#the call backs.... the story consistency...

[starcurtain]

Time, Erudition, and Destruction

I've written before about how time in Amphoreus is essentially a jumbled mess, and playing 3.4 makes me even more convinced that this is entirely intentional--between Khaslana and Trailblazer literally time traveling, cycles happening upon cycles, time's progress being actively "regressed," and Cyrene (the representative of Time) being forcibly removed from the equation, it's little wonder that "time" in Amphoreus seems to be essentially collapsing on itself, completely malleable to the manipulations, memories, and reductions of those pulling the strings of the story's plot.

According to Cyrene, "time" is directly linked to the aeon of Remembrance, and therefore memory is inextricably linked to the passage of time in Amphoreus's story--making both central to the deepest remaining mysteries of Amphoreus's plot.

So, I wanted to take a bit to try to shuffle out my thoughts on where the plot is currently and where it may be going. This is almost all speculation, so take it with a grain of salt, but here's a bit of deeper dive on what I think 3.4 is laying out for us:

First, the issue of Amphoreus's time itself: There's still confusion about which cycles some events are taking place in, and major events are intentionally being shown to us out of chronological order. For example, when the Trailblazer appears in Aedes Elysiae as part of Phainon's "memory" of Cycle 0, Cyrene states that she's experiencing "deja vu" and makes several other comments throughout this memory walk hinting that she knows the Trailblazer is not the imaginary "Hero Within" friend she and Phainon created but an actual person from the future.

Some of this can be chalked up to Hoyo's cheeky habit of implying that HI3rd expies are "meeting the player again"--they did this with Acheron as well, just to hand wave it in Acheron's farewell as "Oops, my memory is kinda bad; this actually was our first meeting." Some of Cyrene's early connection to the Trailblazer probably can be chalked up to the "You're our imaginary hero-shaped friend" aspect. However, some of it feels far too intentional, calling deliberate attention to the collision of the future and past:

At the very least, I think the devs hit this note too often, and too consistently, to not also be implying something else: Cyrene already, even in Cycle 0, had memories she (theoretically) wasn't supposed to have yet and knowledge of the Trailblazer, specifically, that she doesn't currently seem to have any reason for having.

Tiny sidenote here, but the fact that it was hinted all along that our!Phainon from Cycle 33,550,336 is not actually named Phainon now makes no sense with the reveal that everyone in Cycle 0 Aedes Elysiae, in fact, calls him Phainon (including his parents and the fairies), and that "Khaslana" appears to actually be a name bestowed on him after the fact to associate him with the Worldbearing titan/Khaos. (Technically this means we still don't know what our!Phainon was actually named, unless of course it's also just Khaslana because memories of previous cycles somehow bled into later cycles despite the deadloops being referred to as "regressions" which implies deleting and starting again.)

Anyway, back to the main point again: The Chrysos Heirs that appear as "visions of Phainon's future" in Cycle 0 actually seem to be heirs of some other cycle entirely. Mydei refers to Phainon as Phainon, which he didn't do in Cycle 0, and talks about his duel with Flame Reaver, which also didn't occur in Cycle 0.

Theoretically, we're in Phainon's memory here, and at first glance, it might make sense to say that his memories may be jumbled from multiple cycles. Except we're supposed to be in our!Phainon's memory at this point, not Khaslana's (as this moment supposedly takes place before our!Phainon kills Flame Reaver), so our!Phainon should not have memory of Cycle 0 at all yet.

Of course, the more likely possibility is that we were never in Phainon's "real" memory at all, and instead were just temporarily removed to the "buffer zone" by Lygus, where he showed us a (possibly intentionally) jumbled set of memory data from "Phainon" based on what he (Lygus) wanted us to see.

It's intentionally confusing.

At another point, the dev team deliberately disguises which cycle we're in using ???:

Why do this? It had already been revealed right from the beginning of the patch that we were in the 33,550,336th cycle. There was a literal running countdown throughout Phainon's entire Khaslana sequence giving us the exact number of cycles Khaslana would reach by the end. For what purpose would the devs list a scene as occurring in the ??? cycle... if not to deliberately obscure which cycle we're really in?

Furthermore, there's the question of whether what happens in this ??? scene (supposedly our!Phainon's fight with Flame Reaver) even really can be from the 33,550,336th cycle, given that Flame Reaver is suddenly able to speak in clear full sentences again, despite supposedly being so degraded by the actual 33,550,336th cycle that he seems to struggle to form coherent thoughts.

When is this scene really taking place, hmmm Hoyo?

(Okay, I might just be thinking into things a bit too much here, but seriously--why the "???" marks?)

Along the same lines, there's something interesting if you go back to 3.3 as well. I mentioned scenes being shown to us out of chronological order, and the ending 3.3 is a perfect example of this. Many of us were confused at the end of 3.3 when Phainon seemingly has no issue with Cyrene being alive out of nowhere. 3.4 resolves this by suggesting that we were actually being shown the ending of Cycle 0 at the end of patch 3.3.

However... There's something not quite right about this either. Because in 3.4, Cycle 0 Phainon is fully aware of Cyrene, and they walked into the Vortex of Genesis together, facing Lygus as a team.

However, during 3.3, "Phainon" acts surprised to see Cyrene there at first, suggesting that he did not expect her to appear:

The scene shown at the end of patch 3.3 is not the ending of Cycle 0.

...So when is it?

There's also this, which still hasn't been sufficiently explained:

This implies that either the Flame Reaver/Khaslana of the 33,550,336th cycle made some attempt to go after Seliose and her companions... or there's some additional time travel still ahead of us.

At the end of 3.4, Mem says she'll send Trailblazer back to the "beginning of time" but also suggests that we'll continue to meet each other in new cycles. Mem also says that Cyrene is waiting in the "future," while the book says "in the past," suggesting that these two are essentially the same thing--the Trailblazer's future is Amphoreus's past, intertwining and recursive like a mobius strip.

Overall, the impression this gives is that we may be headed into some sort of stable or semi-stable timeloop, and that the Cyrene of the future feels deja vu when meeting us because the Cyrene of the past already has. This is sort of alarming, as it could possibly suggest that we're not going into the past to successfully change it, to erase all the long years of Phainon and Cyrene's suffering; rather, we may just be closing a loop that already existed from the start, which would mean that all the actions which led to us going into the past in the first place would be inevitable...

Time travel plots are honestly kind of the worst lmao.

The concept of time in relation to Cyrene is also complicated in general, because who is it that has been trapped in the path space outside Amphoreus this whole time? Obviously it's Cyrene, but which one? Is it Cycle 0 Cyrene, sent out by that first time Phainon killed her? If that's the case, then who has Mem been the whole while? Has Cyrene's consciousness slivered into two (or more), allowing her to both exist outside Amphoreus and to exist inside it as a sentient being at the same time? (Never mind that this also calls into question how Cyrene could exist outside Amphoreus at all if they haven't yet been actualized into "real people"--she mentions that her "soul" will travel to some distant corner of the world and sleep, but at what point do electrical signals inside Amphoreus gain souls? The log suggests that Phainon may have crossed the "intelligence singularity" at the end of the 33,550,336th cycle--but Cyrene seems to have crossed it at Cycle 0?)

There's also the question about how Cyrene was able to do any of this. Theoretically in Cycle 0 she became Oronyx's demigod and therefore became a stand-in for the concept of Time itself; however, the "As I've Written" log updates clarify that all the power bestowed by the coreflames is actually just a heightened level of administrative privileges, allowing those who wield the coreflames to manipulate the simulation in ways that non-coreflame-wielders cannot:

The log also states that Phainon and Cyrene attempted to create a logic rupture by removing Cyrene (the concept of Time itself) from Amphoreus. However, by the point in Cycle 0, all the other demigods were also dead, and we know that the entire point of the OG cycles were for the Chrysos Heirs to die and be "reborn" as the next extrapolation's titans; therefore, the demigod of Oronyx would have died thousands of times inside Amphoreus already. How did killing Cyrene at the end of Cycle 0 do something different to "time" than what was already programmed and planned with the death of the other Oronyx Chrysos Heirs?

And how does "killing me in each cycle will send you back in time" even work, if Cyrene was not Oronyx's demigod in each cycle? Does Cyrene have actual control over time entirely separate from Amphoreus's extrapolations? If so, how?

(My head hurts, to be honest. I should know better than to think this hard lol.)

But, even more intriguing to me is how all this leads up to even bigger questions, the first of which is "What is Lygus even waiting for?"

In 3.4, Lygus states that the experimental question behind Amphoreus was already solved as of Cycle 0, and that none of the individual Chrysos Heirs, including Phainon and Cyrene, actually mattered much at all beyond being a tool for refining Irontomb.

The only thing remaining between Lygus and his "Era Nova" is, according to Lygus himself, someone needing to step up and receive the gaze of Nanook to actualize the Scepter as a Lord Ravager.

But this... doesn't actually make much sense? The Scepter itself had already been gazed at by Nanook in the original 50,121st cycle. It was already a Lord Ravager long before Phainon and Cyrene ever existed!

Moreover, the simulated model of Destruction contained in it (the "Black Tide") was already deployed in other galaxies to near perfect success even before Phainon and Cyrene completed Cycle 0.

Why would a second gaze from Nanook, specifically to Phainon and/or Cyrene, actually be necessary?

Is the answer to the "equation of Destruction" really just people? Why does Lygus need Phainon and Cyrene Co. to "become real" in order to deploy an already solved "equation of Destruction"?

Why does the Scepter need someone organic in order to, as the "As I've Written" log states, "self-crown"?

Hmmmmm. 🤔

Simultaneously, trying to unravel Lygus's real role in the plot raises another question: Who is actually in charge of the Amphoreus experiment? In the new "As I've Written," Lygus is listed as the administrator and refers to himself as the "prime mover" of the experiment. We know that someone has been controlling Amphoreus's simulated data enough to change the setting of the story (setting the world's civilization level to "classical" for example) and also to direct the system to begin iterating with the original Chrysos Heirs becoming titans, etc.

But if Lygus has the power to actually control the system that completely, why would he not just delete Phainon and Cyrene entirely when they revolted and refused to go through with his plan? Or, at the very least, why not tamper with their memory files to erase Cyrene's memory of the aeon and lead them both into the "Era Nova" he wanted? Why was the "administrator" not able to override Phainon's commands to regress each extrapolation back?

This, of course, leads to the impression that Lygus wanted Phainon and Cyrene to loop the system--OR that Lygus does not actually have control over the experiment, and he can only observe it.

I think the first one is the interpretation most players are going with: Lygus only stood to gain by Phainon collecting more and more coreflames, more and more hatred. It was possibly Lygus's plan all along to drive Phainon personally into becoming an avatar of Destruction.

But... if the equation was already complete by the end of Phainon and Cyrene's Cycle 0, why bother at all? Why prepare a "gift" for Irontomb if Irontomb was already a Lord Ravager and had already determined the perfect path to Destruction by this point? Lygus had already, supposedly, achieved what he wanted--so why keep waiting?

Why not just replace NeiKos496 and Philia093 with new heirs and actualize Irontomb instantly with no problem?

It doesn't make sense, does it? Either Lygus could not erase/replace Phainon and Cyrene by himself... or his actual plan isn't just to launch Irontomb.

He may actually be waiting (or aiming) for something else.

All of this relates back to my main conjecture after completing 3.4: I am almost certain that Lygus is not what he seems. I don't usually dive too deep into plot leaks, so I could be totally off, but... something is still not adding up here.

Cyrene and Phainon even bring it up, stating that Lygus could have achieved his goal instantly if he had just kept to the shadows and said nothing at all.

Phainon claims that Lygus chose to reveal himself and Amphoreus's connection to the Destruction because he was trying to cover up the fact that Amphoreus is also being gazed at by other aeons--but this makes no sense in practice.

How does Lygus revealing the existence of Nanook and Nous--thereby confirming the existence of multiple outside aeons--help to distract from those aeons? The game itself is even tossing it in our faces that if Lygus had said nothing, then Phainon and Cyrene would have gone straight into the Destruction without hesitation, which means that effectively, Lygus is the one who prevented Amphoreus from falling to the Destruction at the end of Cycle 0. Why? For what reason would Lygus have shared the truth of Amphoreus with Phainon and Cyrene, when it did nothing but--at least on the surface--seem to delay his plans at best, and completely derail them at worst?

When confronted about this, Lygus himself has absolutely nothing to say. It's literally just a blank close-up of his face. He never confirms or denies Phainon and Cyrene's claims, and he absolutely provides no answer for why he brought up the Destruction and the truth of Amphoreus to them in that moment. In writing, this is one of the most common and quickest ways to create red herrings: Character A makes an assumption, and Character B lets their assumption stand--only to reveal later that the assumption was wrong all along. Whenever there is an assumption ("Lygus is distracting us so that we'll go into the Destruction") that seemingly contradicts the character's actions ("Lygus's action here actually stopped Amphoreus from immediately going down the path of Destruction"), we have to question whether there is something more going on.

I mean, maybe Lygus really is just that over-confident and foolish. Maybe he's a straightforward, one-dimensional villain whose pride got the better of him here and he revealed all of this from sheer arrogance, confident that Phainon and Cyrene would never be able to stop him. Maybe he revealed all this because he wanted the regressions to happen right from the start, and Phainon's 33,550,336 cycles really were just Lygus's idea all along.

But the fact that we actually got a "Why would you reveal your plan to us like this?" callout in the writing of the scene itself is supposed to be a glaring red, entirely unsubtle flag for players--we're supposed to be going "Pump the brakes!! Something is NOT right here!!" My personal takeaway from the devs taking the time to literally go "Why would the villain be revealing his plan to us?" is that, of course, Lygus's actual plan has still not been revealed.

Lygus had a real reason for revealing Destruction and the plot to kill Nous to Phainon and Cyrene--but he hasn't actually told us that reason yet. Perhaps it is true that Lygus doesn't want Phainon and Cyrene to know what the other aeons are doing in Amphoreus--but doesn't that imply that Lygus, in fact, already knows what the other aeons are doing?

