#the division of a soul (and other mathematics)

[ohtobeleah]

Leah babe. Whenever you’re ready we’re here patiently waiting for the next update of TH&TH.

THIS TOOK ME FUCKING FOREVER TO WRITE!! And as promised, an earlier update as the Masterlist received 1’000 notes!! Ahhh. Anyway—here’s the next chapter. Also the Masterlist for those who need to catch up. We're getting closer and closer to the end of what I'd say would be series finale of season one of TH&TH. But a series two would be on the cards.

Jake Seresin never thought he’d fly for the Navy, he had every intention of joining the airforce from the day he knew what a plane was. The white walls of his childhood bedroom were plastered with air force propaganda posters spanning decades, yet they all told him the same thing. That planes were cool and that someday he’d fly one. He remembered as he sat in his F-18 Super Hornet that the longer he sat staring at the walls he littered with his dreams, his passion—the more he wanted it. A common denominator however for a lot of Jake Seresin's teen and adulting life choices had been one thing and one thing only. You. 

As Jake took his only shot at saving his colleagues' lives as they gained altitude towards the sun–like a modern day version of Ikaris themselves, Jake thought back to the moment he thought maybe the Navy wouldn't be such a bad career choice after all. 

“You wanna do what?” Sitting on your best friend's bed you told Jake that you were starting to think about a career in the Navy. “Say it again for me real quick, I don't think I heard you correctly.” He teased as he spun around on his desk chair, flipping the pen he’d been doing his homework with through his fingertips. 

“I said, I was talking to Sarah the other day and she said her older brother is a clearance diver and loves it.” You explained as you sat with your History book open on page one hundred and forty nine. Reading about the social and political constructs of the highly controversial and deeply divisive ruler—empress Wu. “Been thinking about it a lot actually–seemed pretty neat.” You couldn’t really focus on her rise from common concubine to empress when Jake was staring into your soul from across his room though. 

“You know if you go into the Navy and I go into the Air Force we can't be friends anymore right?” Jake taunted before you threw his own pillow his way. “What!” He gasped. “I'm just saying–it's kinda like a given thing that the branches all kinda hate each other.” It was your senior year of highschool so the reality of the real world was starting to kick in. You'd both been giving a lot of thought into what you wanted to do after school. If a gap year was on the horizon or if college was a possibility. Or for you maybe it was the Naval Academy and for Jake it would be the BMT. 

For now though, you and Jake both worked down at the local pizzeria after school–it was supposed to be your way of being able to spend more time together. But when the big boss had noticed that the two of you barely got anything done when you were both rostered on together? He made sure to end that real quick. 

“Doesn't the Navy have like, Naval Aviators or something?” You sighed, not realising just how much of a spark it lit inside Jake as he watched you return to your work. “If we both enlisted maybe we might be able to take on the world together?” You weren't putting all that much thought into what you were saying, simply making light hearted conversation with your best friend as you both did whatever homework you both had due the next morning. You History and Jake Mathematics–always the maths guy. “Who knows, But hey–if you do go into the Air Force and fly those stupid planes that cost way too much money I guess you already have a callsign.” Smirking, Jake looked at you like you’d just shot him through the chest. 

“Oh no. No way would I ever use Hangman as my call sign.” Jake huffed as he shook his head. “It's stupid.” 

“It's who you are, idiot.” You reminded him, all those moments where he’d hung around his locker waiting for the right moment to talk to you only to be left hanging had the namesake sticking to him like super glue all through high school. Like fuck was Jake taking that shit with him into his adult life. “Besides, it suits you.” 

The pad of Jake's thumb hit the trigger for his missile lock system the moment he’d been drawn back into the present by the tone he’d locked on the fifth generation fighter pilot. He watched as the jet exploded into a thick black fiery cloud that surely had to be lethal for whoever had been sitting in the cockpit. Knowing that he was coming home to you and whoever he’d just shot down wasn't. That would be his second air to air kill. You hadnt taken well to the first one–he wondered for a moment if you'd love him any less now that he had two. 

“Good afternoon ladies and gentleman, this is your savour speaking.” Jake put on his usual persona of the guy who everyone just couldn't stand as he came racing through the plume into vision of Chaos and Rooster. “Please fasten your seatbelts, return your tray tables to their locked and upright position and prepare for landing.” He watched as Chaos looked his way and smacked her first twice against the side of the cockpit, laughing behind her mask. He couldn’t really tell from this distance how fucking close to death she really was. 

“Hey Hangman, you look good.” Rooster commented from the back seat, not his usual position on a fighter jet. All things considered though it probably still had a pretty good view. Jake nodded peacefully in response, he was going to say something about how he wanted to throw up over the fact he’d left you like he did to get here. Crying, screaming his name, yelling at him that you needed him. He wanted to mention that it killed him to know he left you heartbroken in his best friend's arms because he just put his colleagues above you and even more so above his own safety. Or that if he’d listened to your direct orders to stand down Rooster and Chaos may very well not be alive right now. He wouldn’t ever say that to you—ever.

Jake didn’t say any of the aforementioned things, he couldn’t. The words failed him when he tried to convey the right things to say—they always had, but in this very instant he knew his worry and utter agony was written in the lines on his face. 

Jake just nodded and laughed with them. 

“I am good Rooster, I'm very good.” He paused as he broke right and turned back to head towards the carrier. He wondered if the girl who sat on his bed that one time and said you could both take on the world together would still want to charge at it head on when he landed or if you’d throw your hands up and finally say enough's, enough. “I'll see you both back on deck.” 

***~***~***~***~***~

“You’re okay Hawkeye, I got you.” Javy rocked with you as you clung to him in utter heartbreak. There was no sense of time anymore, you didn't know if you'd been left on the runway for two minutes or two hours as you cried out in utter heartache loud enough for anyone walking the flight deck to hear. “Jakes gonna bring em home.” 

“You don’t know that–what if he never comes home.” Javy wasn't about to tell you that he had that feeling too, he wasn't about to break your heart any more than Jake had already done so in order to go after Rooster and Chaos. “He's the love of my life Javy–” Javy felt his own heart shattering as he held you a little tighter, sitting with you between his legs in the middle of the runway. His arms encapsulated you like he was shielding you from the world around you. Not wanting you to ever be hurt again. “What am I supposed to do without him huh? What does he fucking want from me!?” 

“He doesn't want nothing Hawk, he probably just knows by now that you love him enough to know that whatever happens, good or bad–he had all the right intentions.” Deep down you knew Javy was right, you did love Jake enough to know that a year ago–or even just a few months ago for that matter, he never would have done this.  

Levi ‘Elvis’ Macarthy was a terrible person and an even worse influence on your husband. He was the very dictionary definition of superficial. There wasn't a person you loathed more than Jake’s current Wingman. You knew Levi wouldn't hesitate to leave Jake in the dust if things went wrong, but what scared you so much more was Jake had become the very same. 

“Oh my god—“. You just couldn't hold it in any more, your marriage had fallen to shambles around you before there was anything left to salvage. Your grandmother always used to tell you like because and you love despite. But with Jake? Over the last few months nothing seemed worth it. “You're worse than Levi.” You had just been discussing Jake's latest deployment, he hadn’t bothered to tell you until three days out. “Levi, he’s a selfish superficial asshole but he can’t help it, Jake–but you? You could be a good person but you wanna be an asshole! You are so obsessed with getting promoted and becoming the best of the very best that you’re choosing to be a piece of shit—“ It would be your last fight, the fight that drove you over the edge, the one you couldn't come back from. The fight where things were said that you couldn’t take back no matter how badly you wanted to. It was the fight that put all your others to shame. 

“Okay stop pretending this is some moral dilemma!” Jake hadn’t told you about his next deployment because he knew that you still weren’t over his last. He didn't know how to tell you without starting a fight. Which inevitably happened anyway. 

“It is a moral dilemma! You’re pushing everyone away to chase a fucking pipe dream!” You were so proud of Jake and everything he’d accomplished, but the idea that you were the only one who was didn't sit right with you. You knew he lived for the applause, but you couldn't cheer him on from the bleachers alone. “You’re a lieutenant! God isn't that enough for you at this moment? Revel in it a little before you chase the next rank!”  

“Oh you wanna go there?” Jake scoffed as he took strides towards you, crossing the distance of the living room. “You—“. Jake spat, his voice laced with venom as he spoke to you like he hadn’t been in love with you since the very first time he saw you let alone spoke to you. Pointing his finger into your chest. “You’re afraid to climb the ladder.” He barked. “Tell me love.” The term of endearment made you weak in such a heated moment. “When was the last time you actually did something you were proud of? You spend all your time worrying about me and what I'm doing and what I'm supposedly becoming because you're too fucking scared to fucking apply yourself, you're scared that even if you tried just a little goddamn harder that you'd still be told you're a crap analyst!” He didn't mean any of it, he just wanted to hurt you the same way you hurt him. But Jake? Well he couldn't attack your person, so he went for your job, your career. He knew you held a little self doubt about your position in the Navy, unlike himself who just oozed confidence in every aspect. “Always a Lieutenant Junior, never gonna make it to Rear Admiral.” 

“You go on this deployment, I won't be here when you get back.” This time you weren’t messing around. The idea had crossed your mind a time or two when things had gotten really bad, when you thought it would be easier to run than to stay and figure it out. 

“What?” Jake had suddenly lost all his male bravado. “What the hell are you talking about?” Although you’d thought about it, you’d never said it out loud. Never mentioned the idea to anyone. “Baby–” His eyes were soft and suddenly full of regret, had he gone too far this time? 

“You heard me Jake so help me god if you go, don’t expect me to fucking be here when you get back.” You thought your love for Jake Seresin could outlast any challenges you faced, but when he was the challenge himself? What else was left to do. 

“You know I have to though—you know better than anyone that I can’t just not go?” His eyes took in the entire expanse of your face, every small mark and imperfection that made you perfect to him in every way. Cupping your face between his hands. “Wifey, we’re okay, we don't have to do this.” You ignored Jake's words as you focused on the first statement that slipped past his lips. 

“Seems like an inevitable outcome then doesn’t it?” You continued, only to pull away and turn on your heels. Holding back the flooded dam that threatened to break if Jake made any attempt to keep you here. Stop you from leaving–.if he asked you to stay you knew it would be all the more harder to go, without question. You loved him so much. 

“Baby don’t leave me.” You left in the middle of the night that same night. 

He never would have put the lives of his fellow aviators above his own and he most certainly wouldn't have defied direct orders to risk his life in order to save another. The version of Jake Seresin that you almost served divorce papers to was long gone. Dead and buried. Replaced by the very best version of himself you knew he could be. The version you fell in love with during highschool. The version who asked you to marry him one random night in July under the stars as waves lapped around your ankles. The version you saw a future, a present and had a past with. It didn't hurt any less though, knowing that the outcome of all his soul searching may end up with the same outcome you’d left him over in the first place. 

You'd' still receive that folded flag, you’d still cry as his coffin was lowered, only now you knew for sure that you wouldn't be the only one to mourn him. 

“GET HER OFF THE DAMN RUNWAY!” Pete Mitchell could be heard screams from the barricades that you jumped over to reach your husband in time, to no avail. You’d fallen into a heap in Coyote's lap, inconsolable and crying as your heart raced at the thought you’d never see Jake again. Clutching at Javys flight suit, the nornex not doing much at all to dry your tears. “COYOTE! GET HER UP BEFORE YOU TWO GET RUN OVER BY A GODDAMN F-18!” 

