stuff about face/body paint and colors having spiritual symbolism, then the Guiding Hand/Primus stuff that's also shared with Primalism. But then you have Drift who's the main representative of this religion basically being written as a phony who doesn't even believe in the shit coming out of his mouth. Or if his beliefs are sincere, the way he acts is basically just "oooooh, I sense unclean vibes and read into the energy of the universe" which is played for laughs or mocked by the other characters most of the time. And Drift's character is written so inconsistently (and the general religious worldbuilding so one-dimensional) that it's hard to tell if Drift is supposed to be read as some kooky fake hippie type or if he's genuinely a representation of Spectralism in general. Like, idk, the best JRO could come up for for building a religion was "they wear certain colors and patterns on them and vaguely talk about sensing energy from the universe?" It literally feels like baby's first fictional religion or like, religion as understood by a non-religious/atheist person who sees religion as nothing more than an aesthetic or some quirky rituals.

I'm not saying the story had to be about religion or have religion be brought up in every conversation, it's just...... the way he wrote/did worldbuilding for it comes off as as very "non-religious person who doesn't have any particular understanding of religion/why people are religious tries to write what they think religion is about" and most of the time it's kinda cringe.

[nerath-mp]

Lore: Northern Human Spiritual History

Prophets: From Valis to Nera

After the northern Baelish humans broke free of dwarven assimilation efforts in a period of the latter's decline called the Kallis Uprising (or, by his human name Valis), the newly identified Valisians explored the concept of non-Moradin religions with a fervor that frightened many of their neighbours. It is from this period that the Valisian migration into the Liirean sea region emerged. They settled in the Koval islands and reunited with the southern Baelish in their search for Bael Turath and the great Eternal Empire.

This search for spiritual meaning made these humans quite susceptible to worshipping anything that could grant them clerical power - even by proxy. What resulted was a rush of celestial, fey, and infernal pact warlocks. These early Valisians were not as attuned to the Primal, and the spirits remembered the damage done either by the humans or by the gods punishing them. This turbulent time was known as the Thousand Kingdoms, or more theologically, the Ten Thousand Gods period.

More over, the monotheistic influence of the dwarves left many humans with a belief that one should dedicate themselves to a single deity, effectively stealing faith from the others and funnelling it entirely into a single being. This was despite many gods trying to undo this misunderstanding. And of course, this led to religious strife. It is said more humans died this era than in the Dawn War and the Revenge of the Giants (the Giantwar) combined - although this would likely be a gross exaggeration caused by the northern Valisian focusing more on their own continental region. Prominent in this time were cults to Asmodeus, Avandra, Torog, Tiamat, Kala/Nergal (as this period overlays the fall of these two gods), the Raven Queen, a variety of dragons, archfey of all courts, and genie nobles. In general, those gods whose domains espoused either an organized, militant concept, or who filled a particular survival need, were among the most successful.

The Pact of Nera

In the founding of the Nerathi Empire, the Asmodeus-serving prophet Nera saw that for any group's territory to remain stable, the conflict between the zealots of all these cults would need to be pacified in some way.  It was his warlord-king's (and Asmodeus' as well) that the would-be empire crush and impose the supremacy of the Basalt Throne of Baator and the usurper god, the true patron of humanity. Nera, however, realized that this would just lead to more of the same. The true key was to find a way to get the spirits, demons, godlings and other idols of veneration to agree to stop encouraging strife. And so, Nera proposed the principle of Many-to-One-to-Many.

This concept would mean a deliberate obfuscation of the individual beings as far as the humans were concerned. This would remove the sectarian cause for strife, but in turn the leaders of this non-denominational religion would ensure that all those beings who participated would receive their proper due.

The gods, despite being vain and proud, realized the conflict would only grow and the risk of some entity arising from to endanger all the gods - like a primordial or a demon lord. And so most put aside their egos and agreed. Now the lesser beings were a bit harder to convince. A few dragons were placated by the fact that their "tithe" could come in forms other than simple prayer and that a civilization without war could focus on amassing the sort of treasures that many dragons preferred. The gods were adamant that Nera not leave the pact open to just anyone - notably, they forbade any participation by any fiend of any sort - demon or infernal. Nera then renounced his vows to Asmodeus and undertook the tests of the pantheon.

With each test completed, another joined the growing 'church' of Nerath. And given the power of the church, it became one and the same as the imperial bureaucracy, and the growth of the empire - by diplomacy or conquest - grew this church. And with the loss of every servant, the enemies of the empire planned their revenge, another fiend would eventually lead its mortal slaves to unify. And after a millennia, this opposition had formed the Doom of Man horde, and smashed the empire to pieces.

What happened if you didn't join the church? Nera's Peace was enforced by a group of warrior-adepts known as the Templari. These heroes were often trained in how to deal with the fey, the undead, and spirits of all kinds, and in tricks to handle their spell-casting minions. Minor spirits and cults were sometimes just driven off, or destroyed. Relics and vessels for such would-be godlings would be collected into ancient vaults secreted away throughout the empire. In the Nentir Vale, the Abbey of Gardsmore was one such vault. Such vaults, replete with deadly traps, guards and wards, themselves become immensely lucrative dungeons to locate and plunder - or extract the most dangerous threats in order to relocate and contain them.

The church after the Empire's fall

When the holy city of Mauer fell, the central headquarters of the church was lost. The church was organized, by the necessity of the empire's size, to be able to operate in the fringes of the empire without support of the High Clergy. And their temporal role in education and local administration assisted in keeping the fragments of the empire from falling entirely into despair, at least until the horde of fiends broke apart in search of more victims and plunder.

In the absence of the central doctrines, some beings - especially those who had not been part of the pact - started openly seeking believers, finding success with those who were desperate for any sign of hope. The gods were, uncharacteristically, slow to proclaim themselves directly to the humans, fearing that the one who broke the pact would be punished by the Thrones. As a result, those in the old territories often turned to non-humans - halflings, eladrin and dragonborn, who carried the names of the Gods in their own beliefs. Many of these would in turn become priests of the Nerathi faith and assist in decoding the riddles and metaphors that the church used in its doctrine to anonymize the pantheon.

But the near-century after the fall of Nerath also saw the rise of a new faith, from the northern reaches of the old territories. This would be the cult of Erathis, who was Nera Peacemaker ascended, and who came to humanity's rescue when the last eladrin princess of the summer court launched the genocidal War of Summer's Wrath.

In the next part of this lore drop - the new cult of Erathis, a return to polytheism among the Nerathi and the balance of faiths in the new alliance of Nerath's fragments.

[vaovalis]

One of the worst Autarchs I ever faced was Kartakus, High Priest of Mot. In my world, there was no way to know if Mot was everything that Kartakus and his soul-shriven zealots claimed, but now that I am here in this world and I am seeing the kinds of problems they’re having with just such an entity? Now that I am here and seeing what their ‘Banished Pantheon’ undead look like here as well?

It is little different.  The Zealots of Mot in my world were fleshreavers and scavengers of the worst order. They were regarded as kill-on-sight by everyone, even the servants of the other Autarchs.   There was no mystery to be had as for why.  The Zealots of Mot would torment, torture, sometimes devour but always absolutely defile anyone they got ahold of, all in the name of their mad god Mot. And when Kartakus learned of me after I and mine took out a number of his defacto contemporary Autarchs; when he learned that no matter how many times I fall that death cannot keep me? He became obsessed with me.  Obsessed with sacrificing me to his god Mot. None of the Autarchs were what I would call easy victories. None of their regimes were effortless to topple. Every domed city we took was costly and came at dire peril for many and dear prices for some. Kartakus was on a whole different level, both personally and in terms of the power wielded by his undead slaves.  Seeing what I see here on this Primal Earth regarding the damage their Mot has caused, I know in my soul that I have seen this, felt this, tasted this in the air before.   This Mot and the Mot of my world are the same. These are not even different facets of the same entity.  This god of the old world, of this ‘Banished Pantheon’, is the same as the nebulous horror that consumed Kartakus in the very ritual that had been meant for me when Kartakus failed to ensnare me in it. I never believed Mot was anything but Kartakus worshiping himself and his own awful powers before that day, but what I saw that day convinced me absolutely that whatever Mot was, it was otherworldly and fully capable of issuing a monstrous maw through a portal and eating people.  In that case, Kartakus was the one that got eaten. I learned to believe that day.  I wish I could unbelieve and unknown what I saw and what it amounted to, but I cannot. Kassie showed me a glimpse of the problems Vanguard attends to where the invaders from the sky are concerned.  The Rikti must have been a thing that happened in my world as well, as the word ‘Rikti’ persisted through the ages, and the Exalted often applied it as a grave insult to all wildlings.  When the Exalted said it, they were broadly rejecting the notion that we were also descendents of the Ancients. In one word, they claimed that legacy for themselves alone, and named we wildlings alien and monstrous.  Kassie showed me the section of Paragon City where this Rikti Mothership crashed.  She took me on what was clearly a routine mission just to show me what Vanguard does and what I could expect from that kind of organization. They face a threat from the sky, and as problematic as that seems, I cannot help but feel that the threat of that which devours from below is worse than any alien invaders have ever had the mental prowess to dream of being. There is a nightmare that lives in the cracks of the world, and it is hungrier than mortals were ever meant to imagine. I don’t think this is a problem I’m going to stay out of no matter what anyone else says. I don’t think I can afford to. If this Mot and the Mot of my world are the same Mot, as soon as its slaves learn of me, they’re going to be trying to feed me to their master.   I’m not going to let that happen here any more than I did back home.

[gronjon44]

You cannot convince me that the character development of the show was that good

[raelly-writing]

The Lord of Embers

Since I started in Limsa, the Ifrit questline is the first time Thancred and my WoL really interacts and work together, so I wanted to write something for that first impression sort of stuff.

---

The merciless midday sun bore down upon the land, and only a mild breeze stirred the dry air, barely managing to keep it from feeling too stifling.

For all his years in the region, Thancred felt grateful for the shade of the solitary tree that clung to the rocky slope. Leaning against its trunk, he kept one eye on the Amalj'aa encampment further up the ravine, while scanning the lands below, seeking for any solitary figures moving across the flat plane in his direction.

Hopefully the latest addition to their merry band wasn’t completely incapable of following the directions he’d left with the alderman.

Fishing out his water flask, Thancred took a small mouthful to wet his throat. Even for Thanalan, the heat was near unbearable. If he drew Viana’s ire for making her trekk out here for what was a task he could easily do himself, then so be it - he wanted to see for himself how capable this mercenary from Limsa was.

Not that he doubted Y’shtola’s estimation of her abilities - Hells, by his dear colleague’s strict standards, her praise had been positively glowing.

Still, while he’d had no cause for complaints for her conduct so far, his curiosity remained piqued. Even if Y’hstola hadn’t informed them that their new recruit was training with the marauders’ guild, it’d been plain to him from the moment she had stepped into the solar, just from the way she moved, that she didn’t carry that axe just for show.

Just then a dark shape moving amidst the low brush of the lands below caught his attention. Thancred straightened up a little, instantly on the alert. The figure was too small to be one of the beastmen, and there wasn’t much reason for anyone to be heading this way towards the Amalj’aa’s encampment. So, either it was Viana following his directions, or it was another spoken in league with the beastmen.

Fishing out his small spyglass from his bag, he focused onto the figure. Though the armoured figure stayed off the well-trodden path the Amalj’aa utilised, it was easy to pick out their dark red hair and the great axe on their back.

“Well, well, she did not get lost at least,” Thancred mused to himself as he folded up his spyglass. He should be easy enough to spot from her angle of approach, but if needed to, he’d leave the shade of the tree and meet her at lower ground.

But it soon enough became clear that she’d seen him, and Thancred leaned back against the tree once more to wait for her, his eyes locked on the Amalj’aa encampment and ears trained on the sounds of rocks sliding that slowly grew louder. Seven Hells, he didn’t envy her wearing that armour out in this heat. But she was quieter in her approach than he had expected.

Turning his head, Thancred offered her a welcoming smile when she crested the edge of the slope. “Ah, there you are, Viana,” he greeted her. “So good of you to come!”

Viana gave him a curt nod and joined him under the shade of the tree. Wisps of hair had escaped the bun she’d gathered it up in, but other than a mild flush to her cheeks she seemed fairly unbothered by the trek across the plains. “Apologies, didn’t mean to leave you waiting.”

“No harm done,” he replied with a shrug and held out his water flask to her but she shook her head and unhooked her own from her belt. Well, perhaps he should’ve expected a Highlander to know to be prepared for hot weather.

“Did you hear about Sister Ourcen before you left?” she asked before taking a sip from her flask.

Thancred kept his face neutral as he replied, despite the small pang of guilt. “Indeed, I’ve heard all about good Sister Ourcen. Isembard said her wounds were serious. It would seem my suspicions about the poor rose were misplaced.”

Not for the first time in the past few days, he was on the receiving end of a cool and an appraising look. But rather than saying anything, she merely gave him a silent nod and took another sip from her bottle.

Taking the measure of one's comrades was probably something of a useful skill in the mercenary field, but at the back of his mind Thancred had the distinct feeling that he came up short to whatever expectations she had of him. Oh well, he’d play the fool for a while longer still. “But, onto why I asked you to meet me out here,” he spoke casually. “False though they were, perhaps my suspicions were not entirely without merit. Whilst following Sister Ourcen near the Golden Bazaar, a band of Amalj’aa caught my eye.”

He gestured towards the encampment. “And I tracked them as far as here, but…” He slipped on a charming, apologetic smile as easily as one might put on a well-worn glove. “Well, let us just say that I would much prefer to keep my distance and remain here.” He watched her eyes narrow ever so slightly, clearly anticipating his next sentence. “This, of course, brings me to why I requested you, dear Viana. Would you be so kind as to take a look inside?”

There was a flash of something sharp in her expression, a subtle tightening of her brow and flexing of her jaw, before she exhaled in a slow and controlled manner, “As you wish.” It was the polite, well-practised tone of someone used to not making her annoyance with a request too obvious.

Disregarding the feeling that he was poking a bear with a stick, Thancred put his hand on his hip and tilted his head ever so slightly to the side. “Is aught amiss, my dear?”

While making her way past him towards the slope down into the ravine, Viana hooked her water flask back onto her belt, and loosened her axe from its holster on her back, taking the hefty weapon in one hand. “Nay,” she replied over her shoulder. “Merely trying to figure out if there’s more to you than just a pretty face and clever tongue.”

Thancred couldn’t help but chuckle. “Pretty am I?”

But she’d already begun to jump and slide her way down to the encampment below.

----

The distant sounds of soldiers groaning in pain bore down on Thancred’s shoulders as he made his way out of Camp Drybone’s inn and into the mercifully cooling evening air, with a tray of simple breads and pitcher of water in hand. He did not look forward to reporting to Raubahn how things had gone. Luckily, they had suffered minimal losses on their hasty rescue mission at the Amalj’aa’s inner sanctum.

But there were those who still drew breath who were all but walking dead.

Thancred grit his teeth, his eyes searching for the one person who had somehow escaped the primal’s influence. After a moment, he spotted Viana perched atop some crates in a solitary corner. There were a few bandages wrapped around her arms, but scrapes, singed hair and minor burns had thankfully been the worst of her injuries and from what he could see, they did not seem to hinder her much as she gave her weapon and armour a critical look-over.