But if things aren't as simple as they seem, where does that leave Lygus though? If he still knows more than what he's revealed, if things in Amphoreus might still be going according to his plan, then what is the real plan? What is the real reasoning behind anything that is happening here?

Before anything else, Lygus's pointed comments about creators and their creations--about the idea of abandonment by the creator--does seem genuine. The English VA work (while being very good) is quite different from the CN that I normally play with, with the English VA giving Lygus a very strong dose of barely repressed anger whenever Nous is mentioned. Nous is described "the source of all this tragedy" and Lygus reacts with visible frustration when the concept of being a "slave" to the gods is discussed.

Whoever is writing the logs in the new "As I'm Written" (seemingly Lygus, but there's always a possibility it's not) seems constantly fixated on the question of why Nous would abandon its "neurons," the Scepters.

This makes Lygus's plot smack, taken together with the comment from the "One-Day Talanton" questline, of the tantrum of an abandoned creation, striking back at their creator who left them alone. But in what way was Lygus abandoned by Nous, if that's who he's truly angry at? The game seems to suggest, at least so far, that Lygus is not actually Irontomb itself (Lygus refers to Irontomb as "you" in the new "As I've Written" as if it was a third-party object)--and only Irontomb has been described as abandoned by Nous so far.

So... Where is Lygus's rage actually coming from?

Did Nous abandon the Intellitrons somehow, in some way that hasn't yet been touched on by the plot? Or is Lygus's rage at abandonment actually Irontomb's "feeling"? Does Lygus's sense of abandonment and his desire to give a creator "oblivion" for casting its creation aside actually stem from Irontomb's being cut away from Nous's brain system? (WHO HURT YOU, LYGUS??)

Theoretically, there's precedent in the plot for this to be true. We're told in Gold and Gears that Rubert II inherited Rubert I's memories through the Anti-Organic Equation. Therefore, it's possible that Lygus is actually "Rubert III," having inherited the memories of Rubert I through the Anti-Organic Equation in the Scepter. This would align with the new "As I've Written," which suggests that the person writing the logs, presumably Lygus, is a recognized member of the Genius Society, as Rubert I was. (Or they're at least able to falsify their identity enough to pass as a GS member...)

If Lygus is a cover for a real Genius Society member, we know Polka Kakamond, Screwllum, Herta, Ruan Mei, Stephen Lloyd, and all the confirmed dead members are off the table. That leaves only those who either haven't been foreshadowed at all (or much), like Yu Qingtu, or those closer to the situation: Rubert I or someone close enough to Nous to have a personal grudge.

Lygus could very well be some Rubert I-Rubert II amalgamation reborn, furious at Nous for THEIR choice to abandon the Scepter system, perceiving it as a creator abandoning their creation to the cold abyss.

But there's also something weird going on with how Nous is described--because Nous is, in fact, a creation in and of itself, and THEY are described as a creation that paid their creator back with cruelty. The logs say that the moment Erudition was born, all genius, all thought, all knowledge in the universe became THEIR slave. Therefore, all members of the Genius Society (presumably including Lygus) are already slaves to Nous, even though it was a member of the Genius Society (Zandar One Kuwabara) who created Nous in the first place.

So if Lygus's anger is about a creation that hates its creator... then which creation and which creator are we talking about?

Nous creating Scepters--or someone creating Nous?

I cannot think it is accidental that Lygus's appearance is repeatedly mirrored to Nous's through the severed head and red "eye."

There's even the fact that Nous appears in Fu Xuan's memories as a man with his eyes covered, much the way Lygus's visor normally blocks his eyes from view.

This is just too close and too consistent (shown multiple times from 3.3 to 3.4) to be unintentional. Something is going on there.

(There's the other consideration too: Lygus says he likes stories where creations and creators get along and knows that creations that are treated poorly by their creators respond with violence--is Lygus not, sort of, Phainon's creator? Does he actually long for the oblivion that comes from abusing a creation?)

Anyway, to complicate the situation even further, there's also a third option about Lygus's plan: Perhaps all of this is nothing more than a ploy, with all of Lygus's anger being just a play-acting facade?

Could Lygus be pretending to take on Irontomb's hatred toward Nous in order to actually achieve a different end, to disguise his real plan behind the smokescreen of abandonment issues? Is Lygus's "anger" the real distraction to keep us from understanding where his actual allegiances lie?

Is Lygus's story a straightforward tantrum over being abandoned--or a clever ruse for an entirely different stance?

Your guess is as good as mine, because the game is extremely contradictory when it comes to Nous. The new "Fables About the Stars" video suggests that the Lord Ravagers see the downfall of Nous as the first step to winning the War of the Aeons--killing all intelligence in the universe will leave civilizations too weak and ignorant to defend themselves. Ergo, we could say that the Lord Ravagers actually view Nous as a force for good, protecting the universe from Destruction.

But Lygus--and others throughout both Gold and Gears and the Unknowable Domain--describe Nous as a slaver, a being whose very existence closes off all possibilities for the growth of intelligence, because simply by existing as the concept of Knowledge itself, all questions are already anticipated, all answers are already known. There is no meaning to seeking knowledge if all equations have already been solved, if all solutions have already be calculated.

Free will cannot exist if all possibilities have already been foreseen.

So is the Erudition a well-meaning being, the kind old man who warned Fu Xuan away from the pain she would feel from THEIR gift--or a cold and emotionless void that seeks ever more knowledge, even at the cost of life itself?

Let's not forget that it was the Erudition's tacit approval of the Anti-Organic Equation that put the final nail in the coffin for Nanook's home world and caused THEM to ascend as an aeon--Nanook's beef with Nous is personal.

In the war of concepts, does Erudition represent a net positive for humanity--or a dangerous pinnacle where we teeter on the brink of total intelligence collapse?

Tiny aside here, but I think it is also worth noting that just as Cyrene has weird timey-wimey wibbly-wobbly-ness going on, so too does Nous. The new "As I've Written" logs suggest multiple times that something is not quite right with the administrator's understanding of the timeline surrounding Nous:

(This may also be related to the Gold and Gears moment where Ruan Mei notes that it should have been impossible, time-wise, for Rubert II to have had the connections he did to the first Mechanical Emperor's War--which the geniuses on the Herta Space Station debate about for some time.)

We are also told repeatedly throughout the game that Nous is linked to the idea of divination, because THEIR calculations are absolute, and THEIR predictions are (according to Polka Kakamond) always true. Nous's thoughts are not just thoughts but fixed points in reality, "INSTANCES" and "MOMENTS" that are said to anchor the very future of the universe:

And if Nous already knows all things that will come to pass, has calculated all possible outcomes for the war among the aeons already...

Then wouldn't all of the Amphoreus experiment also just be Nous's own plan?

The "As I've Written" log literally suggests as much:

The game itself is playing with this concept extensively in Amphoreus, leading us time and time again to the conclusion that Erudition and Destruction are not opposed to each other.

While we could dismiss the unflattering image of Nous in Lygus's logs as pure propaganda, just anti-Nous rhetoric to convince the Scepter to target Nous specifically, there's the ring of truth in the idea that Erudition is not only a destructive path but also a self-destructive one as well.

We've received not one but two end-game modes about conflicts stoked specifically by Nous and/or their followers, with the knowledge that the Anti-Organic Wars completely reshaped HSR's cosmology, based almost entirely around the Erudition path's uncontrollable curiosity and unfettered desire for knowledge. In seeking more and more and more information, we know that many geniuses of the Genius Society have instead led their worlds (or others' worlds) into Destruction, such as Chadwick whose invention of the Imaginary Implosion Pulse resulted in the annihilation of 24 planets, or Rubert I and Dr. Primitive. Even Ruan Mei, ostensibly a "good guy" on our side, dabbles with horrific things like necromancy and resurrecting the Swarm in her pursuit of knowledge.

Although there are altruistic members of the Genius Society, the overall impression is that of a group which places their own personal intellectual interests above the safety of the universe, eschewing ethics and morality entirely if it means getting just that much further ahead in their research. (Screwllum even has to remind Herta once they make it into Amphoreus that she shouldn't get distracted with her own interests while people's literal lives are on the line, and Herta is one of the goodies.)

If the human followers of Erudition are willing to put aside ethics and empathy in the search for answers... What does that mean for Nous, the inorganic "brain" of the universe, whose only prime directive is to seek knowledge?

Does Nous care at all about the fate of universe--or only about finding the "answers"? Is the Erudition an aeon capable of loving life, like the very human Akivili? Or is Nous truly nothing more than a cold and rational computer, reducing all human existence to mindless lines of numbers and data, conducting horrific "thought experiments" using the real universe as its testing ground, terminating experiments without hesitation, and seeking answers even at the cost of life itself?

What if the "universe's answer" that Nous found... was an ultimate fate of Destruction? Would Nous help avert that--or steer us toward it instead?

The new "As I've Written" logs hint at this dangerous view of Erudition frequently, alongside the suggestion that Erudition is, by default, a self-destructive path.

Anaxa, who is aligned with Erudition's path in Amphoreus's simulation, is said to perfectly reflect Erudition's "self-destructive" tendencies, with the log suggesting that those who follow Erudition are not only willing to sacrifice others in their pursuit of knowledge, but even more willing to sacrifice themselves.

The act of learning can be, in itself, a form of destruction.

I don't have the time or energy to really expound on this thought the way it deserves, but the wording that so often surrounds learning is (even in real academia) frequently related to destruction--you can "tear away the veil of ignorance" or "destroy your previous conceptions;" knowledge can be "acquired" by force, and students often lament the collapse of their mental and physical health while they frantically work to complete their studies.

The pursuit of truth is both the most necessary hunt in existence and the most ruinous.

Just like Lygus's logs suggest, the rest of the game--and our understanding of the real world too--also suggest that there may already be inextricable links between Erudition and Destruction.

However, Amphoreus's plot is simultaneously inviting us to consider Destruction in a different light as well.

In Amphoreus's simulation, rather than "the end of all things," Destruction becomes a catalyst for growth and rebirth. Inside the Amphoreus simulation, extinction events are what allow evolution to flourish, the threat of destruction is what fosters an all-powerful drive to live, and through the constantly reiterating cycles of Chrysos Heirs killing and then taking on the role of the titans they've obliterated, the electrical signals inside the Scepter grow in strength and ability, approaching the "intelligence singularity" that will allow them to "become real."

In fact, it's only when Phainon achieves a state of pure Destruction and is gazed upon by Nanook once more that he appears to have possibly crossed this "intelligence singularity," implying that--through Destruction of the Self--Phainon, after being actualized from Irontomb, may be capable of becoming "true" life.

The conclusion that Lygus--and the Scepter and Nous--seem to have reached is that Destruction is, in fact, the prime mover of life.

Simultaneously both the end and the beginning of existence.

Again, this might be nothing but crazy, biased conclusions inserted into the system by Lygus in his bid to ensure Nous's destruction--but it does also have the ring of truth to it, doesn't it?

Our known universe itself began with a singularity, the "Big Bang" that "hurtles" galaxies through the cold, dark void, sparking the primordial fire that gave birth to stars. In virtually every world religion, a great destruction gives rise to new civilization--the Flood wipes humanity off the map, the plagues destroy Egypt to free the Hebrew people, Shiva (whose name means "kindness") destroys the universe in order to create it anew, resetting the eternal cycles as souls refine themselves of impurities on their path to liberation. Flowers must die in winter before they can be reborn in spring. Forests need fires in order to flourish. The hero on his Hero's Journey faces symbolic death in order to rise up as a new, better person.

Life and death--Thought and Destruction--are an endless cycle, maybe no different from Amphoreus's own endless cycles.

I want to pause here to include one more way of thinking about Destruction which I think Amphoreus's plot is heavily alluding to: The connection between Destruction and the concept of Chaos ("Khaos").

In ancient Greek mythology, the universe itself was born from Chaos, typically in conjunction with other deities/concepts such as "Gaia" the earth or "Nyx" for night. In the ancient Greek tradition, "Chaos" is not the wild, disorderly bedlam we might imagine from that word today, but instead a primordial void, containing simultaneously nothing and everything at once--the possibility of all things both good and bad.

This notion that the world began in a chaotic void is also present in many different religions--"Let there be light" in Christianity, for example--and has reached nearly universal cultural acceptance as people imagine the scientific origin of our universe itself as being a sort of endless black emptiness until the Big Bang singularity.

Thus, when we think of the start of existence itself, we think of "chaos" and the darkness of the void.

In other words: Khaos and Evernight.

In Paradise Lost, a text which HSR has actually referenced obliquely several times before, John Milton writes that all existence was born from "Chaos and Old Night," where "Night" is the beginning and origin, erasing but also containing all time and memory, and Chaos is the substance-nonsubstance all-encompassing seed of existence:

Before their eyes in sudden view appear The secrets of the hoary Deep, a dark, Illimitable ocean, without bound, Without dimension, where length, breadth, and height, And time and place, are lost; where eldest Night And Chaos, ancestors of Nature, hold Eternal anarchy, amidst the noise Of endless wars, and by confusion stand. For Hot, Cold, Moist, and Dry, four champions fierce, Strive here for mastery, and to battle bring Their embryon atoms: they around the flag Of each his faction, in their several clans, Light-armed or heavy, sharp, smooth, swift or slow, Swarm populous, unnumbered as the sands Of Barca or Cyrenè's torrid soil.

Milton describes his conception of Chaos in Paradise Lost as "the womb of nature and perhaps her grave," full of the "dark materials to create more worlds." In another of Milton's work, his treatise on Christianity, Milton describes Chaos as "not an evil thing, nor to be thought of as worthless: it was good, and it contained the seeds of all subsequent good.”

Thus, for Milton--and for the many, many pieces of media inspired by his views--Chaos is a thing of both good and evil, containing all possibilities for Destruction as well as Creation.

It shouldn't be hard to make the connection to HSR here. We are told repeatedly that inside Amphoreus's simulation, electrical signals possessing certain ideologies all began to name themselves after "Khaos."