“Someone tell my wife I'm coming home.” Jake had radioed back to the tower all the while you and Javy had been sitting on the flight deck. He had started making his way back to you the second he wasn't needed, he saw no need to string out your obvious heartbreak. He couldn't wait to get back to you, tell you how sorry he was, how much he loved you, how much you meant to him and how badly it broke his own heart he had to leave you behind like he did–but he knew Rooster and Chaos needed him just a little bit more in the very moment. Jake also couldn't wait to let you know how idiotidc it was to stand in the middle of a goddamn runway. How endearing and brave and oh so stupid he found it. He knew that you were going to tear him a new one about his actions, that was his only leg to stand on. You were miss prim and proper, he was reckless and foolish–the better halves of each other. “Someone tell Y/n I’m okay, for the love of god someone tell her I'm alright.” It was a plea that fell on somewhat deaf ears though, no one could get to you to relay the message and Pete Mitchell certainly wasn't about the scream that crossed the flight deck of the carrier. 

“We gotta move Lieutenant Commander–” Javy cooed as he tried to lift you up. Deadweight against his arms, you didn’t budge for love nor nothing. “Hey, Jake’s coming back, surely.” Pointing over your shoulder to the black dot in the distance headed straight for the carrier Javy tried his best to break through whatever haze had begun to cloud your better judgement. “You see that speck? That's Jake, so unless you wanna get railed by the cord that's gonna come at us at about a hundred miles an hour I suggest we move and the second he lands, I'll let you go? Deal?” You didn't believe Coyote as he tried to be the voice of reason, but as you watched the speck get a little closer, a little more defined, it sparked a hope inside you that you wanted to believe in. That it was Jake and he was coming home. 

“Shit–” You scrambled to your feet, dusting your uniform off as Javy took your hand in his, one hand behind the small of your waist as he guided you over to where the rest of the group stood. Phoenix, Bob, Fanboy, Payback, all desperately awaiting the return of Hangman, Rooster and Chaos. “You really reckon it's him?” You asked as you approached Maverick, he hated the look in your eyes. Despair. Your eyelashes were wet and your cheeks were stained but none of that really mattered when he placed a gentle hand on your shoulder and nodded, bringing out a haphazard smile across your face for the briefest of moments. 

“It's him Hawk, it's all of them.” 

***~***~***~***~***~

It was the smoothest of landings Jake had ever pulled off. Everything had gone according to plan. When the tail hook caught on the catcher cord, slowing Jake's Super Hornet to nothing, he could finally breathe again. There wasn’t a lot that confronted Jake Seresin, but when he took off from the carrier, leaving you behind? He’d never felt such a fear in the back of his throat. It resonated with him until he leaned. 

The cheers roaring out from his colleagues and fellow Naval men and women were enough to have him popping his canopy, holding his helmet in his hand as he fist bumped the air. Ravelling in the moment, the glory, the praise. Jake Seresin lived for the applause—and for the almost good enough but not quite worthy Dagger Spare, he thought he’d done pretty well for a guy who hadn’t made the team. 

“You’re insane!!” Phoenix beamed as she tapped Hangman on the shoulder three consecutive times. “And I’m not gonna tell you you’re great, but well done.” He barely acknowledged her, his eyes catching you in the crowd. The roar of success faded as he handed Bob his helmet—without taking his eyes off you. A smirk crept across his face when he saw you falter for a mere moment. You didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of knowing you were utterly and wholeheartedly relieved he was safe. But for a split second as the crowd cheered and separated just enough for Jake to barge his way to you—you couldn’t not let the happiness consume you. 

“Hi wifey—“ Is all Jake manages to say before you’re barreling at him. Running full speed into his arms. With a jump and a graceful lift, your lips are connecting with your husbands as he catches you in his strong arms. Hands on your ass as he kisses you back. Your arms thrown around his shoulder as he deepened the kiss you thought for a while there you’d never get to experience again. “I’m so so—“ You didn’t let him finish as your open palm slapped against his cheek. 

“Don’t you ever leave me like that again, do you hear me?” It wasn’t harsh enough to actually hurt, but it was still with enough force that took Jake aback. “Hangman—do you hear me?” Eyeing off the little gold heart he wore with so much pride.

Jake couldn’t stop himself from beaming at you. He loved you, oh so much. Kissing you again with haste as he nodded against your lips. “So stupid, I can’t believe you do that! Never again okay?” You pleased as Jake kissed you, talking into his mouth as teeth clashed together and tongues danced. Cupping his face to make sure this was real. That he was back and he was safe. “You hear my baby? You got nothing to prove.” 

“Loud and clear ma’am, loud and clear.” Mumbling into your mouth as he held you up by your thighs. The cheering of the entire crew around you made it all the more remarkable. Jake Seresin was a hero, and a beloved one at that. “You’re not off the hook either, pretty girl.” Jake smirked against your lips. “Jumping barricades and barrelling up runways.” It was true, it hadn’t been your finest moment, but you did it all for love. “So stupid wifey, you know that right?” You knew, so the only dignified response you gave was a silent nod. 

“I thought you weren’t coming back—“ You mumbled just shy of a whisper as you let your forehead rest against Jakes as he slowly put you down. Bending over with you to chase your lips again. He couldn’t get enough of the taste of you. 

“I’ll always come ba—“ Again, you slapped him again. This time a little harder as he trapped your hand in his. Making sure you couldn’t slap him again. “Okay, you gotta stop slapping me.” Jake poked his tongue against the inside of his slightly throbbing cheek as you eyed him off. 

“Sorry, I just needed to make sure you were listening.” Racing past the bridge of the carrier where both Admiral Beau and Admiral Bates stood. Chaos flew low and close as you looked up overhead. She held her finger up to the glass. Giving the admirals the bird before her right engine cut out. “But I’m so proud of you Jake—you brought them home.” 

“So I’m off the hook?” Jake asked as he raised an eyebrow, cocking the corner of his lip slightly as you shook your head. Laughing. 

“Oh, oh no—no no no Jacob, you are most definitely not off the hook.” You called him Jacob, he knew he was in shit when Jacob slipped past your lips. “But for now I think you deserve to have your moment.” You gestured to the crowd around you now cheering on Chaos and Rooster as they landed in the barricade. “Go celebrate your victory Lieutenant.” 

“I love you, Wifey!” Jake beamed as he stepped back, immersing himself in the crowd around him. “Love you to the moon and back!” He grinned before turning around, finding his way to the two people he risked it all for. 

“I love you all that much more.” 

***~***~***~***~***~

It had been a few weeks since the Uranium mission had come to its completion. The Admirals had made it abundantly clear that the ragtag team of aviators who had grown to be more like family than just colleagues could have a few precious weeks of unrestricted leave for their duties and sacrifices. Bradley Bradshaw and Robert Floyd had chosen to stay in North Island; They weren’t leaving until they knew for sure that Chaos Kazansky was going to be okay. For you and Jake? Things had mellowed out, settled down and you were both working through the underlying issues that were still plaguing whatever future you were both preparing to have with one another. 

Like today for example, you were both about to find out the paternity results of the DNA test Jake had taken for Marissa. He knew it wasn’t his kid, but he knew you needed that in writing. 

“Okay ladies cough up.” The Miramar Base Hospital smelt of sterile everything but the nurses station? They smelt of that Ariana Cloud Perfume and whatever food had been on offer in the cafeteria that day. “Who owes me what?” You teased as the three ladies sitting behind the glass fished out their wallets and all handed you a ten dollar bill. Much to their own displeasure. You smirked, collecting your earnings with no sympathy. 

“Much appreciated ladies—“ You winked. When Jake had first started doing the rounds for Chaos, you’d gone with him one time early on. The ladies at the front desk had mentioned Jake would always stop and have a chat—nothing malicious, nothing sinister behind it. He just enjoyed the praise he received. And you saw nothing wrong with that—but you’d started an underground betting ring not three days later with the nurses. If your husband was gonna act the foot? The least you were gonna do was make some extra money off him. “Someone ask him about his call sign next time he stops by, if he says anything else besides the fact he was left hanging by a girl he had a crush on in highschool he’s a liar—“ You picketed the cash as you turned on your heels. “Fifty Bucks ladies, take it or leave it.” 

“You look rather nice today Commander?” One of the nurses cooed as she hollered down the hall after you. You weren’t really sure what she was on about to be honest, you were just in a pair of old jeans and a sweater. Maybe it was the brown hair you now wore with pride. Jake had been right, Blondes did have more fun and you had certainly had your fair share during your time back at Miramar. You weren’t meant to be a blonde. So back to your roots you went. “Anything in particular got you all dressed to the nines?” 

“Just enjoying the rest and relaxation ladies, nothing else to it.” You smiled back at them before making your way further into the hospital—running into your husband and Bob shortly after. “I was just coming to see Chaos? How is she?” You asked Bob as Jake took you under his arm, pulling you closer to his side as he kissed the top of your head. It still smelled of brown box dye. He’d helped you colour it back a few nights prior. That in and of itself should have been a mission he had taken more seriously. 

“Awake, she wanted to be with Rooster for a little while.” Bob explained softly as he rubbed the back of his neck. “I’m gonna go grab a coffee, do you want anything Commander?” You still weren’t all that keen on everyone calling you commander, shaking your head softly you sighed as Bob stood before you with tired eyes. 

“I’m good, and would you please just call me Hawk if anything Bob? Even Y/n’s totally fine—you guys are family. I don’t want you calling me Commander if we’re not on duty or working together.” 

“Yes ma’am, I’ll see you guys a little later.” Bob was tired, he walked the halls like a ghost of his former self. He and Rooster had been tag teaming for weeks and you knew Jake was worried about them both. 

“God I feel awful.” You mumbled into Jake's shoulder. “We should do something for them.” 

“Only thing we can do is just be here for them.” Jake kissed the top of your head before making a cheeky remark. “Commander Seresin.” He expected the elbow he copped to the ribs but it didn’t make it hurt any less. “Ohh—“ He doubled over for a moment as he stilled in his tracks, watching as you kept walking down the hall. “Okay, I definitely deserved that.” 

“Bet you thought it was gonna be you who made commander first, didn't ya hot shot?” You teased over your shoulder as your husband caught back up to you. “What was it again? Always the Lieutenant Junior, never gonna make it to Rear Admiral?” Quoting the remark Jake had made during one of your more heated arguments. “I’m sure you’ll catch up, Lieutenant.” 

“I liked you better when you were just a lieutenant commander—“ Jake taunted as you both rounded the corner. Laughing you just shook your head. “So cocky now—someone better tap you on the head before you fly too close to the sun there, Icarus.” 

“You know I don’t fly, Flyboy—“ You taunted back as you reached for Jake's hand, walking side by side towards the office of Dr. Sanders—she’d called you earlier that same morning to confirm the results of Jake's paternity test had come in and as had your fertility checks. “And before you say anything, no—I’ve seen the way you fly, I’m not getting in one of the tin cans with you.”

“Javy said he’d take you up if you wanted to?” 

“Oh fuck off—“ You couldn’t hold back to scoff. “You know I’m terrified of flying, never in a million years would you ever get me up in one of those things.” It had always been something you’d pushed to the wayside, but even when you flew commercially, you needed anxiety callers to keep you from panicking. “Thanks, but no thanks.” 