“Ah, Viana, there you are!”

At the sound of his voice, she immediately looked up. Despite the attentive edge to her gaze - the look of someone expecting orders to move and continue onward, that rest could wait for later - he could tell that she was tired.

“Come now, at ease, you’ve more than earned a rest, I’d say.” He held up the pitcher and tray in his hands, a couple of simple clay mugs balanced amidst the bread rolls. “Some refreshments.”

Her body language relaxed a little, and she pushed together her gear before moving to the side, making space for him where she had been sitting.

Thancred set down the pitcher and tray by her side, before he with a long exhale sank down on the crate. It’d been a long day, both physically and emotionally.

“You alright?” Viana asked just loudly enough to be heard over the noise of the people milling about camp Drybone.

Thancred shot her an easy, disarming smile as he poured up some water. “Flattered as I am about your concern, there’s no need to fret, my dear,” he replied while offering her the mug. “Despite the rather diligent attempts of the Amalj’aa zealots, I’m quite unscathed.”

Viana sighed, the tilt of her head giving him the impression that she’d only just resisted the urge to roll her eyes. Instead, she gave him a weary, contemplating look as she accepted the mug from him. “Good to hear.”

“Well, my contributions to this mission have been sorely lacking,” he responded while helping himself to a piece of bread, “so it seemed the least I could do.” He felt the weight of her gaze on him, but before she had the chance to reply, he continued. “Speaking of, I do believe I was in the process of apologizing. I do hope you can forgive me.”

“For what? There’s nothing you did wrong.”

Thancred huffed out a laugh that sounded more tired than he would have liked. “That’s kind of you,” he replied, managing a casual, carefree tone, while he tore off a piece of bread. “But there’s no denying that I arrived too late to be of any use… to you or the abductees.” A heavy silence followed his words. Absently, he popped the chunk of bread into his mouth but barely registered the taste of it as he chewed slowly. The heaviness on his shoulders grew deeper. If only he’d been faster. Stronger. More alert.

It was never enough. He was never enough. And people always died because of it. The bread tasted ashen in his mouth as he slowly ate piece after piece.

“But you tried.”

To his surprise, the firm, guarded edge was gone from her voice.

When he looked at her, he expected it to just have been a momentary slip, but gone was the reserved professional facade. In its stead was perhaps not the relaxed demeanour he might have expected from a friend, but there was an earnest warmth to her gaze when she looked at him.

“Don’t get me wrong, it was a shite situation,” Viana continued with a brief, wry smile, “And it would’ve been the practical thing to just write us all off as an unfortunate loss and not risk any more lives.” She paused, briefly, and he caught the flicker of gratitude in her eyes. “But you mounted a rescue anyway.” She shrugged and looked back out over Camp Drybone. “If you hadn’t arrived when you did, I’d probably have survived Ifrit only to get skewered on some Amalj’aa’s spear while trying to get out of there.”

At the back of his mind, he noted how frankly she spoke of her own potential demise, with not a hint of mirth to soften her words. The reassuring words did nothing to soothe the choking sense of failure lingering in his chest. If he had been faster to mobilize a rescue force, he might have been able to reach them before they’d even been brought before Ifrit to start with. Despite his internal turmoil, Thancred mustered a disarming smile and winked at her, “Of course I did, I’d hardly leave a fair lady as yourself to her demise!”

This time, Viana did roll her eyes and sigh, but there was the hint of a smile on her lips. “Suppose I should thank you for risking a scratch to mar that face of yours,” she drawled, then gave him a side look. “Thank you, Thancred.”

The earnest, somber tone made his chest feel tight. Thancred swallowed and was a little grateful that a sudden commotion between a couple of residents of Drybone gave him an excuse to look away from her. He watched as the two men were quickly shushed and led away by a guard, before things escalated. Try as he might, his smart replies didn’t come as easily to his far too dry tongue. “Well, at any rate, I should have accompanied you to the ambush site,” he murmured.

“For what? It was a simple mission, you had your own tasks to see to and couldn’t have known there was a mole amongst the Flames.” He opened his mouth to object, but she cut him off, her voice growing rough with poorly contained bitterness that echoed what he himself felt about the situation. “And if you had been present, you would have risked ending up tempered as well and about to be mercy-killed with the rest of the soldiers.”

His stomach clenched uncomfortably at the thought all while his overactive mind was constructing a dozen what-if scenarios where he successfully turned the tide at the ambush, or slipped away unseen to swiftly return with reinforcements before the prisoners even set foot within the Amalj’aa’s stronghold.

A multitude of alternate realities where a score of good men and women were free to return home safely to their families tonight. But wish as he might, there was nothing to do but to face the harsh reality before him, once more.  “You know of the unavoidable fate of those put under a primal’s thrall then,” he remarked matter of factly.

Viana made a low noise of acknowledgment. “I’ve been around long enough to have heard the tales,” she replied grimly. “In Limsa, they often speak of the Company of Heroes’ victory against the Leviathan.” Out of the corner of his eye, he saw her cross her arms, and he could all but picture the mournful frown on her face when she continued, “I wish I could have somehow saved the others, maybe lent them whatever power it is that kept me from falling under Ifrit’s control.”

With a quiet hum of agreement, Thancred picked at the forgotten remains of the bread in his hand, feeling the slight brush of the crumbs that fell to the ground. “Well, loathe as I am to say it, there’s naught we can do for them now, but to give them a swift, merciful end,” he said. Taking a deep, fortifying breath he pushed away those dark, churning emotions into the deepest recesses of his mind. Surprising as it were, he’d rather not risk losing this sudden favourable improvement of his standing with her. Smiling, he met her gaze. “And I dare say there’s still some reasons to rejoice this day.”

Curiosity and confusion flickered across her features as she frowned at him.

Thancred made a gesture that was the faint echo of a bow as he inclined his head, bread still clutched in his hand. “Ifrit is slain, and by your hand no less. That, my dear, is the deed of no ordinary individual.” He leaned back with a satisfied look on his face, almost relieved to slip back into the theatrics of this well-worn cover persona of his. “Not that I ever thought you were ordinary,” he finished with a dramatic wave of his hand, like he was presenting her some magnificent work of art, rather than waving about the sorry remains of a piece of bread.

Viana raised an eyebrow, the doubt clear in her eyes, and snorted. “You sound awfully sure of yourself.”

“What can I say? My fine eye for talent remains undimmed.”

“Mhm, and would that be why you didn’t just investigate that Amalj’aa encampment yourself?”

Inclining his head, he gave her the placating, pleading look of a man begging for forgiveness. “Why, I hardly had the pleasure of fighting at your side as lady Y’shtola did. You can’t fault me for wishing to see your prowess with his own two eyes, surely.”

She huffed out a short laugh. “Could have just asked me to slay a beast, rather than doing all the theatrics.”

“Ah, but where’s the fun in that, my dear?” he retorted. “Anyhow, on the topic of your splendid victory; I dare say Minfilia will be proud beyond all reckoning when she hears of your deeds.” With that, he rose up from the crate, letting the rest of the bread fall back onto the tray. He’d barely eaten a quarter of the already modest roll. “I trust you shan’t object to my bearing the tidings to her. That way I can claim to have contributed something to this mission,” he continued and dipped into an elegant bow, then busied himself with straightening his clothes. “You, meanwhile, have earned yourself a rest. Take some time to relax, and return to the Waking Sands when you are good and ready.” He glanced up at her and gave her a wink. “Just don’t take too long, will you? The realm’s problems won’t solve themselves.”

Viana was giving him a barely concealed look of exasperation, clearly waiting impatiently for him to finish talking. “Seven hells Thancred, sit down. You’ve barely eaten, nor drank anything.”

Thancred paused, a bit taken back by the firm tone of her voice that was a rather disconcerting reminder of Y’shtola when she got in a particularly stubborn mood. “As much as I would love to-” He interrupted himself when she tilted her head to the side and the crease between her brows deepened a fraction.

“Really, you’ll be of no use to Minfilia if you collapse on her doorstep due to dehydration.”

HIs posture tensed. He felt torn between the guilt that spurred him onwards and that well-honed, professional instinct to dig deeper for more information - the urge to seek out the next task and try to succeed there instead to make up for this failure fighting the curiosity that bid him to stay and see what else he could learn about her. Another, more logical side that he ignored far too often, saw the wisdom in her words. He was hungry and the back of his throat still felt dry with dust and ash. Thancred swallowed thickly, which did nothing to alleviate the sensation. A few minutes wouldn’t hurt, surely? Just long enough to fill his belly and quench his thirst. “Very well,” he finally relented with a charming smile. “It’d be rather ungentlemanly of me to leave a lady to dine on her own, after all.”

Viana huffed out that weary laugh once more, its dryness betrayed by the hint of amusement in her eyes and faint smile on her lips. “Aw Hells, maybe I made a mistake,” she drawled.

“Ah, how you wound me, my dear,” he replied as he settled back down onto the crate. “Many a fair maiden can vouch that I am a most entertaining dinner companion.”

“Oh, I don’t doubt that at all.”

[catpella]

Avatar

FFXIV write prompt: Avatar.

Valle and Ysayle discuss Shiva.

2022 words. Set during early Heavensward Road Trip. Early ship signs definitely visible.

From the first, Valle wondered what it was like to be Shiva.

The first time she watched Lady Iceheart transform, her heart nearly stopped in awe, so overcome by what she was watching that she had no ability to. She watched as the aetherical power of the gathered crystals was pulled into Iceheart's body, as large shards of ice wrapped themselves around her and encased her as she spoke, as the night sky rippled and auroras blossomed in the heavens as the world remade itself in that location, and as it transfigured and remade her. Ice swept the arena and turned a flesh-and-blood woman into what appeared to be ice-made-flesh, skin and hair varying shades of ice in hue.

The primal hovered before them, and the part of her mind that was still analytical noted the deep blue of the hands contrasting with the paler skin and how the hair narrowed into crown spikes of ice, and wondered if it was just coloration or texture as well. She radiated lethality and beauty in equal amounts, and for the first time, Valle understood why people would worship primals.

This being drew her in a way she had not been drawn to Leviathan, or Garuda, or any other primal she'd faced. She yearned to step closer, to be embraced by ice, to feel that aether stir around her.

Was this tempering?

It couldn't be. She had the Echo. She could not be tempered.

Could she be? The other primals she'd faced had been shaped by minds and hearts of the beast tribes, not by those of the main Spoken races, those who believed in the Twelve. And this being before them, clad in ice and full of righteous conviction, could well be a reflection of the Fury herself. Was that why she was swaying towards her, step by step, drawn in?

"Primal's active! Summon your carbuncle and fight," hissed a familiar voice from down and to her left. Broken from her trance, Valle startled, and switched to the fight, where the blizzard battered and beat her.

After the fight, when she laid in a camp with some fellow primal-slayers who worked for the Scions, her dreams were full of ice, and snow, of being battered by the primal that changed the ice into weapons to fling at her, and of course, of the woman who effortlessly controlled it all. When she woke, she sat near the fire with her journal, and wondered what kind of woman had the convictions and faith to use herself as a primal. To talk about her desire for resolving the war, that no sacrifice would be too great, to make of herself a sacrifice to the energies of a primal... What type of person was Iceheart? Valle yearned to understand the woman who could channel the power of primals, and didn't understand why her desire was so strong.

~*~

Months later, Lady Iceheart began to travel with the small group. She slowly ceased to be Iceheart and became Ysayle. Traveling with the woman whose powers had haunted her thoughts both sleeping and waking meant Valle's wondering about her had the chance to be answered, but she didn't want to come across like Alphinaud, incessantly asking questions about people's abilities with no regard for their feelings. So she watched Ysayle as they traveled, casting glances at her when she thought she wasn't looking, watching how she handled threats when they had to fight hostile wildlife, seeing how ice aether stirred around her.

"What does it feel like, to be Shiva?" was constantly on her mind, but she kept it from her lips, and instead engaged Ysayle in other types of conversation in the quiet nights of camping. Valle told stories of where she came from, of growing up on Vylbrand's shores and swimming like a fish. Then as they climbed into Dravania and further mountainsward, she told stories of what she remembered of living in Gyr Abania, contrasting the different mountainscapes. Talking about a lost homeland triggered Ysayle to discuss bits and pieces of her life before Ishgard and Coerthas fell to the snow with Valle.

"There's something else you want to talk about, isn't there?" Ysayle asked her one night, when the others had gone to bed and Valle was sitting the watch alone with only a carbuncle for company. "I see how you watch me."

Valle briefly considered a flirtatious joke. She _did_ find Ysayle, the woman, beautiful and compelling. Would have even if she didn't carry the Echo, Hydaelyn's blessing, and the power to become a primal but not one enthralled and subverted. But she suspected if she said, that she'd be in a different type of trouble with the lady. Asking about her abilities felt the safer option.

"I wonder about your magic," she said.

"About how I channel Shiva, without losing myself."

"Yes. How it is that you can pull the aether from the crystals into yourself, how you can manifest the Shiva ideal without losing your will, if it is the blessing we both bear that lets you do it without being subsumed... I've fought several primals that beast tribes summoned, creating them out of aether and them dissipating away. You're the first to enact one within yourself, and it just...fascinates me." She reached out and stroked her hand over the emerald carbuncle as she spoke, voice faltering as she worried she was being Alphinaud.

"So many questions," Ysayle said, pale eyes glinting a more greenish hue from the carbuncle's light. "I have no answers for you, for I don't think of it in such a _scientific_ way."

"You were taught to summon. I assumed it was at least somewhat scientific in the instructions. And I'm an arcanist, I can't quite help the scientific approach," she said a little ruefully.

"I was shown how to pull the aether into myself to empower the change," Ysayle corrected her. "Actually becoming Shiva... it's a matter of faith. I know of Saint Shiva. I believe in her. And then I become her, joining her will with mine."

"You see yourself as an avatar of her? Or as a vessel?" Valle asked.

"Do you see them differently?"

"Yes..." she said, then added, "a vessel is hollowed out and made into the puppet of another's will, an avatar takes that power and embodies it with control."

"What an interesting distinction. Empowered or powerless." Ysayle's voice was suddenly icy.

Valle stared at the Elezen woman who had gone suddenly cold, mentally imposing Shiva's countenance over her face, seeing the similarities and differences. "I apologize if I've insulted you."

"I know you're just trying to understand it. I just can't help you," Ysayle said. "I have faith in Shiva, and it carries me through. That's all I need."

"Faith..." Valle repeated under her breath.

"What do you believe in?" Ysayle asked, after the silence had lingered long enough that Valle assumed the conversation was over.

"You're not the first to ask me that. Gaius Baelsar asked if I believed in Eorzea, in the Twelve, if they were primals."

"And what did you say?"

"Nothing. There was a fight going on," she said dryly.

"And do you?"

"I don't believe they're primals." If she looked at it logically, maybe they could be, but - she'd been raised in her faith in Rhalgr and He was not a primal who took from the land and the people and gave nothing back, not like Ifrit.

"Do you think someone could be an avatar of them?"