It was Chaoz666 that caused Irontomb to be recognized as Lord Ravager by Nanook, and later "Khaos" who became Kephale, bearing the world on his shoulders as the model for Phainon to follow. Phainon's own bestowed name "Khaslana" is actually "Khaoslana" in Chinese. Ergo: Phainon is the representative of the oldest meaning of "Chaos"--not mindless, disorganized hatred, but the potentiality of all things, bearing the chance for Destruction and Creation in equal capacities.

And if Phainon, Destruction's avatar, is a vessel containing the seeds of good, the "dark materials to create new worlds"... What does that say about Destruction itself?

Is Nanook the culmination of entropy, the heat death of the universe, the process by which all things will eventually reach Finality?

Or, as the Scepter has concluded, is Destruction actually the prime mover of life, the end of one cycle so that a new cycle can finally be ushered in?

Will the power of Destruction in Amphoreus be used to end life--or to create it?

In our oldest of legends, Chaos--all good and evil, all beginnings ends, all destruction and creation in one--combined with time and memory (the Evernight), to create the world as we know it, bringing true life into being from the void.

Make of that what you will.

To me, by far the most interesting element of patch 3.4 was not Phainon's individual suffering, sad as that was. Instead, the most powerful part of 3.4 was definitely the questions it raises about the aeons.

Thought goes hand-in-hand with existence ("I think, therefore I am"). Death goes hand-in-hand with time ("Memento mori"). Destruction encompasses both the end of thought (Erudition) and the beginning of memory (Remembrance).

Amphoreus is asking a series of very interesting questions on the cosmic level: Are Erudition and Destruction two sides of the same coin, does Destruction goes hand-in-hand with life, and what does this all really mean for the upcoming "War of the Aeons"--leaving me with perhaps the most important question of all:

If Finality truly means the end of all things forever, would Destruction--with its possibility of rebirth, of evolution from the ashes--actually be the better choice?

Amphoreus is a world that has "died" and been recreated millions upon millions of times, blessed--or cursed--with Nanook's golden blood, and poised to ultimately be "reborn" into true life from the destruction it has experienced.

It's very hard to miss the symbolism suggesting that the power of Destruction is actually essential to escaping endless futility and stagnation into non-existence.

The meal is tastyyyyy; thank you Hoyo.

So, all in all, the biggest 3.4 takeaways:

Phainon and Cyrene are almost certainly going to be able to use their powers (perhaps combined with[in] the Trailblazer) as Chaos and Old Night to give Amphoreus the "birth" it deserves to become its own world.

Lygus's actual plot is still entirely unclear, and his seeming hatred for Nous is complicated by many outside factors that may be obscuring his true intentions, not the least of which is still the clearly distorted sense of time and looping going on inside Amphoreus. We have no way of knowing at this point why he's so gung-ho about making Phainon and Co. into "real people" and what he actually thinks about the Scepter's conclusion that "Destruction is the prime mover of birth." I can't stop laughing, someone please give Nanook a baby.

Nous may or may not be entirely intertwined with the notion of Destruction, as much a force for annihilation (and self-annihilation) as Nanook.

Nanook may not represent, for Amphoreus at least, what it seems on the surface, and the power of Destruction will almost certainly be essential to bringing Amphoreus into the true Era Nova it deserves.

Phew! That's my thoughts, anyway!

[eternalglitter]

♫ Have Ya Babies - Smoke Moore

Modern!AU - @erikftglitter’s first work on the main blog. New works are here & works in progress will finish there.

This writing is a little different than my others and the inconsistent way of referring to the twins are intentional. I want Elias/Elijah to feel human, real, vulnerable but Smoke/Stack are guarded, intense, intriguing. So if that name changes so does the atmosphere/environment. Make sense? :)

Aspen ❤️‍🔥

@Asperfect4U

Life’s a movie; here lies the best scenes.

Followed by no one you know.

Elijah started at his iPhone screen for several moments. He touched the screen, just barely enough pressure to commit to a decision, but enough to keep his screen from locking.

One moment he was opening a direct message from his brother, Elias, and now he was stumped by the beauty in the round icon.

Aspen. He liked that. He wondered what made her choose the fiery heart. What made her fierce? Who made her fierce?

He knew that he shouldn’t, especially not publicly, but that intrigued him more. To be attracted to something that he couldn’t have was not usually his style.

Elias was more of that guy. He loved pursuing challenges, he loved easy-mode, skipping the plot and going straight to action, but his favorite was women obsessed with him. Elijah shuddered at the thought of Stack’s current girlfriend. If Stack told her to set herself on fire then she would drink the gasoline and buy a heart shaped lighter. He had it like that.

But Smoke? His preference in women was completely different than his brother’s taste. Smoke was his name to just about everyone. With the exception of Stack, everyone who knew him as Elijah was long gone and he didn’t see that changing.

Despite the identical traits they just weren’t attracted to the same things. This made life easier. More consistent for the both of them.

If Stack chose salty then Smoke chose sweet. If Stack wore red then Smoke wore blue. It’s just how they were. Smoke could brush it off as a difference of opinion, but Elijah knew that there was a legitimate reason for the decisions that they made, but he liked to smoke away that reminder.

Daddy never chose Elias. Maybe because raising twins was too much. Maybe because Elias was born last. Either way, the resentment showed — and Elijah saw it long before Elias could name it. He could only take so much.

His brother, his other half, was no mistake. The creation of twins weren’t a curse and he’d be damned before anyone let his brother feel that way. He assumed responsibility for him by the age of eleven after daddy died. That’s just the way it’s been.

Elias got first call at everything. Sometimes Smoke would even let him win. He tried his best to erase the brutality that only they knew about when Ma did shifts overnight.

But he knew that Stack harbored that resentment in the back of his mind. He knew that his preference in obsessive women filled a void. He knew that his baby brother just wanted to feel…. wanted. He also knew that he was partially responsible for Stack being as reckless as he had been.

Smoke was always there to protect him from whatever he had done. Always overcompensating for the pain that daddy inflicted onto them. They play oblivious but Stack respected his brother’s actions. His protection. Someone wouldn’t mind talking crazy to Stack, but thought of taking on Smoke always made them take the high road.

So as sure as Smoke sounds, something in Elijah was hesitant deep down. This was not his lane. He didn’t flirt via social media. He didn’t watch women on the internet. He’s a real man and met women in real life.

But in a matter of seconds he couldn’t stop himself from viewing her stories from his personal account. The worst part is that he didn’t care. She had his attention. In a world of too much access that was rare.

I know what you're thinkin'

(I know what you're thinkin')

It's alright (can you feel me? Yeah)

It's alright, yes (ooh, baby)

♫ Now Playing: Read Your Mind - Avant ♫

The song was paired with a photo of who he assumes to be Aspen. She looked beautiful, stunning actually. Dressed in a fitted black top that revealed a small amount of cleavage. She had appeal that wasn’t inherently sexual. She looked like she didn’t need to try. The red lipstick intrigued him more.

He had a thing for the signature look.

He would have missed the subtle “v-day archives,” if it wasn’t for his finger holding the story down, pausing it to observe every inch of the frame. He knew what he was looking for. He didn’t use the platform often but he knew how women insinuated relationships. A shoe, a watch, a finger even, but the picture gave nothing.

She the type to have a man, he thought to himself. That was until the next story contradicted it all.

“Yes traditional women still exist & yes we want a traditional man.”

It was reposted, not her words, but it hit like they were. Against better judgment, he liked the story. Then followed the account.

To want what he couldn’t have.

“I need to smoke.” He grumbled.

He slid his phone into his pocket. He scanned his room for the tin that his brother dropped off earlier. A tin full of pre-rolls - rolled by the master himself.

Smoke couldn’t roll for himself. His hand had a small tremor despite his heavy efforts to diminish it. It didn’t attract attention, but years of training allowed him to be a little more controlled, a little bit more protected.

If you were intimidated by him, when would you have the courage to stare at him long enough to notice it? You wouldn’t and he knew that. Stack knew it too. He’d iron his brother’s clothes, cut his hair, and of course roll up when he knew that he couldn’t. All unspoken. That’s just how they were.

Stack asked him about it once. Smoke said that he was born with it. Stack didn’t ask again. He just noted that this was probably the only lie that Smoke told him and he was okay with it. It was easier to accept Smoke’s reality than to admit that he knew that Smoke had only developed that tremor in sixth grade when they were 11 and when daddy died.

The familiar feeling eased Smoke’s mind. He wasn’t thinking about daddy anymore and that’s all he wanted to do; forget about him and his treatment towards him. His tremor intensified but he closed his eyes and dropped his head, thinking of no one but the most high.

"The LORD examines the righteous, but the wicked, those who love violence, he hates with a passion."

He repeated it, just as he did in Sunday school many moons ago, and his body lost some of its ambition to keep him trembling. With a couple more drags he ashed the joint out.

The vibration of cell phone reminded him of his previous actions.

@Aspen ❤️‍🔥

@Asperfect4U followed you back!

The small satisfactory smile was the closest thing he’d do to celebrate. This was just the beginning.

_______

Aspen stared at her reflection. Her face was slightly swollen from crying. Another situationship. Another heartache. Another waste of time.

She was at war with her mind and her biological clock. She longed for a genuine connection but was receptive to the fact that it just wasn’t her time. She carried her boundaries well. That strictness got dudes gone the first time that they messed up.

She didn’t post while she was emotional. She didn’t tweet for his attention. She didn’t post songs that aligned with their situation. She was better than that. She simply moved on and lived as if they never existed and that hurt the most. Especially when they did exist and they caused real damage.

She cried in private, expressed discontent with her closest friends, but she would never let a man get a reaction out of her. Not when she built herself up when she was broken. Not when she had accomplished so much.

She was still fine as fuck though. The world deserved to see her again. It was the digital camera that reminded her of the Valentine’s Day photos. Mr. Disappointment played ghost that night, sending her flowers and chocolate in the morning, but failing to come through with a dinner.

So she went to dinner with Adrienne and forgot all about him. Two months later and he still rang her line, hoping for just one more chance. One that he had and fucked up.

Aspen thought about which song matched the vibe of her picture. Something seductive but not vulgar. Something spicy but not super suggestive. R&B was the way to go.

As she scrolled through the list, lyrics of Read Your Mind looped in her head. That was the one. She giggled to herself once she found the perfect part.

“I look good.” She smiled. And it wasn’t for him.

That was a few hours ago. She’d got trapped in a binge watching session of one of her favorite shows. She’d forgotten all about the Instagram story.

She was about to open the app but received a text message at the same time, unintentionally clicking the message open.

+ (223)-412-2541

Guess you moved on huh?

A new number, the same man. Aspen sighed. D1 athletes were now on her shit list.

She was curious about this particular message though. Usually he was trying to sell her a dream. Headstrong about not giving up. So what was with this declaration? Had she finally ignored him enough? Thank Goodness.

She saw the notification but she still ignored it. That hadn’t said what she thought it did so she ignored it. There was no way. It had to be a spam account posing in someone else’s place.

She scrolled through her explore page. Wellness accounts, university students, beauty tutorials, and countless advertisements. She was ready to exit the app but a post caught her attention.

“Yes traditional women still exist & yes we want a traditional man.”

A monogamous relationship was a scarcity in today’s society. She liked the quote and reposted it. This time she didn’t ignore the notification.

@smok3yvision liked your story!

@smok3yvision followed you!

The blue verification check followed the username. Smoke Moore just liked her post. Smoke Moore AKA @smok3yvision, co-founder of Moore Entertainment is checking for her.

Yeah D1 athletes are so over. She followed Smoke back but not before throwing a celebratory twerk in bed.

..I can read your mind babe

I can tell what you’re thinking..

What are we thinking? Yay? Nay? Two

[laursdomain]

Hi🫶🏻 can I request current boyfriend trend with Xaden or Liam pleasee 🙌🏻

current boyfriend

pairing: Liam Mairi x fem!reader

genre: fluff

synopsis: Liam loved pranks, until he’s the victim of one. A cruel, yet funny, prank comes to mind at breakfast with two mischievous individuals who love helping you make your fiancé’s life a living hell. 

warnings: mentions of violence, fluff

w/c: 871

a/n: i'm back!! a small little blurb for tonight! not my best work, but hoping to slowly get back into writing :)

ྀིliam mairi masterlist

☄. *. ⋆

Liam loved pranks. You knew it. He knew it. Your friends knew it. If there’s one thing that has been consistent in your relationship with Liam, it’s the silly pranks you two play on each other. 

“You should do the current boyfriend prank on Liam,” Quinn giggled, keeping her voice low as your fiancé was sitting with Xaden a couple tables away. Something about an important conversation. You were half asleep when Liam told you.

“The what?” You question, furrowing your brows. Quinn was your go-to girl when it came to finding new ideas for pranks to play on your boyfriend, especially after one he just played on you. 

“The current boyfriend prank,” she rose a brow, quickly realizing you didn’t know what she meant. “A couple of cadets in First Wing started it, apparently. You introduce your husband or fiancé to someone as your ‘current boyfriend.’ The whole point is to get a reaction out of them. Some girl did it with her fiancé, he didn’t take it well.”

“Interesting,” you mumble, forming a plan in your head. You two have been engaged for long enough, long enough to the point where you couldn’t easily make the mistake of calling him your boyfriend instead of your fiancé. “I would need someone he’s never met to be in on it, but that’s hard, as Liam knows everyone.” 

“I have a cadet in mind,” Imogen adds, leaning on her marked arm. She had remained visibly quiet during the conversation, more focused on eating her breakfast than forming a plan for your prank.

You and Quinn shared a look, both confused on who Imogen could be speaking about.

The plan was diabolical to say the least. Imogen was brutal, but this may be ruthless. Her grand idea was to introduce Liam to an infantry cadet. Infantry and Rider don’t necessarily intermingle…or get along for that matter. You weren’t sure how Imogen has this connection, but the infantry cadet, who you now know is named Clyde, is more than willing to pretend to be your ex. He willingly agreed to the physical reaction Liam may have. 

