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lonestarflight · 11 months

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Apollo Program: Block I Command and Service Modules

The Apollo Command and Service Module (CSM) contract was award to North American Aviation on November 28, 1961. At the time, the plan was to land the entire CSM on the lunar surface via the direct ascent and the initial design did not include a means to dock with another spacecraft. Later on this was changed to the lunar orbit rendezvous and lunar landing would be preform via the Lunar Module. This required a major redesign of the CSM and in 1963, NASA decided the most efficient way to keep the program on track was to proceed with the development in two versions:

Block I: the preliminary version for early low Earth orbit test flights only.

Block II: the new lunar-capable version, which included a docking hatch, incorporating weight reduction and lessons learned from the Block I.

The CSM Block I was to be used for all uncrewed Saturn IB (AS-201 & AS-202) and Saturn V (AS-501 & AS-502) test flights, plus two manned missions. This was changed to only one in late 1966, being Apollo AS-204, aka Apollo 1. After the Apollo 1 fire all manned missions were to use the improved Block II versions.

Block I Command and Service Modules produced:

CSM-001: systems compatibility test vehicle, used on propulsion tests at White Sands Missile Range. Completed tests on September 7, 1968. CSM scrapped.

CSM-002: used for powered on tumble abort tests, flew on A-004 Little Joe II, January 20, 1966, at White Sands Missile Range. Modified to 002A.

CM-002A: used to in land drop tests. Modified to 002B

CM-002B: used on pogo tests at Downey, California. Modified to BP-23. On display

On display at the Cradle of Aviation Museum, Garden City, New York.

CSM-003: cancelled before construction began

CSM-004: structural tests, CM modified to 004B.

CM-004A: Used for Thermal and dynamic tests, redesignated BP-27 on the Saturn I Block II (SA-5D). On display.

On display with the Saturn I Block II Dynamic Test Vehicle at the U.S. Space & Rocket Center, Huntsville, Alabama.

CM-004B: Tested a new unified hatch design at Downey, California. CM offered to Smithson but declined, later scrapped by Rockwell at Downey, CA.

CSM-005: cancelled before construction began

CSM-006: CM used for systems capability tests and modified to Block II for ESC tests at AiResearch in Los Angeles, CA. Later used for demonstrating tumbling debris removal systems. CM offered to Smithsonian but declined, later scrapped. SM redesignated as SM-010, on display with BP-23A.

BP-23A and SM-010 on display at the U.S. Space & Rocket Center, Huntsville, Alabama.

CSM-007: various tests including acoustic vibration and drop tests, and used as a ground test vehicle. CM modified to 007A. SM used for fitcheck of docked model facility, current location is unknown.

CM-007A: used by Astronauts for water egress training, water-survival training and extended recovery training in the Gulf of Mexico. CM was refitted with Block II improvements. Underwent testing for Skylab at the McKinley Climatic Laboratory, Eglin AFB, Florida, 1971–1973. On display.

CM-007A is on display at the Seattle Museum of Flight, Seattle, WA.

CSM-008: complete systems spacecraft used in thermal vacuum tests. CM modified to 008A, SM offered to Smithsonian but declined (August 1973), later scrapped by Rockwell International at Downey, CA May 1977.

CSM-008 in Chamber A at JSC.

CM-008A: used in land tests at Downey, CA. CM scrapped by March 1971.

CSM-009: flew on AS-201 (later designated Apollo 2), CM modified to 009A.

CM-009A: modified with support structural tests for land impacts. CM offered to Smithsonian but declined, on display.

On display at the Strategic Air and Space Museum in Ashland, Nebraska

CSM-010: originally intended for a launch abort test, mission cancelled and CM was modified into 004A. SM cancelled.

CSM-011: flew on AS-202 (later designated Apollo 3), CM modified to 011A.

CM-011A: used on land impacts tests and extensively damaged. CM offered to Smithsonian and is on display.

On display at the USS Hornet Museum in Alameda, California.

CSM-012: intended for AS-204 (Apollo 1). CM is in storage at Langley Research Center. SM scrapped. Hatch on Display.

Apollo 1 hatch on display at the Kennedy Space Center.

CSM-013: cancelled before construction began

CSM-014: intended for AS-205 (Apollo 2). CM disassembled as part of Apollo 1 investigation and modified to 014A. SM used on AS-502 (Apollo 6).

CM-014A: ground testing. CM Scrapped May 1977.

CSM-015: CM cancelled before construction began. SM-015 was used with BP-30 and LES-014 for Swing Arm tests and backup spacecraft for Apollo 6. On display.

On display at the Kennedy Space Center.

CSM-016: CSM cancelled before construction began. Only the launch escape tower (LES) completed, on display with BP-27 the Saturn I Block II (SA-5D) at U.S. Space & Rocket Center, Huntsville, Alabama.

CSM-017: flew on Apollo 4 (AS-501). CM on display. SM destroyed when the propellant tank explosion during ground testing. CM on display.

On display at the Stennis Space Center in St. Louis, Mississippi.

CSM-018: cancelled before construction began

CSM-019: cancelled before construction began

CSM-020: flew on Apollo 6 (SA-502). SM flew on Apollo 4. CM on display.

On display at the Fernbank Science Center in Atlanta, Georgia.

source, source, source, source, source, source, source, source, source, source, source

NASA ID: link, link, JSC-03600, S66-59204

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jtl07 · 9 months

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like a boat

[also on ao3 - note: Spoilers for Stray Gods]

(also shoutout to @sango-blep whose fanart of Stray Gods got me to play it!)

Beatrice starts her own file on Stray Gods after Ava gushes for five days straight to her and their sisters about the “amazing music,” the “super hot characters,” and how it had “such a cool vibe.” (Beatrice agrees immediately to Ava’s first and last points, grudgingly to the second - though she stands by her opinion of Apollo needing to learn how to button his shirt.)

She finds herself terribly torn when deciding her personality traits and again at the first major decision point. ‘It’s just a game,’ she tries to remind herself. She can always redo, she can always play through it again, she has time - they all do.

Her decisions from then on are made on her own instincts, tries not to engage her “strategy brain” (Ava’s words) too much, even though she’d figured out the killer early in the first act. But she finds herself enthralled enough with the characters, the world, with the music that she can accept that small imperfection. (‘Life isn’t about perfection,’ she repeats in her mind as she plays the game, when her eggs turn out a bit too soft, when her run takes a bit too long; as she trails her fingers along the jagged scars that cross Ava’s skin, as Ava looks up at her and grins, laughs, and tucks her head underneath Beatrice’s chin.)

Music hadn’t played a big presence in Beatrice’s life growing up. The exception, of course, being church music, though that had been relegated to Sunday mass. There was no jazz to keep them company at home, no pop music while they were being shuttled to and fro - as a family, they’d hardly spent time together as it is, much less to develop any sort of unifying soundtrack.

Beatrice knew the mechanics of the piano and the violin, could sightread most sheet music placed in front of her but she doesn’t have the same joy Camila has whenever she sees an instrument, doesn’t have the glee Ava has when she plays the electronic drumset she’d been gifted anonymously (they all knew it was really from Lilith). Spending time with Camila and Ava together meant becoming accustomed to conversations peppered with random bursts of song - it never took much, a mere word or phrase could get either of them going - and Beatrice learns to just smile along, fond, content with being an audience to their impromptu mini-musicals.

And it’s because of this lack of experience, this lack of passion, that Beatrice doesn’t expect to like the game as much as she does. Finds herself answering emails quicker than usual, starting up the game whenever she has an hour to spare. Ava will sometimes perch on the arm of her chair and watch her play but is careful not to give anything away, always gives Beatrice space when it comes to decision points in the game.

Ava’s out running errands when Beatrice gets to the end, which is just as well: She sits there, watching the credits roll by, sits there with a bittersweet feeling heavy in her chest. Finished in what seemed like no time at all - ‘The good things are always quick,’ she thinks, and she sees the image of Freddie’s hat overlaid atop Ava’s baseball cap, held tight between her hands.

Ava finds her in the dark, notes what’s in her hands, gives a sad smile. “Finished the game, huh?” she murmurs, brushing a lock of hair behind Beatrice’s ear. Beatrice nods, leans into Ava’s palm. Ava coaxes her out into the living room, keeps the lights low as they order pizza and watch a couple TV shows that Beatrice hardly pays attention to. Ava, however, of course, is paying attention, knows to keep close for the rest of the evening, just hums into Beatrice’s hair when she clings to Ava after they make love in their bed, shuddering and mouthing silently at the space on her chest above her heart.

Beatrice wakes up before her alarm the next morning, a dream of lost boats and ancient pillars whispering at the edges of her consciousness. She goes for her run, per usual, makes her protein shake and sets up Ava’s coffee, per usual, takes a shower, per usual. It’s still early, however, earlier than usual, and Beatrice finds herself turning on her computer, starting up Stray Gods. She opens her file and scrolls back to the beginning of act three. She hesitates briefly at the warning prompt, realizes this is the first choice: keep her saved data or attempt to save Freddie?

‘It’s just a game’ chimes through her mind as she hovers over the ‘Cancel’ button. ‘It is,’ Beatrice thinks, ‘So just play.’

She clicks ‘Ok,’ and lets her decision play out. It’s strange, a part of her brain acknowledges, to make the choices that she normally wouldn’t allow herself to make. To choose selfishness, to give in to her wants. It’s not honorable, it’s not responsible - ‘It’s just a game’ repeats in her head - but Freddie comes back. And it’s not perfect, it’s not all sunshine, but they’re together and Beatrice can’t help but wonder, can’t help but be jealous, can’t help what’s already been done.

‘It’s just a game,’ she reminds herself, numb as she watches the credits roll a second time. When it finishes, it’s well past sunrise and Beatrice knows she should get up to wake up Ava, that they need to leave for the farmers market soon so they can get that cheese Ava wanted but had run out last week, but she stays fixed to her seat, afflicted by a sense of detachment: adrift.

Ava finds her, again, as she always does - as Beatrice never did, and her guilt spills out over her hands in the form of tears. It comes in waves, feels like an ocean, like a ship crashing against a cliff. There’s no music here, no songs, no lyrics; their game has already been played.

But they’re still here, at the end of it all. Ava had come back, against the odds.

‘It was just a game,’ Beatrice reminds herself as she breathes Ava in.

Reminds herself two more truths: That Ava’s here, and they have time.

They’re late to the farmers market but when they arrive at the cheesemonger, they find a wedge saved with Ava’s name on it, much to Ava’s loud delight. They find some vegetables, some fruit, they find plenty of cute dogs to pet; they walk back home hand in hand, laden with bags.

They’re cooking up some of the vegetables when there’s a knock at the door - a package. Beatrice thinks nothing of it until they’ve cleared the dinner plates and Ava’s pulling her onto the couch, pushing the package into her hands.

“It’s a lamp,” Ava explains, a careful, hopeful look on her face as Beatrice studies the small lighthouse. A melody, unbidden, remembered, rings from the back of her mind - lost at sea - and she lets her hand slide to the back of Ava’s neck, pulls her in; uses her lips to map a path from Ava’s mouth to her temple to her forehead.

As if to say, ‘thank you,’ as if to say, ‘yes, I know what it means,’ as if to say, ‘yes, it’s what you mean to me; yes, it’s what I wish to mean for you, if you let me; will you let me?’

And the answer Ava gives is the same choice Beatrice has made, will always make: “Yes,” Ava says as she pulls her in - to shore, to her arms, to her joy of life - “Always.”

#my writing #jt writes fic #avatrice fic #avatrice #plays stray gods #i honestly don't know why i'm writing so much lately #but it's kinda nice to just write and yeet lol #we'll see how long this bout of creativity lasts 🙃#but omg if you like musicals and new takes on greek mythology definitely recommend this game!