"I never really thought about it," she admitted.

"If someone could be an avatar of Halone, why not an avatar of a Saint?"

Valle sucked air through her teeth, not expecting Ysayle to have turned the questioning around on her like this. "I'm not sure."

"Seems like you have some faith of your own, even if you're not clear on it. You know what I think? That you ask how I become Shiva not just because you want to understand it from a scientific reasoning, to break it down into your equations," she said with a nod at Valle's grimoire, "but because you want to know if it's from our blessing. You want to know if you could do it too."

Valle hadn't been thinking of that consciously. She wanted to understand primal summoning to stop it, like the Scions' mission was for. Knowing the difference between Shiva, and Ramuh, and Leviathan and Ifrit, would be able to tell them so much. Thinking about _her_ becoming a conduit for that aether and power hadn't been on the agenda.

And yet, if you understood how it was done, didn't it mean you could do it yourself? In times of need?

Ysayle leaned forward, more animated now. "What would you sacrifice yourself for? What cause do you believe in above all else?"

"The pursuit of knowledge. The preservation of the world. Peace between warring factions," she said, but her voice was weak and unconvinced, and they both heard it.

"Not strong enough to use the power. You have to _mean_ your cause with all your heart, to pursue it at all costs, to be willing to lay down anything for it," and now Ysayle had become Iceheart and her eyes shone a more unearthly silver as she spoke. "Until you know that, you understand nothing of becoming an avatar, even if you had it dissected into a hundred of your tidy equations."

"You're right," Valle said. She felt ashamed that her conviction was weak, embarrassed to be so thoroughly taken to task, and the desire to look away from the intense gaze of the fervent woman before her was strong.

But there was a compelling counter-desire to keep staring at her and drinking in the power that radiated from her, not the ice aether that lashed out when Ysayle was Iceheart was Shiva, but the intensity of belief that made her radiant like the moon, luminous and impossible to stare away from.

"I wish I was like you," she blurted.

The moment passed, the fervor fading and the zealot becoming just another woman looking up into the sky as she laced her fingers together and cracked her knuckles, the pop echoing loudly in the quiet night air.

"It's not easy," Ysayle warned her.

"Being Hydaelyn's chosen never is. She picked us both for a reason. At least you know what yours is," Valle said.

The Elezen reached out and brushed her fingers across the carbuncle sitting between them. Goosebumps raced up the Roegadyn's arms as though her skin was what had been touched, to Valle's great surprise, since there was no sensory feedback with her aetherical construct.

"There's a greatness in you, scholar. When you set your feet on the path you must walk and cannot be swayed from, you'll find it."

"I hope you're by my side, then. To show me what to do," Valle ventured.

Ysayle smiled down at the carbuncle as she splayed her fingers across its back. "If you believe in bringing a peaceful end to the war and not allowing the Ishgardians free reign to slaughter, then we walk the same path."

"Thank you for letting me ask questions."

"'Twas nothing. I'd rather answer you about the power than the young Sharlayan or the Azure Dragoon." Ysayle's lips quirked slightly.

"I'm glad I'm more pleasant than them," Valle said.

"You always will be. Now go to bed and end your watch. I'll take over," she said.

Valle meant to protest and stay up longer, but she yawned deeply. Offering a sheepish smile, she said, "Goodnight, Ysayle."

"Goodnight, Valle."

The Roegadyn desummoned her carbuncle and walked back to her sleeping bag, trying not to read over-much into how she had trembled at the sound of Ysayle's voice saying her name.

~*~

In her dreams that night, she stood again in the amphitheatre. The winter tempest raged, the snow pulled into a vortex by the warped currents of ice aether. But this time, rather than standing outside and being hurt by it, she was cradled by it, safe inside the eye as the blizzard lashed out at the foes.

[honey-makki]

Flame

Characters: Yaku Morisuke X GN!Reader

Summary: When forever ceases to be just a word.

Warnings: none

Genre: fluff

Word Count: 1.4k

A/N: this was inspired by @sugaanoya who wrote a love letter for Oikawa’s birthday. I’ve known since then I wanted to do the same thing for Yaku. I just really love him ok, writing his was a birthday present to myself

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

My sweet Yaku Morisuke,

Neither of us have ever been experts at placing our feelings into spoken words, always getting lost in a blush and becoming a stuttering mess as we catch the others eye. I guess I find it kind of endearing that even after all of these years together that our feelings are strong enough to make our heart skip a beat, butterflies in our stomach ever prevalent to the point of inhibiting our speech. I expected us to grow out of it, but the rush of excitement through my body, every inch of my skin burning under your loving gaze has been a consistent companion. Wildfire love becoming an almost tangible third figure in our relationship.

I guess that’s why I’m sitting at our kitchen table surrounded by balled up pieces of paper around me instead of cooking dinner. Writing out how I feel isn’t much easier but for a different reason. I’ve grown accustomed to the tinge of warmth on my face when attempting to declare my love. Without you here, without it here, something feels like it’s missing.

I put on that playlist you made for our one month anniversary, trying to fill the empty space surrounding me with the thrum of your favorite songs. Your love confessed in every beat, every rest, the swell and crescendo of the music becomes almost tangible. I don’t know if I ever told you, but this playlist never fails to put a smile on my face, even on my worst days, days you have away games and long practices. 

Enough about me, I’m here to tell you how I feel about you. I’m sure you know from our lingering touches goodbye, the warm smiles being the first thing we see in the morning and last as we sleep. But, I wanted to tell you at least once, even if it's written out, how much I truly adore you. 

It’s crazy to think that when I was younger I didn’t really believe in soulmates or place a lot of value in love, rather focusing on school and fostering deep friendships. People talking about “the one” sounded delusional, stealing a hallowed literary trope and trying to apply it to our degenerate mortal lives. Then, you caught my eye and when you mirrored my body language, looking just as nervous as I felt, everything changed, the cynic has become the converted, the skeptic, an ardent zealot. 

The whole world vanished when you walked towards me the first time. No sounds were able to permeate the moment, the rhythmic thud of your steps and our breathing, no, our heartbeats being the soundtrack to the beginning of our life. I don’t know if I fell in love with you then or if it was the second or third time I saw you, but I did know in that moment that you were important to my story and I needed to do anything to keep you in my life. By my side waiting for the instant that your role would be unveiled, manifested into some action or lesson.

I spent every moment I could with you, tutoring you for exams, walking to school, watching your practices. We became intimately acquainted with nothing more than the passage of time and a few “accidental” brushes against each other's hands. Neither of us had the courage or ability to quantify what we wanted into words. 

How could I explain the joy I felt after reading the accomplishment in your chestnut eyes when you completed a difficult receive? The tensed shoulder muscles, veins popping down your arms trying to quell feelings of helplessness when you lose a set. How do I assure you that the weight of each point doesn’t weigh solely on your shoulders?  I had no right to want to rush up there, wiping tears of inferiority away from your cheeks, whispering words of praise into your neck, but I did. It took every muscle in my body to stop myself. 

When you found me in the stands, your number painted on my cheek, your sobs came out harder, followed by you mouthing to meet you outside the gym. I still don’t think I’ve ever run as fast as I did at that moment. It's a miracle I didn’t trip over anyone on the way there. Seeing you stopped me dead in my tracks. Even now I wonder what was going through your mind at that moment. I didn’t know how you were feeling but I did know that I wanted to help. Every fiber of my being wanted to comfort you, to stop the tears flowing down your cheeks, to quiet the choked sobs coming out of your chest.

I thought about us getting together a lot before that moment and I don’t think a single one of my dream scenarios involved you crying into my shoulder, but I wouldn’t trade it for anything else. That moment set the basis of true and honest love for this relationship we have now. It wasn’t saccharine words or material objects winning us over, it was the primal drive to protect and be protected by each other. 

It was in that gym hallway holding you covered in both sweat and tears that I knew why you were in my life. You were teaching me what forever meant. It’s not a measure of time, no. It’s a place, its a person. It’s a safe haven from the surrounding world. It’s a place we can steal away to whenever we want, as long as we have each other, it’ll feel like we have forever.

I never doubted your love for me, you showed it in every way you knew how. Small thoughtful gifts when you return from trips, always either my favorite scents or color knowing that I favored those specific ones despite me never mentioning it. You must have picked up my preferences over the years spent together. That in itself was another act of love, paying close enough to me to figure out all my little tendencies. 

Placing sweet kisses on my temples when I have a migraine after bringing me medicine and an ice pack. You know that the knowledge of you being with me is reassuring but I can’t handle your smoldering body heat during a spell, you settle for having a hand placed on my shoulder or your leg touching mine. I don’t think that I’ve ever thanked you for how considerate you are in those vulnerable moments. I guess I never knew how to find the words, not wanting to admit how weak I was and not make you nervous about doing it in the future. 

I cherish every single interaction we have. Even the fights, when our loving flame explodes into a wildfire. Yeah, we’ve both said things that we regret, deep digs intentionally trying to rile the other up but we never went to bed without some sort of apology or starting to talk things out. We always slept in the same room, routine not singed by the arguments, knowing that we might be upset right now but that isn’t going to trump all the time we’ve spent together. Even when you’re away, you always facetime me before I go to bed if I’m angry, knowing that it's the best you can do to keep normalcy alive despite current conditions.

We’ve grown from those fights, a deeper understanding of each other and the intricacies of our love. I’ve learned that leaving the house without giving you a kiss goodbye puts a dour on your mood and amplifies any other problem. You are accustomed to always having some form of skinship, knowing that it grounds me and pulls me out of any bad thoughts. 

I guess I’m writing this today, because you are going to change in the next few weeks. The Olympic games start soon and everything you’ve worked for is coming to fruition. I’ve been with you through so many stages of evolution. I can’t wait to see you after this one. I hope you win, but honestly it doesn't matter to me. No matter what, I’m gonna be waiting there when you get off the court. Ready to blaze through the next phase of this adventure we’ve created together. 

Nice to meet you, future Morisuke. You’ll still be my forever.

With every word soaked in my eternal love,

Your firestorm.

Tags @lydzisanerd @roandtheroses @sugawara-sweetheart

[myfavoritepotatochips]

First Steps on an Unknown Planet

Elena looks around. It’s dark and the sky has a black color without any stars. She thinks about his boyfriend. “There is no chance that he died! I know him for twelve years and he is strong enough. I will see him again. I’m sure about that. She hears nothing but the silence. Never before has she heard absolutely nothing. And suddenly she realizes that she is alone. There are no creatures on this planet. Everything is destroyed. A teardrop rolls over her pale face. And she takes the first step on this unknown planet. As She explores more of the unknown planet, She saw a lot of broken structures and most of it are disintegrating into dust, and She saw a mysterious creature with a powers and overwhelming strength which it opens a dimension and the dimension pulls all the broken structures which makes her froze to death because She was thinking about her plan. Her plan was to find a hope at least to keep observing, keep exploring the unknown planet but as She was thinking a plan the mysterious creature saw her and the mysterious creature uses a gravitational pull to catch her and then the creature talked “You mortal! , Why did you come to my planet known as PLANET OF GLOOM! this is the end of your fate!” And Elena slowly loosing her mind because the Mysterious creature is taking her energy and soul and She passed out and She woke up and She was in the Spaceship and what she saw was a humanoid Lizard and the humanoid Lizards ask “are you alright?” As Elena says “Who are you!!? And where am I!!?? and the humanoid introduce himself and says “I am Zeratul from the race of protos and this is my Spaceship known as Carrier” And Elena saw that the Spaceship is futuristic with advanced technologies. Zeratul says “Don’t be Afraid I saved you from Planet of Gloom, Known as the Heart of the Swarm, you are not safe from that planet”

And Elena asks “Where are you taking me?” and while Zeratul focusses on driving the spaceship, Zeratul saw a big Creature like that is one hundred time larger than Earth known as the Leviathan and Zeratul call for an Allies.

Zeratuls called their fellow Hero Alarak and his brother Artanis. And they both teleported to Zeratul with Millions of army of Zealots, Dragoons,Carrier and they are trying to protect Zeratul and Elena saw it and asks “What the heck is that thing it’s massive!” and Zeratul says “That is the Leviathan from Zerg, the zerg has the queen known as Kerrigan She is known the Queen of Swarm and this is a war between Races and they are the primal protos and we are the Advanced protos for now we are retreating.” Elena ask “Where are we going?” as She prepares and put her belt on and brace for Impact She saw another spaceship and It looks like Human made Elena ask to Zeratul “Those are our Allies known as Terran we are giving you to the Terrans that’s why we blinked here” so Zeratul teleported to the Terran Spaceship known as Battle Cruiser, Zeratul asks for the Known leader of the Terran known as Skutov, Zeratul says to Skutov “Skutov I had found one of your races in the Planet of Doom by Observing the Zergs Luckily I had few Zealots In my ship to help me fight the Ultralisk” Skutov saids “It’s a honor to give you to save one of our kinds so this will bond up our team to beat the Ruthless Zergs”

As they Observe they saw another Leviathan attacking them with no Mercy so they Teleported to another planet and they landed on the planet very safe as they landed on that planet what they did not realized was there was a lot of Zerglings and Zerg creature on that planet which make them stranded and so the Allies teleported to that planet and they started the war between Terran-Protos vs Zerg as the fight goes on Elena was took by the Queen of swarm and the Terran-Protos Loose it’s units and failed to escape and looses it’s great Heroes and Zerg has the Victory while Elena became the princess of Swarm.

[whatscallion]

//- A Medieval AU with the help of @cptsteven who always encourages my muse to no end. 

Prologue Word Count: 1,245

Tagging: @cptsteven @blackberrywidow ( message / ask to get tagged! )

Simple in its name, but complexity resonated within the halls and formalities of The Order. Through generations and specific bloodlines, the ideals and practices held firm through belief and faith, but above all, a sense of duty. Their collective reached far and wide, veins of malice creating an intricate network centuries in the making. An infrastructure of emboldened filigree, the spiderweb was quick to create itself in lands old and new, establishing whispered intimidation and slighted glances. Those of The Order were steeped in Old World musings, guided through a lone interpretation of text meant only for that. It was not meant to give direction or burden upon followers it needn’t have. Such sacred text was long ago muddled in the extremes of man’s hunger for power and control, that initial standard wrought with strife in days of present.

There had been a time in carved in stone, the text of old gave way to prosperity through a firm hand of rule. Through the shadows of night, oppression would be met with resistance and virtue would take its place. Through generations of subtle zealots and insatiable appetites, bloodlust was born from a lack of perfection in the fundamentally imperfect human nature. Opportunities squandered and that dream The Order once upheld was distorted in the eyes of greed. To further uphold twisted fates, followers were no longer pure in their faith, no longer humble servants of the greater good set by the fathers of their grandfathers and so on. Elders who had known the the meticulous nature derived from weathered parchment were put to rest in the generations before, leaving little in the way of guidance.

Where nature leaves a vacuum, something will surely fill it. Through the seizing of power, Archbishop Johann saw it fit to take control through subtle movements through his already impressive gallery of allies. The opportunity was foreseen as golden - a way to create something to better suit the present while disregarding unsavory stipulations of the past. In an essence, the Archbishop worked with dagger in hand to create a lethal army in the name of the Lord they were so quick to worship. It was manipulation through the innocence of faith, and the elders frowned from their perches in the heavens.