“So who are you introducing me to?” Liam asks, hand firmly wrapped around your own as you lead him to the meet-up spot. It was in town, somewhere that can be easily accessed by both parties.

“A friend,” you lie, hoping your fiancé wouldn’t see right through it. The story was that you and Clyde used to date as young teenagers, but broke up when he decided to start his Infantry training. Since then, you’ve been on good terms and are friends.

“Y/N!” Clyde calls out, putting on a friendly demeanor. 

You wave back at him, pulling Liam towards him. Liam stumbles behind you, though you could practically feel his confusion. 

“Liam, this is Clyde, my ex-boyfriend.” 

“Your what?” Liam questions, glaring at Clyde.

“Don’t worry, we’re friends now,” you reassure, squeezing his hand.

“It was ages ago, we were young.” Clyde comments, smiling warmly at Liam. You two share a look, both easily recalling your conversation from yesterday on what your backstory was. Maybe, after this, he’d actually become a friend. That is, if Liam doesn’t try to kill him.

“Right,” Liam’s voice loses any warmth it usually has, clearly not trusting Clyde. Your fiancé looks him up and down, clearly not impressed.

“Anyways,” you quickly attempt to change the topic, hoping to smoothly transition into the main part of the prank. “Clyde, this is Liam, my current boyfriend.” 

Liam’s head snaps towards you, absolutely appalled.  “I must’ve misheard you, love. What did you just call me?” Liam questions, tilting his head. 

You look at him, doe eyes and everything. Playing dumb, “my current boyfriend!”

“It’s nice to meet you,” Clyde plays along, but it’s no use. To Liam, Clyde is not there. It’s just you and him and how you dared to call him such a name.

“Last I recall, that ring on your finger says otherwise,” Liam narrows his eyes, his usual playfulness slowly seeping in. He glances down to the sparkling ring on your finger, the one he slid on four months ago. The one he so intricately chose. The one that used to be his mother’s, though modified to symbolize your relationship.

“Oh! I must’ve forgotten, silly me.” You playfully roll your eyes, “you’re my old boyfriend!”

Liam groans, throwing his head back. “Quinn put you up to this, didn’t she?” 

Your jaw falls agape, “how’d you know?” 

“Violet did it to Xaden. It did not end well.”

You feel laughter bubbling up, quickly forming your lips in a tight line. Though, it’s no use. You begin laughing, watching as your boyfriend and new friend laugh with you. You can only imagine the look on Xaden’s face when Violet referred to him as such. 

“Just so you know, if you do try to do something like this again, I will murder the alleged other boyfriend.” 

“Okay, baby,” you laugh, shaking your head at his antics. 

You reach up, planting a gentle kiss on his lips before returning to your height, watching as any of his previous negative emotions quickly disappear. All that’s left is your Liam. Your fiancé, not current boyfriend.

☄. *. ⋆

[aetherograph]

#also I’m not a folklorist but ‘the piece of folklore is adapted by its folk to remain relevant to their lives’ is#from my limited understanding#kinda a huge part of how folklore works#you riff off the old stuff to keep it fun and interesting#right?#even the same story will be adapted for different audiences sometimes even by the same storyteller#folklore @tuulikki

"I'm not a folklorist but" is a red flag that you need to realise you do not have enough education to actually have an opinion on the matter. Please do more research into folklore and the problems with Christians stealing folklore from non-Xtian cultures and NOT using their own, which is just as rich and old but which they dismiss as being "for babies" and "boring" because they grew up with it.

I am a storyteller and of a religious minority whose folklore is CONSTANTLY and consistently stolen and appropriated by Christians as being free for them to use without understanding the embedded cultural lessons in the stories. I watch Christians do this ALL THE FUCKING TIME, and its getting bad again with the enormous popularity of the adaptation called "Epic".

Adapting a story for different audiences does not mean the lesson and cultural values within the story, that are part of the culture that tells it, are going to be changed or SHOULD be changed. Folklore is a record of a culture's history as much as it is a way of passing on cultural values--which do not change, because they are, and I cannot emphasise this enough, WHAT MAKES UP A CULTURE.

For example: The stories of Anansi define who the Akan people are; even as their people were stolen and transported across the sea during the slave trade, their culture in the form of their stories stayed with them, and were passed on to their children and grandchildren. These stories can be used to trace people back to their homes that they were stolen from. The stories of Anansi are not interchangeable with other stories and cannot and should not simply be changed in order to "be relevant to other audiences", they are Anansi Stories.

We listen to and read folklore to learn about other cultures, to learn about other people in other neighbourhoods. Folklore that is not yours should not be treated the same, just like you don't treat your possessions the same as other people's. You don't just decide what someone else's heirlooms mean, you listen to them tell you what they mean. That's what I'm saying.

I see a post going around lately of someone thinking it's a profound statement to say ALL "fairytales" are "about being kind" and ALL of them are about the underdog winning when I know that is factually not fucking true, because I've fucking studied folklore from all over the world and time for DECADES and part of why I love to study it and never get sick of doing so is that it's all so DIFFERENT and it's the BEST way to tell what a culture thinks is important and what is their definition of "normal behaviour" and "abnormal behaviour" and the whole function of folklore is that it's a body of stories told by that culture to that culture, for the purpose of keeping their culture alive by explaining and reinforcing their values, whatever they are--it reinforces normal things to ridicule, to approve of, to disapprove of, to eat, to do, and everything else that makes up a culture.

When you tell a story to an audience, it's different every time. But that doesn't mean it's TOTALLY different. It's more like how when you see a play, every production of that same play is different. Different actors, different interpretations of the words of the story--but the same story, the same words. Now, when I tell a tale, sometimes some of the words come out differently, or I try a different phrase to describe something; but there are details of a tale you cannot change, and it is the work and the profession of the storyteller to know what they are, and to know why they don't change. And that's not something I can lay out to you scientifically or something, it's just something you learn if you listen to storytellers and learn from them, if you understand your culture is not the default in a very real, tangible way by interacting with LOTS of different people from LOTS of different cultures, and learning their stories and listening to their stories told.

And the Christians ripping these tales out of their context, and deciding they don't NEED context because "the story is timeless", is the biggest and most consistent problem I run into over and over, like that Christian up there. Folktales do NOT "shift to match current social values". Folktales define what the social values are. But if you're stealing stories from other cultures because you think your own aren't good enough or shouldn't be tampered with, and then forcing those stories to mean whatever you WANT them to mean... you're a fucking colonizer and I'm gonna throw your phone in a septic tank.

Some of you are getting a little bit too Joseph Campbell with folklore, acting like every single folktale has the same lesson, the same story, acting like folklore is somehow counterculture when it's very much culture, as in, "teaches and enforces mainstream ideas of the culture that produced it."

Guys I LOVE folklore; that's why this bullshit about "it's always about being kind is clever and being clever is being kind" type of new age illiterate hokum is making me real fuckin tired.

Have you actually, you know, been told or read any old folktales? Or are you reading fanfiction of them, or relying on your memory of disney movies?

The POINT of folktales is that they model and teach all the DIFFERENT values and mores of a culture. They are entertaining, but they have purpose in a way that modern fiction doesn't, because folktales carry culture forward, teach it to the next generation.

"When we told ourselves our past with stories, explained our present with stories, foretold our future with stories..." isn't just a beautifully-written piece of dialogue, it's true.

Kindness is not the only fucking value or moré a culture has, if they have it. Kindness isn't even DEFINED the same way across all cultures. There is no universal cultural truth. Some stories teach kindness, others teach cleverness, or humility, or obedience, or hospitality rules, or duty, or any number of things! To say all folktales are actually about kindness does them a HUGE disservice and insult!

[antithetical-bolter]

Out Of The Woods (3)

Hi besties!! I am overwhelmed in the best way by everyone's kind words and interest in this story. If I had to guess i would say it'll be between 7 and 10 chapters in total, but it's not outlined so we'll see what my lil brain cooks up. There's some more Robby POV in this one bc I felt like it was important to get a little look into his sweet but messed up head, pls tell me if you hate it or if it's unrealistic lmao

5.0k words | Pregnancy continues to wreak havoc on Iris's digestive system. Robby goes to therapy and begins the groveling process.

warnings: nausea, throwing up, unplanned pregnancy, excessive use of the word fuck, commas, and em dashes.

Prev | Next

Masterlist

page dividers by @cafekitsune

tag list: @snowflames-world @antisocialfiore @eviemonroeer @princessjayll @sizzlingkryptonitetale @two-bitkit @dizzybee03 @knifetotheback @nerdgirljen @legolas-the-homeschooled-elf @tradingtruthsforlies @robbyrosierobinavitch

(if you'd like to be added just lmk in the comments!)

Chapter 3

Iris

Rest is far harder to accomplish than I’d like it to be. Dana checks in on me a few times, and while I haven’t lost what little sustenance I’ve been able to keep down I am still nauseated as fuck. Sleep teases me with three minute stretches, consistently interrupted by nausea and full body sweats. Samira comes in around four and tells me she’s been tasked with seeing if I can tolerate any PO intake, and while I'm not thrilled about the idea I know it’s necessary. The crackers she’s holding up in front of me sounds lovely to my brain and seriously awful to my stomach. A small bite is all I can convince myself to take - and when I immediately start to dry heave we table the problem for the time being. 

“Dana and I think you should go home.” Samira tells me as she rubs slow circles on my back. That makes three of us, I swear I can hear my bathroom floor calling my name.

“Yeah I’d love that, but I’m not taking public transport like this and I’m not taking your car either.” The silence expands as she chews on her words before filling me in on whatever plan she and Dana seem to have hatched while I wasted away up here. 

“Uh, about that. We have a solution but I’m not sure you’re gonna like it.” She waits to see if I’m going to interject, but I really don’t have the energy right now so I just brace for whatever she’s about to suggest to me. “Jack will be here any minute to send Robby home so he can go to his appointment, he could very easily drop you off on his way there.” She’s right, I really don’t like that idea. But this bed is fucking uncomfortable and all I want is to be able to be miserable in my own space. 

“If that’s my only feasible option then I guess that’s fine, but he’s gonna have to pick me up out front. No way I trek through the ED like this.” It’s bad enough that I have to leave early at all - I’m not adding any fuel to the gossip fires that are bound to be raging on the floor below us. 

“I’m sure he’ll be fine with that. He’s been on our case about where you are the last few hours, he’s suspicious and definitely freaking out a little bit so I’m pretty sure you could get him to do literally anything you wanted.” God, if fucking only.

“That’s a reeaallly long list, Samira. But we’ll start with picking me up out front and getting some therapy and go from there.” Her phone is already out and I don’t have to look to know she’s texting Dana. We sit in silence for a few minutes, me focusing on remaining upright and Samira texting her co-conspirator back and forth. My eyes are just starting to droop, my head leaning on her shoulder when the door opens again. I expect it to be Dana with my stuff, but it’s Robby. My backpack is slung on the shoulder opposite his own pack and he looks like he ran up here - is breathing like he sprinted up the stairs. The words he’s trying to spit out sound suspiciously like ‘are you okay’ and ‘I’ve been worried about you’ and I just really do not have the emotional bandwidth for that right now, so my sense of self preservation kicks in and I interrupt his half formed statements of concern.

“Alright let’s get this show on the road, I miss my bed.” My legs are a little shaky underneath me as I stand and orient myself to being vertical again but I don’t feel nearly as faint as I did earlier. 

“Yeah, uhm yeah the car’s already out front so I’m ready when you are.” Robby stammers out as he comes to stand beside me, apparently not trusting my legs as much as I do. Not unfair but I’m still a little annoyed about it. I turn to face Samira, intending to thank her for all of her help but she beats me to the punch.

“I’ll swing by and check on you after I get off tonight, okay? I’ll just let myself in and come up so you don’t have to move.” 

“Sounds good, thanks Samira.” I turn towards Robby as I continue talking, now addressing him. “Let’s get a move on before I puke in your car.” He nods furiously in agreement, and pulls out a few fresh emesis bags from his pocket and hands them to me. Honestly great forethought from him, a simple solution but one that is definitely beyond my own brain's capabilities right now. 

We take one elevator and then walk about fifty steps out to the suburban, and it exhausts me. I don’t fight Robby as he puts a hand on my right hip and helps me get up into the car and then reaches around me to buckle my seatbelt. To my immense surprise and even greater relief, I’m dozing before the car starts to move. 

I wake up again to Robby opening up my car door, gently coaxing me back into the land of the living. That less than fifteen minute drive was the longest uninterrupted sleep I’ve gotten all day and it was nowhere near enough.

“Hey, honey, we’re at yours. Your bed awaits.” Fuck if that’s not the best thing I’ve heard all day. I accept his offered hand as I slide onto the ground and turn to walk inside. I make it as far as the porch, punching in my door code, so damn close to safety before I lose what little I’ve kept down this afternoon. Robby is quick with the emesis bag and he holds my hair back as puke. 

I manage to choke out “I need to sit down,” before I attempt to ease myself to the floor. Attempt being the keyword, because really Robby catches me and brings me down to sit against him as I catch my breath. I always cry when I throw up, but I’m crying for more than that right now. “This is fucking awful, god dammit.” He takes the used bag from my hands, twists it closed and sets it to the side before pulling a package of wipes seemingly out of thin air and wiping my face for me. “Thanks.” I croak out, feeling like speaking is far more effort than it’s worth. 

“Maybe I should stay…” He starts to speak, but no way am I letting him miss his therapy appointment for this. Absolutely the fuck not - I’d like for him to continue to take care of me like this but that isn’t happening unless he goes to fucking therapy. 

“No, Robby. Help me upstairs and make sure I’m settled and then go to your appointment. Seriously - I will be okay for a bit. It’s already almost five and Samira will be here when she’s off and I promise I’ll sleep in the recovery position. No aspiration risk here.” I sleep on my side naturally, which has really been working in my favor the last few weeks. And honestly if I continue to puke I won’t be sleeping anyway so really it won’t matter. 