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aj-thegreatest · 5 months

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PomengranMints just got 400 hits! To celebrate, here’s the Artemis and Apollo redesigns that won the poll! Sorry it took awhile, but I’m really happy with how they turned out! A breakdown/explanation will be down below:

I knew I wanted to deviate from the purple skin tone they had, but I didn’t know to what. I dabbled with Apollo maybe having golden skin (because sun), but I’m kinda…sick and tired of the existing golden characters design wise lol

Instead, I decided to go monochrome! Artemis is black for the moon/night sky, while Apollo is white for light/the sun. To unify them, I gave them gold accents (which also go back to Leto). They also dip into gray tones for their outfits, to break up the black/white.

Both Apollo and Artemis have an athletic fashion style, but in slightly different directions. Artemis is more toned down/simple, while Apollo is more accessorized. And alot of Apollo’s outfits I took from Supreme so take of that what you will

#lore olympus critical #lo critical #anti lore olympus #anti lo #lore olympus redesign #lo redesign #lo apollo #lo artemis #my redesign #my art #I’ll do another redesign poll once I do 1-2 more on my own!#so look out for that when it drops #also WOW it took like a month to hit 400 after 150 that’s CRAZY #Thank you guys!!

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corviiids · 7 months

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I saw your post about Achilles and Patroclus (the one for the ask game) and it was really interesting, I like the points you made and I enjoyed reading it, but I have a question about Achilles' bloodlust before Patroclus' death: what about what he did to Troilus? This happens before Patroclus' death in most accounts, so Achilles is very brutal with it for someone, who says he prefers to ransom the Trojans rather than kill them.

Yes, Troilus had to die, if the Achaeans wanted to win the war, but his death didn't have to be so brutal. Furthermore, Achilles kills him in a sanctuary (Apollo's temple) with no regard for the consequences, and then throws the kid's head to Hector and a few other of his brothers (there are also even more severe versions about what Achilles did to this kid before and/or after killing him)

And then there's Polyxena, who usually is accompanying Troilus and gets kidnapped (and most likely r*ped) by Achilles after he kills her brother. In some versions she was partially the cause of Achilles' death, setting up his ambush by her brothers in Apollo's temple (which in my opinion seems like her way of avenging Troilus' death).

And then the ghost of Achilles demands her sacrifice (either as revenge to her revenge or because he still wants to have her, or both, 'm not sure), otherwise the Achaeans wouldn't be able to leave Troy.

I'm really curious about your thoughts on what Achilles did to these two.

(The argument about the Iliad characters is never ending and there are tons of different takes and opinions. I'm not trying to pick up an argument, I just want to hear you take on this, maybe what versions of these myths you prefer, why do you think Achilles acted the way he did and how does it fit in his characteristic you wrote previously?)

hellooo yeah so first and foremost obviously due to the nature of mythology it's always going to be kind of impossible to have, like, one unified "version" of a character that brings together every depiction of them throughout history, as you said. i think every storyteller is going to add something to a figure that doesn't necessarily mesh with every other depiction. it's like spiderman. it's for that reason that in that post (i had to go read it again lol i forgot exactly what i said but im pretty sure) i only talked about events that happened in or were referred to in the iliad. i.. clearly.. dont have a very good memory so i could very much be wrong about this but i dont think polyxena is mentioned in the iliad and troilus is only mentioned by name, i don't thiiiiiink the story of his death is relayed? i could be wrong! but yeah all of which is to say if my characterisation of achilles seems inconsistent with other myths, it sometimes might just be because it simply is. i dont try to account for every myth bc i would explode into a shower of snails

that said though i think in this instance we can find a compatibility. my point in that post wasn't that achilles isn't ever bloodthirsty or brutal, only that he shouldn't be defined by his bloodlust. quoting my own post bc again i had to go reread it

it's not that he isn't violent or hasn't killed or that he has reservations about taking lives

it's uncontroversial that he committed a lot of pretty heinous acts and clearly has the capacity for great cruelty and does not really weigh kindness or compassion or charity as a major factor in his decision-making. from my post again

he doesn't fight to kill, he fights to win. that's not hugely different in terms of the outcome, given it is in a war context where defeat and death tend to mean the same thing, but it IS different from a personality and character perspective, because it tells us achilles is at worst indifferent to human life rather than actually being driven by a desire to take it. better? worse? doesn't matter, not my point - just different.

achilles is more than happy to commit atrocities. it doesn't bother him to do so, morally. indifference to human life is sometimes indistinguishable from being outright driven by a desire to kill first and foremost. sometimes it's worse. achilles kind of does what he wants - he enjoys excelling at things - he excels at killing. so, stands to reason he might take a particularly brutal or bloodthirsty action if he feels like it. im putting the rest of this under a cut because it got long again

achilles choosing to ransom lycaon isn't proof that he is a merciful soul. it's just that he isn't at war for the love of making war and ending lives in and of itself. he absolutely does not give a shit about lycaon at all as an individual. if someone doesnt have to die, he might decide to let them go (vs someone who's in this because they love killing and therefore would just kill anyway). or he might kill them. if someone DOES have to die, achilles wouldn't go out of his way to make it a kind end. he might if he feels like it. but he might not. the bottom line is he can be bloodthirsty, but that's not his core driving trait. he's not in this to kill, he's in this to win and to be remembered for it. the killing is incidental (if he wins enough then it doesn't matter if his victims survive or not), so it'll happen or it won't and it doesn't really matter to him. so yeah, a plea for mercy might work on him better than it might work on someone who really actively wants to kill people because maybe he has no particular stake in killing them, which is why ive said he isn't fundamentally driven by bloodlust. but like if achilles thinks it might be fun to kill someone in a brutal way, no voice in his head is gonna be like Whoa there champ! How about not doing that? bc his reasons for not killing aren't ethical concerns, it's just a byproduct of what drives him. this is a fine distinction i know but i think it's important. again im not arguing (and wont ever) that achilles is a good moral figure, it's more just about understanding who he is. the killing isn't his goal hence why hes willing to ransom trojan soldiers moreso than the other greeks but if he DOES kill he's probably also going to do it more brutally than others again because his reasons were never rooted in morality to begin with

basically in terms of how im able to marry my view of achilles not being driven by bloodlust with the fact that he does objectively violent and brutal acts, i think those things are compatible with each other bc he can be bloodthirsty without that being the core driving force of his character and the thing that makeshim what he is. does that make sense? the issue i was railing against specifically w that post was that he tends to be depicted as a guy who just wants to fight kill bite kill blood blood blood and i think he DOES act like that guy but that's not the be all and end all of him. killing is incidental to winning, but he can take it or leave it - what i refer to as the breakdown of achilles' character following patroclus' death is the transition in achilles from "i want to win, and i'll kill to make that happen" to "i want to kill for the sake of killing" it stops being about glory and starts being about destruction and pain

#fundamentally i read achilles as being kind of driven by his whims and instincts #and devoted to fairness in the abstract but not all that concerned with grounded human things #so not particularly empathetic in most scenarios (though not incapable of empathy as the scene w priam shows)#i bet i repeated myself a bunch in this very sorry i wrote it in a big rush #rookposting #iliad

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makutamewtwo · 6 months

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Introduction to Jaala, the strange nature of his birth, his youth, his emerging adulthood, and his first visit to Hell!

Plate 1: Jaala at his current age of 20-something in a certain pose

Aw Heck, um I mean Hell, It's Jaala Leeds! This tricky imp isn't a particularly powerful demon and is about as low on the hierarchy as you can get. He commands no legions and spends most of his time slacking off and pulling low-stake practical jokes, the kind that even the one being pranked can laugh at or that involve some unconvincing plastic junk. Jaala does have one thing that makes him unique among devils: he was born of a human via the unity of two humans, without the involvement of a succubus or incubus. The reason Jaala was born like this seems to have been due to a prophecy. It was said of the ancestors of the Leeds family, who in the late 1700s early 1800s lived in the New Jersey Pine Barrens, that, due to Father Leeds' occult interests, Mother Leeds' 13th child would be a Devil. Now this seemingly did not happen then, but the prophecy must have been in the back of the gods' heads (perhaps Apollo took notice), and therefore it was made so for the next descendent of the Leeds brood who had 13 children the 13th would be born a devil.

Now the modern Ms. Leeds, mother of Jaala, lived in Drollerieville a bustling city mostly ruled by, in the mind of its politicians, conventionality. Ms. Leeds was active in the local LGBTQ+ community and acted as a surrogate mother for the children of many couples, 12 to be exact. You would think going through the pain of childbirth 12 times would be enough for Ms. Leeds but she had not yet had a child with her husband Mr. Leeds, so they unified, and soon enough Ms. Leeds was with child for the 13th time. When the embryo was visible via ultrasound, what most would consider an abnormality was noticeable, the fetus resembled a hybrid between a human and a goat. Any "normal" couple would have been shaken by this, but strangely, despite no awareness of the prophecy, the Leeds couple was as overjoyed and filled with love as any couple seeing their child for the first time.

A few months of gestation later, a fuzzy crimson child was born, a little prematurely, who immediately cried out a wail that sounded more like a bleating baby goat than a human infant. The child drew surprisingly little attention for his strange Satyr-like appearance but had to stay in the hospital for some weeks after his birth, but luckily, he was without any major ailments and was able to go home. Jaala as an infant could be described as clever and loud. His wailing could be heard across the whole neighborhood, and he was able to walk within weeks. It took him awhile to say his first word, which was the standard "Mama" for the curious, and there was a worry that he could only make goat vocalizations; however, there was a sigh of relief when he spoke. As a baby, Jaala did not have horns, nor a point at the end of his tail, his ears were disproportionately large, and he was very fuzzy. Jaala grew fast, but only as fast as a human child, in fact, despite his goat-like exterior, the doctors said that he was, for all intents and purposes, a human, except for his head which was like a combination of a human's and a goat's, and his cloven hooves. When his teeth grew in, however, they were very sharp like a carnivore's, Jaala was already observed to be omnivorous, so this was a little odd and very hard on Ms. Leeds, so she switched to bottle feeding. Eventually Jaala went from a baby, to a toddler, to a kid!

Jaala's days in Elementary School were difficult, he made some friends but was bullied a lot for his animal-like face. He also had trouble with the teachers as he didn't cotton to their authority that much and also found that he didn't enjoy the curriculum that much either. He liked to read, but by himself and hated math with a burning fiery passion. He also swiftly ended up with a teacher who was Christian though she wasn't supposed to express it. "I know what you are, devil." she would whisper to Jaala at any opportunity. Jaala didn't understand this, he hadn't, before attending school, thought he was that unusual. Sure, he looked and acted a little different than other people, but he still had a human heart. He had never put much mind to religion but had seen The Devil in cartoons, Halloween decorations and books of old folk tales, sure they were both red and The Devil had hooves sometimes like him, but implying these things meant that he was wicked like The Devil was difficult for Jaala who was generally a kind, gentle, and sensitive boy. He came home that evening crying. Jaala's parents were not happy with this unprofessional behavior from someone working with in the school system and got Jaala moved to a class with a nicer teacher. This teacher encouraged Jaala to do what he liked, while still teaching him the subjects he didn't care for, but it was fine. Jaala was learning and that is what mattered.

Eventually Jaala was in Middle School, an awkward time in everyone's life. He started experiencing changes but not just the usual ones, his fingers grew sharp golden talons, his tail gained a sharp bony point, and large horns grew from his head. He filed his talons, tail point, and horns down to avoid any hazard but still had trouble lying on his back and going through narrow doorways. He also started to feel angsty, he loved his parents who had supported him but he started getting mad at them for telling him what to do, he felt like he was being judged by his classmates for his different appearance. He found out about the rebellious figure of Lucifer and immediately related to him. Jaala came to understand something: regardless of if he was a demon or not, the idea of being one was kind of cool! He started vandalizing Church grounds and creeping around them hoping to scare the nuns. These pranks seemed harmless to him, but he was becoming known and loathed by the religious community who were treating him as a scapegoat for all the "problems" they had. When he and his parents found a local religious publication talking about "An Imp of The Devil in Drollerieville" they realized that if the local politicians caught wind of this, Jaala, only a mischievous tween at the time, could have become a political scapegoat for all the local issues. Jaala had to lay low and stop pranking out in the open, instead, he started doing graffiti and minor vandalism under the cover of dark without his parents' knowledge. Having stayed out of the eye of the public, Jaala was able to graduate middle school with few issues.