Fire struck the cathedral in which such sacred parchments were held, the printed silk and inked papyrus burning as stained glass warped and cracked against the heat. It was seen as an act of God, wrathful that followers were not heeding the Archbishop’s stern ways. There had been resistance as change crept like in like the fog through abbeys, beliefs and standards clashing with what was to be new and reformed ways. Those who conspired against the Archbishop and his following Cardinals were quieted in brutal ways after voicing the true proprietor of the flame. The reformation of The Order was beginning, brewing beneath the godly veneer upheld by every cathedral constructed. The Order was renewed, redefined and remade to resemble the demons within each circle of Hell. Through this intimidation, power gravitated forth as families offered everything they could to obtain protection, wealth, food - some wishes more necessary than most. But everything came with a price, and these demons were used to force those debts be repaid.

It had been a small venture at first, but by His hand, Johann saw through the divinity of his actions, spouting as if he were God himself that this righteous path he took would allow others to follow. The few who believed otherwise were wise to keep their mouths shut, biding their time until the cloaked regime imploded in on itself. The trials of time and God’s ever watchful presence would ensure the downfall. It was what their faith would have them believe.

Cardinals would convene upon the emergence of the crescent moon, the sliver of light given by the lunar body providing enough ambiguity for their actions to flourish. Clandestine were their ways, targeting bloodlines to offer the most prized treasure a family could have: their sons. From one to the next, children were plucked from the sanctities of their homes willingly, their parents offering little resistance.

It was the way of God, they were told. It is what has been foretold through eons. Do not deny your son’s birthright to become something far grander than a mere follower. Your son will become an Instrument of God. He will uphold His will and His law. It is fate. It is destiny. Allow His Holiness to smile down upon your son as he walks the path few will take. Few will survive.

There is no mention of the baptisms in slanderous blood, born anew as a warrior for the church. A soldier for the Archbishop. Faith had been disregarded as power became the new backbone of society. Rigors of faith were no longer self-inflicted lashings, punishing oneself for sins unbeknownst even to Him. Rigors were now fighting man, primal instincts of violence fine tuned to work as precision in the shadows soon to envelope the world.

Kneel not for His Holiness above, but for the embodiment cloaked in white. Serve not the Ever Present God, but the man he spoke freely through. A mortal Metatron whose eyes were veiled in hunger for what was held just out of reach.

And like my father’s father, and mine own, I kneel a lowly servant of God, and rise as his own wrathful agent, armed with instruments of his making.

Show me where to journey, Father. Show me who I must strike down to remain within your love and care.

My humble child, you are but a servant tasked with a necessary evil, one only utilized when Wrath has forsaken those who deserve not.

Generations honed the craft of violence to an innovative edge, balanced carefully between righteous justification and mankind’s natural vehemence. The facade of sanctity, played upon the inane human ability to give faith almost blindly, was the necessary smoke in which to shroud the work of the Devil and his minion demons. To justify the sins was to contradict the charred texts long forgotten and uphold the Archbishop’s New Testament. The praise was grandeur, though humility was a believed farce, known only to those Cardinals beneath, masked in their Crimson attire.

Perfection demanded through human imperfection created frustration and malice, tempting to chip away at the wholesome qualities still upheld by The Order. Or so it seemed. Venom and toxin leeched from the Archbishop and down into his disciples, their own teachings growing cruel and hardened. Fewer survived these trials still, forced to turn on one another in show of dominance and superiority. The Three Bloodlines were introduced over the rotting corpses of those deemed inferior.

The Romanova Bloodline, from the Cold Eastern Lands The Belova Bloodline, from the Frigid North Lands The Murdoch Bloodline, from the Warm South Lands

Though other bloodlines appeared among the ranks, the Trinity had serve since The Order’s conception generations ago, producing legendary Hands of God who's efforts and work were enshrined in the walls of every Cathedral built upon the spoiled blood of those daring to defy The Order. Houses of worship became houses of archaic ritual steeped in efficient violence.

No one spoke of it for fear of a visitor in the night, but the belief remained the same:

To cross The Order was to invite their demons in the night, branding you a sinner before forcing your departure from His earthly world.

[randyastle]

Historical reading list

Hello, world. A while ago I made a list of history books to read that would take me chronologically from the Big Bang up to the present. I did it on a Word document and haven’t had time to compile the list on Goodreads, but I wanted to post it here as a stopgap for anyone interested. There’s a penchant towards my own heritage, which comes through the United States and Mormonism, with, for instance, at least one biography on every American President (through Obama). But I tried to be broad because as I read these I want to gain a broad understanding not just of history but of different global cultures today; hence so many titles dealing with religion or mythology in general. There’s a smattering of fiction thrown in there where it fits historically, like The Iliad, Divine Comedy, or Uncle Tom’s Cabin, and I have other reading lists dealing with topics like art, music, religion (outside of history, like books about Buddhism or Joseph Campbell essays), and contemporary work in natural sciences/conservation/mass extinction, so by and large books relating to those things don’t appear here, but I still hope it’s useful. 1.     A Brief History of Time, Stephen Hawking 

2.     The First Three Minutes, Steven Weinberg

3.     Lives of the Planets: A Natural History of the Solar System, Richard Corfield

4.     From Dust to Life: The Origin and Evolution of Our Solar System, John Chambers & Jacqueline Mitton 

5.     Plate Tectonics, Stephen M. Tomecek

6.     On the Origin of Species, Charles Darwin (1859)

7.     The Selfish Gene, Richard Dawkins

8.     Prehistoric Life: The Definitive Visual History of Life on Earth, Dorling-Kindersley

9.     Prehistoric Life: Evolution and the Fossil Record, Lieberman and Kaesler

10.  Life: An Unauthorized Biography (newest edition), Richard Fortey

11.  The Ends of the World: Volcanic Apocalypses, Lethal Oceans, and our Quest to Understand Earth’s Past Mass Extinctions, Peter Brannen

12.  When Life Nearly Died: The Greatest Mass Extinction of All Time, Michael Benton

13.  Trilobite!, Richard Fortey

14.  Squid Empire: The Rise and Fall of the Cephalopods, Danna Staaf

15.  Pterosaurs: Natural History, Evolution, Anatomy, Mark Witton

16.  Dinosaurs: A Concise Natural History, David E. Fastovsky & David B. Weishampel

17.  The Complete Dinosaur (second edition), M.K. Brett-Surman

18.  Tyrannosaurus Rex: The Tyrant King, ed. Peter Larson and Kenneth Carpenter 

19.  Oceans of Kansas: A Natural History of the Western Interior Sea, Michael J. Everhart

20.  The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs, Steve Brusatte

21.  All Yesterdays: Unique and Speculative Views of Dinosaurs and Other Prehistoric Animals, John Conway 

22.  Flying Dinosaurs: How Fearsome Reptiles Became Birds, John Pickrell 

23.  Feathered Dinosaurs: The Origin of Birds, John Long and Peter Schouten

24.  The Origin and Evolution of Mammals, T.S. Kemp

25.  Beasts of Eden: Walking Whales, Dawn Horses, and Other Enigmas of Mammal Evolution, David Rains Wallace 

26.  After the Dinosaurs: The Age of Mammals, Donald R. Prothero

27.  Walking with Beasts: A Prehistoric Safari, Tim Haines 

28.  Cenozoic Mammals of Africa, Lars Werdelin and William Joseph Sanders 

29.  The Ice Age: A Very Short Introduction, Jamie Woodward

30.  Prehistoric America: A Journey through the Ice Age and Beyond, Miles Barton

31.  Twilight of the Mammoths: Ice Age Extinctions and the Rewilding of America, Paul S. Martin and Harry W. Greene 

32.  The Descent of Man, Charles Darwin (1871)

33.  Masters of the Planet: The Search for Our Human Origins, Ian Tattersall 

34.  Lone Survivors: How We Came to Be the Only Humans on Earth, Chris Stringer

35.  How to Think Like a Neanderthal, Thomas Wynn & Frederick Coolidge 

36.  The Symbolic Species: The Co-evolution of Language and the Brain, Terrence W. Deacon

37.  The Lost Civilizations of the Stone Age, Richard Rudgley

38.  Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, Yuval Noah Harari

39.  The Dancing Universe: From Creation Myths to the Big Bang, Marcelo Gleiser

40.  Primal Myths: Creation Myths Around the World, Barbara Sproul

41.  A History of World Agriculture: From the Neolithic Age to the Current Crisis, Marcel Mazoyer

42.  Across Atlantic Ice: The Origin of America’s Clovis Culture, Dennis Stanford & Bruce Bradley

43.  Ancient Near East: A Very Short Introduction, Amanda H. Podany

44.  The Epic of Gilgamesh (2100 BC)

45.  Abraham: The First Historical Biography, David Rosenberg

46.  A History of Ancient Egypt, Marc Van De Mieroop

47.  Conceptions of God in Ancient Egypt: The One and the Many, Erik Hornung

48.  The Search for God in Ancient Egypt, Jan Assmann

49.  The Egyptian Book of the Dead: The Book of Going Forth by Day, tr. Raymond Faulkner

50.  The Mind of Egypt: History and Meaning in the Time of the Pharaohs, Jan Assmann

51.  The Family Haggadah 

52.  The Iliad, Homer (ca. 1180 BC)

53.  The Odyssey, Homer (Fagle translation)

54.  1177 BC: The Year Civilization Collapsed, Eric Cline

55.  Transformations of Myth through Time, Joseph Campbell

56.  The Spirit of Zoroastrianism, Prods Oktor Skjaervo

57.  In Search of Zarathustra: Across Iran and Central Asia to Find the World’s First Prophet, Paul Kriwaczek

58.  Isaiah: Prophet, Seer, and Poet, Victor Ludlow (700 BC) 

59.  Rereading Job, Michael Austin (600 BC)

60.  How to Read the Bible: A Guide to Scripture, Then and Now, James L. Kugel

61.  The Cambridge Companion to the Bible

62.  Illuminating Humor of the Bible, Steve Walker

63.  The Mother of the Lord, vol. 1: The Lady in the Temple, Margaret Barker

64.  The Holy Bible, New International Version

65.  The Art of War, Sun Tzu (500 BC)

66.  The History of the Ancient World: From the Earliest Accounts to the Fall of Rome, Susan Wise Bauer

67.  The Maya, Michael Coe & Stephen Houston (newest edition)

68.  Blood and Mistletoe: The History of the Druids in Britain, Ronald Hutton

69.  Celtic Myths and Legends, Peter Berresford Ellis

70.  Celtic Gods and Heroes, Marie-Louise Sjoestedt

71.  Did God Have a Wife?: Archaeology and Folk Religion in Ancient Israel, William Dever 

72.  The Oxford History of Greece and the Hellenistic World, John Boardman

73.  D’Aulaires’ Book of Greek Myths

74.  Mythology, Edith Hamilton 

75.  Bulfinch’s Mythology 

76.  The Marriage of Cadmus and Harmony, Roberto Calasso

77.  Myths and Symbols in Pagan Europe: Early Scandinavian and Celtic Religions, H.R. Ellis Davidson

78.  Early Irish Myths and Sagas, Jeffrey Gantz

79.  From Sphinx to Christ: An Occult History, Edouard Schure

80.  Buddha (Penguin Lives Biographies), Karen Armstrong

81.  Buddhacarita, Asvaghosa (ca. 500 BC)

82.  Buddhist Scriptures (ca. 500 BC) 

83.  Ramayana (ca. 500 BC) 

84.  Mahabharata (ca 400 BC)

85.  Ka: Stories of the Mind and Gods of India, Roberto Calasso

86.  Tao Te Ching (ca 400 BC) 

87.  The Zhuangzi (446-221 BC)

88.  Old Myths and New Approaches: Interpreting Ancient Religious Sites in Southeast Asia, Alexandra Haendel

89.  The Rise of Athens: The Story of the World’s Greatest Civilization, Anthony Everitt

90.  Democracy: A Life, Paul Cartledge (ca. 450 BC)

91.  Histories, Herodotus (440 BC)

92.  History of the Peloponnesian War, Thucydides (410 BC)

93.  Meno, Plato (380 BC)94.  The Republic, Plato (380 BC)

95.  The Symposium, Plato (370 BC)

96.  The Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle (350 BC)

97.  On the Soul (De Anima), Aristotle (350 BC)

98.  Poetics, Aristotle (335 BC)

99.  Alexander the Great, Philip Freeman (ca 330 BC)

100. Letters (to Herodotus, Pythocles, & Menoeceus), Epicurus (ca. 200 BC)

101. Analects of Confucius (ca 200 BC) 

102. Dhammapada (a Buddhist text) (200 BC)

103. The Lotus Sutra (ca 100 BC) 

104. Why Buddhism is True, Robert Wright

105. Cicero: Selected Works (Penguin Classics), Marcus Tullius Cicero (ca 63 BC)

106. Caesar: Life of a Colossus, Adrian Goldsworthy

107. The Conquest of Gaul, Julius Caesar (ca 50 BC)

108. The Aeneid, Virgil (19 BC)

109. Search, Ponder, and Pray: A Guide to the Gospels, Julie M. Smith

110. Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth, Reza Aslan

111. How Jesus Became God, Bart Ehrman

112. A History of the Devil, Gerald Messadie

113. Metamorphoses, Ovid (8 AD)

114. The New Complete Works of Josephus, Josephus 

115. A New History of Early Christianity, Charles Freeman

116. The Gnostic Gospels, Elaine Pagels

117. The Nag Hammadi Scriptures: The Revised and Updated Translation of Sacred Gnostic Texts Complete in One Volume, ed. Marvin Meyer

118. A History of God: The 4,000-Year Quest of Judaism, Christianity and Islam, Karen Armstrong 

119. Money Changes Everything: How Finance Made Civilization Possible, William Goetzmann

120. The Twelve Caesars, Suetonius (Penguin Classics tr. James Rives) (ca 140 AD)

121. Meditations, Marcus Aurelius (180 AD)

122. The Fall of the Roman Empire: A New History of Rome and the Barbarians, Peter Heather

123. Through the Eye of a Needle: Wealth, the Fall of Rome, and the Making of Christianity in the West, Peter Brown

124. The Triumph of Christianity: How a Forbidden Religion Swept the World, Bart Ehrman 

125. The Darkening Age: The Christian Destruction of the Classical World, Catherine Nixey 

126. A History of Christianity, Diarmaid MacCulloch

127. Everyman’s Talmud (ca. 200) 

128. Confessions, St. Augustine (397)

129. The Illustrated World Encyclopedia of Saints

130. The Silk Road in World History, Xinru Liu

131. Attila: The Barbarian King Who Challenged Rome, John Man (400s)

132. The Consolation of Philosophy, Ancius Boethius (524)

133. One Thousand and One Nights (ca 600)

134. The Civilization of the Middle Ages: A Completely Revised and Expanded Edition of Medieval History, Norman F. Cantor