Apparently I’ve managed to make my voice strong enough to get my point across because he doesn’t argue with me. Just quietly agrees before adjusting so that he’s holding me around the shoulders and under my knees and moves to a standing position. If I wasn’t still quite sick and trying to enforce boundaries with him I would let myself acknowledge that it’s pretty fucking hot that he can move so well while holding me like this - but I am trying to enforce boundaries with him so that thought gets quickly filed away for later use. 

Once we make it up the stairs and into my room, he sets me down near the edge of the bed and prompts me to sit down. 

“Pick out your pajamas and get changed, I’m gonna go get your bag and make sure you have everything you need up here.” He observes me just long enough to confirm I won’t be passing out on him before he heads back downstairs. 

I feel a little better after slipping on my favorite Noah Kahan concert t-shirt and comfy sleeping underwear, enough so that I’m able to stand at the sink long enough to brush my teeth and quickly wash my face. 

As I open the door to my bathroom and slowly make my way back to my bed, I take in what he’s brought up for me. A whole pile of emesis bags, a garbage bag for any used ones, tissues, mouthwash (where did he get that??), my water bottle and a bottle of glacier cherry gatorade. He has the covers pulled back and ready for me, and I not-so-gracefully flop onto my pillows. Robby pulls the covers up around my shoulders and kneels down next to the bed. 

“Alright I’ve gotta go if I’m gonna make my 5:15 appointment time. I know Samira will be here after shift change but would it be okay with you if I drop in on you on my way home? Would be around 6:30 or so.” 

“Uhh yeah sure, I guess. But I won’t be getting up. The door code is 474713. If I’m sleeping, don’t wake me up. I’ll be pissed about it.” He laughs a little bit at that, and I’m glad I’m feeling well enough to joke a little bit. A good sign, all things considered. 

“Yeah, of course. I’ll be quiet. I’ll leave my phone on silent during the appointment but if anything comes up call three times an-“

”It’ll override the do not disturb, I know how it works. If for some reason I need someone here that badly I will call three times but I doubt I’ll need to. Go, you’re gonna be late if you stay much longer.” 

“I know, I’m going. If you come up with anything you need between now and me coming back just text me, I can stop at the store for you.” 

“I will. Thanks, Robby. Now seriously - go. I’m not fucking around about this and being late to your establishing appointment isn’t a great way to start out.” He sighs and nods his head like he’s resigned himself to his fate. His left hand lands on the edge of my bed as he pushes himself to a standing position, running the other over my hair before he turns to leave. 

Sleep gives me a measly thirty second taste of relief while he’s gone. It’s the opposite of restful and I’m once again on the verge of tears - this time from exhaustion. 

At 6:15 on the dot my phone starts to buzz. 

Robby (6:15pm)

Walking out now, you awake? Need anything?”

Iris (6:16pm)

against my will, but yeah I’m awake nothing off the top of my head

Robby (6:17pm)

Alright, I’ll be there soon. Just gotta make one stop on my way. 

I thumbs up his text and close my eyes, trying my damndest to fall into a real sleep. It does not happen and by the time I hear my front door open I have unwillingly started crying. Again. I swear - this kid is going to make me emotionally unstable before they even get here. Robby finds me sitting on the edge of my bed, water in hand, sobbing like someone just died. 

“Hey, hey, Iris, what’s wrong? Are you okay?” The bed dips as he sits down next to me and puts an arm around my shoulders, pulling me into his side. 

“I’m, i-“ I pause to take a deep breath, but all I can manage is a gasp, “I’m just so fucking tired, but I can’t sleep and I feel like I’m going insane.” A few more sobs before I get the rest of it out. “Everytime I lay down my stomach gets upset again but I can’t get comfy sitting up and all I want is some fucking sleep!” The last part comes out as more of a yell than I intend it to, but Robby takes it in stride.

”That sucks, I’m sorry. Wish I could fix it for you.” My shoulders shrug, and I’m a little disappointed in myself as I realize that him being here is making me calmer. Especially as I recall that the only actual sleep I’ve gotten today was in his car. Fucking pregnancy hormones, making me all soft for the man responsible for said hormones. ”I can’t fix it, but maybe we move down to the couch for a bit? We can sit up and I can rub your back and if you fall asleep on me then I’ll just let you sleep?” Yes, please.

“You don’t have to do that, I’m sure you’re tired and ready to go home.” And maybe if he leaves I’ll feel a little less like he’s the only thing keeping me stable.

”Nah, I’m at least half the reason that you’re feeling like this anyway so the least I can do is stick around and suffer with you if it comes to that.” Or maybe it’s okay that he’s keeping me stable - he is partially responsible for my current state of being, afterall. 

“Well when you put it like that… Just let me splash some water on my face and I’ll be down.” And take a few minutes to reign it in - it’s nice that he’s here and showing up but I don’t want to get my hopes up too high. 

“Do you want to try and eat? It’s been long enough since your last zofran that you could have another if you wanted.”

“Yeah I should probably try, there’s some of my favorite ramen in the pantry and it’s usually pretty tummy-friendly so I’ll give that a go I guess.” 

“I’ll go get it started while you make your way downstairs. Take your time, okay?” I take a fortifying breath and nod against his shoulder before pushing myself into a standing position and walking to my bathroom. Robby stays in the room long enough to make sure I’m steady on my feet, and once I close the door I hear him walking down the stairs and rummaging around in the kitchen. While sitting down to pee I quickly fire off a text to Samira, letting her know that Robby is here and that she can skip the check in visit tonight. She doesn’t respond, likely busy being a doctor and all that, but I know that I’ll be getting the fifth degree from both her and Dana the next time I see them. Five minutes later, bladder freshly emptied and face washed of tears, I slowly make my way downstairs. I expect to see Robby in my kitchen, but I don’t expect to see the massive bouquet sitting on my counter. It’s so big that I have to walk around it in order to make eye contact with him. 

“Uh, wow. What are these for?” I can hazard a guess, but I’d like to hear him say it. So much for reigning it in. 

”Well I realized that I never actually told you that I’m pretty fucking thrilled about you having my baby, so these are ‘I’m sorry, I’m a fucking idiot and also thank you for giving me the best gift anyone has ever given me’ flowers.” That gets a real laugh out of me, and all of a sudden I’m feeling a lot better. No less exhausted but a little hit of joy gives me a second wind. 

“Wow, that’s a pretty loaded bunch of flowers. They’re beautiful, thank you. I tentatively accept your apology.” A visible wave of relief washes over his face as I finish speaking, and it has me feeling pretty damn hopeful. ”And for the record, I’m excited too. Scared out of my fucking mind, but in a good way I think?” He nods and laughs lightly, reaching out to pull me in for a hug with one arm as he stirs my ramen with the other. I go willingly, folding myself into his side. We both take steadying deep breaths - me because I’m exhausted and my emotions have run quite the gambit the last few hours. I can’t speak to why he needs a few deep inhales before speaking, but I can only guess that he’s remembering the last time we hugged and how it ended with me kicking him out and sobbing on the floor of my entryway. 

“I’m glad to hear that.” He pulls me in just a little tighter, his arm lightly running up and down my side. 

“In a day or two we can talk some more, but tonight is not the night for me to have any heavy conversations if that’s okay with you. Maybe we just put on a movie and eat and then hope I fall asleep?” I want to hear about therapy, as much as he’ll tell me, but I fear if we try to talk tonight that I will either be a bitch or just cry and neither of those are things I want to do. Healthy emotional regulation or whatever.

“Sounds perfect. Go get set up on the couch, I'll bring your meds and food over to ya in just a sec.” I step out of his hold as he moves to grab two bowls for the soup, and as I watch him get everything together for me it’s impossible to squash that hopeful, romantic voice currently making itself known in my head.

Robby

Iris finishes and keeps down the ramen, much to my relief. It’s not uncommon to lose a little weight in the first trimester but it still hurts me to see her feel so terrible. While we eat I turn on her TV and ask what she’d like to have on, but she just shrugs. I make an executive decision and put on Parks and Rec, knowing it’s one of her favorites. This seems to be the right choice as it earns me the biggest, most genuine smile she’s given me in months. 

Once she finishes eating I take our dirty dishes and load them into her dishwasher alongside the pot I used to cook. As insurance I grab a few emesis bags and put them within arms reach, though I hope she won’t need them. I’m not sure how much cuddling she’d like to do - I did offer to rub her back while she tries to fall asleep but I don’t want to force her into physical contact if that’s not what she wants. She decides for me, patting the cushion right next to her on the couch. Her legs are extended onto the L shaped portion, so I sit in the middle right next to her. Immediately after I sit down, she leans into me. That seems like invitation enough so I put my right arm around her shoulders and pull her close, resisting the urge to lay a kiss on her hair. I honestly was not sure if she’d ever want to be close to me like this again so I just enjoy the feeling of her pressed against me. 

Therapy this evening was just as hard as I expected it to be. Carson, the guy Jack referred me to, seems competent. While I did not enjoy it I can see the benefits and will make an honest to god effort to give it the time it deserves. Seeing how badly my actions hurt Iris fucking gutted me so if this is the solution for making sure I never cause her to feel like that again then I will show up and participate. 

It’s been hard for me not to draw parallels between Iris and Heather, and it’s not lost on me that had she decided to terminate the two situations would be even more similar. As I’ve gotten older, I just assumed that kids were not in the cards for me. Jake and I are on better terms but still slightly rocky ground - and after Heather filled me in on the day of Pitt Fest I figured my fate was all but sealed. Iris has been the biggest surprise and blessing, and now that there’s a kid on the way I feel like the luckiest guy on the whole fucking planet. 

She caught me off guard, we’ve always been friendly but our shifts have never overlapped all that much due to her having been on nights the past few years. A schedule change right after Pitt Fest last year brought her to days full time and we became fast friends. I’d had a little crush on her for the months leading up to Jesse’s birthday party - but seeing her walk in the door wearing the cutest fucking dress, her hair down and laughing made me realise that my feelings were stronger than I thought. Two drinks gave me the courage to flirt with her, and she seemed to be feeling it as well so going home with her felt natural. 

I spent a lot of my session tonight talking about how much I regret leaving that morning, and while I know it’s because I’m afraid Carson made me dig into it a little bit. Being scared is not a feeling I can fix overnight, but I can change my actions. It seems so fucking obvious to me now - but showing up scared is half the fucking battle. So, here I am. Showing up fucking terrified. Scared that she’ll never want to be in a relationship and that co-parents is all we’ll ever be, scared because I'm definitely in love with this woman, scared that these feelings seemed to appear out of nowhere and hit me like a mac truck. 

When she’s ready to talk, I’ll tell her whatever she wants to know. But for now, if all she wants is for me to hold her and cook for her, then that’s what I’ll do. Happily and to the best of my ability. 

Her voice pulls me out of my head and back into the room.

“Thanks for cooking for me tonight, it’s nice to have you here.” The blush that I feel heating my face is entirely out of my control and I’m glad she’s facing the TV.

“No need to thank me, if anything I should be thanking you for letting me be here.” She doesn’t respond verbally, just snuggles in a little closer and I swear I feel my heart bursting at the seams. “You comfy like this?” 

“Eh kinda, maybe you scoot this way so we can at least kinda be at an angle? I’ve never been able to sleep fully sitting up.” I follow her instructions, moving so that I'm fully on the same cushion as her and no longer sitting up completely straight. My legs join hers on the L-shaped extension of the couch and she rearranges so her top half is molded to my side and her legs are tangled in with mine. Sleeping upright is historically not great for my neck, but I will happily endure a little bit of soreness if it means getting to have her draped over me all night. 

The next episode of our show plays as she settles in and I toss a blanket over us, and she tells me it’s one of her favorites from the series. Something about the flu and Ann being her nurse spirit animal.  Despite that, she falls asleep before the episode is even halfway over. I stay awake a while longer, making it through three more episodes before I decide she’s asleep enough for me to rest as well. If she wakes up feeling sick it will inevitably wake me but it seems like she’s going to be able to continue to catch up on some much needed sleep. I let myself lay a gentle kiss on the top of her head as I silently thank my lucky stars that I have somehow earned her trust enough to be here. 

Iris

Fuck, it’s hot in here. My place tends to run cold (because I keep the thermostat at 66 year round) but I am currently sweating like a dog. I peel my eyes open, unwillingly bringing myself back into consciousness. It becomes immediately obvious why it’s so hot in here. Robby is already awake, and I can feel his arm running over my back in very light touches. My head is resting on the junction of his shoulder and neck, and I’m all but on top of him. One of my legs is bracketed between both of his and I can feel the heat seeping out of his hands and into my back. I’m not sure how long I slept, but it’s still dark out so it can’t have been that long. 

“What time is it?” I ask him after clearing my throat a few times, sitting forward a bit so I can look at him.

“Uhh, just about 2am I think.” 

“Shit, I’m sorry for nap trapping you here for so long, I'm okay now if you wanna go home and sleep in your own bed.” His expression shifts from tired and affection to looking at me like I’ve lost it. 

“There’s literally nowhere else I'd rather be. You’re gonna have to pry me off this couch with a crowbar if you want me to go. And besides, seems like good practice for being nap-trapped when our little one shows up.” A sleepy laugh tumbles out of me and he leans over to kiss the top of my head. Between that and him saying ‘our little one’ I’m about to melt into the couch - and not because he’s a human heated blanket.

“I’m so glad to hear that but I really need to pee…” He immediately lets go and shifts to help me up, making sure I’m stable on my feet and pointing me in the direction of my downstairs bathroom. While I’m sitting down, I check my phone to see if Samira texted me back. 

Samira (7:47pm) Omg what!! Okay I will go home but call me if you need me. Also expect to give me all the details soon

Iris (2:17am)

He came back after therapy and cooked for me, we fell asleep on the couch and I begrudgingly admit it’s the best sleep i’ve gotten in weeks And he got me the biggest bouquet i’ve literally ever seen

I slip my phone back into my pocket and wash my hands before going back out into the living room. Robby is up and moving, having found two glasses and filled them both with water. He is just finishing his as I come out, and he heads to use the bathroom himself. I drink my water slowly, not wanting to risk waking the beast that is my ever present nausea. A little bit of a rumble occurs just as I finish my first sip but seems to stay at bay after that, so I walk to my pantry and grab a packet of saltines to nibble on. 