Jaala, of course, proceeded to High School, you would expect that, given how High School is often imagined, That Jaala overcame social ostracization and became the prom king and went on to marry that special someone who he met in High School, you would be wrong. Jaala generally laid low in High School, he had found himself to be a bit of an introvert, but he had a few close friends and some pleasant acquaintances, the classes were difficult, but he graduated and was, incidentally, now 18, he decided to chill for a year before seeking higher education. However, what he didn't know was that the Forces of Hell had been observing him, remotely viewing his antics, he wasn't incredible but he was distinctly devilish. Now you might think that this would be a horrible situation and that they were going to tempt him or mark him for death, but you view hell as a human, the demons viewed him as one of them, though he was especially interesting for one reason to the Demons of Hell, his body...no not in THAT way, most demons don't have physical flesh and blood bodies they are merely spirits without physical forms, so Jaala having a flesh and blood body was certainly a novelty. They started projecting themselves into Jaala's dreams which was quite disturbing for him, "We know what you are, devil," these apparitions would say, often times in the form of, people, sometimes even ones he knew, animals, and even his own reflection. The first time Jaala had one of these dreams it didn't shake him, though as these dreams got more intense and frequent Jaala started to be suspicious, these weren't just anxiety dreams, there was more to this, he was being communicated with. This came to a head when his reflection in a false awakening dream breathed onto the mirror and, in the condensation, drew a sigil, a sigil with his name on it, 4 Ankhs surrounding a goat's eye. Jaala didn't understand the relevance of this (he didn't have his Ankh necklace yet, but how he got that is another story) but he understood the assignment. He spent the entire day drawing and redrawing the sigil until he could finally draw it from memory.

Plate 2: Jaala’s Sigil

That night he went out to an alleyway. He was so tense his back felt like it was made of concrete, but he was determined to do what he needed to. He got out a can of spray paint, shook it well and onto a brick wall on the side of an abandoned building he painted the sigil, the smell of spray paint faded into the awful stench of brimstone as a doorway to Hell opened.

With very little hesitation, Jaala held his breath and plunged into the portal, falling on his face on the red clay of Pandæmonium, the employee housing of Hell. His senses were assaulted by cacophonous sounds, horrible stenches, and the foul taste of hellish clay. Jaala succumbed to overstimulation and fainted. He woke up in a comfortable bed in a well-furnished and air-conditioned apartment. He didn't know it, but the devils who had made contact with him had carried him to his room in Pandemonium. Jaala was puzzled and decided to look out the window to see where he was. Millions of demons who were each going about their business, stoking flames, eating, napping, talking, generally going about their day to day. Jaala saw this and felt sympathy for them. They were not all that different from the people of Drollerieville. Sure, they were spirits of frightening appearance, but they seemed normal enough.

Jaala left his apartment to be greeted with an unbelievably long hallway. Luckily a door marked "stairs" was right in front of his room, so he opened it. Inside it was too dark to see anything. Jaala stepped inside and felt movement under him, it kind of felt like an escalator, soon enough Jaala was greeted by a single light and a door. The door was labeled on a gilded sign "Mammon's office." Hesitating a little bit, Jaala opened the door and was greeted by a businessman-like demon at a desk, smoking an expensive cigar. On his desk a plaque read "Mammon CEO of Pandæmonium Apartments LLC, Archdemon of Greed." Mammon looked like a human businessman at first to Jaala, but then he noticed his face, an upside-down bag with a dollar sign on it covered most of it, and his jaw looked like a skull's jaw but with razor sharp teeth. He seemed to have dollars sticking out of every visible part of his person. He almost reminded Jaala of old political cartoons of "Boss Tweed" that he had seen in High School History class.

"Ahh, you must be that imp that I have heard so much about," Mammon coughed out in between puffs of his cigar. "What is like to have flesh?" Jaala understandably felt threatened by this statement, his face scrunched into a frown, "Oh, forgive me, that wasn't a threat, you're just a rare breed! Would you care for a mint?" Mammon corrected himself and pointed at a bowl of stale, melted together mints.

"Look," Jaala managed to get out, "It's nice here, but I was called here through my dreams, my Beelzebub damn dreams, do you understand what that feels like?" Jaala raised his voice more than he meant to and covered his mouth in embarrassment.

Elsewhere in a deeper part of hell, the peppy and egotistical giant fly, Princess Beelzebub's antenna twitched upward, smacking against her escoffion. "Huh, my Antenna, that’s unusual!" the Princess of Hell exclaimed, "There must have been an invocation to me... I'll get to it later." she said going back to flirting with her many suitors.

Mammon's expression was difficult for Jaala to read, he already wasn't the best at reading expressions and Mammon's eyes were covered by the bag over his head, assuming he had eyes at all. There was a period of awkward silence and Jaala's breathing became heavy and uncomfortable, he worried that he was going to be killed and that, for all he knew, the shortness of breath was caused by some kind of noxious gas that was pouring into the room. In reality he was very anxious, and his breathing was shallow, and the cigar smoke that filled the room certainly wasn't helping either. He and Mammon just stood there staring at each other, until Mammon broke the silence "I'll give you one thing, kid..." he said in a quiet voice "you've got spunk!" Mammon burst out into a genuine, mirthful laugh interspersed with throaty coughs and hacks. He didn't seem to be angry, nor was there any malice in this laugh.

Jaala smiled uncomfortably; his breathing normalized a little bit. "But... uhh..." Jaala stammered out to the Archdemon of Greed, who was in a coughing fit from his laughter "Why have I been guided here, what do you expect of me?" "Ahh, yes, yes, ahem" Mammon cleared his throat, he spit a wad of black bile into a spittoon on his desk, which melted through it and the desk. "Well, to be frank with you, you aren't that evil, but you certainly are, how should I put this... Devilish, do you understand what I mean, Mr. Leeds?"

Jaala was starting to feel more comfortable, Mammon seemingly had no malicious intent for him, despite clearly being an authority, something which Jaala loathed and feared with every fiber of his being, Mammon was speaking to Jaala on his level, Jaala noticed an old plastic chair in front of the desk as his eyes adjusted to the dark, he turned the chair backwards and sat in it facing Mammon, hoping to impress him with a old tactic to look cool that he had learned in his edgy middle school days, "Please, Mr. Leeds is my father, call me Jaala," he said in a manufactured confident and almost smug tone of voice, "Please clarify what you mean by devilish, because I'm not quite sure I understand."

"Well," began Mammon in a clear voice, no doubt the voice he used to speak to investors, "we here at Pandæmonium Apartments LLC cater to all kinds, but we tend to categorize them as 'devils' or 'demons' but this is a broad strokes term, many many kinds of spirits populate Hell and make it the wonderful diverse workplace that it is including, but not limited to, 'daimons', 'shedim', 'gods', 'fallen angels' from everywhere in the hierarchy, 'lilu', 'mazzikin', and even some 'faeries' and 'djinn.' Isn't that wonderful?"

Jaala's head was spinning, he was even more confused, he may have been a demon, but he wasn't a demonologist so most of these terms meant nothing to him and didn't clarify anything. He replied "Uh, yeah!"

Mammon let out another hearty laugh. "Okay, well let me cut to the chase, given your devilish nature, we in Hell have taken notice and, even though you're basically a gristly human of meat and bone, we still consider you one of our own and you may, as you wish, come and go to Hell whenever you like, simply by drawing your sigil."

Despite how honest he seemed, Jaala became suspicious that he was being tricked by the smooth talking but rough voiced Archdemon of Greed. "Wait, wait, you set me up a nice apartment just because I'm a demon? What do you want from me? Do you expect me to torture damned souls? Do you expect me to pay you money? Are you going to claim my soul when I die? I may be a demon and I'm also a human but I'm no fool!"

Mammon took a long drag of his cigar, clearly considering his next words carefully, "I wasn't going to say this because I felt it would sound insulting, but, we expect nothing of you, Jaala Leeds. We don't need your human money as we have our own currency, Beastmarks, we don't need your service as your physical body is too weak to survive the oppressive environment in which the souls of humans are tortured. In addition, we don't think you could psychologically handle it either, and we do not lay any claim to your soul, nor do we ask for it, the fate of your soul is... uncertain." The Archdemon made a gesture with open hands implying balance scales.

Jaala's tension lowered a little, but the statement about the fate of his soul intrigued and frightened him. He decided it would be best not to inquire further about it. "So, I'm allowed to leave whenever I want to?" This whole situation had been emotionally intense for Jaala, and he was ready to head back to his earthly home and take solace in its familiarity.

"Yes, but allow me to tell you one more thing..." Mammon's tone was suddenly very serious, Jaala picked up on this and listened closely, his floppy ears visibly perked up a little as Mammon spoke "Hell is a very dangerous place for a living being, it's not designed with them in mind. Due to this, you might want to stay near Pandæmonium, It's safer than most places in Hell. It's also important to know that your fellow demons are liars and deceivers, they shouldn't be trusted much, take everything they say with a grain of salt, this even applies to me. Judging by how you acted during this conversation, this shouldn't be much of a problem for you though, will it?" Mammon took a long drag of his cigar and coughed almost to punctuate the statement he had made.

Jaala didn't think that Mammon had noticed his hesitance, but apparently, he had. "So, can I just leave now?" Jaala asked, he felt that he had most of the information he needed.

"Sure, but if you fall on your face, my imps won't be there to pick you up!" Mammon smiled with a surprising amount of warmth for a greedy tyrant, he opened a desk draw and rummaged through it and finally pulled out a pen that was burning with light. "I stole this pen from heaven before I fell, it seems no one missed it!" Mammon tossed the pen to Jaala, who fumbled it in his talons before finally getting a grip on it. "Just make sure you give it back, It's a rare find!" Mammon smiled and, though Jaala couldn't be sure, it was almost like he was winking. Jaala drew his sigil with the pen.

The sigil was drawn in pure light, illuminating the dark room, the walls were fleshy and seemed to be breathing, a sleazy pin up calendar was nailed into it behind Mammon’s desk, staining the nail with blood. Jaala didn't stay long to observe his surroundings, he had seen enough and, frankly, it made him feel viscerally ill. He plunged into the circle and left.

Soon after, Princess Beelzebub appeared in a cloud of blood-sucking flies. Mammon immediately jumped from behind his desk and fell on his face at her feet, "Great art thou, O Princess of Hell!" he cried out, shivering.

"Oh, hi Mammon," Beelzebub cheerily buzzed "did you invoke me, do you need me to let loose a plague of flies on those filthy, filthy humans?"

"No Great Princess, honored be thy name, that will not be necessary, it was not I who invoked your unholy name, it was a guest in my office." Mammon belted out, his voice muffled by the fleshy floor.

"Okay~," Beelzebub sang out, enzymes dripping from her mouth, "then, who was this guest who used my name in vain?"

Mammon choked, he didn't want to reveal Jaala's name to her, but he had no other choice, she already knew it, nothing escapes her she just liked to act playful, "Jaala, great Ba'alah of creeping things." he sputtered out nervously.

"Okay~," she said, "that He-Goat knows not that he shouldn't speak my unholy name in vain, but if YOU invoke me for no reason, I'm going to have to cut off..." Mammon gulped at this pause, knowing all too well what she was going to say next "...your funding~!"