“Ah, there’s the lovely couple!” Dr. Sanders greeted you both with a wide smile as you approached her door. “Come on in, we have a lot to talk about.” 

“All good news I hope?” Jake questioned as he let you enter first and pulled your chair out for you. A kind but almost jarring gesture. The look on Dr. Sanders' face said it all though—it wasn’t. Fuck.

“Mr Seresin, how sure were you that this child wasn’t yours?” She asked and for a moment there you forgot how to breathe. Holy shit, was Jake actually a father? To another woman’s child? 

“Fairly certain I could back my entire career on the matter, why?” Jake still expressed so much confidence in the matter at hand, he never once wavered from his standpoint. It was almost admirable. He sat beside you, reaching out for your hand because he knew if anyone was freaking out right this second it was you—running the pad of his thumb across your palm. 

“Remind me to never second guess your better judgement, you’re not the father Jake—I’m not sure whether to say congratulations or my condolences but biologically speaking no, that child isn’t yours.” 

“That’s exactly what we wanted to hear.” Jake smiled as he turned his cocky attitude towards you fully. “Never doubted it for a minute.” 

“I’ve already informed the other party, she sends her best wishes.” Dr. Sanders sighed before she opened the tan folder on her desk. “Now—onto you little miss, what am I going to do with you.” She sent you a soft smile. This was never an easy part of her job, but education was key.

“Lay it on me doc, I can take it.” Your hand squeezed Jakes just a little tighter as you shifted in your seat. Knowing whatever Dr. Sanders was about to tell you was going to knock the wind from your lungs. 

“Y/n, you have blockage in your left fallopian tube, that means that when sperm are trying to make their way to an egg the blockage is stopping them before they can fertilise.” You really didn’t know what to say as you sat shocked in silence. “It doesn’t necessarily mean a natural conception isn’t possible, it just means that the chances are less likely and if you do ever decide to have children, prenatal vitamins and hormone treatments will aid in the process. And hopefully whatever sperm does make the journey, they take a right instead of left.” 

“Is there anything we can do to remove the blockage?” You asked softly, there was a small part of you who didn’t want to know the answer. But you asked regardless. 

“There’s surgical procedures we can schedule you in for—but they're all quite major and can lead to even more pressing complications like infertility overall.” Dr. Sanders explained. “It’s better to leave well enough alone and hope that the one you still have can come through, otherwise? There’s IVF treatments, adoption—“ Dr. Sanders made it abundantly clear to both you and Jack in her office that you were, in fact, not broken. She’d seen too many women come through her doors that wore the same face she was currently looking up. “You my dear are not broken, you just need to take a few extra steps.” 

“I’m—uh, can we take home all the information you have on all the options please?” Jake could hear it in your voice how scared and upset you truly were. All he could do in the moment though was reassure you that he was there, right beside you. Squeezing your hand to keep you grounded in reality. “We’ll go over everything at a later date.” 

“Of course, and if you ever need a consultation you know where to find me.” 

***~***~***~***~***~

“When are you gonna go up with Hawk?” Coyote smirked at you through the mirror of the free weight section of the base gym. Finishing your set of lateral raises, you huffed out a groan when you placed the weight down. It’s a bad dream by Good Charlotte played through the speaks as you looked at Javy through the mirror. His smugness rubbing you the wrong way immediately. 

“Who told you I ever would?” Two more weeks had passed since the events of the uranium mission and new postings were starting to trickle in. You’d yet to receive yours, but Jake had reciprocated his. A full time position here in North Island. If he wanted it. He’d get to accept—waiting to see what would come of you. 

“Uh, your husband?” Javy sent you a look as if to say who else would’ve told him that. “You two seem good these days?” He asked, still standing behind you in the free weight section, looking at you through the mirror. “Seem happy?” It was no secret to anyone that knew you and Jake that you had your demons, but over the last few weeks, amongst everything else going on—you’d seemed to work a few things out. 

“I think we’re gonna do a few couples therapy sessions but yeah, we’re good.” You smiled over at Jake who’d been doing some boxing with Payback. “I’ll never find a better part of me Javy, and honestly I’m starting to think that I'd rather be here for him than anywhere else in the world for myself.” 

“He loves you.” Javy smirked softly as you turned to face him. “I remember there was this one time I had to really reel him in from going fully off the rails just after you’d left.” You’d never heard Coyote speak his truth on the matter before. “He was fucked Hawk—he knew he drove you away but was just too stubborn to admit it to anyone around him let alone himself.” 

“I wasn’t innocent in the whole thing—“ You added as you let your eyes linger back over to Jake, he’d lost his shirt somewhere along the long as he held the pads for Payback. A thin sheen of sweat covering him head to toe. “But you like because and you love despite.” 

“You did what you had to do.” Javy added, only to change to conversation seconds later back to his original question. “Come in Hawk, one ride—come up with me for service checks?” 

“I dunno Coy—“ You tried to protest, your fear of flying all consuming. But it was to no avail.

“You can’t be a commander without having flown once—“ You’d technically made Commander rank four weeks ago, but the official ceremony wasn’t until January. It wasn’t a question you could keep avoiding any longer, both Jake and Javy pestering you to no end about this joy flight. Were you particularly interested? No—but if you had to do it once to get them off your back it seemed as though the answer had to inevitably be a yes.

“Honestly? What's the worst thing that could happen?” 

***~***~***~***~***~***~***~***~***~***~***~***~

Tags: @justanothermagicalsara @alexsisrebekah @stinkyjax @starkleila @luckyladycreator2 @love2write2626 @shanimallina87 @dempy @mintellaine @kiarabellerum31 @abaker74 @shadowsndaisies @haworldwidefunnyguy @peakascum @ssprayberrythings @averyhotchner

#to have & to hold // jake seresin #jake seresin x y/n #jake hangman x reader #jake hangman seresin x reader #jake seresin x you #jake seresin angst #jake seresin imagine #jake seresin fanfiction #jake seresin x reader #jake seresin #jake hangman seresin #hangman seresin x reader #hangman x y/n #hangman seresin #hangman x you #hangman #hangman x reader #top gun hangman #hangman imagine

[mirror-ralsei]

THEORY: Deeeltaaruuuneeee

You know, despite all the intense speculation about Deltarune - its dialogue, its music, its merchandise... - there's one obvious piece of foreshadowing that no one seems to think about. A critical piece. One that's been under our nose the whole time.

The title.

Today we're going to deep dive into the title drop of Deltarune, its connections to Undertale and Deltarune, and speculate about what it could be foreshadowing in the future.

VISUALS

Deltarune's title appears with a notable wavering, almost interlacing effect. We've seen this effect before.

Asriel causes this when using HYPER GONER.

And though the Memoryheads have more scan lines and desync than the Deltarune title, it's still an incredibly similar visual that stands out in the game.

A similar wavering sort of effect also appears during Undyne the Undying's deformation and reformation.

I wonder if this effect might represent holding on through determination.

At her true death, Undyne the Undying begins to visibly melt, which we're told by Alphys is what's supposed to happen to monsters who contain high amounts of determination. So, it would follow that when she's wavering as she's clinging to life through determination, that's also an intended visual.

And if that's true of Undyne, it could be true of the Memoryheads, who have the same kind of effect. It would make sense, as they are amalgamates, whose very premise is based on the presence of determination.

So, the logo fading in with a wavering interlacing effect might mean that it represents something - or someone - returning to life through determination.

Of course, that's just my best guess. Maybe it represents something completely different - or nothing at all. But both the Memoryheads and Undyne the Undying hold a lot of apparent Deltarune references, and I wouldn't be surprised if their wavering effects were one of them, tying them into the same phenomenon that's happening to the logo.

There's something interesting happening during the logo's disappearance. Keep your eye on the SOUL at the center to observe it more easily.

The logo is not just fading out - its parts seem to be undergoing some kind of mathematical transformation, causing them to multiply, and fade out as they do so.

If any math fans know what specific formula or transformation is being used here, that would be great to know, but as far as I can figure, whatever is happening to the parts are being reflected across multiple axes.

This concept of reflection as division appears several times in Deltarune. I've delved into it here.

Basically, we have this recurring idea that in order to multiply something, you have to divide it in half. Once divided, both halves are no longer the same as the original, resembling it though they may. You could say they're both "reflections" of the original.

That seems reminiscent of what's happening here.

The SOUL, and all the other parts of the logo, appear to be divided again and again, gradually fading with each division until there's nothing left of them.

This may have concerning implications for the plot.

I'm not sure what, exactly, this whole reflection-division concept is building up to, but it's definitely setting up something. And watching this soul and the rest of the title being reflected and divided so many times that it fades out of existence... well, you can't help but worry. There's a lot of wild conjecture we could launch from here, but I'll leave that to you.

There's one more thing here worth noticing. Deltarune is a parallel story to Undertale. If we compare their logos, they look fairly similar. Both are white text on a black background with a red heart in the center letter. But there are a couple of interesting differences.

First, Undertale's logo is comprised of detailed pixels, while Deltarune's is made of blocky letters.

This gives Deltarune's logo the impression of a game with old-school, scan-line-looking graphics (if someone knows what this is called please lmk lol), while Undertale's logo looks like that of a more modern game by comparison.

Interestingly, this is kind of inverse to the presentations of the games themselves. The pixel count in Deltarune is notably higher than that of Undertale. But here, it's the opposite.

(Side note: It also might be worth noting that as of the Sweepstakes, the Ice Palace also appears to be in this old-school style.)

Second, and most importantly, UNDERTALE is depicted in all caps. The visual logo for DELTARUNE is actually presented in all lowercase: "deltarune."

This is important in a series that has consistently used uppercase and lowercase as some kind of recurring element.

One quick example is when Sans explains the Level of Violence acronym: "you never gained LOVE, but you gained love. does that make sense?"

But it's not all acronyms. There's many other interesting usages throughout the series, such as Asgore's name being alternately presented normally or in all-caps, or the presence of certain titles in the soundtracks being in all-caps for no discernible reason.

We still don't really know what this element is meant to represent. But we do know that whatever it means, it is present between the "deltarune" and "UNDERTALE" logos.

Like with so many things here, we do have to wait on more information to truly understand the meaning. But once we know more about the reflection-division and uppercase-lowercase elements, then the multiplying, differently cased logos should also fall into place.

SOUND

The Deltarune title audio seems comprised of three parts: a sound reminiscent of a collective inhale or gasp, followed by a robotic voice saying "DELTARUNE," followed by a mixture of two types of sounds - one reminiscent of a collective exhale, the other a series of discordant chimes - that gradually fade out.

As many have pointed out, the opening sound in the Deltarune title is just an echoey version of the sound that plays when transitioning up from the Dark World to the Light World in Castle Town: snd_dtrans_lw.

Awesome! We have a confirmed connection for the beginning part of the audio. Surely this will provide some insight?

Well... not really...?

While we know a little bit more about the Light vs Dark World concept than we do about, say, the reflection-division concept, I feel we're still not much closer to understanding the meaning behind this sound effect.

I mean, the information we have here is pretty limited. The sound is used when Kris and Susie rise back up to the Light World, which could tell us that the title audio relates to something (whatever the title is representing here) rising up a level, too. If you want to stretch, taking the allegorical into account, maybe it represents some "fictional" or "escapist" elements becoming more "real." This has kind of been alluded to already, with Susie wanting to bring the Darkners into the Light World because it's just "better" than real life, and Berdly and Noelle agreeing and wanting to create Dark Fountains.