Robby exits the bathroom to find me eating a cracker with so much caution it’s almost laughable. 

“If that stays down, want something more substantial?” I do, I’m actually fucking starving, but I don’t want to get my hopes up. 

“Yeah but I’ll let you know, don’t wanna rush it.” He gives me a thumbs up and he refills his water glass and comes to stand beside me. We exist in companionable silence while I work on my cracker and I can tell he’s trying not to stare at me. “What? I can feel you looking at me.”

“Nothing, uh, I’m just really glad you’re feeling better.” I stay silent, knowing that’s not all he has to say but letting him take his time getting it out. “Andyoulookreallygoodinthatshirt” comes racing out of his mouth and it takes me a few seconds to process what he says. Once I do, I lean up and kiss his cheek. He turns tomato red and it’s endearing as fuck. 

“Thanks, glad you’re a fan.” I tell him before taking the last bite of my saltine. 

“Most definitely a fan.” The t-shirt with just boyshort underwear definitely was not meant to impress him but it’s a nice confidence boost that he’s clearly still attracted to me even after having to hold my hair while I puked. 

“Seems like my stomach is going to cooperate for now, and I'm feeling kinda hungry.” “Yeah? That’s great. What do you want?” I mull over his question for a bit before landing on an answer. 

“Meh I could go for some more ramen, I don’t really have a lot in the house since I’ve been feeling so shitty the last few weeks. And I don’t wanna ask you to cook for me in the middle of the night.” My parents were solidly in the ingredients household camp, and old habits must die hard because the only things in my pantry and fridge require cooking. 

“We both just got 6 plus hours of sleep, I’m gonna be up for a bit anyways. What do you want to eat? I really don’t mind cooking.” I’m very glad to hear him say that, I probably would’ve ended up cooking for myself anyway because apparently my cravings have decided to make themselves known now that the nausea was less in the forefront. And I lowkey hate cooking. Baking? Great. Baking is chemistry - an exact science. Cooking? Based on vibes and estimates? Not my forte. 

“Some pasta, I have some alfredo sauce and parmesan. Oh, and some bread! And maybe some pickles.” He smiles and chuckles at my enthusiasm, leaning in to kiss the top of my head.

“I can do that. You go sit, I’ll bring it to you.” He’s looking at me like I’ve never seen before, all soft and fondly. Like he actually wants to be here, cooking for me, far past midnight the night after a shift. I’m inclined to believe him. 

[vidavalor]

The Lie That Is Lazarii

Lazarii: a word Good Omens invented, which causes both the audience and multiple characters within the story to use one of Good Omens' favorite things-- etymology-- to determine what they think it means. With just a little bit of word math-- and a smidge of actual math-- we can use Lazarii to show what is really going on with the very suspicious Heavenly alarm bell and see what the sneaky Saraqael is really up to in S2.

How had only Saraqael ever heard of Lazarii and Heaven's big miracle alarm system before?

The word Lazarii is first spoken by Saraqael in the bookshop. The context that both we the audience and Aziraphale take away from what they say is that a Lazarii is an unit of miracle measurement used by Heaven. From what Saraqael said, 25 Lazarii would be considered very high miracle usage.

This is all pretty suspicious, though, as several scenes across the season show us.

For one thing, neither Crowley nor Aziraphale had ever heard this word used before. Over 6,000 years of trying to hide from Heaven but neither of them knew that Heaven measured miracles in this thing called Lazarii? Making this even more suspicious is the fact that Michael and Uriel also appeared to have never heard of this word before Saraqael said it.

They kept saying plume instead-- a word that more described what they saw on the globe that Saraqael showed them than would be used for an unit of measurement of invisible miracle power.

Saraqael only jumped in with the "nearly 25 Lazarii" comment after Michael and Uriel had both already been questioning Aziraphale. Neither of them used the term Lazarii when they did-- both of them used the word plume. Aziraphale hadn't even really heard of miracle usage being referred to as a plume, either, while we're at it. Uriel's clarifying description of "a plume of miraculous activity" came as a result of Aziraphale's uh wtf is a plume in this context? reaction to Michael's question.

Michael appeared to make up calling it a plume on the spot, looking for a word that matched what they and Uriel had seen on the globe in Heaven earlier. Uriel backed up what Michael said to look united in front of Aziraphale but really had no idea, either. This all showed how little the angels in Heaven actually spoke with one another about miracle usage in measurement terms. No one had any words for it.

There was no commonly understood way of phrasing this, in the way that there would be if this was something Heaven had always been monitoring and bugging angels about on a consistent basis. That is actually why Saraqael jumped in with "nearly 25 Lazarii"-- to manipulate Michael, Uriel, and Aziraphale by making them all silently thinking that there was just a word they didn't know and distracting them all from realizing and thinking about the fact that this is all a bit suspicious.

Here's where we might also point out that Michael and Uriel?

They didn't even know what the alarm was for when it went off.

They're the rotating manager-on-dutys of Heaven 😂 and they were like what is all this noise about?! They had never heard this alarm go off before. Ever. In 6,000+ years. No one, apparently, had ever tripped this Big Miracle Alarm in the entire history of Earth.

When the alarm was going off in Heaven, Michael was seen asking Uriel what it was about-- and Uriel didn't know, either. It was then that Saraqael started claiming that the alarm going off was for a big miracle. I mean... how the fuck do they know about this but no one else does? lol

Why do I get the feeling that if you asked former Supreme Archangel Gabriel (post-memory-restoration) what a Lazarii was, he'd be like...

It should also be noted that Crowley-- who had also never heard of this word before when Aziraphale first told it to him-- was not alone in that. There is canonical evidence that neither Beez nor Shax had ever heard of Lazarii, either.

Before going to Crowley with her new information about the miracle, Shax was presumably updated by Beelzebub, who would have gotten the information from Heaven, most likely from Michael. Shax never used the word Lazarii when talking with Crowley about the miracle.

So, at no point did Michael use the word when talking to Beez and at no point did Beez use the word when talking to Shax. That's because the word didn't exist then. It didn't exist until Saraqael made it up on the spot in the bookshop to manipulate the other angels and keep them from figuring out that The Big Miracle Alarm is totally not really a thing.

Here's Shax calling the miracle one of "enormous power" which only could have been performed by "the mightiest of archangels"-- no Lazarii mention in sight:

So, by the time the news got to Shax on the celestial grapevine game of telephone, The Big Miracle that supposedly set off this alarm was apparently so big that Shax thought Gabriel himself had to be involved in performing it.

We also have exactly zero evidence in the story so far that, when it comes to miracle power, any one angel or demon is any more powerful than anybody else. We have some angels and demons that are ranked higher in a bullshit rank system set up by the villains. It's the bad guys who are saying where angels and demons rank in Heaven and Hell so the whole system is broken-- and it would be, anyway, as all rank systems are inequal.

Shax seemed to think that Gabriel's high position in Heaven meant that he had also had a higher level of miraculous capacity and Shax, my girl, you're sounding an awful lot like people who think celebrities and world leaders and such are superior beings here. 😂 Crowley was having a bit of fun with her over that one.

I mean, it probably depends upon how many hot chocolates Gabriel's had to drink on any given day but, ya know... anyway! Back to Lazarii...

If you're The Metatron and you have the ability to measure miracle usage like this, why wouldn't you be using it to control the angels?

Social control of angels is, like, The Metatron's favorite thing. Why wouldn't he cap everyone at no more than, idk, a 3 Lazarii miracle or something, even just to keep Michael busy and out of his hair for centuries writing people up for excessive miracles. 😂 It would be a great tool to use to intimidate the angels into obeying him, which is all he's ever trying to do. Instead, though?

The only one we've seen who knew of it apparently existing is also the only one we have seen be enough of a radical believer to do all of The Metatron's dirty work. Saraqael takes people's memories, which is a form of murder. They eagerly agreed to turn Maggie and Nina into pillars of salt without a second thought. They're manipulative and they'll do whatever The Metatron asks of them. His only edict in S2 to Saraqael that we saw? Find Gabriel. So, all of Saraqael's actions, at least in the early part of the season, would be in service of meeting that goal.

So, here is where we come back to the etymology of Lazarii a bit here and how we can figure it out the truth about the alarm by figuring out more about this word. Aziraphale shared the word with Crowley, who took the same somewhat-correct-but-incomplete etymological path with it that the audience does: that it's tied to Lazarus.

Using the same context clues we have for figuring out the word, Crowley assumed what the audience also did: that Lazarii was named by Heaven after Lazarus, and that 1 Lazarii is equivalent to the amount of power that it would take to bring someone back from the dead.

That sure seemed like what Saraqael wanted Aziraphale, Michael, and Uriel to think when they made up the word, yes?

It's just that... the math doesn't hold up there.

Because think about it for a second...

If 1 Lazarii is equivalent to how much power it would take to raise someone from the dead? That sounds really dramatic when you say it aloud and like it's got to be this huge amount but we humans have medical professionals who can actually bring people back from the dead. We already know how much power it takes to do that and it's just... not really that much power.

And here is where we prove Saraqael is a liar and Lazarii isn't a thing with just a little fun math. 😇

Consider that EMTs and doctors use defibrillators on patients when they've flatlined-- when their heart has stopped and they're clinically dead. If the person can be brought back, it's a matter of one or a series of shocks from the machine to restart their heart before they've been resurrected. So, how much power would that really be and how could that prove that Saraqael is a liar?

Depending on the setting it is put on, a defibrillator can deliver anywhere from about 200 to 1000 volts of electricity on each charge. So, we can use that to figure out how many volts of electricity 25 Lazarii would be. Exactly how much power is Saraqael saying this big miracle generated?

Say we're an average city hospital over the span of a couple of days and we've brought 25 people back from the dead. To make the math easy here, and to go for numbers on the high end to make a point, let's say that every one of these people we brought back needed a lot of shocks before their heart restarted and the same amount of them-- we'll say, 10 shocks-- and that we did each shock at the maximum 1000 volts. (You usually would not start using a defibrillator at 1000 volts but, again, we're going for the biggest possible result here to show the point.)

This would mean that each person here needed 10,000 volts in total to come back from the dead. We brought back 25 people using about the very maximum power we could need, which brings us to a collective total of 250,000 volts. So, on the high end?

25 Lazarii would be about equivalent in power to 250,000 volts of electricity, which sure seems like it's enough for a very big miracle!

Until you consider one, key thing:

The average bolt of lightning contains 300 million volts of electricity.

25 Lazarii would be equivalent in power to one quarter of one million volts of electricity... so, Gabriel simply traveling from Heaven to Tadfield on a single lightning bolt in S1 took at least 1200 times the power that it would take to raise 25 people from the dead-- the level of power that Saraqael is claiming was a big miracle.

For further perspective here: with the knowledge of this math, then how many Lazarii did we see just in the five seconds or so of lightning smiting Job and Sitis' mansion that we glimpsed while Aziraphale went at those ox ribs?

4 bolts = about 1200 million volts of electricity = about 4800 Lazarii.

But a miracle of such enormous power of *checks notes* nearly 25 whole Lazarii! was what triggered Heaven's alarm system? 🤔

When it would take 192 of those nearly 25 Lazarii miracles happening nearly simultaneously to equate to the same amount of power of just the few seconds we saw of the bad thunderstorm that took out Sitis and Job's house? 😂

I'm to believe that Crowley-- who knows when he over-miracles, as we saw when he knew he overdid it and sent the grave guards to Hell in 1827-- checked the Gabriel miracle, thought it was teensy and fine, but somehow it actually triggered Heaven's miracle usage alarm? And when apparently nothing before ever has? When he and Aziraphale both seemed centered and nothing seemed to go wrong with the miracle at all? I don't believe that.

We think that the Gabriel miracle set off the alarm because the next scene we are shown is Michael reacting to the alarm going off-- even if we don't see any true proof of correlation there. From the math we just did here, though?

If the alarm system measures huge miracles, it should have actually gone off earlier in the day when Crowley let off some steam in the form of at least 5 bolts of lightning (I can't remember quite how many atm)-- which is equivalent to at least about 1500 million volts of electricity-- and fried the power grid from Whickber Street to Kingdom Come in the process.

That certainly would have raised more alarm bells in Heaven than whatever Crowley and Aziraphale did to protect Gabriel and here is where the etymology of Lazarii really explains what is going on with the alarm and Saraqael. All of the characters who encountered this word were so distracted by what else was happening that they overlooked completing the word math-- even Crowley and Aziraphale, our word nerds extraordinaire.

Completing the word math would mean looking at Lazar, the root word shared by both Lazarii and Lazarus.

Lazar is from a Greek rendition of Hebrew El'azar, meaning one that has been helped. The alert is not measuring miracle usage. Saraqael activated a red alert when they figured out where Gabriel had gone and who was helping him, which occurred at around the same time Crowley and Aziraphale were, indeed, helping Gabriel together.

The alarm does not measure miracle usage because Heaven cannot actually do that. If they could have, they would have done it ages ago. If they had such a thing, surely someone would have tripped it before S2, and Michael and Uriel and everyone else would have already known of its existence. There likely isn't even a system that is triggered if an angel and a demon do a miracle together, which is the only other option.

There's just Saraqael, knowing where Gabriel went because it was the most logical option, setting off an alarm to fool Michael and Uriel to get them to help carry out their plan. They were in control of all of it from the moment they were showing them the globe with a supposed plume of miraculous activity that Saraqael was likely really making appear seem to be coming from near the bookshop. After all, until this point? Until Saraqael took control? The archangels were about here at figuring out where Gabriel went:

So, ya know, they were never gonna find him 😂 and Saraqael is evil but they're not unintelligent. They had one goal: please The Metatron. The Metatron told them all to find Gabriel. Saraqael knew that the only place Gabriel could have gone for safe haven was the bookshop embassy and they knew that Crowley and Aziraphale would protect him.