Mammon wept and gnashed his teeth out of agony, though he had been warm in front of the sensitive Jaala, the only thing he truly cared about was money, "Yes, Great Princess Beelzebub" he said through his tears "it won't happen again." Jaala regained consciousness in the same alleyway that he had entered Hell from, it seemed as if no time had passed and it all kind of felt like a weird dream, though a stale mint stuck to his butt suggested that this was more. "Aw, gross," Jaala thought "I knew I should have swept my hand across the chair before sitting in it, that office was a total sty!" He quickly got up and dusted himself off, a lasting odor of brimstone briefly wafting through the air before petering out. Jaala quickly went home and immediately took a long, cold shower, mulling over the events that had taken place as the water dripped off his horns "So Hell is real huh, I wonder what else I thought humanity made up is true," Jaala thought, shampooing his ears.

The filth of Hell washed off his body but was still in his mind as he tried to lay his weary head to rest, but his mind was rushing, and he couldn't sleep due to a combination of excitement and fear. The next morning, he hadn't slept a wink and was trying to decide if he should tell his family. He supposed that maybe Breakfast was a poor time to talk about his amazing voyage to Hell, so he waited until afterwards to tell the amazing story. Jaala's parents were certainly surprised, but not upset, they listened to the story with great interest, they suggested consistently packing burn ointment every time he visited Hell. Jaala had never suffered a burn in his life, but he agreed. Jaala continued to practice traveling between Earth and Hell whenever he desired, he quickly learned that he could use these sigils to appear almost wherever he desired, as long as he had been there before. He quickly imagined the pranking opportunities, just sticking his arm through a sigil could allow him to tap someone on the shoulder, to pants an important politician during an important speech, to invert all the crosses at the craft store all while remaining unseen... then he considered that any of these would have the issue of the appearance of a clawed hand emerging from a Hell portal to do the prank which would probably make waves, so this flight of fancy quickly faded from his mind.

He did, however, learn to master the art of travel by sigil in a few years, Jaala was now 20-something. He had saved a fortune on bus fares and hadn't yet learned how to drive because he had become so adept at subtle travel via Hell. He manifested himself in subtle places to get where he needed to go without the Hell portal startling fellow citizens. He would manifest unsubtly and theatrically at parties sometimes, and even set fancy cocktails alight with Hellfire, though those who drank them complained of a revoltingly pungent aftertaste and tended to practice temperance from then on, still, certainly a neat party trick. He started to keep his horns, tail point, and talons sharp as he had learned how not to injure others with them. Jaala would learn about others like him, other "monsters" and supernatural beings. The idea made him giddy, he had rarely been lonely, but he was truly not alone, other people like him existed! He knew for certain, even though he still lived a somewhat normal life, the world (or even worlds) seemed much bigger to him, and he knew that this wouldn't be his last adventure!

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alephskoteinos · 6 months

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A view to a solar non-dualism

During my study of the Greek Magical Papyri, a while back I encountered a phrase at the end of PGM IV. 1596-1715, which is a spell for Helios. The last line of the papyrus says that, when the consecration is complete, the magician must say the following: "the one Zeus is Sarapis".

I thought about that phrase again recently, maybe while going through The Concepts of the Divine in the Greek Magical Papyri, and it strikes me as a solar image of non-duality.

"The one Zeus is Sarapis", "heis Zeus Sarapis", but Sarapis (Serapis) is also an image of Hades or Plouton, being a god of the underworld and lord of the dead (not to mention a fusion of the god Osiris and the bull Apis). That's actually quite explicit when you get to Sarapis' iconography. In fact that were instances where Serapis and Hades or Plouton were explicitly identified with each other. In fact, that link is even more explicit in Porphyry's Philosophia ex oraculis, where he described Serapis as one of the gods who rule the infernal daimons, the others being Hekate and the demon dog Kerberos.

From this standpoint, I interpret the formula "heis Zeus Sarapis" as meaning that Zeus and Hades are one. In some ways that could be seen not only as a form of syncretism but also as an expression of theological monism, or certainly of the kind that was being developed around the time of Hellenistic Egypt.

But there's more to it, because this is also a solar image. Zeus-Sarapis was also Zeus-Helios-Sarapis, or Zeus Helios Great Sarapis. In the eastern desert of Egypt, under Roman occupation, one could except to find many images of the god Zeus Helios Megas Sarapis. especially in a place called Dios (now called Abu Qurayyah). There was also a temple dedicate to that god at Mons Claudianus, consecrated by a slave named Epaphroditos. Some scholars, of course, interpret this as a Greek interpretation of the Egyptian god Amun Ra. Furthermore, the phrase "heis Zeus Sarapis" has been found inscribed on a depiction of Harpocrates, Horus the Child, a deity who was frequently syncretised with Helios and thus seen as a solar god. Zeus, Helios, and Serapis were also sometimes seen as one godhead. This perhaps derives from an Orphic saying, purportedly attributed to an oracle of Apollo, which says "Zeus, Hades, Helios-Dionysus, three gods in one godhead!". In Flavius Claudius Julianus Hymn to Helios, this is rendered as "Zeus, Hades, Helios Serapis, three gods in one godhead!", which perhaps suggests that Serapis was being identified with Dionysus. Either way, it establishes a theology in which the three gods are mutually identified and unified as a solar godhead.

Since Helios was the sun god par excellence in this context, Zeus-Helios-Sarapis was seen as a solar deity, and thus it is a solar image. More importantly, it is an image of the non-duality of the sun. This incidentally is not out of step with certain monistic trends insofar as they also reflected a kind of solar theology. For example, Macrobius interpreted the myth of Saturn or Kronos as an expression of the generative power of the sun, thus identifying Saturn/Kronos with the sun, which Macrobius thought was the highest divine principle and even the ultimate basis of all the other gods.

The non-duality that I'm getting into, by this point, should be understood as something that involves and transcends a certain measure of "evil", or at least contains the infernal in itself. This lends itself to a dual-natured solar divinity that is by no means unfamiliar within ancient polytheism. Sun gods, perhaps like many other gods, were very double-sided. For example, the Iranian sun god Mithra was seen both as a benevolent deity concerned with friendship and contract, and as a mysteries, uncanny, and even "sinister" or "warlike" deity (though, these aspects are often attributed to his syncretic form as Mitra-Varuna). Kris Kershaw suggested in The One-Eyed God: Odin and the (Indo-)Germanic Männerbünde that the daeva Aeshma actually represented an aspect of Mithra's being. In Egypt, the wrathful goddess Sekhmet was also understood as an aspect of the power of Ra. The Mesopotamian sun god, Utu, or Shamash, was also a judge in the underworld. Another Mesopotamian god, Nergal, was a warlike god of disease and death who also represented a harsh aspect of the sun. Apollo, an oracular deity who was eventually associated with the sun, was also seen as a destroyer and shared Nergal's association with disease in addition to healing. Helios himself was also sometimes referred to as a destroyer, as indicated by one of his epithets, Apollon. In fact, even Helios may have been connected or in some cases even identified with Hades. At Smyrna, Plouton was worshipped as Plouton-Helios. This may even have reflected the notion of a nocturnal Sun that shone in the realm of the dead, perhaps inherited from Egypt. In some parts of Greece, Helios was also invoked alongside a chthonic form of Zeus in oath-swearing ceremonies.

The real fun I'd like to get into with this concept comes from hongaku-inspired forms of medieval Buddhist theology and their influence on the Shinto pantheon. And in that sense our focus turns to none other than Amaterasu, the Japanese sun goddess who was also the divine patron of sovereignty. The medieval Amaterasu was to some extent equated with all deities at all levels - naturally, this meant even the demonic and chthonic deities. Thus Amaterasu was both a saving deity and a wrathful deity in the Buddhist context. Late medieval Shinto theology had even crowned her a "deity of the Dharma nature", a unique kind of deity with no original ground, and thus a transcendent power akin to that of Dainichi Nyorai (Vairocana Buddha). The Tenshō daijin kuketsu identified Amaterasu with Bonten (Brahma), Taishakuten (Indra), and Shoten, and then with Yama in the underworld because she records the dharmas of good and evil, and from there it asserts that we are dealing with the same deity in all cases. The same text also says that Kukai interpreted Amaterasu as the great deity of the five paths in the underworld, and therefore the primordial deity controlling birth and death. In some respects she was even seen as an araburu-no-kami just like Susano-o, both sharing a double ambivalence that is projected onto their opposition. In other cases, Amaterasu was identified with the Buddhist god Sanbo Kojin, the wild or demonic god of the three poisons who was interpreted as the honji or "original ground" of Amaterasu, and then by extension Amaterasu was identified with Mara, the demon king himself, in the same way.

All of this, of course, is an expression of the non-dualism of hongaku thought, in which the darkness of unenlightened passion and ignorance (thus the realm of the demons) is at once enlightenment and Buddha nature, and not only this it is both simultaneously the ground of enlightenment and Buddha nature and also, ultimately, indistinguishable from enlightenment and Buddha nature.

#sun gods #non-dualism #polytheism #paganism #zeus #serapis #helios #hellenic polytheism #hellenistic egypt #ancient egypt #ancient greece #hongaku #hades #chthonic gods

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alightinthelantern · 1 month

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Parlor-Observation car "Juno" on the Nebraska Zephyr, a daytime passenger train operated daily by the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad (CB&Q) between Chicago, Illinois and Lincoln, Nebraska. Beginning operation in 1947, the train was typical of streamlined trains of the postwar period in that its carbodies were built of stainless steel and featured an all-silver exterior, the trademark of the Budd Company, but it was also notable in that it continued the CB&Q's unusual tradition, which began in the 1930s, of articulated, unified trainsets, with all passenger cars in each consist sharing bogies (wheel-trucks) and permanently coupled together.

The Nebraska Zephyr operated once-daily in each direction, with Westbound #11 departing Chicago at 12:45 PM and arriving in Lincoln at 10:30 PM, while Eastbound #12 departed Lincoln at 11:00 AM and arrived in Chicago at 8:45 PM. The 551-mile (887 km) trip took 9 hours and 45 minutes, and its average speed was 56 miles per hour (90 km/h) including stops. Service utilized two trainsets which each operated one direction on day and the opposite direction the next. One trainset's cars bore the names of Roman female gods, and was nicknamed "the train of the goddesses" (Venus, Vesta, Minerva, Psyche, Ceres, Diana, and Juno), while the other trainset's cars were named for male Roman gods, and was nicknamed "the train of the gods" (Apollo, Mars, Neptune, Cupid, Vulcan, Mercury, and Jupiter). The trainsets were in fact built by the Budd Company back in 1936 as the second pair of Twin Zephyrs, for CB&Q service between Chicago and Minneapolis-St. Paul, Minnesota, making them some of the first stainless-steel trainsets built by Budd, and as such they initially bore the same style of locomotive as the other CB&Q Zephyrs from the 1930s, of a smooth, semicircular front curving seamlessly into the roofline at its top, but these locomotives were later replaced with the stainless-steel-bodied, shovel-nosed diesel locomotives of the 1950s which all the CB&Q's Zephyr trains later received.

Each of the Nebraska Zephyr's two trainsets consisted of several coaches and parlor cars, a coach-dinette, dining car, cocktail lounge, and parlor-observation car. The parlor-observation car on "the train of the gods" was named Jupiter, while its goddess counterpart was named Juno. The locomotives were named Pegasus (CB&Q #9904) and Zephyrus (CB&Q #9905). The trains were generously appointed and provided comfortable travel throughout the 1940s and '50s, and the high level of service was maintained until 1963, when the cocktail lounges were removed in favor of additional seating. In 1966 the dining cars were rebuilt as "cafeteria cars" with vending machines for additional cost-cutting. The aging trainsets were retired from service entirely in 1968, although CB&Q continued to operate the Nebraska Zephyr train with other rolling stock until 1971, when the newly-birthed Amtrak took over all remaining passenger rail service in the US.

#Nebraska Zephyr #CB&Q #Chicago Burlington and Quincy Railroad #trains #streamliners #1940s #1950s #vintage #US rail

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homhymndaily · 2 years

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What is it?

Hom Hymn Daily is the collection of the Homeric Hymns, emailed to you on a daily basis. The longer hymns will be delivered per 100 lines, while the shorter Homeric Hymns each get their own email. They will be delivered in ancient Greek and English, with notes and further reading where applicable. Links to each letter will also be posted here as well.