Beyond that...there's not much here, that I can think of. If anything, the usage of this audio in the title drop is more important for telling us the in-game usage is important than the other way around. We kind of have to know what the title represents to be able to know the significance of it "rising up"/transitioning between worlds would be.

There's also the sound effect that plays when Noelle or the others "get stronger," which kind of resembles an altered version of dtrans_lw, and would provide some more context if true... but I can't be certain.

Anyway, let's continue onward.

Next up is the robotic-sounding voice saying "DELTARUNE."

This appears to be a text-to-speech voice. Moreover, the TTS voice appears to be one of the same ones from abc_123_a.ogg.

This is notable because that TTS is also used for Gaster's text noise in "room_gaster" (Entry 17).

In other words, it's very possible that the voice saying "Deltarune" is supposed to be Gaster's.

This isn't really as shocking as it seems. Gaster very much appears to be the framing device around Deltarune as an entire game - he gives it to us as SURVEY_PROGRAM, and communicates to us during Game Overs and save file screens. The title being another part of the game's framing, it wouldn't really be a surprise that he'd be here too.

If we do assume the voice belongs to Gaster, the more interesting questions become why he's able to speak a fully voiced word, and why the voice sounds so...strained. One can almost imagine someone desperately leaving a final message, or barely managing to contact someone, before subsequently fading out. All subjective, but interesting to think about.

The final part might be the most mysterious.

There are two main overlapping kinds of sounds playing here: a collective sigh or moan that gradually fades out, and a variety of discordant notes.

Regarding the sigh, I don't know for sure. The most simple guess would be that, if the inhale-sounding sound represents transitioning upwards from Dark to Light World, then perhaps the exhale-sounding sound represents the inverse - transitioning downwards from Light to Dark World.

The only problem with this assumption is that Kris and Susie do transition downwards from the Light World to the Dark World, and the different sound effects that have played so far don't really sound exhale-y at all. So that part's a mystery.

The other overlapping sound jumps out instantly, though.

An immediate association, to me, is Snowgrave.

Although these notes in the Snowgrave sound effect are much clearer than the distorted ones in the Deltarune title, they both are seemingly random- and discordant-sounding, and the sound itself is reminiscent of chimes.

But there is another instance of this kind of sound.

During the Chapter 1 livestream, many tiny differences were added to the game's build for the purposes of the stream. One such difference was the forest room containing the ballerina-type enemies.

In this room, visuals were added resembling the gray star-like sparkles that also seem present during Snowgrave's animation.

And a feature was added where interacting with the ballerinas would cause them to play a bunch of discordant, glass-like sounds.

Toby Fox was unusually cryptic about this change. He describes the sounds only as "a horrible noise," and when asked what they're saying, replies, "Secret. Never ask a dog that question."

So, it seems likely there's some intended mystery surrounding this difference, and it is unusual to me that the ballerinas' chimes are so similarly chaotic as Snowgrave and the title audio.

Personally, my best guess is that it has something to do with the silvery sparkles. "snd_snowgrave" notably does NOT include the preceding chimes - which play while the sparkles are floating out of Noelle's hands. The livestream ballerina enemy area seems to once again associate these chimes with the presence of sparkles.

If that's the case, then maybe the chimes at the end of the title audio have something to do with the sparkles.

Of course, to those without a music theory background like most of us, sound perception seems pretty subjective. Three sounds that all sound like a bunch of glassy, discordant notes to my ears could actually be completely unrelated.

So take this with a grain of salt. The only truly solid information we have is that the Deltarune logo voice seems to use the same TTS as abc_123 and Gaster. The rest is speculation.

But if these similarities are intentional, and those chiming sounds in the title audio are supposed to represent something to do with Snowgrave, that's obviously not a good sign.

CONCLUSION

While I don't think we have all the puzzle pieces just yet, we do have a variety of clues that give off a strong tone about what's going on. This is my suspicion:

The Deltarune title is depicting a tragedy.

Something bad is happening here.

The strained and desperate voice, the inhaled gasp, the collective sigh as a discordant collection of sounds and reflections fade out into nothingness... it's not looking good.

We know Gaster met with an unfortunate fate, and it's his voice that's speaking to us. We know dividing something causes the original to be forever altered and lost, and the SOUL and everything else that makes up the title seems to be undergoing that until it's reduced to nothingness. We know Undyne reformed herself through determination with a similar visual to the logo's appearance, but like Undyne, the logo ends up fading out anyway.

And let's be honest. We know something bad has happened to Deltarune before.

Gaster wants us to make "a new future" with him. One that shines with hope. ("Unlike the old future" perhaps implied.) He specifically made his appearance known in Undertale to players with low levels of violence.

By contrast, this implies something dark and terrible happened to Deltarune's universe in the past. It's in all the little things. Alphys sets the stage with Mew Mew 2's darker storyline. Kris' birdcage has "seen a lot of crashes," and they certainly act like this isn't their first time being possessed. Sans has seen his share of bad timelines, and in the casino dialogue, talks about back when he was less experienced, when one time he witnessed an especially bad snow. Spamton knows exactly what will happen to Kris on a Weird Route, as if he's already seen it - almost as if he's been frozen for years inside rings and behind mysterious locked doors. Noelle claims she doesn't know what Snowgrave is, but also stares off into the freezer, and can't remember what she's done. There's characters preparing for a particularly bad winter. And then there's the perpetual threat of the Roaring, and Ralsei's haunted expression when he describes it, like he's seen it before. There's the fact that we fall down into an evacuated town within a barren landscape of darkness and eyes. The title screen, after all this, plays a mournful piano song over an image of the three heroes at Worlds' Edge. Before the Story.

So, is it really any surprise?

There's so much writing on the walls about Deltarune having repeating, tragic elements, and the title drop seems no exception.

Will we be the ones to break the cycle, and change Deltarune's future? Or is the fate depicted in the title the only possible outcome?

(Screenshot credit: 1)

#i do not have a great understanding of interlacing or anti-aliasing or math so feel free to shake your head dismissively as you read this #the 10 video per post limit was sadge btw i would've put a few more comparisons together for your convenience #but ah well you'll just have to scroll back a bit. sorry #deltarune theory #utdr theory #ETA i am so tired rn and its too late to private this now so just pretend the 'getting stronger' sfx part makes ANY kind of sense #it is absolutely the same sound effect and i dont have time to dig into the implications atm. just know. they are there

[madamlaydebug]

So what is this 144,000? Who are they? I don’t actually think there’s a single answer to this but I do believe I’ve found one of them. Since the Bible, and the book of the Unveiling especially, speaks in symbol and allegory it’s only fair to say there are many possibilities to it’s real meaning. I’d say that the orthodox “understanding” of the book is the one that’s most incorrect. We’ll get into more of that later.

So let’s get to it. Most folks have heard of Chakras. If you haven’t, I strongly encourage you to do some homework. They’re basically where the universal life force energy plugs into your body. Whirling vortices of energy at specific vibrations are channeled into your vital systems via these nerve centers. When there’s a blockage, disease manifests. It’s really fascinating stuff. Anyway, these energy centers are represented by different stages of the lotus flower, which is itself a symbol of purity of the body. Here are the chakras and their corresponding lotus blossoms:

Making reference to the 144000 sealed men whose speaks in the Revelation (Apocalypse), this number is that of the election, 12, carried to its paroxysm: 12 x 12 x 1000, where 1000 is a coefficient of the immensity. In others words, this number indicates that all the elects, without exception, are kept under the protection of God.

Bible

Number of sealed or elected of all the tribes of Israel, marked of the seal of God. (Rv 7,1)

General

The 144000 petals of the main chakra or coronal (located to the summit of the cranium) represent the 144000 rays of light originated from all the seven chakras, or centers of energy of the body, deployed and balanced, or again the 144000 vibrations of the divine Creation which travel in the cosmos and that are source of life.

In the Gospel of Barnabe, chapter 17, it is written: "144000 prophets that God sent to the world, have spoken obscurely; but after me will come the splendor of all prophets and saint; he will illuminate the darkness of whole what have told the prophets, because it is the messenger of God". Some have seen in this passage an allusion to Muhammad, "The Seal of prophets" (Koran XXX, 40).

When we add the number of petals of the five inferior psychic centers, we obtain a total of 48 petals. By adding 96 petals of the frontal center (the place of the third eye where the small number must receive its divine mark), we obtain the number 144, symbol of the perfect and expressed spiritual work, that is to say of the marriage between the soul and the personality. If now we multiply 144 by the thousand petals of the coronal center, we obtain 144000, the number of the elects, who will be all these that will have waked up in them the seven stars or spiritual and psychic centers.

John Phaure advances two mathematics divisions which, according to him, are very revealing. As numbers he uses the 144000 servants of God "marked to the front", the number of the Beast, 666 and 216, a fundamental cyclic and cabalistic number (tenth of the one Era: 2160 / 10) that he interprets as one of figures of the Christ:

144 000 / 216 = 666 with a rest of 144

144 000 / 666 = 216 with a rest of 144

These results express according to him that the 144000 "marked" as servants of God before the advent the Antichrist are here the object of the eschatologic combat between the Christ and his Adversary. From this combat leaves "the rest": 144, those who will be the Elects of the celestial Jerusalem". He points out moreover than 666 + 144 = 810, numerical value of the Greek word Parakletos, the Paraclete. Thus the Holy Spirit espressed at the end of time "will be the 'glorificater' of the Creation".

By using the pyramidal inch, the external volume of the tomb of the Room of the King in the Great Pyramid gives 144000 cubic inches. The pyramidal inch measures 25.303 mm. By using this unit of measure, the pyramid would have a height of 5800 inches and a volume of 160 billion cubic inches, giving all numbers without decimal.

The external recovery of the Great Pyramid would be made of 144000 stones.

Occurrence

The number 144000 is used 3 times in the Bible.

-Thank you Paul

[astrologervinayakbhatt]

"Not Obsession With Navamsha, But Havoc Of Navamsha: Playground Of GGs"

D9 is the bench mark for maping other charts too including D1. If a planet aspects some other planet in D9 and D10, then this aspect on that planet would be deemed effective in D1 too. Alternatively planet aspecting some planet in both D1& D9 would aspect that planet in all other divisions. If a planet is aspecting some planet in D9 but not in D1 then aspect of D9 would prevail in same fashion as the debilitation/exaltation in D9 prevails upon D1. As such, transit seen through D9 is more effective than transit in D1. And now the bombshell - Ashtaka Varga prepared from D1 is only half effective. So prepare the real Ashtaka Varga from D9. For career see the Ashataka Varga prepared through D10. AV of D60 can be applied universally: very effective especially in BTR: for, birth takes place in accordance with the points in AV of D60. The sign having maximum point in AV of D60 can be Lagna or Moon sign or rising D9 sign. Then manipulate mathematically to become a peerless GG ie Goblin Guru. For all other purpose AV of D9 would prevail. If a planet/sign has more points in AV of D9 than AV of D1, the position of D9 would prevail. Thus D9 is supreme. It is the soul while D1 is mere mortal body. So, D9 can also be used for independent reading of events in life ignoring D1 completely. These are the hidden parampara principles or Nadi navigation revealed only to Goblin Gurus developing Paddhati.