135. Romance of the Grail: The Magic and Mystery of Arthurian Myth, Joseph Campbell ed. Evans Lansing Smith

136. Le Morte d’Arthur, Thomas Malory (1485)

137. The Making of the Middle Ages, R.W. Southern

138. Medieval Bodies: Life, Death and Art in the Middle Ages, Jack Hartnell

139. The Age of the Vikings, Anders Winroth

140. The Sea Wolves: A History of the Vikings, Lars Brownworth

141. The Viking Spirit: An Introduction to Norse Mythology and Religion, Daniel McCoy

142. Gods and Myths of Northern Europe, H.R. Elllis Davidson

143. Norwegian Folklore, Zinken Hopp 

144. Holy Misogyny: Why Sex and Gender Conflicts in the Early Church Still Matter, April DeConick

145. Destiny Disrupted: A History of the World through Islamic Eyes, Tamim Ansary (610…)

146. Islam: A Short History, Karen Armstrong

147. The Holy Qur’an

148. Mohammed and Charlemagne, Henri Pirenne (700s)

149. Beowulf (Heaney translation) (by 900s)

150. A History of the English Speaking Peoples, vol. 1: The Birth of Britain, Winston Churchill

151. The Tale of Genji, Lady Murasaki Shikibu (1000s) 

152. The Sagas of Icelanders (1000) 

153. Eleanor of Aquitaine: By the Wrath of God, Queen of England, Alison Weir (1100s)

154. Robin Hood and Other Outlaw Tales, ed. Stephen Knight & Thomas Ohlgren

155. Robin Hood: A Mythic Biography, Stephen Thomas Knight

156. Book of Divine Works, Hildegard von Bingen (1163) 

157. The Allegory of Love: A Study in Medieval Tradition, C.S. Lewis

158. Money: The Unauthorized Biography: From Coinage to Cryptocurrencies, Felix Martin

159.Genghis Khan: Life, Death, and Resurrection, John Man (ca. 1200)

160. Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World, Jack Weatherford

161. The Secret History of the Mongol Queens, Jack Weatherford

162. Kublai Khan: The Mongol King Who Remade China, John Man

163. St. Thomas Aquinas and St. Francis of Assisi, ed. G.K. Chesterton (1200s)

164. St. Francis of Assisi, Omer Englebert 

165. The Poetic Edda (1200s) 

166. The Prose Edda, Snorri Sturluson (1200s) 

167. The Saga of the Volsungs, Jesse L. Byock (late 1200s) 

168. The Travels of Marco Polo, Marco Polo (1200s)

169. Revelations of Divine Love, Julian of Norwich (1300s) 

170. Outlaws of the Marsh, Shi Nai’an (1300s) 

171. Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Luo Guanzhong (1300s) 

172. Robert the Bruce: King of Scots, Ronald McNair Scott (early 1300s)

173. The Divine Comedy, Dante Alighieri (1320) 

174. A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century, Barbara Tuchman   

175. Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies, Jared M. Diamond

176. Marriage: A History, Stephanie Coontz

177.  The Future of Marriage, David Blankenhorn

178. The Canterbury Tales, Geoffrey Chaucer (1400) 

179. The Civilizing Process, Norbert Elias  

180. The Samurai: A Military History, Stephen Turnbull 

181. 1421: The Year China Discovered America, Gavin Menzies

182. The Hundred Years War: The English in France 1337-1453, Desmond Seward 

183. Joan of Arc: In Her Own Words (early 1400s)

184. History of Creativity in the Arts, Science, and Technology: Pre-1500, Brent Strong

185. The Illustrated History of the Sikhs, Khushwant Singh (late 1400s)

186. The Aztec, Man and Tribe (1400s-1521) 

187. The Aztecs, Michael E. Smith

188. 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus, Charles Mann

189. 1493: Uncovering the New World Columbus Created, Charles Mann 

190. Conquistador Voices, Volume 1, Kevin H. Siepel

191. Conquistador Voices, Volume 2, Kevin H. Siepel

192.  In the Hands of the Great Spirit, John Page

193. Worldly Goods: A New History of the Renaissance, Lisa Jardine

194. The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy, Jacob Burckhardt

195. The House of Medici: Its Rise and Fall, Christopher Hibbert 

196. The Prince, Niccolo Machiavelli (1513)

197.  Leonardo da Vinci, Walter Isaacson

198. Utopia, Thomas More (1516)

199. She-Wolves: The Women Who Ruled England Before Elizabeth, Helen Castor

200. The Reformation: A History, Diarmaid MacCulloch

201. Martin Luther: The Man Who Rediscovered God and Changed the World, Eric Metaxas

202. The Discoverers: A History of Man’s Search to Know His World and Himself, Daniel J. Boorstin

203. Michel de Montaigne: The Complete Essays (Penguin Classics), ed. M.A. Screech

204. Spice: The History of a Temptation, Jack Turner 

205. The Age of Exploration: From Christopher Columbus to Ferdinand Magellan, Kenneth Pletcher

206. Journey to the West, Wu Cheng’en (1500s) 

207. How Paris Became Paris: The Invention of the Modern City, Joan DeJean

208. A History of the English Speaking Peoples, vol. 2: The New World, Winston Churchill

209. The Slave Trade: The Story of the Atlantic Slave Trade, 1440-1870, Hugh Thomas

210. The Life of Elizabeth I, Alison Weir

211. The Faerie Queen, Edmund Spenser (1590)

212. The Lodger Shakespeare: His Life on Silver Street, Charles Nicholl

213. A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare: 1599, James Shapiro 

214. London: The Biography, Peter Ackroyd 

215. Galileo: Watcher of the Skies, David Wootton

216. Mayflower: A Story of Courage, Community and War, Nathaniel Philbrick (1620)

217. Albion’s Seed: Four British Folkways in America, David Hackett Fischer 

218. Art and Commerce in the Dutch Golden Age, Michael North  

219. Gotham: A History of New York City to 1898, Edwin G. Burrows & Mike Wallace

220. The Thirty Years War: Europe’s Tragedy, Peter H. Wilson 

221. Coming of Age in the Milky Way, Timothy Ferris

222. The Leviathan, Thomas Hobbes (1651)

223. Ethics, Benedict de Spinoza (1665)

224. The Scourge of Demons: Possession, Lust, and Witchcraft in a 17th-century Italian Convent, Jeffrey Watt 

225. The Great Fire of London, Neil Hanson (1666)

226. Paradise Lost (1667) 

227. The Pilgrim’s Progress (1678) 

228. The Diary of Samuel Pepys (Modern Library Classics), Samuel Pepys ed. Richard Le Gallienne (late 1600s)

229. The Scientific Revolution, Stephen Shapin

230. The Invention of Science: A New History of the Scientific Revolution, David Wootton 

231. Never at Rest: A Biography of Isaac Newton, Richard Westfall (1642-1726)

232. A Short History of Nearly Everything, Bill Bryson

233. Ways of Knowing: A New History of Science, Technology, and Medicine, John Pickstone

234. Two Treatises on Government, John Locke (1689)   

235. The Penguin Book of Witches (1692)

236. In the Devil’s Snare, Mary Beth Norton (1692)

237. Memoirs of Duc de Saint-Simon, 1691-1709: Presented to the King, Duc de Saint-Simon 

238. Gulliver’s Travels, Jonathan Swift (1726) (and A Modest Proposal)

239. The Major Works (Oxford World’s Classics), Alexander Pope (early 1700s)

240. China: A History, John Keay

241. The Dream of the Red Chamber, Cao Xueqin (1700s) 

242. Strange Tales from the Liaozhai Studio vol. 1 (1740) 

243. Strange Tales from the Liaozhai Studio vol. 2

244. Strange Tales from the Liaozhai Studio vol. 3 

245. The Story of Music: From Babylon to the Beatles, Howard Goodall

246. Johann Sebastian Bach: The Learned Musician, Christoph Wolff (early 1700s)

247. A History of the English Speaking Peoples, vol. 3: The Age of Revolution, Winston Churchill 

248. The Rise and Fall of the British Empire, Lawrence James 

249. The Theory of Moral Sentiments, Adam Smith (1759)

250. Candide, Voltaire (1759) 

251. Treasury of North American Folk Tales, Catherine Peck

252. Crucible of War: The Seven Years’ War and the Fate of Empire in British North America, 1754-1766, Fred Anderson

253. Benjamin Franklin, Edmund S. Morgan

254. The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin

255. Catherine the Great: Portrait of a Woman, Robert Massie

256. A People’s History of the United States, Howard Zinn

257. An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith (1776)

258. Grand Pursuit: The Story of Economic Genius, Sylvia Nasar

259. Common Sense, Thomas Paine (1776)

260. The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution, Bernard Bailyn 

261. The Radicalism of the American Revolution, Gordon S. Wood

262. 1776, David McCullough

263. The Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson

264. History of the Rise, Progress and Termination of the American Revolution, Mercy Otis Warren

265. Washington’s Crossing, David Hackett Fischer

266. George Washington, A Life, Willard Sterne Randall

267. The Creation of the American Republic, 1776-1787, Gordon S. Wood

268. Washington: A Life, Ron Chernow

269. The Grand Idea: George Washington’s Potomac and the Race to the West, Joel Achenbach

270. His Excellency: George Washington, Joseph J. Ellis

271. James Wilson: Founding Father, 1742-1798, Charles Page Smith

272. The Constitution and Bill of Rights, James Madison

273. The Federalist Papers, Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, John Jay (1788)

274. The First Congress: How James Madison, George Washington, and a Group of Extraordinary Men Invented the Government, Fergus Bordewich

275. Original Meanings: Politics and Ideas in the Making of the Constitution, Jack Rakove

276. Constitutional Law: Principles and Policies, Erwin Chemerinsky

277. That’s Not What They Meant, Michael Austin

278. The Second Amendment: A Biography, Michael Waldman

279. That’s Not What They Meant About Guns, Michael Austin

280. Taming the Electoral College, Robert Bennett

281. Why the Electoral College is Bad for America, George C. Edwards 

282. Faust, Goethe (1790)

283. The Ancien Regime and the Revolution, Alexis de Tocqueville

284. Citizens: A Chronicle of the French Revolution, Simon Schama

285. The Rights of Man, Thomas Paine (1791)

286. A Vindication of the Rights of Women, Mary Wollstonecraft (1792)

287. A Midwife’s Tale: The Life of Martha Ballard, Based on Her Diary, 1785-1812, Laurel Thatcher Ulrich

288. A History of Japan: Revised Edition, R.H.P. Mason

289. John Adams, David McCullough

290.  Passionate Sage: The Character and Legacy of John Adams, Joseph J. Ellis

291. The Scramble for Africa, Thomas Pakenham

292. Alexander Hamilton, Ron Chernow 

293. Alexander Hamilton: The Formative Years, Michael Newton

294. Alexander Hamilton: Writings (plus Farmer Refuted, Washington’s farewell address, & the Reynolds Pamphlet)

295. The Age of Reason, Thomas Paine (1804) 

296. Jefferson and His Time, Dumas Malone

297. Thomas Jefferson, Willard Sterne Randall

298. Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power, Jon Meacham

299. American Sphinx: The Character of Thomas Jefferson, Joseph J. Ellis

300. Most Blessed of the Patriarchs: Thomas Jefferson and the Empire of the Imagination, Annette Gordon-Reed and Peter Onuf

301. Slavery and the Founders: Race and Liberty in the Age of Jefferson, Paul Finkelman

302. The Founding Foodies: How Washington, Jefferson, and Franklin Revolutionized American Cuisine, Dave DeWitt

303. The Journals of Lewis and Clark, Lewis and Clark (1806)

304. The Invention of Nature: Alexander von Humboldt’s New World, Andrea Wulf 

305. A History of the English Speaking Peoples, vol. 4: The Great Democracies, Winston Churchill 

306. The Cambridge Illustrated History of France, Colin Jones

307. France, a History: From Gaul to De Gaulle, John Julius Norwich

308. Napoleon: A Life, Andrew Roberts

309. The Brothers Grimm (1812) 

310. James Madison and the Creation of the American Republic, Jack Rakove

311. James Madison: A Biography, Ralph Ketchem

312. The Civil War of 1812: American Citizens, British Subjects, Irish Rebels, & Indian Allies, Alan Taylor

313. The Naval War of 1812, Theodore Roosevelt

314. Bolivar: American Liberator, Marie Arana (ca. 1810s)

315. The Last Founding Father: James Monroe and a Nation’s Call to Greatness, Harlow Giles Unger

316. The Monroe Doctrine: Empire and Nation in Nineteenth-Century America, Jay Sexton

317. The English and their History, Robert Tombs

318. An Insider’s View of Mormon Origins, Grant Palmer 

319. Early Mormonism and the Magic World View, D. Michael Quinn

320. Standing Apart: Mormon Historical Consciousness and the Concept of Apostasy, Miranda Wilcox & John Young

321. Nation Builder: John Quincy Adams and the Grand Strategy of the Republic, Charles Edel

322. John Quincy Adams: American Visionary, Fred Kaplan

323. John Quincy Adams, Robert V. Remini

324. Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling, Richard Bushman 

325. Mormon Enigma: Emma Hale Smith, Linda King Newell and Valeen Tippetts Avery

326. By the Hand of Mormon: The American Scripture that Launched a New World Religion, Terryl Givens 

327. Understanding the Book of Mormon, Grant Hardy

328. The Book of Mormon: Revised Authorized Version 

329. The Mormon Hierarchy: Origins of Power, D. Michael Quinn

330. Banishing the Cross: The Emergence of a Mormon Taboo, Michael G. Reed

331. This Is My Doctrine: The Development of Mormon Theology, Charles Harrell

332. The Refiner’s Fire: The Making of Mormon Cosmology, John L. Brooke

333. A Comprehensive History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints vol. 1, B.H. Roberts

334. Garibaldi: Invention of a Hero, Lucy Riall (1834 revolt)

335. Road to the Sea, Florence Dorsey 

336. Andrew Jackson: His Life and Times, H.W. Brands

337. American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House, Jon Meacham

338. Jacksonland, Steve Inskeep

339. Democracy in America, Alexis de Tocqueville (1835)

340. Martin Van Buren: The Romantic Age of American Politics, John Niven

341. The Voyage of the Beagle, Charles Darwin (1839)

342. Incarnations: A History of India in Fifty Lives, Sunil Khilnani

343. Old Tippecanoe: William Henry Harrison and His Times, Freeman Cleaves

344. John Tyler: Champion of the Old South, Oliver P. Chitwood

345. Self-Reliance and Other Essays, Ralph Waldo Emerson (1841)

346. Fear and Trembling, Soren Kierkegaard (1843) 

347. Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass (1845)

348. Woman in the Nineteenth Century, Margaret Fuller (1845)

349. What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America, 1815-1848, Daniel Walker Howe

350. Nightfall at Nauvoo, Samuel W. Taylor 

351. A Comprehensive History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints vol. 2, B.H. Roberts

352. Journey to Zion: Voices from the Mormon Trail, Carol Cornwall Madsen

353. 111 Days to Zion, Hal Knight 

354. The Gathering of Zion, Wallace Stegner 

355. A Comprehensive History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints vol. 3, B.H. Roberts

356. The Plains Across: The Overland Emigrants on the Trans-Mississippi West, 1840-60, John D. Unruh

357. So Far from God: The U.S. War with Mexico, 1846-1848, John S. D. Eisenhower

358. The Oregon Trail, Francis Parkman (1849)

359. The Age of Gold: The California Gold Rush and the New American Dream, H.W. Brands 

360. Civil Disobedience, Henry David Thoreau (1849)

361. The American Transcendentalists 

362. The Man Who Transformed the Presidency and America (James Polk), Walter Borneman

363. Fire and Blood: A History of Mexico, T.R. Fehrenbach

364. Zachary Taylor: Soldier, Planter, Statesman of the Old Southwest, K. Jack Bauer

365. The War Before the War: Fugitive Slaves and the Struggle for America’s Soul from the Revolution to the Civil War, Andrew Delbanco