What are the Homeric Hymns?

The Homeric Hymns are a collection of 33 hymns with no singular author, date or origin, despite what their name suggests. dated as widely apart as the seventh century B.C.E. and the fifth century C.E., they are known to us as such because of their transmission as a unified collection. The Hymns were considered Homer’s, and are called Homeric because they are hexameter hymns quite similar to Homer’s epics in content, style and diction. A distinction, however, should be made between the first five extant hymns and the rest– they are most likely older and considerably longer (about 300 to 600 lines) than the rest. It is these five hymns that show the closest parallels to the epics of Homer and Hesiod.

The five longer hymns, to Aphrodite, Apollo, Hermes, Demeter and the fragmentary Hymn to Dionysus, show some consistency in their content and style, all describing the gods’ major τιμαὶ, their honours and attributes and activities, and narrating their birth, the establishment of their domains, or the founding of major sanctuaries. All longer hymns can be dated from about the eighth century to the sixth century B.C.E. The five longer hymns all contain a myth about the hymn’s deity, and often a passage in which the nature of that deity is explored. They were likely composed and performed at festivals, symposia, and other celebrations by rhapsodes, travelling bards.

The shorter Homeric hymns differ slightly in content. They are addressed to Olympian gods, but also to minor deities and heroes such as Heracles and the Dioscuri, heroes who were deified in their myths. The hymns range from texts of under ten lines to about fifty lines, which is significantly smaller than the longer hymns. Most notably, they lack a mythological narrative. Rather, they address the Muse or the deities themselves, establish the deities’ characteristics, and salute them. The shorter hymns offer the most diversity in dating and geographical origin, and are especially risky to consider as one group of texts.

Notes on the Text

Hom Hymn Daily uses the 1914 edition and translation by Hugh G. Evelyn-White, as these are part of the public domain. The ordering of the Hymns is also his, following the ordering we find in most manuscript collections of the Hymns. Places in the text which are dubious, fragmentary, or lost, are indicated and follow Evelyn-White’s critical apparatus.

Each hymn contains footnotes added by Evelyn-White to explain specific parts of the text. You’ll see Evelyn-White referring to the Allen and Sikes edition here and there, which is a revised edition of the 1893 edition by Goodwin and Allen from 1904, some of the first substantial publications of the Hymns.

Here and there suggestions for secondary reading are included (with direct links whenever possible). If something spikes your interest, feel free to comment, ask, DM this blog for answers or more suggestions for secondary reading!

-> the sign-up button <-

(please keep in mind that this project starts 19-09-2022, and so not all hymns have been published to the site yet. thank you.)

#hom hymn daily

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californiastatelibrary · 10 months

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Happy International Moon Day! The United Nations designated this day in 2021 and this year it’s the 54th anniversary of the lunar mission of Apollo 11. If you’re over the moon about — well, the moon — check out check out this video of a geologic map of the moon https://www.usgs.gov/media/videos/unified-geologic-map-moon and this topographical map https://purl.fdlp.gov/GPO/gpo56526

#NASA #Moon

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bigvolcano · 1 year

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"I really believe that if the political leaders of the world could see their planet from a distance of, let's say 100,000 miles, their outlook would be fundamentally changed. The all-important border would be invisible, that noisy argument suddenly silenced. The tiny globe would continue to turn, serenely ignoring its subdivisions, presenting a unified facade that would cry out for unified understanding, for homogeneous treatment. The earth must become as it appears: blue and white, not capitalist or communist; blue and white, not rich or poor; blue and white, not envious or envied." Michael Collins, Apollo 11 Astronaut. #earthrise #apollo8 #billanders #xmaseve #planetearth #noborders #worldpeace Photo credit: On Dec. 24, 1968, Apollo 8 astronauts Frank Borman, Jim Lovell, and Bill Anders became the first humans to orbit the Moon, and the first to witness the magnificent sight called "Earthrise." As the spacecraft was in the process of rotating, Anders took this iconic picture showing Earth rising over the Moon’s horizon. In 2018, the International Astronomical Union commemorated the event by naming a 25 mile diameter crater "Anders' Earthrise." https://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/apollo-8-astronaut-bill-anders-captures-earthrise https://www.instagram.com/p/CmktryAJGc-/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

#earthrise #apollo8 #billanders #xmaseve #planetearth #noborders #worldpeace

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deathlessathanasia · 6 months

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"Each major god, we have said, is active in many different spheres, and the question arises of what if anything unifies these disparate activities. The original structuralist answer was that each god was marked not by a distinctive sphere of activity (for, as we have noted, ‘marriage’, for instance, was common to many), but by a distinctive mode of action or of intervention or a distinctive locus standi: Zeus manifests sovereignty in all that he does, Athena metis, and so on. This was, in a sense, a very conservative position, because it gave back to the gods an essence and an essential unity that had often been denied to them: Athena might have ceased to be that goddess of war and weaving and reason of whom we learnt at school, but she re-emerged, more splendid, as a manifestation of a particular form of intelligence and of that alone . . .

This approach has been shown to be so powerfully effective in many areas that one is tempted to hail it as a panacea. It works for most of Artemis, for most of Athena, for all perhaps of Aphrodite (who applies to storms and political affairs the same conciliatory charm that unites lovers). But stubborn difficulties remain. Callimachus, at the start of the Hymn to Artemis, describes the goddess as a little girl sitting on her father’s knee and asking him for a series of attributes and spheres of activity when she grows up: may I have many names, may I be a virgin and a huntress, may I roam mountains and never enter cities except when I come to the aid of women in labour. This is a familiar image of the wild and timid goddess. But her father responds that he will give more than she asks for, including thirty cities which will honour her alone (great hyperbole this, surely), and a place in many others. It is hard not to feel, with some paranoia, that the great ironist Callimachus is here ridiculing our attempts to discover the logic of polytheism, so devastatingly difficult are the extra powers accorded by Zeus to accommodate in any general theory.

Or consider the military role of Athena, which has caused her often to be seen as a kind of bipolar goddess, part technological, part warlike. The most promising approach here is to contrast Athena, rational violence, with Ares, mere blind bloodlust. Yet Athena is regularly associated with ‘battle and war’ without any contrast with Ares being drawn or implied; nor is that greater restraint which she brings to the business of warfare exactly a matter of metis. She is, it is true, a war-god of a different stamp from Ares, and the principle of separate functions is thus more or less preserved. But her military role can scarcely be derived from the simple exercise of metis.

Hermes is another good case to ponder. Most of his activities can be related to a core which cannot be captured in a single phrase (unless it be ‘Hermes’!) in any language, but can be roughly paraphrased as transition/communication/exchange. Indeed Apollo in the Homeric Hymn to Hermes describes his sphere of activity, in a strikingly modern-sounding phrase found here only, as ‘the activities of exchange’. But Hermes has also a strong association with pasture lands, and in particular with the successful and productive mating of the stock, which seems distinct from this core. And, by the fourth century, the first context in which any young Athenian will have encountered Hermes was as patron, along with Heracles, of the palaistra and the gymnasium. His link with these places probably derives from an early attested role (itself not easy to explain) as a patron of competitions. But, even if the link derives from that role, it goes beyond it. Hermes is not present in the gymnasium only on days of competition; he is always there, he occupies and fills it. Innumerable dedications from the whole Greek world in the hellenistic period attest the fact. Hermes did not expand at the expense of another god; rather, he moved into an empty space created by the growth of the institution of the gymnasium. And his modest place in the Olympian hierarchy made him an appropriate patron for the young users of those places. None the less, the emergence of Hermes of the gymnasium looks like a case of the extension of a god’s sphere of competence not on the basis of the internal logic of a central core; the principle at work is more that of ‘one thing leads to another’. …"

- Polytheism and Society at Athens by Robert Parker

#greek gods #polytheism #ancient greek religion #structuralism #hermes #athena #artemis #aphrodite #zeus #ares #theoi #quotes #excerpts

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thiswasinevitableid · 2 years

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The Beast of Cold Manor (Indruck)

Promptober is here! I’m going off this list and will be doing two a week!

Prompt for the 4th was: Beach/resort town in off season. This fill is NSFW

On the last day of September, Amnesty Island is already shrouded in fog. The season doesn’t end until tomorrow, but the midway is already shuttered and the remaining shop employees are lowering and folding the faded “end of season sale” banners.

Perhaps, in July sunshine and garish colors, it would feel welcoming. Now, it feels like exactly the homecoming Indrid’s family deserves.

This isn’t his home. His home was back in the city, where he could escape to some corner cafe or bustling park to draw and remember there was a world outside the Cold mansion. But some other line of the Cold family had ended, and his father had inherited all their remaining riches and a stately, island mansion. At which point he informed his sons that they would be moving to said island so they could live in comfort away from the corrupting influences of the city.

As his father orders the porters through the process of unloading the car from the ferry, Indrid studies the row of shops at the dock. The ice cream shop, the arcade, and all but three of the stores are closed, signs saying they’ll re-open in April. A few stray pennants from the summer festivals flap listlessly along the pier, and the general store is advertising a two for one deal on canning supplies.

They’re herded into the car, it’s gleaming black shape carrying them past the sign for Amnesty Lodge. There’s a party in the garden behind it, the guests wearing sunshine gold and summer sea blue. A last hurrah of the season.

The road slithers up and along the island, his father maintaining speed in spite of the growing darkness. Indrid stares out the window, his twin brother doing the same from the other side of the back seat. He’s certain their thoughts are unified in a way they haven’t been since they were children; that it can’t be that difficult a swim to the mainland, right.

A shape looms in the fog, lumbering and immense, keeping pace with the car. He blinks and it’s gone.

“At least it’s large.” Apollo mutters.

Indrid turns as the car rolls to a stop in front of a manor whose front is more ivy than stone. Maybe it will look better in the daylight. Maybe he’ll wake up and summer will still be here, the seaside thrumming with life and places to hide.

—-----------------------------------------------------------------

Duck watches from the trees as the newest, and last, cluster of Cold’s unloads their things. No servants this time, the two younger men are left to haul things inside while their father disappears through the doors.

They don’t look too tough. If he’s smart about it, he can have them off the island in a week. Which doesn’t technically fulfill his promise, but maybe if he chases them off when it’s foggy the boat’ll sink with them on it.

He’ll give them a night to get comfortable. Then he’ll make them wish their line died out before they ever took a breath.

—-------------------------------------------

“Hello? Are you still open?” Indrid pokes his head into the Cryptonomica, whose sign declares it houses sights beyond human imagination.

“Ah, come in dear boy! Yes, my fine establishment stays open regardless of the season.” A man steps from behind a curtain at the counter, “are you in search of an experience? Or simply some fine, local merchandise?”

“….Is that a trout with fur glued to it?”

“Why, it’s a fur bearing trout! A rare species in this area.”

Indrid raises an eyebrow, “That story would work better if the fur blended gradually into scales.”

“You have a keen eye. But here, how about this” he gestures for him to look at a large, black feather, “a genuine article from the Owlman.”

“That is a turkey vulture feather. I know because I collected some back home.”

The man, rather than being annoyed, seems to be relishing the challenge of impressing him, “Well then, I have one item I’m certain you’ve never seen: a claw from the Kepler Beast.” He whisks a black cloth from a bell jar. Inside is a claw the length of Indrid’s hand, moving from jet black at the tip to scaley and green at the base. Studying it reveals no trace of paint.

“I found it in the woods, near Cold Manor. Keplerites say it’s the beasts’ preferred stalking grounds.”

In the scant time he’s wandered town, he’s learned the family name is as hated as it is back home, and so he keeps his face neutral when asking, “What does the beast look like?”

“Most who see it say it’s like a bear and a man combined. Some say they’ve seen it cutting through the water in a serpent's body before taking to land like a creature with talons and wings. Those who’ve been here longest say it’s the spirit of the island itself.”