Njoy and create havoc.

NOTE:

It should read with my earlier post about (destructive) contribution of Goblin Gurus and Paddhati /technique sellers in Vaidik astrology.

By UK Jha

[theamariecanton]

{A piece i've read way back 2018}

MINI CRITIQUE

•Introduction

- A true narrative with a page of 368, and it was also awarded Best Nonfiction Book at the NAACP Image Award.

• Title: Hidden Figures

(Top Book of 2016)

• Writer's name: Margot Lee Shetterly

• Thesis statement

A three African-American women which had been a shadow to achieve something and dedicated all their blood and sweats, without getting a credit or reward. Katherine, Dorothy, and Mary dreamed about being a NASA engineer but faced so many struggles, they do all things to the point that they didn't go to their class because only white people and majority of male are only one had been prioritized. While the brain of the group katherine worked all day just to figure out and calculate all mathematics equation for the rocket to function, they are all part of it, as in act as its sadow and feet, they did something important but doesn't get the simple credit they must have.

•Summary

A three women African-American who faced some inequality because of the thing "African-American". They are Katherine, Mary, and Dorothy. Dorothy was the first of the main characters hired as a mathematician by Langle and have been head of it until the time came for it to be closed. She is also one of the female known computers as they then called people who can calculate who made the West Computing area. Mary joined an engineering group and would go on to become an engineer. After of all of it Mary joined the division of flight research which bring a big impact to the space program which also leads to more better career. But aside from that being them as a brain, they also became as a shadow because of the credit and support they didn't get to their bosses. Abovr all their contributions cover the progress of their industry. And by their refusal to give up, these three African-American really proved something besides on the struggles they encountered.

•Evaluation

The story was delivered very smoothly, the author really made each of it worth reading. Also it shows the strong personality of the characters and proving it by their own actions and struggles. Additional, the way how it was presented to the audience/reader really displayed some aesthetic boarder for it to continually read by majority. And the narrative will leave you in awe because the words itself speaks.

1. Develop an understanding of the main argument or purpose being expressed in the work.

- The main purpose is not to spread an non efficient workplace, but for the people to know the importance of being included on things we do because we are part of it as a piece.

2. Consider how the work relates to a broader issue or context.

- This reflects how the society really works with its one sided opinion and acknowledgment without thinking of other humans.

3.State whether the writer is successful in making his/her point.

- I could say writer really did a great job for giving the message and lesson over all as i get some realization from within of the short span of time and many thoughts, ideas really run through my mind and soul.

•Conclusion

For the conclusion, every inch of this piece give me some time to think so it has really a kick of something spice for me to open my eyes to the standard we must have and live as the three African-American really did not gave up easily as they dreamed once in their life to an engineer of NASA.

1. Stating whether you agree with the writer or what part of the text made an impact and deep impression on you.

The part of the work which had made an insightful impact on me is the middle part where the narrative went on the part of the triumph they have as an individual. The slow spreading of realization upon reading that kind of happening really wants me to appreciate them more for fighting for something they really want.

2. Back up your decisions on agreeing and disagreeing or state your reasons.

As a student, many people, opinion, comments will bombared by the people who surrounds me when something is under my control or if i do things i want but the most important element of being an individual or human rather is that, we shoul be able to be resilient and know how to cope up with others even they are below the belt sometimes.

3. Give your general opinion of the work

The piece really amazed me because it's such a good, great, wonderful work. It does really delivered what it wants to convey and hands down to every part of it for the readers to have better work of art to be read and think of.

[geopolicraticus]

Theses on Rigor

There is a fundamental intellectual difference between those who primarily get their rigor from mathematics, and those who primarily get their rigor from logic.

The primarily formal thinker is liable to make quantitative and empirical errors, while the primarily quantitative thinker is liable to make qualitative and formal errors. The virtues of each are the vices of the other.

J. G. Fichte: “What sort of philosophy one chooses depends, therefore, on what sort of man one is; for a philosophical system is not a dead piece of furniture that we can reject or accept as we wish; it is rather a thing animated by the soul of the person who holds it.” Mutatis mutandis: What sort of rigor one strives to embody in one’s thought depends on the sort of man one is, for a form of rigor is not a dead piece of furniture that we can reject or accept as we wish; rigor is a thing animated by the soul of the person who employs it.

Our pursuit of rigor is based on the fact of our present awareness of the possibility of attaining a given standard of rigor making it possible for us to bring this attainment to realization (in the future). As Robert Browning put it: “Ah, but a man’s reach should exceed his grasp, or what’s a heaven for?”

The ideals we hold, which are a function of our temperament, our social milieu, and our personal aspirations, shape the world that we bring into existence through our efforts. Different ideals bring forth different worlds into being.

One sort of man, with his own sort of ideals, animates a particular conception of formal rigor, while another sort of man, with his different sort of ideals, animates a different conception of formal rigor. And the division between logical rigor and mathematical rigor is almost as neat as Fichte’s division between dogmatism and idealism.

Are there other forms of rigor beyond the logical and the mathematical, or is this a case of tertium non datur? The logician in me wants to know if non-mathematical rigor is equivalent to logical rigor and if non-logical rigor is equivalent to mathematical rigor. How would the mathematical rigorist frame this?

#rigor #J. G. Fichte #Robert Browning #reasoning #thought

[hashtagartistlife]

I, a whole dumbass who doesn’t know the concept of ‘spacing things out’: *uploads two pieces of writing in rapid succession*

anyway, daemon au continuation! pt 1 here. a note: this is pretty much being uploaded as it’s being written, no editing, not much thought into how the whole thing will fit together (got a broad outline, but not much inbetween), daemons are being picked mostly for the..... uh.... #Aesthetic, details may be subject to change, I’m always taking more daemon suggestions, even for characters whose daemons have already popped up, etc. 

@femmeflannellesbian who left the BEST tags on my pt 1, here’s to you. Good news: Daemon au is being written whether or not you pay me! Bad news: It may or may not be shit. :’/ anyway, thanks for the tags on the last part, they always cheer me up. <3 

The two of them watch the dissection of their mother, the entire, bloody thing, clinging to each other all the while.

.

.

.

Six years later

.

.

.

The first thought that occurs to Ichigo is: she’s an awfully brazen thief.

Then, the second thought that occurs to him: she doesn’t have a daemon.

The second thought is rather more shocking than the first; living people don’t just not have daemons. That’s an impossibility, an irrationality; a warping of the way the world is meant to be. Living people can’t not have a daemon.

So, she’s not alive.

Most other people would have quailed at this conclusion. Not Ichigo. He’s made that mistake once before and he won’t make it again. Just because she’s a ghost doesn’t mean she can’t be a thief— and it also doesn’t mean he won’t kick her ass. She’s picked the wrong house to try to burgle tonight.

A brief but animated scuffle ensues. His dad intervenes and is generally useless. Ghost girl tells him she’s part of some dead secret service that kills monsters (bullshit) and puts supernatural restraints on him when he doesn’t believe her (bitch).

And then, just because Ichigo’s life is a constant one-upmanship of Murphy’s Law, said monster appears and starts decimating his family.

His third thought for the night: ghost girl is tiny. She is possibly even smaller than his sisters and yet there she is, drawing a sword out of nowhere, telling him to stay in his room like a good boy and not get in the way—

Motherfuck, is that Karin lying bloody in the hallway?

The next few moments are a blur for him. He vaguely recalls Serafin shooting past him, a meteor of rage and feathers, the both of them tearing through ghost girl’s restraints like a hot knife through butter. Somewhere along the way, he must have picked up a baseball bat, because in the next moment he’s swinging it at the monster’s face and being knocked backwards into a telephone pole. Ghost girl appears with her sword, still resolutely daemon-less, and between her and the monster Ichigo can’t tell which is more unsettling. And then he remembers ghost girl didn't knock him into a telephone pole, and decides to go with the monster.

Then ghost girl falls, too, and it’s just him and her and Serafin and the monster lumbering in the background and a sword pointed at his chest, bearing a decision that is not a decision at all.

“It is not shinigami,” ghost girl says,  half a smile on her face; “it is Kuchiki Rukia.”

“Kurosaki Ichigo,” he says.

“Serafin,” his daemon nods from where she’s perched on his shoulder.

“Let’s pray this isn’t our last greeting,” they say in unison, and then the world dissolves in fire and heat.

Kurosaki Ichigo’s last thought for the night, as he collapses into Rukia's lap after cleaving the monster in half: whether those are tears or raindrops on her face, and just what on earth he could possibly have done to make her look so sad.

*

When he wakes up again, he's inches from death-by-smelly-feet.

“I--CHI--GOOOO!” his loon of a dad sing-songs, and Ichigo, honed by years of his dad’s antics, piledrivers him into the ground by his face. At the doorway, Lyrani winces.

“You’re the one who didn't stop him,” Ichigo says accusingly. Lyrani chooses to ignore that and slinks out of the room. 

Serafin finally shakes free of the bedcovers she'd been trapped under and flits over to inspect the situation. “But— but, the injuries—” she says, hovering over Isshin, and that's when Ichigo notices it too.

“What about your injuries?” he demands of Isshin, and Isshin just looks nonplussed.

“Injuries? What injuries? When did I get injured?”

“You— what about last night—”

“Ah!” his father's face lights up as though they’re finally speaking the same language. “So you did wake up for that ruckus! And you didn't even think to come downstairs, huh? I tell you, no use having a son in the house, absolutely no use at all—”

Ichigo lets his dad babble on with a sound of disgust and stomps out of the room, since he’s clearly not getting answers from him. He finds the twins downstairs, looking at a giant hole in their living room wall. He catalogues no broken bones, no bruises, no trauma in their expressions and wonders if he might be going just a little bit mad.

He looks at Karin for an explanation, and she shrugs. Her daemon (in the form of a small, lazy black cat today) takes up the story for her. “Truck crashed into the side of our house last night. Car and driver got away scott-free. Well, at least the house is insured.”

The explanation is typical Karin and Zenka (short), but he gets the gist. Through the ruined wall, he sees Mizuiro waving at him from the pavement. He waves back weakly, and Mizuiro points to the destruction, expression curious. Ichigo only offers him a shrug, and then Isshin shoots past him, seemingly recovered. Ichigo decides to leave the excuses— however unbelievable they may be— to his father, and turns away to get ready for school.

“A truck?” Serafin queries, low and conspiratory. Ichigo scowls.

“Hell if I know.” He pauses in the kitchen to see the bar stools— distinctly and viciously ruined in last night’s scuffle— restored to their former not-so-glory. He can even see the chip he made in one of them when he was twelve, having accidentally dropped an entire set of plates on it. A truck crashing into their house last night made absolutely no sense as an explanation— but then again, it’s not like what really happened was the height of sensical anyway.

“Do you think she made it out okay?” Serafin asks, a touch of anxiety colouring her voice, and Ichigo doesn't need to ask who she is.

“Well, it looks like she was ok enough to somehow heal everyone and fake a truck crashing into our house, so she's probably fine,” he mutters, but Serafin doesn't look all that comforted by that, and to tell the truth, neither is he.

When he manages to make his way to school, he finds Mizuiro and Tatsuki in the middle of a conversation about him, the latter well on her way to forming some pretty dire misconceptions.