366. Millard Fillmore: Biography of a President, Robert J. Rayback 

367. Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Harriet Beecher Stowe (1852) 

368. Walden, Henry David Thoreau (1854) 

369. Franklin Pierce, Michael Holt

370. President James Buchanan: A Biography, Philip S. Klein

371. Parley P. Pratt: The Apostle Paul of Mormonism, Terryl Givens 

372. A Comprehensive History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints vol. 4, B.H. Roberts

373. American Massacre: The Tragedy at Mountain Meadows, September 1857, Sally Denton

374. America in 1857: A Nation on the Brink, Kenneth Stampp

375. The West Indies and the Spanish Main, Anthony Trollope (1860)  

376. Charles Darwin: The Power of Place, Janet Browne

377. Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era, James McPherson

378. Centennial History of the Civil War, vol. 1: The Coming Fury, Bruce Catton

379. Centennial History of the Civil War, vol. 2: Terrible Swift Sword, Bruce Catton

380. Centennial History of the Civil War, vol. 3: Never Call Retreat, Bruce Catton

381. Lincoln: The Biography of a Writer, Fred Kaplan

382. The Eloquent President: A Portrait of Lincoln through his Words, Ronald White

383. The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln

384. Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln, Doris Kearns Goodwin

385. Confederate Reckoning: Power and Politics in the Civil War South, Stephanie McCurry 

386. The South vs. the South: How Anti-Confederate Southerners Shaped the Course of the Civil War, William Freehling

387. Andersen’s Fairy Tales, Hans Christian Andersen 

388. Matthew Brady’s Illustrated History of the Civil War

389. With Malice Toward None: A Life of Abraham Lincoln, Stephen Oates

390. A Short History of Canada (6th ed), Desmond Morton 

391. Abraham Lincoln: The Prairie Years and the War Years, Carl Sandburg

392. This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War, Drew Gilpin Faust

393. Abraham Lincoln, Lord Charnwood  

394. Empress Dowager Cixi: The Concubine Who Launched Modern China, Jung Chang

395. Andrew Johnson, Annette Gordon-Reed

396. Biographical Supplement and Index, Harriet Sigerman 

397. Mormon Sisters: Women in Early Utah, Claudia Bushman

398. Development of LDS Temple Worship, Devery Anderson

399. The Memoirs of Hector Berlioz 

400. Brigham Young: Pioneer Prophet, John C. Turner

401. Great Basin Kingdom: An Economic History of the Latter-day Saints, 1830-1900, Leonard Arrington 

402. A Comprehensive History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints vol. 5, B.H. Roberts

403. Grant, Ron Chernow

404. Grant: A Biography, William S. McFeeley

405. American Ulysses: A Life of Ulysses S. Grant, Ronald C. White

406. Complete Personal Memoirs, Ulysses S. Grant 

407. Capital (Das Kapital), Karl Marx (first edition 1867, third 1894)

408. The Metaphysical Club: A Story of Ideas in America, Louis Menand

409. Black Reconstruction, W.E.B. Du Bois

410. Reconstruction: America’s Unfinished Revolution, updated edition, Eric Foner

411. A Nation Under Our Feet: Black Political Struggles in the Rural South from Slavery to the Great Migration, Steven Hahn

412. Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, Dee Brown

413. Custer’s Trials: A Life on the Frontier of a New America, T.J. Stiles

414. Rutherford B. Hayes, Hans Trefousse

415. Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Friedrich Nietzsche

416. Beyond Good and Evil: Prelude to a Philosophy of the Future, Friedrich Nietzsche

417. Assassination Vacation (James Garfield), Sarah Vowell

418. Destiny of the Republic (James Garfield), Candice Millard 

419. Gentleman Boss: The Life of Chester Alan Arthur, Thomas C. Reeves

420. King Leopold’s Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa, Adam Hochschild 

421. How Europe Underdeveloped Africa, Walter Rodney  

422. More Wives Than One: Transformation of the Mormon Marriage System, 1840-1910, Kathryn M. Daynes 

423. The Ghost of Eternal Polygamy, Carol Lynn Pearson

424. Selected Writings, José Martí (Penguin Classics)

425. Dawn of the Belle Epoque, Mary McAuliffe

426. Grover Cleveland: A Study in Character, Henry F. Graff

427. Manning Clark’s History of Australia: Abridged from the Six-Volume Classic, Manning Clark

428. The Making of Modern Ireland, 1603-1923, J.C. Beckett 

429. Benjamin Harrison, Charles W. Calhoun

430. How the Other Half Lives: Studies Among the Tenements of New York, Jacob Riis (1890)

431. Greater Gotham: A History of New York City from 1898 to 1919, Mike Wallace 

432. The History of Spain, Peter Pierson

433. Presidency of William McKinley, Lewis L. Gould

434. The Souls of Black Folk, W.E.B. Du Bois

435. Theodore Rex, Edmund Morris

436. The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt, Edmund Morris

437. Mornings on Horseback (Theodore Roosevelt), David McCullough

438. Marie Curie: A Life, Susan Quinn

439. The Shame of the Cities, Lincoln Steffens (1904)

440. Albert Einstein: A Biography, Albrecht Folsing 

441. Relativity: The Special and General Theory, Albert Einstein (1905)

442. The Jungle, Upton Sinclair (1906)

443. The Bully Pulpit: Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, and the Golden Age of Journalism, Doris Kearns Goodwin 

444. The Life & Times of William Howard Taft, Harry F. Pringle

445. The Power and Independence of the Federal Reserve, Peter Conti-Brown 

446. Americana: A 400-Year History of American Capitalism, Bhu Srinivasan

447. The War that Ended Peace: The Road to 1914, Margaret MacMillan

448. July 1914: Countdown to War, Sean McMeekin 

449. The Guns of August, Barbara Tuchman  

450. A World Undone: The Story of the Great War, 1914 to 1918, G.J. Meyer 

451. Pandemic 1918: Eyewitness Accounts from the Greatest Medical Holocaust in Modern History, Catharine Arnold

452. Woodrow Wilson: A Biography, John Milton Cooper

453. Women and the Vote: A World History, Jad Adams

454. Rise Up Women!: The Remarkable Lives of the Suffragettes, Diane Atkinson

455. The Shadow of Blooming Grove: Warren G. Harding in His Times, Francis Russell

456. A History of Russia (new edition w Mark Steinberg), Nicholas V. Riasanovsky

457. The Flight of the Romanovs: A Family Saga, John Curtis Perry and Constantine V. Pleshakov

458. Ten Days that Shook the World, John Reed

459.  Barracoon: The Story of the Last “Black Cargo,” Zora Neale Hurston

460. Coolidge: An American Enigma, Robert Sobel

461. Anything Goes: A Biography of the Roaring Twenties, Lucy Moore 

462. Herbert Hoover, William Leuchtenburg

463. A Comprehensive History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints vol. 6, B.H. Roberts

464. Lords of Finance: The Bankers Who Broke the World, Liaquat Ahamed

465. Freedom from Fear: The American People in Depression and War, David Kennedy

466. Let Us Now Praise Famous Men, Walker Evans and James Agee

467. Black Elk Speaks, Black Elk

468. Franklin D. Roosevelt: Champion of Freedom, Conrad Black

469. FDR, Jean Edward Smith

470. The Woman Behind the New Deal: The Life and Legacy of Frances Perkins, Kirstin Downey

471. Defining Moment: FDR’s Hundred Days and the Triumph of Hope, Jonathan Alte

472.  Eleanor Roosevelt: Vol. 1, The Early Years, 1884-1933, Blanche Wiesen Cook

473. Eleanor Roosevelt: Vol. 2, The Defining Years, 1933-1938, Blanche Wiesen Cook

474. Eleanor Roosevelt: Vol. 3, The War Years and After, 1939-1962, Blanche Wiesen Cook

475. No Ordinary Time (FDR), Doris Kearns Goodwin

476. Alan Turing: The Enigma, Andrew Hodges

477. The Storm of War: A New History of the Second World War, Andrew Roberts

478. Bloodlands, Timothy Snyder 

479. Leningrad, Anna Reid

480. A Woman in Berlin: Eight Weeks in the Conquered City: A Diary

481. Churchill: Walking with Destiny, Andrew Roberts 

482. Memoirs of the Second World War, Winston Churchill 

483. The Destruction of the European Jews, Raul Hilberg

484. The Diary of a Young Girl, Anne Frank

485. Night, Elie Wiesel

486. Hiroshima, John Hersey

487. Nuremberg Trials: The Nazis and Their Crimes Against Humanity, Paul Roland 

488. Truman, David McCullough

489. Gandhi: An Autobiography, Mahatma Gandhi

490. The Life of Mahatma Gandhi, Louis Fischer 

491. The Arabs: A History, Eugene Rogan 

492. Mao: The Unknown Story, Jung Chang and Jon Halliday

493. Inside Red China, Helen Foster Snow

494. Red Star Over China, Edgar Snow

495. The Coldest Winter: America and the Korean War, David Halberstam

496. An American Childhood, Annie Dillard 

497. Eisenhower in War and Peace, Jean Edward Smith

498. The Double Helix: A Personal Account of the Discovery of the Structure of DNA, James D. Watson (1953)

499. Rosalind Franklin: The Dark Lady of DNA, Brenda Maddox 

500. Mississippi Trial, 1955, Chris Crowe 

501. Sake & Satori: Asian Journals, Joseph Campbell

502. A Concise History of Germany, Mary Fulbrook

503. The Mormon Hierarchy: Wealth and Corporate Power, D. Michael Quinn

504. Lost Legacy: The Mormon Office of Presiding Patriarch, Irene Bates

505. The Feminine Mystique, Betty Friedan (1963)

506. A Thousand Days (JFK), Arthur M. Schlesinger

507. An Unfinished Life (JFK), Robert Dallek

508. A History of Modern Africa: 1800 to the Present, 2nd ed., Richard J. Reid

509. The Years of Lyndon Johnson, vol. 1: The Path to Power, Robert Caro

510. The Years of Lyndon Johnson, vol. 2: Means of Ascent, Robert Caro

511. The Years of Lyndon Johnson, vol. 3: Master of the Senate, Robert Caro

512. The Years of Lyndon Johnson, vol. 4: The Passage of Power, Robert Caro

513. The Years of Lyndon Johnson, vol. 5: untitled/unreleased, Robert Caro

514. Parting the Waters: America in the King Years 1954-63, Taylor Branch

515. Pillar of Fire: America in the King Years 1963-65, Taylor Branch

516. At Canaan’s Edge: America in the King Years, 1965-68, Taylor Branch

517. The Autobiography of Malcolm X, Malcolm X & Alex Haley 

518. The Fire Next Time, James Baldwin

519. Lakota Woman, Mary Crow Dog

520. The Bomb: A New History, Stephen Younger  

521. This New Ocean: The Story of the First Space Age, William Burrows 

522. A History of the Modern Middle East, 5th ed., William Cleveland

523. Indira: The Life of Indira Nehru Gandhi, Katherine Frank 

524. Embers of War: The Fall of an Empire and the Making of America’s Vietnam, Fredrik Logevall 

525. The Best and the Brightest, David Halberstam

526. Lessons in Disaster: McGeorge Bundy and the Path to War in Vietnam, Gordon Goldstein

527. To Destroy You Is No Loss: The Odyssey of a Cambodian Family, JoAn D. Criddle

528. All the President’s Men, Carl Bernstein & Bob Woodward

529. Nixonland, Richard Perlstein 

530. The Seventies: The Great Shift in American Culture, Society, and Politics, Bruce Schulman

531. Gerald R. Ford, Douglas Brinkley

532. Pedestals and Podiums: Utah Women, Religious Authority, and Equal Rights, Martha Bradley 

533. Petals of Blood, Nugi wa Thiong’o (1977 Kenyan novel)

534. Long Walk to Freedom: The Autobiography of Nelson Mandela

535. Spear of the Nation: South Africa’s Liberation Army, Janet Cherry

536. Country of My Skull: Guilt, Sorrow, and the Limits of Forgiveness in the New South Africa, Antjie Krog

537. Redeemer: The Life of Jimmy Carter, Randall Balmer

538. The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York, Robert A. Caro 

539. President Reagan: The Role of a Lifetime, Lou Cannon

540. 1983: The World at the Brink, Taylor Downing

541. A History of the Soviet Union from the Beginning to the End, Peter Kenez

542. Lost Lives (the Troubles), David McKittrick, Seamus Kelters, Brian Feeley, and Chris Thornton 

543. Harvest of Empire: A History of Latinos in America, Juan Gonzalez 

544. As Texas Goes: How the Lone Star State Hijacked the American Agenda, Gail Collins

545. Destiny and Power: The American Odyssey of George Herbert Walker Bush, Jon Meacham

546. First in His Class (Bill Clinton), David Maraniss

547. Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace, Gore Vidal (2002) 

548. Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and Bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September 11, 2001, Steve Coll

549. Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Peter Baker 

550. Monument Wars: Washington, D.C., the National Mall, and the Transformation of the Memorial Landscape, Kirk Savage

551. The Formations of Modernity, Stuart Hall & Bram Gieben

552. Republic, Lost: How Money Corrupts Congress – and a Plan to Stop It, Lawrence Lessig (he wrote a sequel, same title with “2.0” in 2015) 

553. All the Devils Are Here: The Hidden History of the Financial Crisis, Bethany McLean

554. Back to Work, Bill Clinton

555. Beyond Outrage: What Has Gone Wrong with our Economy and our Democracy and How to Fix It, Robert Reich 

556. A Governor’s Story, Jennifer Granholm

557.  Life, Inc.: How Corporatism Conquered the World and How We Can Take It Back, Douglas Rushkoff

558. Dreams from my Father, Barack Obama

559. Barack Obama: The Story, David Maraniss

560. The Bridge: The Life and Rise of Barack Obama, David Remnick

561. Confidence Men: Wall Street, Washington, and the Education of a President (Obama), Ron Suskind

562. Obama’s Wars, Bob Woodward

563. Hard Choices: A Memoir, Hillary Clinton

564. The Audacity of Hope, Barack Obama

565. The Gatekeepers: How the White House Chiefs of Staff Define Every Presidency, Chris Whipple

566. Between the World and Me, Ta-Nehisi Coates 

567. The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee: Native America from 1890 to the Present, David Treuer

568. DNA: The Story of the Genetic Revolution, James D. Watson 

569. Age of Ambition: Chasing Fortune, Truth, and Faith in the New China, Evan Osnos

570. Unequal Democracy: The Political Economy of the New Gilded Age, Larry Bartels

571. The Post-American World: Release 2.0, Fareed Zakaria

572. What Happened, Hillary Clinton 

573. THE NOT YET WRITTEN DEFINITIVE ACCOUNT OF THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION’S SCANDALS

574. How Democracies Die, Steve Levitsky & Daniel Ziblatt

575. The Soul of America: The Battle for Our Better Angels, Jon Meacham

576. America: The Farewell Tour, Chris Hedges

577. A Call to Action, Jimmy Carter

578. I Am Malala, Malala Yousafzai

579. A Path Appears, Nicholas Kristof & Sheryl WuDunn

580. The History of Creativity in the Arts, Science, and Technology: 1500-Present, Brent Strong 

581. Brief Answers to the Big Questions, Stephen Hawking  

[komizenkun]

Slavery

I think that the slavery of the past is not as much a problem as the slavery of today. Jail.