“I see.” He shudders.

“Not to worry, dear boy, only a few deaths have been attributed to it over the years. I have samples of fur as well, though those will cost ten cents to see.”

Indrid reaches into his pocket.

When he departs an hour later, he’s seen every item supposedly belonging to the beast and bought some saltwater taffy that Ned, the owner, had left over from tourist season and was selling at a discount.

The mood at the house makes him miss the eerie emptiness of the seaside. His father, having been forced out of his own company by employees tired of his corruption, does little but drink and scheme. Apollo does even more of the latter, and with no servants to torment, spends even more of his time needling Indrid.

Since both brothers can pick locks, Indrid shoves a dresser up against his locked door before taking up his window seat. From here he can see down the hill, Amnesty Lodge, the only man-made shape between here and the sea. Sailboats and yachts are covered for the season, bobbing like little ghosts along the dock. He sketches them for awhile, trying to capture the way the fog makes the whole scene appear to be in a museum diorama.

He burrows into bed, frustrated that he was unable to locate cold weather linens anywhere in this godforsaken house. At least the window on the side of his room makes for entertaining shadowplay, branches and ivy turning to butterflies. Some of the moonlight passes over the bed, so he raises his hand to join them. He makes a rabbit, then a dog. And then the fluttering shapes next to his fingers coalesce into a claw.

Indrid gasps, tucking his hands under the blankets. As slowly as he can manage, he turns his head. Inch by inch, a figure peels away from the tree, shaggy fur catching in the wind and shadow blocking out the moon.

The beast taps one claw against the glass, glowing green eyes fixed on Indrid.

He doesn’t move, but the creature addresses him all the same.

“Hey there, skinny thing. You scared?”

Indrid’s fingers tighten in the blanket, fighting the urge to pull it over his head.

“Don't worry, I ain't gonna come in the house.” The beast smiles, a razor-sharp crescent moon, “Yet.”

Then it’s gone.

—---------------------------------------------------------------

The argument lasts most of the morning, ending with the Cold he tormented, Indrid, trudging off down the hill into town. Duck waits, wanting a chance to frighten the other two, but just like last night, neither comes near a window, not even when Duck scratches at them. So he turns his attention back to Indrid, finds him at the shoreline with Juno and Leo, helping them clean up the strewn trash and broken railings that serve as mementos of the summer’s visitors. With his red glasses and his coat catching in the wind, he reminds Duck of a moth. The comparison is heightened as he wanders the deserted arcade, bumping against the glass in search of light.

Duck takes a break, padding to the back door of Amnesty Lodge where they’ve left a bowl of soup out as an offering. The year-round residents don’t do such things out of superstition; they’ve seen him outlined in the fog, in the darkness of the forest, or buried just under the sand.

By the time he’s done with lunch, Indrid is helping Pigeon and her little sister look for the family cat. It’s hard to sneer at the man’s nice clothes when he’s so willing to dirty them wiggling through a half-opened window of an abandoned shop to retrieve the ball of white and grey fluff.

But a promise is a promise. Duck watches Indrid head up the hill as darkness seeps across the sky and waits until he’s in the woods at the edge of Cold Manor. Then he raises his head and howls.

—-----------------------------------------------------

He speeds, bullet-fast, to the front door, cursing when it refuses to open. Damn his father and his paranoia.

“Apollo! Father! The front door is locked and I very much need to be inside!”

The kitchen door opens, and Apollo pokes his head out, “He’s so drunk he wouldn’t hear the world ending.” He grins, “enjoy your night in the woods.”

There’s no point trying to beat the lock on that door, so Indrid races around stony corners until he finds the tree leading up to his window. He locked it, but he can kick it in now and deal with father’s wrath later.

Just as he reaches it, the pane lifts and his twin jabs a broom out, catching him in his stomach. The bark is too slick, his balance too tenuous, and he hits the ground two stories below with a yelp of pain.

“Damn it, you need to let me in, right now! There is something out here, something big and hungry, and I do not want to be eaten!”

“Well, I do not want to share our inheritance. If you manage to get in, I will drag you back out.”

His cursing bounces off the shut windowpane. When he stands, his ankle protests, but if the choice is hobble to safety or be eaten…

Just as he clears one of the low walls between the back of the estate and the forest, he sees it. His eyes had not lied that first night; the monster resembles a bear, shaggy black pelt dripping with rain, but there are antlers on its head and something horribly human in its face.

He runs, pain shooting up his leg with each step. The Lodge isn’t that far, and it’s downhill. This thought propels him for several minutes until he realizes with despair that the slope hasn’t come. He’s turned around, lost in the woods while heavy footfalls land beneath the percussion of the rain.

Indrid turns, resolute that he will face his fate with courage. The beast is only twenty yards behind him, and when it roars he stumbles backwards, slipping and falling in the mud.

It casually stalks towards him. He grabs a stone from the ground and throws it, hitting the creature on the nose. It blinks and then huffs, “Ow.”

“If, if you do not go away I will throw another!”

The beast rolls its eyes and steps closer. Now he can see the glittering black-green claws that will shortly be slicing into his skin.

“Please don’t kill me. I haven’t done anything to you.”

“You’re a Cold, so technically you have.” Its front paws bracket Indrid’s legs, “But from what I’ve seen, you ain’t as bad as most of ‘em. So take your family, get the hell off this island, and we’ll call it done.”

The simplicity of the suggestion sends bitter laughter bubbling up his throat, “Do you think if I could convince them to leave I would still be here? If you’ve been watching, surely you have seen how my desires are treated by my family.” He lifts his injured ankle, “does this suggest a reasonable household climate?”

He winces and one paw lifts, holding his ankle and running a large thumb over the sorest spot, “You got a point. Don’t feel broken, at least.” The beast sighs, “get on my back.”

“Excuse me?”

“Get on my back so I can take you to your house and your ass doesn’t die in my woods.”

Certain this will end with the beast bucking him into the sea, Indrid obeys, pulling himself onto the hulking back with fistfuls of fur. When the monster turns, he sees the lights of the manor through the trees.

In spite of the thundering footfalls that chased him, the beast now moves as silently as snow.

“Are you a ghost?”

“Kinda a half-ghost, half-curse situation.”

“I see. Then I, ah, I politely ask you not to haunt me anymore.”

A rumble beneath him and the beast's round-ears flick. It’s laughing.

“You’re somethin’ else. Otherworldly monster chases you down and you decide to cordially ask me to knock it off.”

“I figured there was no harm in asking. You seem like a reasonable being.”

Another chuckle, “Okay, rich boy, you got a deal. I might still spook you some, just to keep you on your toes.”

“How is that any better?”

“It’s more like when you read a ghost story before bed than when a bloodthirsty monster chases you through the trees.”

“Oh. Ah, that’s alright then. I love reading those kinds of stories, but father says they’re lowbrow trash.”

“There’s a stash of ‘em under the eastern window seat in the library. Okay, off you go.”

Indrid slides to the ground as the beast flicks a claw, opening the front door. He slips in as quickly as his ankle allows and looks back to find nothing in the front yard but the rain.

—--------------------------------------------------------------

The storm gives way to sunshine, so the next morning Indrid takes the book he found high on a library shelf and settles with a blanket in the far corner of the garden.

The book details the history of the Cold family, including how they came to own the manor on Kepler. It seems the house was built in 1810 by a member of the Newton family, who was promised riches and a marriage to Emily Cold as payment. But when it came time to pay, Indrid’s great grandfather refused to honor his end of the bargain. When Newton threatened to expose him for the fraud he was, Cold framed him, his wife, and his son for the murder of Emily Cold. All three were executed.

Indrid closes the book.

“You’re Wayne Newton, aren’t you?” He says to a suspiciously large rock.

“Go by Duck. But yeah, that’s me.” The stone shimmers, taking on the same bear-shape the monster had last night, “you put that together quick.”

“Last night you said you were a curse. And this” he taps the book, “says your father was overheard making you swear you wouldn’t rest until the Cold line was ended. And that a strange mist was seen rising from your body after you were hung.”

“Yeah. That’s about how it went.” Duck rests his head on his paws, staring at a cluster of late-blooming flowers.

“I’m so sorry.”

“S’funny. I ain’t even as angry these days. When I died I was so goddamn angry I was prayin’ and makin deals with whoever would listen and this happened.” He raises his paw, “these days if I feel anythin’ about it, it’s sad. A hundred and twenty years will do that to a guy, I guess.”

“Is that why you didn’t let me die or kill me yourself last night?”

“Yeah. Besides, you seem like a nice enough fella.”

Not knowing what else to say, Indrid draws the blanket closer and murmurs, “Thank you for telling me about the books. They were right where you said they would be.”

“Glad to hear it. Always liked a nice ghost story myself. They any good?”

“They’re quite good. If you like you could, ah, come to my window tonight and I could read them to you. And if it’s raining…well, the fireplace in my room is quite nice.”

“Might just take you up on that. See you around, Indrid.”

There’s no sign of Duck for the rest of the day, and Indrid spends it hobbling and hopping about the house to move enough supplies to his room to keep him from having to come downstairs for a few days. The rain starts up again at dinner time, so abrupt his brother hurries in from the garden with leaves in his hair.

When the last daylight dies in the sky, a claw taps on his window. For a moment he hesitates, wondering if this is a trick that will end in his blood staining the floor. Then he sees the shape of a short, fluffy tail wagging in the moonlight, and goes to open the window.

—-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Before this fall, Duck didn’t believe anything good could come from the Colds returning to the island. Now he finds himself grateful that the straggling bloodline managed to produce Indrid.

He’s in the human’s room most nights, dozing by the fire as Indrid sketches or reads before they turn to hushed conversations with nothing but the dying flames for light. Now that his ankle is better, Indrid takes daily walks in the woods, and Duck will plod alongside him, often ending their trip at Amnesty Lodge. Duck’s favorite is to take him to shore on days when the fog isn’t too bad. The off season changes the sea life, otters and seals swimming closer to shore and more life brimming in the tide pools. Indrid will listen intently to his descriptions of the different creatures and plants, bracing himself on Duck’s bulk to navigate the slippery bits.

Indrid, determined to squirrel away money of his own, is also working painting jobs in town. That includes re-touching rooms at the Lodge or stores that won’t open again until next spring, as well as adding murals and artistic flourishes to restaurant walls. Duck will pause his pacing of the island to watch him work, sleeves rolled up and paint on his jeans. He might be the first Cold to ever earn an honest living, and he’s certainly the first to look so handsome in the process.

Today, he only spotted Indrid walking into town and then lost sight of him. After some searching, he finds his little moth under the pier, legs tucked to his chest and gaze far past the horizon.

“Which one of ‘em was it today?”

“Father. He was so awful this morning I skipped breakfast just to get out of the house faster.” He stretches his legs out in front of him and Duck rests his head in his lap, shaded sand cool against his belly.

“Explains why I could hear your stomach grumblin’ from down the beach. You gotta work soon?”

“No, I don’t have any jobs today.”

“Then wait here.” He makes his way up the hill to Amnesty Lodge, sits patiently by the back door as Barclay, the cook, packs him a basket. When he pads back to the pier, Indrid is right where he left him, wind caressing his pale hair. Duck is glad it’s the off-season so he can stay beside him as he eats, rather than hide in the surf.

Indrid munches his sandwich while Duck pours soup into his mouth, and they split a piece of pie that makes him grateful Barclay is such an avid canner; he can still taste summer berries while the fall wind makes Indrid shiver. When they’re done, Duck once again rests his head in Indrid’s lap, sighing as fingers card his fur.

“You know, father will be gone in the city all of next week. If you wanted to, ah, end the Cold line, that would be the time.”

He can tell Indrid is smiling; usually, he’d reply with the weirdest possible interpretation of that phrase, like forcing Indrid to change his last name. Today, all he can say is, “Guess I could just pin you under me in bed and make sure you can’t go out and meet someone to have kids with. Uh, I, uh, I mean pin in that way you like. Like I’m a big heavy blanket that helps you sleep.”