“A truck?! Then is he injured, or-- or dead--"

He whacks her in the head with his bag. “Sorry to disappoint, but I’m not dead. And that's my seat you're in.” He directs the last part to Altair, Tatsuki’s golden eagle daemon, who squawks in indignation and takes off, leaving long gouges on the desk that’ll be a pain to write on. Ichigo’s scowl deepens. 

“Ah, Kurosaki-kun! G-good morning!”

Inoue waves a cheery hello as he pulls out his seat, her ring-tailed lemur daemon— Ichigo can't remember his name, it was something long and fancy sounding— chattering around her shoulders. His reply is a beat late and a little bemused.

“Y-yeah? You're as bright as ever.” He sits down and starts pulling books out of his bag. “Yo, Mizuiro, what's third period today?”

“Social studies.”

“Oh. I didn't bring my textbook, but that’s fine, Miss Ochi doesn't care--"

“You’re Kurosaki-kun…?” a new voice interrupts him, and Ichigo finally pays more attention to the fact that he has, apparently, been assigned a new seating partner. There is an unfamiliar daemon draped across the table next to his, something small and furry— a hare? A rabbit? He's always been terrible at telling them apart— grooming itself with dainty licks. It flicks a cool look up at him, and looks supremely unimpressed with what it sees.

“Ichigo.” Serafin hisses in his ear, nudging him under his hair rather insistently. “Ichigo, holy shit.”

“What?” he mutters, distracted by the utter indifference of the new daemon. How does something so small ever get to be so haughty?

Serafin pecks him, and he startles. “OW!”

“Nice to meet you,” his new partner tries again, amusement evident in her voice. Ichigo looks up, and freezes.

“Oh,” he agrees. “Holy shit.”

Kuchiki Rukia smiles up at him, completely at ease, one hand extended towards him in a handshake, the other idling in the fur of her brand new daemon.

#bleach #ichiruki #kurosaki ichigo #kuchiki rukia #writer life #bleach fic #the division of a soul (and other mathematics)

[paganimagevault]

The Pentagram of Pythagoras

"Pythagoras was the first of the great teachers of ancient Greece. Born in 580 B.C., Pythagoras became one of the most well known philosophers and mathematicians in history. Creating the Pythagorean Brotherhood, his teachings greatly influenced Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. Pythagoras is considered as the first pure mathematician; he also founded a community/society based on religion and science. He is most widely known as the author of the Pythagorean Theorem. Some even venture to believe that the word “philosophy” was invented by Pythagoras. He claimed to be a lover of wisdom, for which the Greek word philo means love and Sophia means wisdom.

The Teachings of Pythagoras revolved around the idea that when considering the deepest level, reality is essentially mathematical in nature. Pythagoreans believed there was a system of principles that existed behind numbers. The principles form a foundation for many concepts of traditional Western thought. One of his most basic notions revolves around the symbolism and beauty associated with the Divine Proportion.

The shape of the pentad follows as the symbol of life itself. The pentad consists of all previous numerical symbols: monad’s point, the dyad’s line, the triad’s surface, and the tetrad’s three dimensional volume. The pentad also refers to the well known five point star. The pentad arises in the existence of our five fingers, five toes, the symbol that wards off evil, and a symbol for power and immunity. Because of the importance of the pentad, the construction of the symbol was first kept secret from society. The pentad was used as a secret sign among the Pythagoreans for them to distinguish themselves and recognize other members.

The pentad’s symbolism can be directly related to the Divine Proportion. And the regeneration of the pentad is related to the value of phi (Ф). The image of the pentad is found in nature in leaves and flowers. The Greeks believed each point of the pentad to represent an element: water, earth, air, fire, and idea.

At any rate all his [Pythagoras'] school in serious letters to each other began straightway with 'Health to you,' as a greeting most suitable for both body and soul, encompassing all human goods. Indeed the Pentagram, the triple intersecting triangle which they use as a symbol of their sect, they called 'Health'.

Johannes Kepler (1571-1630) wrote: "Geometry has two great treasures; one is the Theorem of Pythagoras; the other, the division of a line into extreme and mean ratio. The first we may compare to a measure of gold; the second we may name a precious jewel."

...

"The axial structure of B-DNA is shown in Figures 2 and 4. The rotation of each base pair by 36◦, in the canonical B-DNA molecule, gives a complete 360◦ rotation every 10 base pairs and results in a decagonal structure and ten-fold rotational symmetry. These properties alone relate the axial structure of the molecule to Φ. Although a molecule with a decagonal form might be expected to show some simple relationship to Φ, and while there is always a danger in seeing patterns where there may be none, the axial form of B-DNA is neatly encompassed by 10 “golden diamonds” (refer Figure 1), the template of which is shown in Figure 4B, and overlaid on Figure 4A such that points (a) and (c) are located on the outermost hydrogens and point (b) is between the outer oxygen atoms."

...

"The ancient Greek followers of the mathematician Pythagoras kept the shape as their secret symbol, a signifier of wholeness or divine blessing. Nature.

The pentagram was a symbol, but also a window of sorts. It's not a shape so much as it is a relationship. Within it we find the Golden Ratio.

The Ratio is noted for both its seemingly fundamental aesthetic appeal and its (seemingly) persistent recurrence in natural and manmade systems, from plant biology to financial markets to human DNA.

It's a way of cutting up a line that appears to be preferred by nature, anyhow. Note that every time a line crosses another line, as in the sketch below, it results in a Golden Ratio relationship between the two resulting segments. So, follow a pentagram edge down until it hits the start of another point; that corner is a Golden joint of sorts.

It's possible to connect the points of a pentagram to come up with a new pentagon and, from the new pentagon, a new pentagram. And this can go on forever:

Presumably, the Pythagoreans spent a whole lot of time staring deeply into pentagrams. Tradition has it that a young Pythagorean, Hippasus of Metapontum, was doing just that when he happened up the first proof of the existence of irrational numbers, a startling revelation for the "all is number" crowd.

Hippasus noted what you see above, that the inner core of a pentagram is a pentagon, and inside of that could be found a new pentagram. Clearly, this went on pretty much forever. And it had to, which is what was eventually proved by the Greek.

Imagine Hippasus gazing into the trippy arrangement of nested pentagrams above. Each one lives within a pentagon, with its dimensions limited by that pentagon. All of these shapes clearly live within some hard and fast relationship; they define each other. That relationship is what we'd normally think of as a ratio. One shape is to the other as some quantity a is to some quantity b."

-taken from jwilson.coe.uga.edu, MDPI, freemasonrymatters, and vice

Sources and more detailed descriptions on my blog post: https://paganimagevault.blogspot.com/2022/05/the-pentagram-of-pythagoras.html

#ancient greece #science #mathematics #dna analysis #pythagoras #pentagram #pagan #paganism #history #ancient history #johannes kepler #quotes

[bleachbleachbleach]

The Soul Society Rowing Regatta

The Gotei 13 has a crew team. Actually, it has 13 crew teams. This post came out of some perfectly reasonable discussion about how the Central 46 built their power base and took a series of very stupid turns to get here. 

Given the skill level of the Gotei at their first regatta and the variable relationship between shinigami physiology and physical strength, it’s unclear how much coxswain size actually matters. But there were several shinigami who heard that there was a sport that had an entire position that was all about being small and ordering people around at volume, and got very interested. For Soul Society’s first-ever rowing regatta, Teams Kuchiki (R), Hitsugaya, Hinamori, and Soi Fon emerge as early favorites.

- 6th Division: Early on, Rukia and Renji determine that the only real competition is between each other, and so the 13th and 6th go at it. Byakuya, for his part, is reticent about the idea of watercraft and finds the entire outing rather farcical, especially the part where Renji has taken it upon overlarge self to serve as “coxswain,” with the seeming expectation that Byakuya would oblige orders shouted at him from the back of a boat. The measure of respect Byakuya has for his Vice-Captain does not reach nearly this far. 

- 13th Division: Unfortunately, 13th’s competitiveness is undercut even more because Ukitake does row, but also keeps forgetting to row, and then stops to wave at everyone as they pass by.

- 12th Division: The 12th brings a submarine to this boatfight and is not seen for the duration of the competition. Apparently the lake is very deep, and possibly a Klein bottle.

- 10th and 11th Division: The 10th likely would have fared better if the 11th hadn’t veered wildly off-course and rammed them in the side, causing them to capsize. The race stewards are unsure if this altercation was a result of Yachiru’s inability to steer or just the 11th being the 11th. They did, however, determine that this was not against the rules. There are no rules.

- 9th Division: The 9th never makes it off the beach. It’s unclear why, and Hisagi refuses to say.

- 8th Division: The 8th’s boat is a gondola, much to Nanao’s great frustration.

- 7th Division: Komamura can’t fit in the boat :( Out of solidarity the rest of 7th refuses to compete, and they all hang out with the 9th on the beach, grilling hot dogs. (Iba has a crisis about this. Komamura just likes hot dogs.)

- 4th Division: Hanatarou is the coxswain for 4th. Of his many talents, this role is not one, though Isane is convinced their poor performance is her fault, due to the mathematics of her stroke length vs. that of others. Given how many shinigami end up overboard, and how many shinigami cannot swim (it is not a compulsory skill at the Academy), Unohana suggests that perhaps they would better serve the competition as lifeguards.

- 3rd Division: The 3rd spends most of the competition day on boat design. Ichimaru’s vision is a Viking-style ship with Kira as its figurehead. Whether Kira is meant to give the impression of a dragon, a mermaid, or a dove is unclear.

- 1st Division: 1st spends their time on the lake doing SUP.

- 5th Division: Realizing that Rukia and Hitsugaya have been eliminated from real competition, Hinamori and Soi Fon turn their sights on each other. Hinamori shouts something about teamwork and fighting spirit and Soi Fon something about “actual training.”

- 2nd Division: It’s not the training that lead’s Team Soi Fon to victory, though; at least, not entirely. Soi Fon’s boat puts the craft in watercraft. Soi Fon’s boat is a stealth ship, built with 100% reishi fiberglass.  And in the game of ninjas vs. pirates it turns out Soi Fon’s got some pirate in her. (How do you think the Shihouin ended up with all those treasures? tribute from their vassals!) Zheng Yi Sao is Soi Fon’s hero, if she had to choose a human one. Most shinigami serve a junior deployment/walkabout in the living realm, but Soi Fon took the path less traveled and served hers on Rukongai’s Southern Seas, which are significantly less well-mapped by Soul Society. Soul Society acting like it had just ~discovered boats but Soi Fon’s been waiting for this moment. She was born for this. 

This is all to say that the 5th was entirely unprepared for the level of swashbuckle involved in this aquatic undoukai. I’m not saying that Aizen’s betrayal was partially motivated by his desire to upstage the shock value of Soi Fon’s complete and utter dominance at the 1st Very-Not-Annual Soul Society Rowing Regatta, but it was.