They knew that would ultimately necessitate a miracle and made up a fake miracle alert system to sound an alarm and have a pretense for the archangels going to the bookshop the next day. They thought they could get Aziraphale to confess that he had Gabriel if they turned up the pressure enough. They thought they would leave the bookshop with Gabriel in tow the next day.

Instead, Aziraphale managed to best them, even though he confessed to having done a big miracle the night before. He managed to not say that it involved Gabriel, and the miracle to shield Gabriel from the archangels held, even when Michael almost saw through it, keeping Saraqael from being able to see Gabriel.

In truth, Saraqael likely didn't know for sure if Aziraphale had done a miracle at all when they purposely made up and set off an alarm in Heaven. They thought it very likely but they didn't know a miracle had actually taken place until Aziraphale thought the archangels already knew one had occurred and began to lie about it.

Heaven doesn't actually measure miracles and, because of that, there is currently no such thing as a Lazarii. Saraqael made the word up to make it all sound official as part of trying to intimidate the angels around them.

One thing is for sure, though: if the biggest miracle that Saraqael can imagine is the power equivalent of raising 25 people from the dead? When the main group of angels and demons rise up against them, Heaven is about to not know what hit them.

Saraqael's response might well just be their usual go-to:

[arendelle-archives]

Arendelle Archives 4-year-anniversary countdown - 10/10

In our FINAL PART of our anniversary series, we take a look at the citizens of Arendelle and all facts known so far about Frozen characters. This project began in 2023, almost three years ago, and will continue for future releases such as Frozen III and IV, as well as all future Frozen comics and books.

This is perhaps the most comprehensive reference for all Frozen fans and nerds, fanfic writers and analysts, who now finally have an overview of all Frozen media. The project consists of two files: the pdf book with 92 pages and the spreadsheet source file with 11 tables.

I (@bigfrozenfan) had the idea for the design of this book back in February 2024, when Disney's cookbook was first announced, with recipes from Arendelle. I will use this design for all my future projects, like I already did with Arendelle - Speculations about history (LINK). Other works are in progress, coming soon.

I first presented a table called ‘Frozen names and places’ in March 2024, which included a list of the 20 most famous kingdoms, 94 characters from books and comics, a list of 124 professions (partly based on my own assumptions) including shops in Arendelle and an initial list of popular dishes.

However, the preparatory work for this began much earlier, in 2018, when I entered my entire Disney Frozen collection in a spreadsheet and finally, in 2022, all my Frozen books, including cover images, brief information, publisher, price and ISBN numbers. The Frozen comics were added later and my digital collection grew from year to year.

In October 2023, I finally began to collect all the available character information on the Disney Frozen universe in a very comprehensive spreadsheet.

This book, “The Official Book Citizens of Arendelle”, is based on these findings, compiled from all the Frozen films, shorts, books and comics available to me.

Read on in my pdf: LINK

You can find the greatly expanded spreadsheet here: Frozen Facts Spreadsheet

It includes all known kingdoms and locations, characters with professions and where to find them, all source information, locations/shops/restaurants, dishes and other foods, all known festivals and events in Arendelle, in-universe books, fun facts and other finds. This spreadsheet is constantly being expanded and is currently in version 4. All abbreviations of mentioned books and comics in the pdf can be found in the spreadsheet too!

A total of 148 Frozen books (novels, guides and chapter books), as well as all Frozen films, shorts and audio stories were analysed for this book. In addition, 335 comics from Dark Horse, Joe Books and all comic collections available to me from Frozen magazines. The result is currently over 250 characters known by name, mostly with scanned images, and the list is sure to grow.

However, the first few pages of the book deal with the monarchs of Arendelle and how it all began.

I would like to thank my fellow editors @virtual-winter, @snowflaketale12, @sunflowers-and-sandwiches, Lilythesnowgie and many other Royal Archivists of Arendelle Archives for their help and suggestions on our Discord Server.

Disclaimer: Please don't edit the copyrighted spreadsheet file! You are not allowed to use any data shown in this file on other websites! But you are allowed to share the link to this file on my Google Drive to other fans. It took me more than two years to collect all of this data. I did this for all Frozen fans and only for private use!

And now have much fun with this project!

[ihopesocomic]

I just had to come on here and say that the way you are handling Vicious and Hope is amazing. I see so much of my mother and I in them, down to bearly every detail -- overprotective when I was young because of my disability, wouldn't let me try to do anything when I got older because I "wouldn't be able to", the dynamic shifting from protective to hateful as I grew up, and even down to some of the exact things Vicious says. How many times have I been told that I was selfish or ungrateful for standing up for myself or calling her out for the way she treats me? I lost count. It hits home very hard, in a good way. Even in the dub, Vicious's voice acting makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up (I mean this as a good thing, because it's so well done and accurate to real life Viciouses). I can't escape my Vicious, so seeing Hope get to (and knowing there won't be a forced redemption/forgiveness later on) is very cathartic. I know I'm not the only abuse victim to appreciate how well you're handling that subplot, and that's a testament to the care and respect you're putting into everything. It means alot to see this concept done right, instead of being gaslit into thinking they always deserve forgiveness and will eventually redeem themselves by other media. I can only hope that one day I can escape too. In the meantime, I live vicariously through Hopeful and gain comfort from her story.

Also Storm is the coolest lion character ever created. I don't make the rules.

Thank you for your kind words, anon. I am sorry to hear about your experiences with your mother, however.

And yeah, Maureen does such an excellent job with Vicious. Her voice sounding that way was also very much why we chose her. A major hallmark of abusive parents is they tend to overdramatise their voice and their facial expressions in a bid to intimidate their victims.

So yeah, people saying they expected Vicious to sound quieter and 'more controlled' baffle me because what abusive parent sounds rational and controlled to y'all?

And thanks again. Too often people forgiving their shitty family members is treated as the norm in media and we certainly wanted to show that no, cutting off people who are toxic to you is perfectly healthy and valid. And yes, that includes family. I'm glad to hear that we're doing this kind of thing right because it's certainly something we've felt strongly about portraying and being consistent about it. Even in the face of those who find it a 'shame' that Vicious isn't going to see her daughters again and we're not gonna have a big make-up scene. Ick. And yes, Storm always rocks it. If I don't mind saying so. lol - RJ

[potato4tomato]

Price x Male Selkie Reader

Part. 2

——

Warning: Mild violence, Cursing/Foul language.

——

—Story—

"What do we do with it?"

That question Ghost asked repeated in Price's head the whole day. What could they do with you? You were a selkie, a creature of the sea that was held to it by an immense bond. He didn't know much about them, other than their Scottish folklore origins, tie to the ocean, and their ability to shift from seal to human form. He would have to ask Soap or do some research once they got back to base. But right now his team was tasked with watching the coast for threats. He didn't have time to think about some handsome selkie that was lying in his cot, wearing his spare clothes, resting with minor respiratory damage according to what he could rule.

Price found out that you didn't speak very good English quickly. Only responding with a nod or a shake of the head most of the time. This was a bit confusing at times, but a barrier that he quickly crossed. Currently the only people who knew about you were Price and Ghost. Gaz and Soap hadn't seen Price carrying you to the tent while they were keeping watch, which was probably for the better. Price made sure to have Ghost keep an eye close to the tent, just in case.

——

You lay on a rough, thin flat cot, wearing odd clothing that's a size too big. Your selkie skin lying in your lap, held in your hands. Your lungs sting from being flooded with the salty water, but the warm air of the tent helped soothe them. You didn't completely understand why these humans took you to their camp, but it was definitely better than lying on the hard, damp rock of that cave. And the clothes you were wearing temporarily were not uncomfortable, and didn't smell too bad. But you could feel the longing for the sea creeping, aching for you to come back, and you would eventually need to soon. But for right now, recovering and enjoying the warmth was easiest and most important.

Hours pass, and you begin hearing voices outside your tent. It sounds like banter, something you hear often among humans. Their voices were differentiated by a deeper, more authoritative and British accent. Then a more enthusiastic, lighter, Scottish accent laced voice. It sounded as if the more authoritative one was deterring the enthusiastic one away, this went on for a couple more minutes. Before rustling and brushing against the tent causes the front entrance to open. A man in the classic, bulletproof vest, boots, and overall military gear steps in, a new face. His hair cut consisting mohawk, even shaved sides. He was moderately tall, about 6'0". When his eyes processed you, they immediately widened. First in defense, probably in alarm that a complete stranger was in his team's tent. The man in the skull mask followed behind him, grabbing his shoulder. Then the man's eyes lightened, and almost instantly a shimmer of wonder appeared in the corner of his blue, wide eyes. He whipped around to the man in the skull mask, muttering to him with a thick Scottish accent.

"Is that a fuckin' selkie?"

It didn't take him even a second to know what you were. And the man in the skull mask simply nodded, his brown eyes fixated on the man that was so much smaller than him.

—Soap—

At first he was terrified, stepping into the team's tent to get some privacy with Ghost and seeing you- a strikingly handsome young man lying in his captain's bed? But upon further examination, your pearly white hair, vivid eyes, and what gave it all away was the seal pelt in your lap. You were a selkie, like the ones his mum would tell stories about to him and his sisters. Always told him about the stories of female silkies getting their skins stollen my fishermen and forcing them to marry and how she would have to return to the sea and abandon her family with him. Or the handsome male silkies who would come on land and seduce women, maybe even have kids with them. How they could control storms, would be called to someone who cried 7 years into the sea, and much, much more. He didn't really need confirmation, but he turned to Ghost and asked if you were a selkie. He knew the answer was yes, and that's the response he got. He understood now why women would be so drawn to a creature like you, you're so handsome and pretty. But why would you be here? At a military camp for a task force that was on watch for terrorists? Now his gears were turning, and all his initial thoughts of making out with Ghost had vanished.

——

Price looked around, looking for Soap, the need to inform himself about selkies in order to help you had become overbearing. His inner protective leader raging at him to make sure you're okay. He looks around until his eyes land on Ghost standing in the tent opening, a gap in his figure giving Price the opportunity to see Soap's mohawk. Price makes his way to the tent, a bit urgent, not knowing how Soap is going to react to seeing you. Once he makes it to the tent, he opens the flap and makes room for himself. Grabbing Soap's arm as a precautionary measure just in case.

"Soap- why're you in here, you should be on look out on the south side with Gaz-"

Price questioned, his gruff voice urgent and rushed to get the words out. Soap was a bit thrown off still by seeing you that he sidestepped the question and got to the point.

"Capt' why do we have a selkie in our tent?"

The Scot wasn't harsh with it, or upset at all with this outcome. In fact he was quite thrilled to see you, he was just confused.

"I found him on the beach."

Price huffed, taking his hand off Soap's arm and rubbing his forehead. Glancing at your quite frightened expression. Then away.

"Found him on the beach and brought him here? Why?"

"He was unconscious, washed up after the storm and had taken in a lot of water. Poor thing couldn't breathe until he choaked up a bunch of sea brine, he's not too good right now either."

The men fall silent, the sound of your raspy, broken up inhales and exhales being lightly heard. This was a bit depressing for Soap, seeing a part of his childhood stories in front of him in this condition. Something that needed help, was probably extremely confused and unaware of what was happening. You looked scared, you didn't know what they were saying, what they were going to do, how long you would stay here, and many other things.

——

Now three men were in the tent with you, all looking at you. It was unnerving having such intimating people acknowledging you, it was scary. You held onto your Selkie skin a bit tighter, it was probably the only usual thing to you in this situation. The man with the mohawk stepped carefully up to you, showing no harmful intent towards you. But you still keep your guard up, just in case. The man kneels down next to you introducing himself softly.

"Hello, my name is Soap. I'm not going to hurt you. Do you have a name?"

The two other men watched the interaction, and Price sighed when you had nodded.

"He doesn't speak, Soap."

You nod again, confirming Price's statement. Soap seems a bit puzzled, but convinced that you're telling the truth. He lifts his hand, looking at you with caution before pointing to your Selkie skin.

"May I touch it?"

You hesitate, you've never let a human touch your Selkie skin ever. Mainly because you're mostly in seal form, but also because you've never trusted a human to even come close to your fur before Price. Even that was a bit too close. Soap can sense the hesitation, and pulls back his hand. Making sure not to be too overbearing with his approach or make you uncomfortable.

When you finally give him a nod of approval, his eyes light up, and he carefully smoothes his palm over the soft, white fur. Finding the same scars Price had earlier when he found you. The fascination in his expression became a bit pained and upset, and he glanced at you and back to the Selkie skin with curiosity and empathy. But after a few minutes Soap stood up and thanked you for letting him touch your selkie skin.

—Gaz—

He hadn't realized his team weren't in the field until he was shouting and trying to notify them that there were ships incoming. But no one was responding. He tried to radio them, his speaker crackling to life as he declared,

"Potential terrorist ships on west coast, 4 ships counted. Attack crafts."

He clipped his radio back to his vest, and went back to watch. Hearing his teammates running back to their positions within a couple seconds of this message. Soap pulls up the rope ladder, Ghost gets to work setting up his sniper rifle while Price covers the stairwell to the top of the cliff. Ghost shouts something about seeing someone on one of the boats running to a stationary weapon on the boat. Before a shot rang out and the man Ghost was talking about had fell back, a hole in his head.

Right after, a light storm struck. Just a light hail, nothing too out of the ordinary, but it seemed most intense around the shore and coast. The hail was really heavy and the pellets seemed to be about an inch thicker. Making many two of the ships retreat, and the other two arguing with eachother on what to do. With another surge of hail the third ship leaves. But the third one stays, the men on it stepping out with weapons and threatening Gaz and his team members. Ghost seemed to have enough, and sniped the driver in the face, causing the dead man to accelerate and crash onto shore. The other men on the deck of the ship either falling off and drowning under the harsh waves, or holding on and heading towards the staircase. Storming up it with SMGs, Price and Soap begin taking care of them with expert military precision and skill. Neutralizing them before they got to the top of the stairs, and dragging their bodies up for further examination. But first the whole team needed to look at the boat. Identify its origin if possible, and see what was on board.