“That does have a certain appeal. I could hibernate all winter under the softest fur known to man.” He rubs the top of Duck’s head until his claws flex in the sand, then traces his finger down to his snout, “I did promise Juno I’d help put together some decorations for the fall festival.”

“Want a ride?”

Indrid rubs his ear, “Desperately.”

—------------------------------------------------------------------

The storm hits in the evening, meaning the boat carrying his father to the mainland that morning did not sink. Indrid is in good spirits all the same, drawing a massive bath at the time Duck usually arrives and opening the windows he can watch the trees whip and bend in the wind.

He lounges in the water, kicking his heels up onto the edge of the porcelain while he waits for glowing eyes to appear in the window. Five minutes tick by without so much as a flicker of green.

Maybe he needs encouragement.

“Oh dear. Here I am. All alone. Also very naked and vulnerable. I hope no wild beasts climb in the window.”

Still nothing. He’s starting to feel silly, and the wind is so violent he should close the window.

“Duck? Are you out there?”

Antlers slowly rise into view, followed by a face with a massive paw covering it’s eyes, “Yep. I, uh, I wasn’t sure if you were okay with me seein’ you in the buff but I didn’t wanna leave. When you started talkin I thought you might be flirtin’ but…look, ‘Drid, if you want somethin’ from me, you gotta ask. I don’t wanna guess, be wrong, and lose the best thing that’s ever happened to me.”

Indrid sits up, waving him in and adding hot water as his friend climbs through and closes the window. He rests his arms on the edge of the tub, and when Duck drops to all fours his snout is the perfect height for a kiss.

“I want a number of things from you.”

Chilly breath coats his neck as Duck nuzzles him, “Name ‘em.”

“I would like to have sex? If that is something you can do.”

“Hell yeah it is. But if you want me to fuck you, you’re gonna have to, uh, prepare yourself.” Claws click on the hardwood, “here, lemme dry you off, little moth, and we can get comfy.”

Once Indrid is bundled in his pink and yellow dressing gown, Duck nudges him to sit on the end of the bed.

“Here’s what I’m thinkin: I gotta dry out my pelt a little by this nice fire. You’re gonna sit right there and put on a show while you get ready.” Duck stretches out on his side, antlers glittering charmingly, as Indrid grabs the lubricant hidden in the back of his dresser. He keeps his legs open, the angle awkward as he teases the first finger inside. The expression on Duck’s face makes it all worthwhile.

“Mmm, now there’s a sight worth more than this whole house and everything in it. You do this a lot, little moth?”

“Not since we lived in the city. And even thenah” he gasps putting a second finger inside, “few dalliances were worth all the subterfuge to keep father from knowing.”

“Good thing he ain’t here, then. Not that I ain’t gonna make it worth your trouble.” Duck’s smile is turning toothy.

“I, I don’t doubt it, ahgod, is that enough?”

Duck cocks his head, watching thoughtfully as Indrid fucks three fingers into himself, “depends on how much fussin’ you feel like doin’ once I’ve got you pinned. Might be kinda intense if we start now. But, uh, in case it matters, know for a fact your brother ain’t home. He’s been down at the docks all day.”

Indrid tosses his robe to the floor, “then come up here at once.”

“Okay, okay” Duck chuckles, “you rich boys, always so demanding.”

Indrid’s about to ask how Duck wants him, but finds he doesn’t have to; his monster manhandles him into position like he weighs no more than the bedsheets, huffing and snuffling happily as he shoves a pillow under Indrid’s hips. He’s barely touched his cock since they began, but the glide of cotton against it is enough to make him squeak.

A huge snout nuzzles his hair, “Ready?”

“Yes. Or do I need to order you about like a servant to get you to do anythingAHgod” His whole body tenses as the head of a very thick cock pushes into him.

“Nah, you don’t. And I wouldn’t try it, little moth. I got plenty on me that could tear you in half” he pulls back and whistles, “from the look of things, my cock might be one of ‘em.”

Indrid whimpers, tries spreading his legs wider to ease the stretch, “Was this you cunning plan all along? Kill me while making love?”

Duck snorts, “Ain’t ever had someone call it that. And no; if it starts hurtin’, say the word and I’ll stop.” His snout is back, warm on Indrid’s bare shoulders, “wanna make you feel good.”

The cock pushes in another inch and Indrid moans; he wants all of it, wants Duck as close as can be, even if that pushes him to the edge of what his body can take.

“Do it all at once. I, I think that will be better, like ripping off a bandage.”

“You sure?” Duck’s claws tap on his hips.

He nods and then yelps so loudly his throat is instantly sore. His legs kick and his hands slap the bed, his body trying everything it can think of to deal with the intrusion. He moans as Duck blankets him with his furry frame, paws coming to rest near where Indrid’s hands are now clutching the quilt.

“Fuck, never thought I’d get to fuck someone like this, ‘Drid you feel so good” Even the gentle roll of his hips makes Indrid gasp and squirm, the intensity so delicious, so all-consuming that he never wants it to stop. Wants his senses to register “Duck” and nothing more until he dies.

“Nice as, fuck, it feels to have you wigglin around like that, can’t have you slippin’ off before I’m done. So” Teeth gently close around the back of his neck and Indrid only has time to gasp out a yes before Duck’s hips snap more firmly. He finds a steady rhythm and there’s nothing Indrid can do but be dragged along for the ride, his cock grinding against the pillow as Duck stretches his open, grunts slipping through his teeth and dripping down Indrid’s neck.

In far too short a time, Indrid’s orgasm closes in on him. When he moans this to Duck, his monster simply snarls “good.”

He cums with a whimper, and even as his hips stutter and he flinches from sudden sensitivity, Duck's pace picks up. He hasn’t growled this much since the night they met, his teeth releasing Indrid’s skin so he lick his cheek and tell him this is where a Cold belongs, under him and begging for mercy.

“You, I don’t want it to be any Cold but me.”

Duck’s voice is rough in his ear, “Good. Me neither.”

He cums with a drawn-out growl, the sensation just as overwhelming and wonderful as everything else about his cock.

Indrid groans as he pulls out, “Maybe we ought to, to have done this before the bath.”

“Can always run you a fresh one.” There’s a new purr in Duck’s voice as he strips away the dirty quilt and then climbs onto the bed with open arms.

“Right now nothing is half as important as holding you” Indrid curls up against him, petting his chest, “that was wonderful.”

“Glad you liked it. There’s, uh, one more thing I’d like to try. Might take a minute though.”

“Of course.”

There’s silence as Duck concentrates. Then his limbs slowly shrink and his fur disappears, horns retract and claws evaporate until Indrid is holding a human man about his age, black hair framing a round, handsome face.

Calloused hands cup his chin and then Duck is kissing him, slow and chaste, sighing as Indrid melts into the gesture. When the kiss ends, he closes his eyes and smiles as Indrid traces the shape of his face with his fingertips.

“Can’t stay like this long, and it takes a hell of a lot of effort. But I had to kiss you, even if it was just once. I think it was worth it.”

Indrid kisses his brow, “I agree.”

#indruck #indrid cold/duck newton #promptober #terato #monster boyfriend #human/monster romance

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dojae-huh · 1 year

Text

Ready for Launch is whimsical and nice. Gives off NCT mentary+ NCIT vibes.

*sighs* One day the team that works with NCT concepts will learn to follow a theme through from an album cover to the nail polish. But not today.

Having "memories", "dreams", "mystery" or "journey" (and many other variants) as unifying word both the perfume and space travel can be tied together. However, it requires a different design and presentation for the perfume bottle.

It looks like blue is either the unit's colour or is important for the debut (Reality?). Can we go back performances and carol medley used this colour as well.

We had yellow for Dream Lab. This time around we have orange. Can it be considered as part of the NCT lore colour pallete? Orange=yellow+red.

Doyoung has a white rabbit, so DJJ are part of SMCU and NCT lore.

Do's friend might be the Moon rabbit or someone else, but Thailand=Ten, the Moon=WayV, Johnny was jumping through wormholes. It's finally time to combine the two universes?

Apollo 11 peaches, heh.

Woo's boxes have "Puppy's <item>" stickers. There is a dino toy (triceratops). So Jungwoo as 127's puppy takes on new development, heh.

#dojaywoo

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escarlatafox · 2 years

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penny for ur thoughts on aa dual destinies!

You First.

(Just kidding but man. I'm curious on your opinions and feel that anything I can say would be inadequate in comparison djdfjdfjh)

This ask feels intimidatingly broad to me because I rarely think about or analyse Dual Destinies, the game itself, as a cohesive whole, as opposed to being highly opinionated about so many individual but unrelated things underneath this banner of “Dual Destinies” that aren’t related or necessarily about the question of the game’s cohesive story and cases-strung-together in and of itself.

And Really, in my response here, while I certainly talk ABOUT Dual Destinies, it still feels like I haven't really Answered The Fundamental Question this ask you have bestowed upon me requests. I have no unified, cohesive, coherent thoughts. Only reactions and responses, a huge amount of which are just not even mentioned here because I already wrote too much because this game is my undoing <3

My reactions to the game seem to have purely been on two extreme ends of a spectrum of disinterest vs obsession at different points of the game especially during my first playthrough, leaving these two extreme points of view hopelessly biasing me beyond the ability to give a proper rundown/analysis of the game as a cohesive whole and present my thoughts. It feels like for some aspects either I don’t care enough to form much of a solid opinion that I can talk about or coherently word or I’m too obsessed to present my opinion in a manner sufficiently connected purely to the game in-and-of-itself as the topic at hand.

Probably immediately alienating a lot of Dual Destinies supporters right off the bat: the people that call Dual Destinies “boring”… I can’t even like say anything to that necessarily at least when they mean the EARLY cases. Because even when I was really far into my first playthrough it’s just like. Yeah. That was me. I wasn’t really invested.

Like even now I just can't really bring myself to care too much about the storyline contents of the wrestling case and Turnabout Academy and what have you, idk. It comes down to different people have different tastes and the actual content of those cases, on the face of it, just like... I don't really get very interested by it.

I thought Professor Means’ transformation when cornered was pretty fun though. That had my attention.

One thing I don’t really have any real beef with is the fact that the game decided to be its own thing. People point to and criticise Dual Destinies as this point of divergence in the series but – hold on I have some old discord messages I can post here

People point the blame at Dual Destinies as being the point of divergence but with me, the series diverged in 4. 4 is what gave us the massive timeline gap that introduced so many issues. I talk about not being particularly invested in my first playthrough of DD, but I say this as someone who was also not particularly invested during parts of AA4, and undeniably less interested than I was during my playthrough of the trilogy. In my eyes, AA4 had already “broken” a lot of things about Ace Attorney canon, so by the time Dual Destinies rolls around it’s just sort of like “sure do whatever at this point I guess”. An Apollo Justice sequel could have enhanced AA4 and could have been great in its own right. But I wasn’t that invested in the direction AA4 took to begin with, so… I don’t feel any great loss associated with AA5’s determination to be its own things that vocal portions of the fandom feel. I’m totally cool with AA5 trying to be its own mostly self-contained thing. At This Point, Why Not? Etc etc.

One thing I do dislike about Dual Destinies is… That’s Not Edgeworth.

Edgeworth was my favourite character. He shows up in Dual Destinies and he’s dead on arrival. He never was. He might as well not have been before he even arrived. #NotMyEdgeworth who is that????

For all the lambasting of the game and of Phoenix’s characterisation by the fandom it feels like people accept AA5 Edgeworth so uncritically and even just. Somehow manage to build a continuity between Edgeworth from the previous games and AA5Edgeworth and even look to AA5Edgeworth to build a basis of their understanding of his character and I’m always just like ???????

Okay, okay, I have to inevitably talk about The Ending Of The Game. That’s why you’re here that’s why We’re here. This is the big one.