#BIG KITE FESTIVAL ENERGY #soul society rowing regatta #boat girl soi fon #bleach #bleach headcanons #for posterity i want to note that byakuya has an almost identical constitution to ryuugazaki rei from free! #and that finding soul society equivalents to all the swimmers from free! was one of the stupid turns that got us from shinigami tax code to #shinigami rowing #renji has 10lbs and 2in on makoto and nagisa (age 12) has 1in and 10lbs on Hitsugaya #prior to this post everything i knew about rowing came from the facebook movie #now i know the world rowing federation team specs and rulebook #time smartly spent as always

[merkavahpartyvan]

High Magic, Low Magic, Magick withe addyttionalle letttters

So, you may have been told that there's a division between magics, high and low. And you've probably been told that "high" indicates loftier goals and philosophical pursuits and (largely abrahamic) religious work. "Low" indicates the magic that gets you ahead in the so-called Mortal World. High is about your soul, low is about your body. High is about educational, philosophical and mental, low is for practical concerns and for day to day needs. And then there's hedgecraft, which in this model is just "getting high," so it's sorted into low magic.*

Additionally, you've probably been told that Crowley added a "k" to magic to separate high magic from low magic, and also to hopefully sort stage magic separately from high magic. (Stage magicians often spent time disproving occult magicians, so there was some bad blood there.)

So, what if there's a meaning to "high magic" that means something totally different? And if so, is there a separate meaning to "low magic?"

High magic usually constitutes magic squares, talismans, and other geometry-based work. The figures being used in magic squares are not just a formula for creating sigil designs, though. The "magic" is that the squares often preserve and teach mathematical principles, which can also be extrapolated to architecture and scientific pursuits. Other "high magic" is the same--basically a preservation of the tools of very old and sometimes ancient academia.

The "magic" of magic squares could teach one how to measure out angles to make architecturally sound buildings, or how to measure out amounts into complex proportions. Without calculators or algebra, many mathematical operations had to be done through geometry and the manipulation of geometric figures. The "magic" is that it always works. The numbers always work for the purpose you need them for, if you know how to use the square right.

Thus, "high magic" is referring not to intellect or spiritualism, it's referring to higher dimensions--the higher dimensions that mathematical proportions can work out if used correctly. That geometric figures are 2D shapes that can be projected into 3D space.

What is "low magic," then? Low magic was theoretically everything else that isn't math or math-based or tied to the history of development of this sort of math. Which is funny, because if "low magic" encompasses threadwork or textile work, it absolutely still contains math, as any needleworker or tailor will tell you. But there was never a reason to call low magic "low." There's no inherent relationship between low and high magic, no dichotomy. "High magic" was someone drawing a circle around a certain region of magic and saying "this stuff is what I'm looking for as a mathematician/scientist, not any of the other stuff." "Higher dimensional magic" would be a term that would make more sense to us now, but it still could be interpreted to mean something far more spiritual than intended. And that's the difficulty with many terms in this field.

What terms to use instead of high magic and low magic? I don't know if it really matters. These were never very functional categories to begin with, and it's all a semantic construct anyway. Would it be useful now to have a term for mathematical magic that catches it all elegantly and is also very popular and easily googleable? Yeah, but it ain't gonna happen. ;)

* This is not my personal view of hedgecraft, just my observation of certain views of it that come up occasionally. Actually hedgecraft is a good way of gaining an understanding and new perspective of higher dimensions.

#magic #magick #high magick #aleister crowley #thelema #occultism

[kagrena]

ON NUMIDIUM'S BRASS ARCHITECT

The original architects of Numidium are, of course, lost to the ravages of time, but new evidence has shown remnants of their methods can still be divined through the Animunculi that they left behind.

Recent archaeological finds by the Third Aldmeri Dominion's Reliquia Division in Pelletine have revealed that the Dwemeri machines were more deeply involved in Numidium’s construction than previously thought. The Topal Sea Cache, in particular, offers strong evidence for Lord Kagrenac being personally aided by a highly-advanced Animunculus, referred to in his notes as “BTHMTZ”, or as properly referred in the Aldmeri tongue: Bethemetz (1).

BACKGROUND

The scant evidence thus far for Bethemetz’s existence largely stems from historical circumstance. During the tumultuous period of the First Council, where Chimeri and Nord armies warred with Dwemeri clans, much of the documentation referring to this project appears to have been purged from the record by the Order of Philosopher-Sorcerers that Lord Kagrenac commanded, no doubt to protect his more base and profane experiments from discovery.

While references to the exact origins of Bethemetz have been erased, we can approximate that it was constructed by either Kagrenac or his assistants at some point following the Nords’ first expulsion from the Isle of Vvardenfell. Although it may have served in other functions, Bethemetz’s core objective appeared to be to compute an array of advanced calculations for Numidium’s initial designs, as a “computer” of sorts, substantial evidence of which can be examined further in Appendix C at the High Inquisitor's leisure.

The exact whereabouts of this Animunculus following the Disappearance of the Dwemer were considered lost until pieces of its mechanical chassis found its way into the hands of Imperial Battlemage, Zurin Arctus, at an unspecified date at the end of the Second Era. It can be reasonably assumed that Arctus was attempting to reconstruct it to aid with his primitive re-engineering attempts of Numidium, though any claims of success in this matter should be treated with the appropriate scepticism (2).

While others have claimed possession of the Animulucus, those sources lack proper credence, and should be dismissed as irrelevant for our purposes (3).

RELEVANCE

Of particular interest to the Third Reliquia Division is Bethemetz’s array of theorems concerning Numidium's “Time-Break” capacity. Bethemetz appears to have been engineered as to solve multiple taxing logical conundrums simultaneously, with the vast majority of its mathematical capabilities devoted towards deriving “original” formulae for the manipulation of time, often producing five times as much credible material compared to some of Kagrenac’s fellow Philosopher-Sorcerers (4).

Although the current whereabouts of Bethemetz’s remaining components are still unknown, the Reliquia Division has noted a peculiarity in Bethemetz’s design that could allow for its easy location. Unlike the bulk of Dwemer Animunculi, who are animated through a combination of complex enchantments and Dwemer heretical sorcery, Bethemetz has, by design, a cavity at its centre where a soul gem would usually be placed. Our hypothesis is an alternative power source using unique reagents was formed instead, and should we be able to deduce the exact nature of this source, a summoning ritual to acquire it could be easily performed.

Acquisition of the Newly Registered Asset Bethemetz should therefore be assigned gold level priority to maximise the probability of success of Project: Sundered Tower.

---------

FOOTNOTES

(1) The Dwemer were undoubtedly technologically capable, however linguistically speaking, they were rather base, their tongue lacking both the nuance and artistry of the ancient Aldmeris they eschewed in favour of heresy. To convey the name of this Animunculus in the full elegance of Aldmeri speech, we believe Bethemetz is the superior transcription, and dispute other proposals such as ‘Bthamatz’ or ‘Bthemetz’.

(2) Numerous sources reference Arctus' possession of the Animuculus, making this claim difficult to refute, but success is another matter.  We believe the allegations that a sole human battlemage was somehow capable to reconstructing such a highly-advanced Dwemer Animunculi to fully operational status are highly dubious. Proponents of this theory argue that Arctus, limited in both his magical capacity and comprehension of the deep complexities of the Dwemer, would have been unable to engineer Numidium without the assistance of a gifted Dwemer mind. It needs no elaboration that being an Animuculus, Bethemetz has no “mind” to speak of, but irregardless of the fact: we would counter-propose Arctus did not “re-engineer” Numidium so much as throw a wrench at it until it was appropriately broken for Septim’s purposes. It takes no genius to detonate an already loaded cask of explosive.

[In another hand, someone has scribbled along the margins: “Tell that to what's left of Rimmen.”]

(3) Most of these are rather insistent claims related to the Dunmeri “god” Sotha Sil and his ability to conjure things out of clockwork, despite his repeated lack of interest in this particular project, and are largely unimaginitive drivel. One popular Khajiiti legend that should amuse the High Inquisitor in his reading, though, describes in lurid and bloated prose how a heretical monk of “Azurah” encountered a “Bthemetz” during the elongated Time-Break known more colloquially as “the Middle Dawn”. Endless murky passages of poetry from describe how this monk “took her eyes away from the rising stars”, to instead “count the falling pieces of brass” in a reflecting-pool at midnight until “she wove a woman shaped like a tower”. This, of course, should be treated as unsubstantiated mythologising and romanticised superstition that it is. Any resemblence between this Animunculi and Numidium is highly circumstantial.

(4) However sophisticated this Animuculus may appear, there is not sufficient evidence to suggest it was capable of original thought. All calculations follow pre-designed patterns as arranged by its true engineer: Kagrenac.

#bthemetz #my writing #dwemereth

[ayearinfaith]