Let’s be honest. Jail is not rehabilitation. It is not time served. Everyone knows it is nothing more than a scarlet letter. A mark. A scar. A scar on the character, on the mentality, and on the development of any one who goes there. And worse it’s slave labor.

Just like slavery, it uses manual labor and imprisonment with fear and threats to keep people in line. The profit from such manual labor is great and the workers gain nothing long term to benefit or improve their minds or bodies or lives.

I don’t believe their shouldn’t be jail. I just believe that Jail shouldn’t be about revenge. Hurt people hurt people. Jail should be about fixing these people. And those who can’t be helped should be resigned to being monitoring in a secure mental facility.

The hurt, marked people inevitably come out of the hell of prison unable to fully live life ever. Much like the slaves. Their scars are as apparent as the color of a slaves skin.

They try to raise children, have a family, work, live the American dream. But their scarlet letter, their jail sentence past, it follows them. They take with them the learned survival primal mentality. The same mentality that generations after American slavery persisted for so long. Tribal. Separatist. Self preservation. Force. Violence. Desperation. Hopelessness.

Some give up and become hopeless pawns in a system where they accept what little they can get. Wages far less than they can sustain any level of comfort from. Trying to please the power of the system. Much like the house nigga, they survive barely thru just accepting the bottom level of life because at least they aren’t worse off, like those field niggas.

Some stick to the prison mentality and take it into the world, still living a life defined but peacocking their masculinity and doing whatever they can to give the image of power. Buying Jordan’s they can’t afford. Buying Gucci bags. Flaunting their drug money. Rapping about how many bitches they get.

Some are even more desolate, giving up completely and living in a world they fantasize. Escaping thru crack, weed, K2, heroin, alcohol, sex.

And then these people have kids. Raising them up with the same twisted values and ideals their experiences have taught them to be how the world works.

We can’t grow in separation. We can’t grow in humanity when we have tribes. We can’t grow in society when we still glorify revenge.

I spent many years justifying revenge for righteous reasons or because they deserved it.

When I lost a best friend in Brandon Jones, part of me wanted to focus on “he gonna miss me. I was a real friend. He is gonna suffer and then come around and realize what he had.” But even if he had? He would still have the hurt at the root that made him the person that he was to begin with. The same person that made those choices I so disagreed with. And any loyalty to me at that point would be from a fear of loss not appreciation. That’s victim mentality. That wouldn’t help either one of us.

When I lost my first boyfriend Glen, I felt as though I had destroyed my only shot at a true happiness. I had a good relationship. To this day, it’s why I see so clearly who isn’t on the same page as me. And every boyfriend I had since pretty much ended because I could t cure the issues that came from their hurt. Abandonment issues. All three of them suffer from those traumas.

When I lost my best friend Robert aka Akira to a robbery, I too, wanted revenge. I wanted to catch the person who took my most loyal companion at the time away from me. But who am I to judge them? I was not there. They are most likely hurt people with a survival mentality as well. They have friends and loved ones as well. But most importantly, killing that person as I have dreamed about for years, would never bring Robert back. It would never be enough to replace the hurt.

I’m sick of the concept of fixing messes thru righteous judgment and bandages. I’m sick of the concept of fixing messes with abandonment. I’m sick of fixing messes with pretending it’s okay. I’m sick of fixing messes with escaping and outlets. Because those don’t heal, they only dampen the effects. They aren’t cures, they are treatments.

Fear lead me to anger. Anger led me to hate. Hate led me to loss of empathy. I became a guy that felt no pity for those I felt no love for. Those people got denied their right to be human from me. There are times I honestly know I would have watched my enemies die in front of me and not had a second thought.

But that’s what society feels about prison. That’s what religious zealots feel about the world outside. That’s what racists feel about other races. That’s what sexists feel about women. That’s what homophobes feel about gay people.

When you lose empathy for any human being you become just as heartless as the worst human beings.

Empathy is not stupidity. I will protect myself and distance myself from harmful situations when I can. But I will not relish in the suffering of any human being no matter how broken and hurt they are, no matter how evil their actions may seem.

Because if they are broken I will do what I can to fix them. Because if they are hurt I will show them love. Because if they are beyond repair, I will point them towards better help stronger than I. But I will not become numb to their pain.

Numb like prison is. Everyday more and more of a toxic mentality spreads thru our world like a disease. Slavery starts in the mind. All slavery.

Slavery isn’t solved by revenge, or posing, or settling, or fantasy. Slavery is solved by loving your brother and treating them as equal.

Thank you for your time.

[notwhelmedyet]

An alphabetical guide to MTMTE season 1 characters

All the characters that are prominently featured/mentioned in MTMTE issues 1-22 who you might want a quick reference on, descriptions contain no spoilers past that point! Primary cast in italics

‘the Necrobot’ : A mysterious mythological figure that visits the bodies of every fallen soldier. Or does he?

‘the Senator’ : Appears in the Shadowplay flashbacks, Orion Pax’s benefactor who altered him to be able to carry the matrix, alt mode is a small spacecraft

Ambulon : A medic stationed at Delphi under Pharma, a former Decepticon

Blaster : LL crew member and director of communications

Brainstorm : LL crew member, a scientist and weapons designer, alt mode is a blue jet

Bumblebee : Autobot commander on Cybertron, uses a cane to walk, a close friend of Ratchet’s, was left with the other half of the Matrix, alt mode is a small yellow car

Chromedome aka Tumbler : LL crew member, a former mnemosurgeon, very close to Rewind, alt mode is a weird red and orange car

Crankcase : One of the Scavengers. Missing a chunk of his head. Fairly surly.

Cyclonus : LL crew member, neither an Autobot nor a Decepticon, was stuck in a dead universe as a zombie for millions of years, deeply cynical, led the attack on Kimia before the end of the war (that’s where Chromedome, Rewind and Brainstorm worked!) and killed a lot of people. Also helped save Cybertron. Alt mode is a purple jet

Dai Atlas : Leader of the Circle of Light, the religious group that converted Drift when he left the Decepticons

Dominus Ambus : Former husband of Rewind’s, a scientist, philosopher and activist, missing since the start of the war

Drift, formerly Deadlock : LL crew member, 3rd in command, formerly the Decepticon Deadlock, defected and joined the Autobots after finding The Circle of Light and being mentored by Wing, stabbed himself in the spark and had a religious awakening at the end of the war

First Aid : A nurse stationed at Delphi under Pharma, obsessed with Autobot badges, a big fan of the Wreckers

Flywheels : One of the Scavengers, a deeply religious neoprimalist who can’t lie without transforming, has very large feet.

Fortress Maximus aka Fort Max : An Autobot, was stationed as warden of the prison Garrus 9 when it was attacked by Overlord, he was brutally tortured for three years before the Wreckers mounted a rescue. He’s been unconscious ever since.

Fulcrum : One of the Scavengers, a K-class Decepticon who miraculously survived battle and was subsequently adopted by the Scavengers.

Froid : A colleague/nemesis of Rung’s, a fellow psychologist. Missing, presumed dead

Galvatron : Ancient warrior and Cyclonus’s former lord. Nearly destroyed Cybertron fairly recently.

Getaway : An Autobot escapologist who’s been missing for some time

Glitch : Appears in the Shadowplay flashbacks, an outlier and victim of empurata, Glitch has the ability to disable non-sentient mechanical objects by touching them

Grimlock : Autobot whos alt mode is a T. Rex. Last seen at the prison Garrus 9

Helex : Member of the DJD, a very large mech with two sets of arms, kills people by stuffing them into his chest compartment smelting pool

Hoist : LL crewmember, Trailbreaker’s roommate, he’s got a spotlight you could read. He turns into a green...hoist thingie. Useful for rescuing crewmembers who are underwater.

Impactor : Appears in the Shadowplay flashbacks, a miner who was once friends with Megatron who later became the leader of the Wreckers.

Ironfist aka Fistiron : Appears in the Shadowplay flashbacks, a total nerd who was obsessed with the Primal Vanguard. During the war he was a weapons designer who ran the Wreckers: Declassified datalogs. He was eventually assigned to accompany the Wreckers on a mission, where he died.

Kaon : Member of the DJD, has no eyes, has a pet turbofox that he claims is a Sparkeater, alt mode is an electric chair

Krok : Leader of the Scavengers, looking for his old squad.

Misfire : One of the Scavengers, a Decepticon who’s a notoriously bad shot.

Nightbeat : Appears in the Shadowplay flashbacks, a detective who first finds the dead body with his partner Quark

Optimus Prime / Orion Pax : ...do I really have to? Leader of the Autobots, the most recognizable transformer, alt mode is a truck.

Ore : LL crewmember, one of the Duobots with Shock, dies early on

Overlord : A ‘Phase 6′ Decepticon who is known for being bloodthirsty, having creepy lips and being nigh unstoppable. Alt mode is a tank.

Perceptor: LL crewmember, most respected scientist on board, during the war he was a member of the Wreckers and nearly died but was saved by Drift. This led to him becoming a sniper/getting a radical sniper makeover, alt mode is a microscope

Pharma : Lead medic at Delphi, knows Ratchet from way back, alt mode is a jet

Pipes : LL crewmember, very small and optimistic and a bit awkward, alt mode is a small blue car

Proteus : Appears in the Shadowplay flashbacks, the senator that offered Decepticons political recognition if enough would officially register as Decepticons

Prowl : Autobot left on Cybertron, Chromedome’s partner from his police detective days, a schemer and strategist, flips tables over when he’s angry as a running gag, alt mode is a police car

Quark : Appears in the Shadowplay flashbacks, a detective who first finds the dead body with his partner Nightbeat

Ratchet : LL crewmember, chief medical officer of the ship and formerly of the Autobots, grumpy surly and a belligerent athiest, has ‘form fatigue’ in his hands which threatens to ruin his medical career, alt mode is an ambulance

Red Alert : LL crewmember, chief of security, struggles with paranoia and intrusive thoughts, has exceptional hearing, spies on everyone all the time (because he’s worried about them)

Rewind : LL crewmember, has a camera mounted on his head and uses it constantly, archivist, making a travelogue of the Lost Light’s adventures, very close to Chromedome, very small, alt mode is a memory stick

Rodimus, formerly Hot Rod : LL captain, has flames painted on his chest, very showy and impulsive, once carried the Matrix during the war, came up from nothing on the streets of Nyon, alt mode is a sports car

Roller : Appears in the Shadowplay flashbacks, a cop who’s a buddy of Orion Pax

Rung : LL crewmember, the only therapist on board, mysterious past, wears glasses, alt mode is a mystery

Scourge : Dead. Cyclonus’s closest friend, was also trapped in the Dead Universe and was also a zombie. By throwing his body into some magical well Galvatron created an army of Scourge clones at the end of the war...they all died too.

Shock : LL crewmember, one of the Duobots (with Ore), dies early on

Skids : joins the LL crew, Autobot who’d gone missing, can’t remember his recent past, very affable and kind, alt mode is a blue car

Spinister : One of the Scavengers, a Decepticon who’s very good at surgery and struggles with paranoia

Star Saber : A rogue member of the circle of light, a religious zealot who led ‘holy wars’ against ‘heretics’

Swerve : LL crewmember, a very chatty metallurgist who has always dreamed of being a bartender, makes a lot of jokes, desperate for real friends

Tailgate : LL crewmember, a minibot who spent several million years asleep at the bottom of a hole and missed the entire war, Cyclonus’s roommate, alt mode is a tiny blue and white car

Tarn : Leader of the DJD (Decepticon Justice Devision), the ultimate Megatron fanboy, kills people by talking to them, alt mode is a purple tank

Tesarus : Member of the DJD, very large with an X over his face, large blender in his chest that he uses to blend/torture people

Thunderclash : The best Autobot, well known war hero off on his own space adventure, on life support due to a spark injury, huge and heroic and with clashing colors

Trailbreaker/Trailcutter : LL crewmember, an outlier who can summon forcefields, has a serious drinking problem,

Trepan : Appears in the Shadowplay flashbacks, mnemosurgeon, missing in action and presumed dead, alt mode is a drill

Tyrest : Chief Justice Tyrest, a Neutral/Autobot (sometimes one, sometimes the other) who presided over peace talks, helped organize the Exodus of unafilliated Cybertronians etc. etc. Holds the Law to be the most important thing.

Ultra Magnus : LL crewmember, second in command, Duly Appointed Enforcer of the Tyrest Accord, very very tall and very very serious, obsessed with rules and order, alt mode is a truck

Vos : Member of the DJD, can only speak the Primal Vernacular, tortures people by forcing them to wear a mask of spikes, alt mode is a sniper rifle

Whirl : LL crewmember, first seen trying to light some mutilated corpses on fire, bombastic and aggressive, claws and a single optic, former member of the Wreckers, alt mode is a helicopter

Windcharger : Appears in the Shadowplay flashbacks, an outlier with the ability to levitate using magnetism

Wing : Former member of the Circle of Light, Drift’s friend and mentor, died during the Drift miniseries

(If you need to ID a very minor character, try TFWiki. The ‘Featured Characters’ listing for each issue will tell you who appeared in that issue. Be warned that all the character pages are full of spoilers.)

If I’ve made any mistakes please send corrections! I’d hate to mislead any new fans.

[nerath-mp]

Lore: Religion in the Nerathi Alliance

Prophets: From Valis to Nera

After the northern Baelish humans broke free of dwarven assimilation efforts in a period of the latter's decline called the Kallis Uprising (or, by his human name Valis), the newly identified Valisians explored the concept of non-Moradin religions with a fervor that frightened many of their neighbours. It is from this period that the Valisian migration into the Liirean sea region emerged. They settled in the Koval islands and reunited with the southern Baelish in their search for Bael Turath and the great Eternal Empire.

This search for spiritual meaning made these humans quite susceptible to worshipping anything that could grant them clerical power - even by proxy. What resulted was a rush of celestial, fey, and infernal pact warlocks. These early Valisians were not as attuned to the Primal, and the spirits remembered the damage done either by the humans or by the gods punishing them. This turbulent time was known as the Thousand Kingdoms, or more theologically, the Ten Thousand Gods period.