People criticise a) the revelation about “Bobby” being the big bad as being a typical “cheap twist for shock value” villain reveal and b) the reveal that “Bobby” isn’t actually Bobby, but rather “some random nobody” to be “pointless”.

My response to a) is: I don’t care.

To elaborate a little further, my response to a) is: sorry it didn’t Do It for you, but I was having the absolute time of my life. It was thrilling. It was shocking. It was FUN. This trope exists for a reason and I can’t get enough of it – well okay, in the broader media landscape it has been a little overplayed in the present day, I’ve encountered instances where it felt forced or overplayed, and I get that. This is not one of the instances where I felt that way at all. Maybe it’s not your cup of tea, but it’s MY cup of tea and you don’t get to say it’s objectively bad or objectively pointless – of course there’s no such thing as objectivity when it comes to appreciation of tropes or art etc etc and so on. Things become cliches and things fall out of favour and what have you and the cycle goes on. Tropes exist for a reason. People like and dislike aspects of media for a multitude of different complex subjective reasons etc etc etc. I played Dual Destinies blind just as I’d played the other games blind and I got to revel in and relish the full force of the reveal as it happened. 10/10

If someone goes into this game already spoiled about the villain, I Get it. That would take a LOT of momentum out of the impact of the reveal. I’m extremely grateful I got to play it to the end blind. I don’t know how different this game would have been for me if I’d known about the twist beforehand.

People criticise spoiler culture a lot these days and there has been the argument raised that if a work is “ruined” by knowing a certain twist beforehand, then it probably wasn’t very good to begin with and that a work should be able to stand on its own merits regardless of whether spoilers are or are not known beforehand.

I understand the sentiment, but at the same time, while there are works you can enjoy regardless of whether aspects are spoiled or not, the type of enjoyment - the type of experience you would derive from the work is still DIFFERENT.

And while yes, I think that spoiler culture is pretty Extreme in the present cultural zeitgeist and that some works don’t necessarily really need it, some works are genuinely better to consume blind because of how they function and what they do.

Part of what it comes down to is that I Had Fun. And I had fun largely because I didn’t know the twist was coming before it hit, and the impact of the revelation was fun. And you can pry that fun Dual Destinies twist villain reveal from my cold dead hands.

It’s part of where my investment in the game sort of flipped from 0 to 100. Okay that’s not quite true – there were all these whisperings about a “phantom”. The phantom theme played for a bit prior to the reveal which REALLY adds to hype tbh. The characters were discussing this absolutely incredible person who, in the absence of fear, was capable of making that massive leap high up in the air which would have required a running start. Where they could have easily fallen to their death had they not timed it right. We got to see that glimpse of them in the space centre footage where we just can’t quite see any real definitive facial characteristics. Just enough was being teased about the phantom that really, I was already well and truly hooked and fascinated by these concepts the game was bringing up. The aura of intrigue, of the notion that there lurks a spy amongus,

Yeah. Yeah.

My response to b) “the reveal that “Bobby” isn’t actually Bobby, but rather “some random nobody” is “pointless”.” Is…

Okay, while I wholeheartedly disagree with this sentiment, it’s funny to note first that I was somewhat inclined to agree with it in the immediate aftermath of the reveal. Like, we find out Bobby is dead, that Bobby was sincerely a good person after all it seemed, and tbh my sentiment was sorta like “damn. I wish Bobby WAS the evil one though. That’d be Cool. I want to see evil genuine Bobby. The notion excites me”. We got BAITED with the notion of an evil Bobby, smh (JK)

But anyway, when people try to “rewrite” or “fix” Dual Destinies and just…. Completely ignore Bobby/The phantom/scrap that whole aspect of the game it’s just like…….. It does not Compute. Like at that point, you’re not “fixing” Dual Destinies with its core premise and concepts and plotlines, you’re writing an entirely different game with an entirely different plot! People claim that Dual Destinies had potential and then set about seemingly doing their utmost to erase one of the fundamental aspects of the game that carried the MOST potential. It’s at that point where common ground I could have with that person breaks down completely and I’m simply left scratching my head.

I’ve seen people criticise Dual Destinies for refusing to reveal any of the phantom’s true facial characteristics or information about their identity and it’s like. Okay. Let’s actually examine that criticism realistically for a moment. So it’s the end of Dual Destinies. You learn that the phantom was just some guy called Jackson Morgan all along. The sniper shot happens. Jackson Morgan falls to the ground. We see they’re just some guy with curly brown hair.

What does this revelation realistically add to the game and its themes. What does this realistically accomplish. What do we stand to gain from adding this in.

Or, how would it detract from the game and the themes it raises, as it currently stands? What would we lose from its effectiveness?

We get No information about the phantom… and that’s the point. People argue that that’s pointless, that it’s a cop-out, that it’s whatever-negative-thing-have-you, and I’m just like… No??

And like, theoretically, we could have some sort of phantom-identity-reveal plot, but the simple fact of the matter is that there is not enough room left in the game to do so in any effective or meaningful way. It’s not what this game was for or what it set out to do.

Athena is a brilliant character to be contrasted against the phantom. Fandom loves Athena and they want to keep Athena. But what doesn’t seem to be acknowledged is what a good contrast against someone so centred around emotions like Athena that the phantom is. Athena feels and detects the emotions of others, meanwhile we have the phantom, someone who hardly has any emotions at all.

But fandom does not, for the most part, like the phantom. They consider the phantom a non-character in the strictest sense. They largely refuse to engage with the phantom as a character that Exists in this franchise.

To be fair, to an extent, so does Dual Destinies (and Capcom LOLLL), and that’s one of my criticisms of the game. Like, at times it really feels like the writers really have forgotten the truth behind “Bobby” and it feels like maybe they really did just write Bobby as authentic up until pasting a sudden twist onto the end.

But it’s like damn, you guys all have no idea how much fun you’re missing out on when you refuse to genuinely engage with the phantom as a character that this franchise has presented us with.

The lack of identity and lack of emotions are just such interesting themes. Emotions, identity, personhood, the concept of the self… I’m all about those themes.

Dual Destinies absolutely could have done a better job handling the themes and by god I wish it did. But I see the solution would be to have a more guided and cohesive focus on those themes building up to the introduction of the phantom revelation, not in seeking to erase the phantom from the story altogether.

People often criticise Dual Destinies for trying to be too many things at once. And yeah, that criticism is founded. There are several different ideas with potential for their own individual games all bundled into one singular game, and in many respects botched and/or poorly executed because they’re just not given enough room to BREATHE. The phantom as a character and the themes and concepts brought up BY the character is one of those things that was just not given enough room, and should have been a more coherent, focused site of exploration throughout the game so that the audience could feel a greater sense of thematic resonance with the reveal(s) towards the end of the game and all it entailed.

It just so happens that I am the ultimate sucker for the themes and ideas brought up by the phantom and their presence in the game. I eat those themes up like you wouldn’t believe, so Dual Destinies in a sense sort of cheated its way into making me completely obsessed in raising those themes in the first place, regardless of how much they were explored. The people arguing the phantom reveal on top of the Bobby-as-villain reveal is “pointless” are seemingly buying into the phantom’s assertion of their non-existence wholeheartedly and uncritically and without seeking to entertain what the game might actually be wanting us to be doing or thinking about with this set-up.

(I’m biased. I’m impossibly biased. I am ADDICTED to the themes the game flirts with. I can’t claim to know what the writers ‘actually’ wanted us to get out of this game at the end of the day. All I know is that I got so much out of it it’s insane. I owe so much to Dual Destinies it’s unreal.)

There’s a few layers to this.

Dual Destinies raises the following questions: what if there was a person who had no identity that they called their own, no emotions, no self. What would such a person be like? What would such a person be capable of? What could such a person do? Is the existence of such a person even possible?

The game doesn’t necessarily answer these questions. But it asks them. It presents its own tentative hypotheses.

These are fundamentally questions that dip into philosophy and science. Setting aside the question of identity for a moment, we can ask ourselves what a human without emotions would be like, what other parts/aspects of their existence would a lack of emotions affect? What does that tell us about the nature of humanity? What are human emotions intertwined with that would be impacted by their absence?

And that’s not to start on a whole host of questions about the topic of identity.

I don’t understand why most of the fandom doesn’t seem to find that remotely interesting??? The phantom is a wonderful theoretical case study. But I can’t see the forest for the trees, I’m too busy eating dirt tbh.

The game has its cake and eats it too because it never demystifies the phantom, leaving them an identity-less endless abyss of a character (which people accept uncritically as “oh so they’re not an actual character then and I should act as if they really don’t exist” without engaging with any deeper philosophical underpinning or significance of what it would even MEAN to be a conscious ‘identity-less being’) meanwhile the game never denies that the phantom really is a person. The game tells us a) they have some emotions b) that massive breakdown they have at the end. The game is saying yes the phantom is just another person at the end of the day. ‘You can’t outrun yourself’…

I have surprisingly few opinions on the way the game itself handled the phantom (besides wanting more foreshadowing and/or retrospective indication that "Bobby" was always being written with the phantom in mind as opposed to the phantom's existence not factoring into the writing process) or how it "should" have treated the phantom in the ending. Other phantom fans absolutely do have opinions about it. The reason for my lack of opinion in this area is my analysis on this front is that when it comes to canon content of the phantom I simply tend to accept their portrayal/scenes in the game as-is, and then proceed to analyse from there, as opposed to asking "what could/should the game have done differently?". I engage on a very Watsonian level in that particular respect, not a Doylistic one.

But I'm always down for hearing other phantom fans' takes on what the game should have done with the character. <3

Anyway I had literally only Just written up a kind of tangential thing today and yesterday so. I’m just gonna stick it here at the end of this post as a random Bonus. I was gonna think about messaging you about it or emailing it to you anyway Shoop ahhhhh <3 it’s not the complete text but it’s a relevant excerpt!

Here, just because your epic:

"The phantom’s claim that they have no subjective sense of self leaves them open to make claims of absolute objectivity – absolute neutrality - and control over expressed behaviour – to them, their entire life is performance itself. They are always mimicking, imitating, portraying the behaviour of others, and never behaving just as ‘themself’; everything intentionally (consciously) mediated.

The phantom’s denial of their own existence is an ontological absurdity on the face of it. While they surely would not deny their physical existence as an organism, they deny having any self at all. A purely Cartesian distinction is insufficient and still cannot account for them having only a body and no “mind” – the fact that there is a consciousness mediating their impersonations is contradiction of that; subjectivity is also an inevitability. It’s always come across to me like a strange/misguided attempt on their part seemingly to deny their own “Cogito, ergo sum”. The phantom is hardly claiming that they are a p-zombie. Even if they were completely incapable of emotion (which is born out in the game to not be ultimately true), they are capable of feeling physical pain and are just as conscious as any other. Not only that, but their very disposition requires them to engage in a complex, high-level way of thinking and awareness – their every move must be calculated. A lack of self is often associated with a lack of awareness and a lack of intent, which is overwhelmingly not the case here. The phantom is required to be far more aware of their behaviour than the average person.

You may argue the phantom denies not their physical existence as an organism, nor their consciousness, but a “self” more in a social/political/etc sense. But I consider such hopelessly abstract definitions of “self” to be far too artificial and externally imposed to the extent that they are undivorceable and inevitable results of the baseline “cogito, ergo sum.” To exist and to be a living, thinking, breathing, conscious being is to hold beliefs about the world around you in order to facilitate navigation of that world. To hold beliefs is to be of a certain orientation/inclination, and that is to be anything but neutral. Neutrality was never an option. A feeling of a lack of self is a feeling in and of itself. The lack of feeling is part of the constitution of the self to begin with. To have no self and yet to have a consciousness is a contradiction. The consciousness is evidence of the self."

#I'm not putting this in any main tags im so. SO.... Totally Normal :)#Also I absolutely had more to add and I just Forgot. Wonder if it'll come back to me oh well #cmpunkapologist #ask #asks #long post #can I be normal about character for five minute? the answer is no

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