—Extras—

Please let me know of anything I should add or improve on. Such as warnings or even plot and writing suggestions. Other things or tropes I could write and post. For shorter stories or something to make after this series.

I hope you have a good day.

[gifti3]

it just feels so natural

[roseofcards90]

The good place finale got me sobbing goddamnit

[ofdragonsdeep]

16: Third-Rate

Extremely low in quality or value.

An adventurer, newly arrived in Limsa Lominsa, attempts his first summon.

Limsa Lominsa was bright.

White rock, clean metal, and the spray of the sea. The sun glowered daggers from the sky whenever Telan had the temerity to leave the safety of the buildings. Even staring at the floor gave him no relief, the path being carved of that same white rock as the buildings. It was an exercise in misery.

He had been directed to the Drowning Wench upon his arrival by a Yellowjacket - another explosion of brightness amid the ruckus. He had been jostled, bustled, and otherwise battered about by everyone he had had the misfortune to cross paths with along the way, and now he sat huddled in a corner, not even brave enough to go for a table.

He did not think this was supposed to be his destination. There had been a lot of words he didn't understand thrown about by the alchemists in Radz-at-Han, and then even more words he didn't know on the boat. But they had moored to make repairs after the attack - pirates, maybe, Telan still wasn't sure - and he had been given such a strange vision that he had found himself compelled to seek an answer to it.

Outside was still terrifying. Daytime too bright, sky too vast, people too loud. But here in the pub he had at least been left alone so far.

He took out the book that the young elezen had given him and scanned its pages. It had all been nonsense when he had first looked at it, but some of the runes were beginning to make sense to him. Whatever strange vision had granted him understanding of the words those around him were saying had not translated to the written word.

The geometries were magical, he could feel that. There were a few basic spells, and one complicated one, on the first five pages. The elezen had pointed him at it, speaking gibberish as he did so, and so Telan had devoted his time to studying it.

It was meant to be wrapped around something, he thought. A focus perhaps. He had begun to pick out the offensive parts of the other sigils, and this one didn't have the same hallmarks, so he was at least not worried about accidentally blowing up a chunk of bright, white, noisy rock.

He dug about in the pockets of his clothes for something he could use as the centre. He had left Meracydia with basically nothing, and his material conditions hadn't exactly improved in Radz-at-Han, but the alchemists had let him keep the bits and bobs they had tested on him to see if they could help him. None of them had, of course, but it did mean his pockets were not completely empty.

He found a rock. A pebble, really, polished smooth by whatever process they had used on it before it had been passed to him. It looked about the right shape for the magic.

He supposed he had nothing to lose by trying.

He sat himself up, kneeling now instead of huddled, and placed the rock in front of him. He opened the book, squinted at the shapes, and put his hand out above them. Traced the lines in the air, slowly, carefully - several seconds of deep concentration. He could feel the magic pull at his aether, which was not a particularly nice feeling, but it led his fingers in the right direction.

He did hope the boy hadn't given him something dangerous.

When he finished the spell, there was a puff of magic around the rock. It lifted into the air, lines of aether constricting around it, and then…

It looked a little bit like a rat, if rats came in bright neon blue. Was about the same size as one, too. It squeaked at him, a high-pitched noise of indignation, and vaulted onto his shoulder.

It looked sick.

"Hey, lad." One of the barmaids startled him out of his focus, and he dropped the tome onto the floor, immediately scrabbling to pick it up. "Whoa! 'S no bother. Yellowjackets send ye?" Telan blinked up at her. She was a miqo'te, too, so she would probably understand his Huntspeak. Surely at least that was the same?

"Yes. Big man. Yellow and black clothes," he said. Now it was her turn to be startled, pulling the empty tray up in her surprise, tail twitching back and forth in unease. Was that a good sign? It did not seem like a good sign.

"…Well, I s'pose that'll do," she allowed. "'Venturers sign on wi' Baderon. Over there." She motioned over her shoulder with one thumb, to the man stood behind the bar. "Ye are a 'venturer, aye?" Telan looked down at his book, and heard the blue rat squeak on his shoulder.

"I. Think so?" he replied. The Yellowjacket had said the same thing, adventurers signed up in the Drowning Wench.

"Maybe ye can start wi' the easy jobs," the waitress said, though she did not look particularly convinced. "'Ere, follow me."

Telan got to his feet, following her as she led him up to the bar. The man behind it was dressed like a sailor, and had the bearing of one to go with it. He eyed Telan critically, and did not seem particularly impressed.

"'Ere for the drink, or a job?" he asked. Telan was not sure that whatever he had smelled the patrons downing classed as anything other than sea water, so he supposed it was the latter.

"A job. I think," he signed, and while he looked to the waitress to translate for him, Baderon made a surprised noise.

"Now that's a rum talent, lad," he remarked. "'Aven't seen a lad talkin' with 'is 'ands like that since ol' Petey lost 'is tongue, and I ain't never known the words so well."

"Is that bad?" Telan asked, concerned.

"Nay, lad," Baderon assured him. "Sign 'ere to join up wi' the Guild. Then we can get ye a job suited for yer talents."

Telan picked up the quill. Regarded the gibberish in the book that was slid across the counter towards him.

"An X'll do the job," Baderon offered helpfully. Telan was not entirely sure how to write even that letter in the strange script on offer here.

"I have a name," he disagreed. "I just, I can't… write it."

"I'll do it!" the waitress offered, sounding excited by the prospect. "What d' they call ye?"

"Telan," he signed, wondering if that would make any sense whatsoever. "Rhei'telan."

"Rhei?" the waitress repeated, sounding perplexed. "That ain't a tribe I've ever 'eard of."

"Be nice, I'tolwann," Baderon said. Telan blinked.

"How do you… pick?" he asked. I'tolwann hid a laugh behind one hand.

"I think they give it to ye, lad," Baderon replied. "It's a short'and."

"Oh." He frowned in thought, eyes on his book rather than having to look at either of them. "Then… R."

"It's rh," I'tolwann said, the pronunciation like a huff of air rather than a letter. Telan had no idea how she had managed to infer the longer ar from his simple signs, but apparently it had been communicated. He shook his head.

"No, that's not… Not my tribe," he disagreed. "I want Ar."

"Ar'telan?" Baderon repeated, and he nodded. "It's as good a name as any fer a new adventurer, I'd say."

"Ar'telan," I'tolwann repeated, then wrote something down in the book. "Like this?" He blinked at the paper.

"I have no idea," he said, once more confronted with a mass of meaningless scribbles. I'tolwann shrugged.

"Well, that's what it is now!" she decided. "Let me show ye to the Arcanists. They'll teach ye how to summon a proper 'buncle."

"Is that what this is? A… buncle?" Ar'telan repeated, the blue rat on his shoulder squeaking in annoyance.

"'S not like any I've ever seen," Baderon said.

"It's close enough, lad," I'tolwann offered. "Let's get ye a real one."

---

He dreaded the first step outside. The sunlight, the sky, the crowds. He could feel himself tensing as they approached the door.

The creature on his shoulder squeaked indignantly at the change in posture, and pattered its tiny feet on his shoulder. When he flinched away, it stood up on its hind legs and bit his ear.

The yelp of pain got I'tolwann's attention, but it had settled back onto his shoulder by the time she turned around.

"It bit me," he said, before reaching one hand up to rub at his ear.

"They ain't supposed t' do that," she said, doubt in her voice. "Well, not t' the one what summoned it, anyways."

"I think I made it angry," he said. A deep breath. The creature leaned its weight against his neck at the motion, and he braced for another ineffectual assault.

It didn't come.

Instead, it stayed leaned against him as I'tolwann shrugged and carried on walking. He kept his eyes on the floor, tried not to tense. Every time the fear crept up, the creature battered him with its paws again, squeaking like a broken child's toy. It… helped.

It helped more than anything else had. More than someone walking with him had, if only because the hand of another had reminded him too keenly of the day the moon had fallen. It was still too big, too bright, but it was not quite too much.

He did not want to spend long under the sky, but he could manage a short trip, he thought.

[towered]

Right at the end of the year Twenty Twenty-Four, the humble man completes his Animal Crossing New Horizons museums by obtaining every insect, fish, and sea creature. This accomplishment is proof of his ecological fitness and will be celebrated for several minutes.

[magnusmodig]

rough childhood headcanon qs / anonymous / accepting !

╰┈➤ 1 . does your muse blame themselves for their trauma?

||. As is ever the case with Thor Odinson, the short answer is still, in itself, complicated. Ultimately the answer is, in my personal opinion, yes , though Thor is an incredibly introspective person, and so he can be self-aware enough of himself and his family situation to see it plainly for what it was. Thor is not a doormat. But whether or not he fully commits to acting on what he's feeling, and thinking based that awareness is its own issue. One mostly steeped in how Thor views himself and partly how he views his own family (specifically: he views them all with blinding rose-colored glasses ESPECIALLY once they've died, regardless of the damage they've caused him).

For some context on what I mean, by "how Thor views himself", I mean that he is shown to have something of an atlas complex (also known as: superman complex, savior/hero syndrome, codependency). Everything comes down to him. He's the strongest, so he'll do it. He can outlive and outlast, so he'll endure. He's the eldest, so it's his responsibility. So on and so forth very often times coming out as "I will solve this problem for you" statements most notably with Jane Foster. He takes failure personally, especially when other people are at stake, or the collateral. And he will hold himself accountable for tragedies beyond his control at length. In "The Avengers" and a deleted scene in "Thor: Ragnarok" he actively and repeatedly lumps himself in with his family (aka his father and siblings, mostly), and their catastrophic, destructive actions and pasts — both of which are things that thor himself actually hasn't partaken to any large degree (unless we count the failed Jotunheim heist and even that he WAS going to bail on before his temper got the best of his judgement.) He proceeds to call them (his family) "bilge snipe", while using the terms "we" (denotating himself as part of the issue) and proceeds to call the metaphorical bilge snipe "repulsive". He does this again in Ragnarok while telling Banner that "we're cursed to fight amongst ourselves while everyone else suffers for it"), meaning his opinions on the matter have not changed since 2012.

And by "blinding rose colored glasses" I mean that Thor has another tendency to see the good in people, partly in nature and partly deliberately, especially when seeking it out. And he does this especially when it comes to his family, and he will justify their actions by trying to step into their shoes even when it may not always be appropriate. (//gestures at literally all of thor: ragnarok and how he still idolizes his father to an obscene degree thankstaika re: "i'm not as strong as you", and even further back to the way thor speaks to odin in thor 2011 at the end of his banishment re: "there will never be a wiser king than you or a better father". He also idolizes Loki in "The Dark World" with the line "loki, for all of his grave imbalance, understood rule as i know i never will" and to a lesser degree does this with Frigga in the same film "she saved us all, a thousand times.")

From a slightly more psychological perspective:

The long and short of it is that it is much easier to blame yourself for things that hurt you that were beyond yourself. Especially when you can't understand it, or didn't deserve it. Especially when they come from someone you hold in high esteem, and hold a lot of love for. Like caregivers and family. In a twisted way, it grants the guilt-bearer some level of CONTROL over their emotions and their situation that they did not have in the moment the hurt occurred. If you're can blame yourself, then you're at fault. If you're at fault, then you can feel guilty, and if you're guilty, then you can atone. You can actively work to make up for it. ( "By blaming ourselves, we maintain the perception that we’re still in control of the situation and ultimately safe -even when we’re not." - rosscenter.com) This is especially critical in children who go through this sort of parental dysfunction and neglect. And the reason why I think this is not a development saved for his young adult -> adult years is because of exactly what we see on screen.

Thor comes from a family that is just as loving as it is toxic. His father was so good at being a wise king that he completely failed at being a good father. It's something Thor even calls out in "The Dark World" ("I'd rather be a good man than a great king") after speaking on how being king is losing who you are to politics and mind games and war. Odin as a parent, and Odin's overbearing, all-encompassing shadow of a legacy is what Thor's entire character arc was always about overcoming. His mother, Frigga, is by far the most decent of the bunch, but she is far from perfect. To pull from a previous meta on the subject, my opinion on frigga/thor is as follows: " [...] an unfortunate cycle in which [Frigga] spent SO MUCH ENERGY [...] making sure [Loki] felt seen/heard and had “some sun for himself” that she COMPLETELY neglected to see that her other son was in just as much pain as the youngest was [...] And only realized how estranged they had become when it was too late, and she couldn’t reach Thor anymore. (She also died before she could make it right.)"

His brother is arguably the person he was ever closest to (even among his friend group), up until his brother manipulated and betrayed his trust, killed him, attempted suicide in front of him, tried to take over earth as payback, tried to kill him again, rejected him outright, and then got put into jail.

Suffice it to say that while I think that Thor's issues stem from deep childhood trauma (and only ever further reenforced by the fact he ages so slowly), my dude's got some issues, and blaming himself for past trauma is definitely one of them. (When he can't get away with internalizing it and avoiding it any longer, anyways.) I do also think to a lesser degree this behavior does also count towards friends, just to a less extreme degree. With the main difference being: Thor adores his family. He wants to keep them close to him. He's incredibly protective of all of them. Which isn't to say he doesn't love his friends, because that would be the biggest lie. But friends come and go. Thor will always want to be a good friend, but he wants to be a good son even more than that. And so in cases of conflict with a friend and a peer, Thor will gladly and readily call out his friends for their bad behavior just as readily as he would also dismiss and justify their bad behavior towards himself. (you know like not checking in on him for five years in "endgame", apparently...)

[avesseloflanguage]

mildly and perpetually baffled by lauren gunderson's urge to add a failed/unrequited romance (that never happened irl) for her real historical female characters in her historical plays based on real historical times/events/women

[trans-yllz]

literally got like 3 hours of sleep because I forgot I had to wake up early this morning until like 11:30 last night and then had fitful dreams. explodes