More over, the monotheistic influence of the dwarves left many humans with a belief that one should dedicate themselves to a single deity, effectively stealing faith from the others and funnelling it entirely into a single being. This was despite many gods trying to undo this misunderstanding. And of course, this led to religious strife. It is said more humans died this era than in the Dawn War and the Revenge of the Giants (the Giantwar) combined - although this would likely be a gross exaggeration caused by the northern Valisian focusing more on their own continental region. Prominent in this time were cults to Asmodeus, Avandra, Torog, Tiamat, Kala/Nergal (as this period overlays the fall of these two gods), the Raven Queen, a variety of dragons, archfey of all courts, and genie nobles. In general, those gods whose domains espoused either an organized, militant concept, or who filled a particular survival need, were among the most successful.

The Pact of Nera

In the founding of the Nerathi Empire, the Asmodeus-serving prophet Nera the Turathi saw that for any group's territory to remain stable, the conflict between the zealots of all these cults would need to be pacified in some way.  It was his warlord-king's (and Asmodeus' as well) that the would-be empire crush and impose the supremacy of the Basalt Throne of Baator and the usurper god, the true patron of humanity. Nera, however, realized that this would just lead to more of the same. The true key was to find a way to get the spirits, demons, godlings and other idols of veneration to agree to stop encouraging strife. And so, Nera proposed the principle of Many-to-One-to-Many.

This concept would mean a deliberate obfuscation of the individual beings as far as the humans were concerned. This would remove the sectarian cause for strife, but in turn the leaders of this non-denominational religion would ensure that all those beings who participated would receive their proper due.

The gods, despite being vain and proud, realized the conflict would only grow and the risk of some entity arising from to endanger all the gods - like a primordial or a demon lord. And so most put aside their egos and agreed. Now the lesser beings were a bit harder to convince. A few dragons were placated by the fact that their "tithe" could come in forms other than simple prayer and that a civilization without war could focus on amassing the sort of treasures that many dragons preferred. The gods were adamant that Nera not leave the pact open to just anyone - notably, they forbade any participation by any fiend of any sort - demon or infernal. Nera then renounced his vows to Asmodeus and undertook the tests of the pantheon.

With each test completed, another joined the growing 'church' of Nerath. And given the power of the church, it became one and the same as the imperial bureaucracy, and the growth of the empire - by diplomacy or conquest - grew this church. And with the loss of every servant, the enemies of the empire planned their revenge, another fiend would eventually lead its mortal slaves to unify. And after a millennia, this opposition had formed the Doom of Man horde, and smashed the empire to pieces.

The church after the Empire's fall

When the city of Mauer fell, the central headquarters of the church was lost. The church was organized, by the necessity of the empire's size, to be able to operate in the fringes of the empire without support of the High Clergy. And their temporal role in education and local administration assisted in keeping the fragments of the empire from falling entirely into despair, at least until the horde of fiends broke apart in search of more victims and plunder.

In the absence of the central doctrines, some beings - especially those who had not been part of the pact - started openly seeking believers, finding success with those who were desperate for any sign of hope. The gods were, uncharacteristically, slow to proclaim themselves directly to the humans, fearing that the one who broke the pact would be punished by the Thrones. As a result, those in the old territories often turned to non-humans - halflings, eladrin and dragonborn, who carried the names of the Gods in their own beliefs. Many of these would in turn become priests of the Nerathi faith and assist in decoding the riddles and metaphors that the church used in its doctrine to anonymize the pantheon.

But the near-century after the fall of Nerath also saw the rise of a new faith, from the northern reaches of the old territories. This would be the cult of Erathis, who was Nera Peacemaker ascended, and who came to humanity's rescue when the last eladrin princess of the summer court launched the genocidal War of Summer's Wrath.

In the next part of this lore drop - the new cult of Erathis, a return to polytheism among the Nerathi and the balance of faiths in the new alliance of Nerath's fragments.

[theliterateape]

Misanthropic Tendencies and My Desire for Less Noise

by Don Hall

I’ve long argued that social media is merely a tool and, like a hammer, can be used for a positive outcome (hanging a picture) or negative (bashing a hole in the cranium of someone who cut in line in front of you in a grocery store). I still believe that.

My general manager at the casino has never had any use for that tool. He’s never had a Faceborg account, never even seen Twitter, and looks at me like I’m speaking Swahili when I mention Instagram, Snapchat, Tick Tock, or any number of the second-tier platforms. He has never felt the need to hang a picture or crush a skull so he never bought a hammer. He sometimes feels a bit left out of things, he’ll confess to me, when so many others are in the club.

I’ve been in that club for a good long time. I had a MySpace account. I engaged heavily in LiveJournal, Friendster, and Blogger for years. Message Boards of all stripes were the jam. When Faceborg came along, I jumped on it. Twitter took me some time to get the hang of but I greedily dove in as I did with Instagram. The point was to see and be seen. To promote your ideas and listen to others, to market your small business or advertise for your favorite bands, movies, restaurants, you name it. Social media connected me to everyone and made me feel as if I were a part of a larger community of people.

Except people became immersed in it and it changed how they behaved. As those who were too sensitive to exist in the world realized there were others just like them, the formed groups and cliques, and almost overnight, the platforms became exactly like high school. Overly dramatized bullshit pervaded. Guys who would never throw a punch became bold and confrontational. Anonymous accounts popped up in record numbers to level insults, calls for violence, and death threats.

Unlike my general manager I had immersive experience in this world. I could say I was quasi-addicted as I loved wading into the fray and arguing with, well, everyone. I found myself posting opinions that I knew would elicit those kinds of vitriolic responses and trolling, as myself, those folks I considered stupid and dogmatic. It was fun for awhile.

Last year, after moving to Vegas, something snapped. I had nearly 4,000 Facebog “friends” and only perhaps 500 whom I could pick out in a lineup and maybe 100 I could say I really knew and could call even friendly acquaintances. At the pool on top of the Strat while Dana and our friend Kelli swam, I sat in blistering heat and started deleting friends. Most were connected so I could market this digital ‘zine and events we did. It took a few hours with breaks in the pool. At the end of the purge I had 495 left.

With the bitter partisanship of our current moment I found myself blocking genuine friends because we might disagree on certain issues that ended up threatening the relationship. I continued to maintain that this was all just a tool that I was figuring out how to use in this expanded cyber-community.

I read about how Russian hackers used Facebot to influence disinformation and attempt to tip the 2016 election. I read that Zuckerberg’s monster was a breeding ground for the fascist Right and that Twitter was becoming the home of the equally vicious woke Left. As I perpetuated my own presence I began to disdain humanity. My time on these platforms was soaked in disgust at people, anger at bullies, and a gnawing and growing hatred for everyone around me.

Earlier this another snap. These platforms made me miserable. I spent hours checking in every day and then dwelling on everything I read that infuriated me. It was like willingly drinking acid daily. So I deleted my Fuckface account. I deleted my Twitter account. Friends wondered how long it would be before I returned like I was taking a break. But I didn’t miss them. At all. My days became less anxious. I chose what I wanted to read online and wanted each article to have been thought out and reasoned.

I did keep the Literate Ape Twitter account as well as my personal Instagram. For the most part, I just looked in. I tried to avoid retweeting or commenting. I played around with IG Stories. Slowly, I started engaging more. Retweeting perspectives I agreed with that somewhere in my snakebrain knew would stir up those dipshits back in Chicago or anti-maskers here in Vegas. I put more and more political pictures up in my IG Stories. I was getting sucked back in.

I couldn’t watch more than a collected thirty minutes of that first Trump/Biden debate. It made me want to destroy something beautiful like Edward Norton smashing Jared Lito’s face to much in Fight Club. Why would I want to sit and watch this fucking bully asshole yell and interrupt and lie and taunt anyone and especially a nominee I believe is simply a very good, empathetic gentleman.

Wait. Everyone at some point becomes Trump online. Everyone. 

There’s something to be said about dealing with real in-person human beings in the casino at the end of the world on a daily basis — anti-maskers, degenerates, hopeful gamblers, low-rent prostitutes, MAGA hat wearing truckers — that diminishes the optimism required to push forth. It’s a bit of a grind to deal with people seeking instant gratification and striking it rich against all odds. Adding to that the condescension, outrage (both genuine and signaled), and intractable certainty of zealots online is like taking it up the ass by a bull moose and choosing to eat some shit at the same time.

I don’t need Trump in my life. I don’t need to be reminded that a vocal minority in the country use this brilliant and extraordinary technology to mimic his tactics. I have an almost primal desire for less noise and, always a stripe of a misanthrope to begin with, my retreat to the less noisy, more substantive digital world has become a matter of sanity. No more Instagram. No more Twitter. No more Linked In. I am becoming a Las Vegas version of that guy holed up in a bunker or a throwback to a time when knowing everyone else’s opinions about everything else was a sign of lunacy.

As the blackjack dealer when being shifted out for a new dealer waves her hands to demonstrate no cards are up her sleeve, I clap my hands, wave my hands, and walk away to a place where the things I read have merit and the conversations I have are focused on common purpose rather than hostile power grabs.

I’m glad I played in these sandboxes for so long. Social media is a tool and sometimes it is a teaching tool. I’ve learned what I needed and am content to disengage.

I recommend you do the same.

[glenmenlow]

Brandless Demise Reveals How Brands Succeed

From its beginning, Brandless was a contrarian naysayer. The company held fast to the notion that in the sea of consumables, brands do not matter but fungible products do. All things being equal, all things are essentially the same things, only different. Generic. Generally the same. Brandless.

Brandless failed as a business. The tragedy is not that it was built upon a false premise. Insight: In a world where we can choose from hundreds of kinds of automobiles, jeans, yoga pants, gummies and fruit smoothies, we are all part of a great similarity.

Millennials, in particular, having grown up in an era during which quality and quantity have been constants, and many are exhausted by the plethora of merchandise thrown at them. Generics are a means of simplifying the storm of things.

Meanwhile, sales growth for generics and/or private label products can be double or triple that of even established 100-year Brands.

Based on these insights (and presumably a few more) plus the never-ending urge to disrupt, in July 2018 SoftBanks’s Vision Fund announced a $240 million round of funding for Brandless. The venture lasted 19 months until Vision Fund pulled the plug.

The cause for Brandless’s fall? Two things (at least). First, they could not call themselves “Brandless” and then also call themselves a Brand. This hubris alone was an emotional and psychological gamble when trying to scale. Is there brand loyalty if you are not a brand? Can angels dance on the head of a pin?

How do you build mass from a fundamental notion of mass-lessness?

Brands are not products. Brands are the people that cluster around products. Brands are no longer simply the brandmark, they are the advocates, fans, Likes, zealots that share the same tastes, values, worldview and aspirations. They walk alike, they talk alike, sometimes they even buy alike.

The new mission is to create a crowd of people around you that becomes so passionate about your success, they create it themselves. In a marketplace filled with a sea of choices, they float your boat.

Second. In the cosmos of merchandising, if you want to be generic at scale you have to squeak past the great gods of Amazon and Walmart. Each of those Brands has their own set of generica whether under the guise of private label or white-shrouded generic. (84% of Walmart customers purchase Walmart brands, rather than big name brands.)

Good luck.

(Note that those who market generics and their soft cousins — private label and house brands — e.g. Target’s Archer Farms, Amazon Elements, Walmart’s “Great Value”, do so by suspending them from their own well-established Brand. Whether they are a branded house or house of brands, they are twigs from the same tree.)

The moral takeaway from Brandless’s fail is that enterprise around people, places or products needs to brand more, not less. (Indeed, Brandless could have branded itself more, and thereby possibly succeeded.)

Current events are proving that companies need to understand that performance marketing and brand marketing are not mutually exclusive. Brands are inherently inclusive. Everyone needs to expand their networks by seeking out and attracting more “people like us.”

What kind of Brand community you are trying to build? Workshop this: If your brand was a city, who would live there, what would it look like, what sounds would you hear, what does it smell like, who won’t not want to live there with you? What things do you celebrate? What things do you abhor?

If you don’t know, you need to find out.

Your brand is not wishy-washy fakery. Your brand is your customers. Brandless tried to create an imperial city as white as a ghost, until it became one.

Contributed to Branding Strategy Insider by: Patrick Hanlon, Author of Primal Branding

The Blake Project Can Help: Disruptive Brand Strategy Workshop

Branding Strategy Insider is a service of The Blake Project: A strategic brand consultancy specializing in Brand Research, Brand Strategy, Brand Growth and Brand Education

FREE Publications And Resources For Marketers

from WordPress https://glenmenlow.wordpress.com/2020/06/11/brandless-demise-reveals-how-brands-succeed/ via IFTTT

[dive-into-marketing]

A must read for anyone who wants to create impact in the world! I love this book! Patrick Hanlon deeply understands that branding and marketing is first and foremost about truly connecting on a human level with the audience. He describes beautifully how the innate yearnings of human beings are to belong and to believe--we want to believe in something that has meaning to us. He also describes the roadmap to create a strong brand through 7 distinct primal codes. These principles are then exemplifies through detailed case studies that breakdown the process in a concrete way. This really helped me in understanding how to apply the 7 codes to my own brand. Go to Amazon

The book is certainly on point in its strongest areas but I feel like theres more filler than anything and you can probably ... The first 1/3rd of the book was very helpful, the 2nd became incredibly long winded as it reiterated previous talking points from earlier chapters. the final 1/3rd didnt seem to include much valuable information at all. The book is certainly on point in its strongest areas but I feel like theres more filler than anything and you can probably find the same information in a better book. All you really need to do is read the first few chapters and you get the gist of the entire book Go to Amazon

The Why and the How of Branding Primal Branding goes much deeper than most books on branding. It is not just about logos and tag lines but about the seven crucial components which must be present to creating a brand that connects. Go to Amazon

Common sense and wisdom packed into this easy to read book. I learned a lot of helpful things to get my on-line business down the road a bit further. This is an easy read with a lot of relevant information and solid wisdom for anyone who is trying to build a brand for their company, no matter how big or small. Go to Amazon

Must-read for new marketers As a relatively new member of the marketing profession, I've been reading a lot of books to help me grasp marketing concepts and techniques. Of those, this has been the most unique. The main concept I took away from this particular tome is that more than one factor comes into play when you're establishing a brand image. Everything--from the logo to the buzz words--associates your product and brand in a consumer's mind. Go to Amazon

Best marketing book so far Best marketing book so far. Makes you really think about the core of who you are as a person/ or your product. It brings you to the ground level then works you up from there instead of throwing random useless facts, and ideas at you. It does a great job pointing out how all the successful companies/ personalities are applying the principles. Go to Amazon

Primal Branding - Patrick Hanlon I have spent quite a bit of time lately explaining to our clients the importance of story telling. Create a great story, and you will be able to create great zealots for your brand. That is the essence of this book. As the author states early on, "The creation story is the crucial first step in providing answers to why people should care about you, or your product or service." Go to Amazon

Worth reading Someone in a large corporation might get more out of this book than I did. The information was very useful, but the examples got tiresome. Overall, though, this book is worth reading for someone trying to create a brand (or run a business, however large or small). Go to Amazon

Watch a video on it or the footnotes. There ... If you are serious about whatever you are promoting then you need this book. Five Stars All is just fine, I found these books very helpful Dated but good This is a very helpful book on branding!!!!!!!!!!!! Five Stars Suddenly I feel like brands make so much more sense Dead On Excellent