𝗔 𝗬𝗲𝗮𝗿 𝗶𝗻 𝗙𝗮𝗶𝘁𝗵, 𝗗𝗮𝘆 𝟳𝟬: 𝗛𝗲𝗿𝗺𝗲𝘁𝗶𝗰𝗶𝘀𝗺 "As Above, So Below" -Common paraphrasing of the 𝘌𝘮𝘦𝘳𝘢𝘭𝘥 𝘛𝘢𝘣𝘭𝘦𝘵 Hermeticism is a religious/philosophical tradition from which almost all extant forms of Western Esotericism and Occultism stem, at least in part. It is named after the fusional philosopher/deity Hermes Trismegistus. 𝗘𝘀𝗼𝘁𝗲𝗿𝗶𝗰 𝗢𝗿𝗶𝗴𝗶𝗻𝘀 Esoteric tradition are broadly defined by two features: secrecy and magic. The word “esoteric” comes from the Greek word for “inner” as in “inner circle”, and typically include a doctrine of knowledge which must be kept secret and only revealed to the properly initiated. The magical aspect of these traditions, typically what we would call “the occult” is often a result simply of the veneration of knowledge; the allure and power is what you can do with it. In the West, meaning Europe, Western Asia, and North Africa (all connected by the Mediterranean Sea), Esotericism was largely spawned by a newfound multiculturalism as the Roman Empire and other states began to erode in the first century of the Common Era. Before then most Mediterranean peoples would have generally practiced some version of either or both a state religion, like the Roman Imperial cult, and an ethnic one, like the pre-Christian “pagan” religions, both more expressions of nationality and heritage than philosophy. As state powers dwindled, cultural boundaries fuzzed and fusional philosophies began to form, not tethered to any one people or state. Originally, the restricting of esoteric knowledge was likely not due to any sinister conspiracy or defense against the state, but simply the fact that they could not be easily grasped without a basic philosophical education. Hermeticism developed in this period during the collapse of the Ptolemaic Kingdom. The Ptolemies were Greeks who took control of Egypt after the collapse of Alexander the Great’s empire. Though they adopted Pharaonic aesthetics to better appeal to the Egyptian populace, the Ptolemies maintained a sharp divide between the Greek culture of the ruling class and the conquered Egyptians. In the years leading to the collapse these boundaries at last blurred and the Greek and Egyptian traditions began to mutate in earnest. Thoth, the Ibis headed Egyptian god if writing, science, and magic, fused with the Greek god of messengers and medicine, Hermes, to become Hermes Trismegistus i.e. Thrice-Great Hermes. As the tradition grew, it also incorporated many aspects of Judaism and the still-developing Christianity and Hermes Trismegistus became equated with patriarchs like Enoch or even Noah and Moses. Hermeticism generally employs three distinctive practices by which knowledge can be achieved, each one broadly attributable to one of the three major sources of the fusional system. Astrology, i.e. the observation of heavenly bodies as a means to discern the will of heavenly forces. was largely born from the Greek tradition. Alchemy, the investigation and pursuit for control over earthly transformations, stems from Egyptian metallurgy, knowledge of which was passed down through the priesthood. And Theurgy, the direct invocation of supernatural entities, stems from Judaism and other Levantine faiths. 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗣𝗲𝗿𝗲𝗻𝗻𝗶𝗮𝗹 𝗙𝗮𝗶𝘁𝗵 Part of the continued influence of Hermeticism in western culture is that it has functioned almost like a time capsule of Western magic and philosophy. After its initial popularity, the rise of European Christianity and North African Islam (both occurring around the 5th-7th centuries CE) drove many esoteric traditions, Hermeticism included, extinct or underground. Almost no original 1st century Hermetic texts remain, and we know of them primarily by means of their being referenced in contemporary sources. However Arabic versions of 3rd-8thcentury Hermetic texts made their way into Europe around the 12thcentury and were translated into Latin. These versions would become popularized in Italy at the start of the European Renaissance. During this time rediscovering ancient knowledge from antiquity was popular and romanticized, and as all the Hermetic texts claimed to be authentic dialogues from an ancient Egyptian scholar (Hermes Trismegistus himself) the audience was very receptive. Another advantage Hermeticism had among the Renaissance was its relationship to the sciences. Hermetic teachings actively promote the use of the scientific method as a means to enlightenment. This is clearest in its use of Alchemy, which in the Egyptian method used religious allegory as a means of notation. This appealed to Renaissance thinkers who built an identity on rejecting the anti-intellectual dogma of their medieval forbears. Through Hermeticism, a scientist could also be faithful. This produced the distinct nature of the Renaissance scientist, wherein the person in the room most likely to be able to produce a chemical poultice or devise a new form of irrigation was also the person most likely to believe they could commune with an angel. Isaac Newton, who was deeply influenced by Hermeticism, is a prime example of this. Interest in Hermeticism died down near the end of the 17th and early 18thcentury, but came back a century later with the popularity of Hermetic derived organizations such as the Freemasons and the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, of which the famous occultists and Thelema founder Aleister Crowley was a member. Almost all modern Neo-Pagan movements have Hermetic ties, Wicca being the most direct. 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗔𝗹𝗹 𝗶𝘀 𝗶𝗻 𝗔𝗹𝗹 Hermetic beliefs are centered on the idea that there is a single true theology which was once know to mankind in a far distant age and echoes of which can be seen in all natural philosophies and religion. The use of quasi-scientific methods, like alchemy and astrology (and even theurgy if you count the mathematics used in its numerology) were core to its principles as even the laws of physics should bely this Truth. The most popularly cited Hermetic wisdom is “As above, so below”, which at its most basic level is a belief in the relation of heavenly bodies to earthly events (astrology), but expands to imply that the workings of the most grand and transcendent elements of the universe can be perceived by observing the small and mundane, and vice versa. This fusing of two things, a kind of dualistic concept of unity, is a common Hermetic idea, which can be seen in its frequent use of sacred androgyny (here being used in its most literal sense; a fusion of man and woman). The concept of a supreme god, typically called The All, is explicitly androgynous, and the original humans were as well. The division of parts, in Hermeticism, is the source of strife and ultimately illusory. Similar to South Asian religions, which may have come directly or via West Asian influence like Gnosticism, the physical world is considered to be a kind of illusion and prison in Hermetic cosmology. Our more perfect androgynous forbears had access to the secret knowledge of the universe, but for various reasons (generally some form of hubris) became trapped in physical bodies incapable of realizing the potential of our transcendent souls. Only by pursuing the true wisdom can we again become free. Image Credit: Illustration of Hermes Trismegistus from 𝘝𝘪𝘳𝘪𝘥𝘢𝘳𝘪𝘶𝘮 𝘊𝘩𝘺𝘮𝘪𝘤𝘶𝘮 (“The Alchemical Pleasure-Garden”) by Daniel Stolz von Stolzenberg, 1624

#A Year in Faith #Hermeticism #Hermes Trismegistus #Esotericism #AYIF #Religion #mythology #Day 70

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

August 1, 2021

Heather Cox Richardson

August 1, 2021 (Sunday)

Last Sunday, educator and civil rights leader Dr. Robert Parris Moses died at 86.

Born in New York City in 1935, the son of a homemaker and a janitor, Moses was working on a PhD at Harvard when his parents’ health brought him back to New York City. There, he began to teach math in 1958.

In 1960, images of Black Americans in the South picketing for their rights “hit me powerfully, in the soul as well as the brain,” he later said. He moved to Mississippi and began to work with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC, pronounced “snick”). In 1961, he began to direct SNCC’s Mississippi Project to promote voter registration in Mississippi, where, although about 40% of the state’s population was Black, most Black Americans had been frozen out of the polls through poll taxes, subjective literacy tests, and violence. In his quest to get people registered to vote, Moses endured attacks from thugs wielding knives, white supremacists wielding guns, and law enforcement officers wielding power. He earned a reputation for being quiet and calm in times that were anything but.

By 1964, Moses was one of the key leaders in the effort to register Black voters in Mississippi. In April, working with Fannie Lou Hamer and Ella Baker, he helped to found the integrated Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party to challenge Mississippi’s all-white Democratic Party.

That summer, Moses led the Freedom Summer Project to bring together college students from northern schools to work together with Black people from Mississippi to educate and register Black voters. On June 21, just as the project was getting underway, Ku Klux Klan members working with local law enforcement officers murdered three organizers outside Philadelphia, Mississippi: James Chaney, from Mississippi, and Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner from New York. The white supremacists buried the bodies in an earthen dam that was under construction. When the men disappeared, Moses told the other organizers that no one would blame them for going home. His quiet leadership inspired most of them to stay.

On August 4, investigators found the bodies of the three missing men. The Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party met on August 6 and decided to challenge the Mississippi Democratic Party to represent the state at the Democratic National Convention. And yet, when the Democratic National Convention met, the Democratic National Committee leaders and President Lyndon B. Johnson chose to recognize the all-white Democratic Party rather than the integrated ticket of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party.

At the end of 1964, Moses resigned from his leadership position in Mississippi, worried that his role had become "too strong, too central, so that people who did not need to, began to lean on me, to use me as a crutch." Key to Moses’s leadership was that he did not want to be out front; he wanted to empower others to take control of their own lives.

Civil rights historian Taylor Branch told reporter Julia Cass in a story Mother Jones published in 2002: “Moses pioneered an alternative style of leadership from the princely church leader that [the Reverend Martin Luther] King [Jr.] epitomized…. He was the thoughtful, self-effacing loner. He is really the father of grassroots organizing—not the Moses summoning his people on the mountaintop as King did, but, ironically, the anti-Moses, going door-to-door, listening to people, letting them lead.”

Moses was disillusioned when the Mississippi Democratic Freedom Party did not win the right to represent the state in the Democratic National Convention. For all the work that individual sharecroppers and hairdressers and housewives had done in Mississippi, national leaders had let them down. “You cannot trust the system,” he said in 1965. “I will have nothing to do with the political system any longer.”

Moses turned to protesting the Vietnam War. He and his wife, Janet, moved to Tanzania when he was drafted despite being five years over the cutoff age. After 8 years in Africa, the Moses family moved back to Cambridge, Massachusetts, where Moses resumed his doctoral work in the philosophy of mathematics.

Back in America, Moses turned his philosophy of empowerment to the schools, advancing the idea that mathematical literacy is central to the ability of young people to participate in the twenty-first-century economy. In the 1980s, he launched The Algebra Project to give young Americans access to higher mathematics. “I believe that the absence of math literacy in urban and rural communities throughout this country is an issue as urgent as the lack of registered Black voters in Mississippi was in 1961,” he wrote. “In the 1960s, we opened up political access…. The most important social problem affecting people of color today is economic access, and this depends crucially on math and science literacy, because the American economy is now based on knowledge and technology, not labor.”

Moses’s focus on empowerment and self-determination was very much in keeping with the original concept of American democracy.

And yet, his efforts, along with those of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, to turn to national politicians to cement gains at the grass roots were not in vain. In 1965, Congress passed and Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act, protecting the rights of Black Americans to vote, focusing on states with historical voter suppression.

Just fifteen years later, in 1980, Republican presidential candidate Ronald Reagan spoke at Philadelphia, Mississippi, where he defended state’s rights, and the unwinding of the civil rights advances of the post–World War II years began.

Now, in 2021, we seem to be headed back to the one-party society Moses fought. In response to record voter turnout in the 2020 election, 18 states have passed 30 new laws that make it harder to vote. At the same time, Republican-dominated legislatures are gathering into their own hands the power to override the voters.

In Louisiana on Friday, Republican House Speaker Clay Schexnayder removed three Democrats and one unaffiliated member from committee leadership positions in retaliation for their unwillingness to override the Democratic governor’s veto of a bill banning transgender girls from participating in school sports. They will be replaced by Republicans.

In Georgia, legislators have begun the process of transferring control of the elections in Fulton County, one of the most reliably Democratic counties in the nation, from county officials to Republican state officials.

Public schools are also under attack, with Republicans threatening to cut funding to schools that require masks to stop the spread of coronavirus or that teach “divisive concepts” that make students uncomfortable, usually topics that involve race.

Republican lawmakers have proposed attaching funding to students rather than to schools, enabling parents to use tax dollars to enroll their children in private schools. This sounds like a revival of the all-white “segregation academies” that sprang up in the South after the Supreme Court required desegregation of public schools. Those academies, funded with public money, were so successful that, according to Professor Noliwe Rooks, an Americanist who specializes in issues of race and education and who chairs the Africana Studies department at Brown University, in 1974, 3,500 academies in the South enrolled 750,000 white children. As white students left the public schools, funds available to educate the many Black and few white children left behind fell drastically.

Unequal educational options were hallmarks of the one-party state systems Moses worked to undermine. When he explained The Algebra Project, Moses called the historically limited educational opportunities for Black children in America “sharecropper schooling.” “[Y]ou went through it, but your options were you were going to chop and pick cotton or do domestic work….”

In 1965, Congress and the president finally recognized that all the organizing in the world couldn’t overcome the apparatus of a rigged system. They used the power of the federal government to turn the work of individuals like Bob Moses, scholar and visionary, organizer and teacher, into the law of the land.

But watching the turbulence in American life last year, Moses warned that the nation “can lurch backward as quickly as it can lurch forward.”

—-

Notes:

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2002/05/moses-factor/

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/25/us/bob-moses-dead.html

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/17/us/george-floyd-protests.html

https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/voting-laws-roundup-july-2021

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/07/08/trump-schools-reopening-federal-funding-352311

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/28/opinion/cindy-hyde-smith-mike-espy-senate-mississippi.html

https://apnews.com/article/louisiana-8eaa96bcc646a118a70b95a06994c2d3

https://www.ajc.com/politics/capitol-recap-georgia-moves-closer-to-takeover-of-fulton-elections/O2ZVJZ3NKRD7HP5QHTSBIXUQ34/

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

#political #biography #Civil Rights #history #Heather Cox Richardson #Letters From An American #corrupt GOP #criminal GOP

[siriuschaostribe]

Ficcino Maranki Diyetine Markiz Tesbihatı

It is precisely this subjective element which distinguishes the Renaissance magus from the medieval theorist; for static hierarchical schemes and correspondences between planets and music are transformed into dynamic energies at work throughout creation, energies which can be harnessed and transfused for the harmonising of individual souls. Following Plotinus, Ficino emphasises the necessity of focussing the emotion in an act which depends on both intuition and expertise in order to expand consciousness: 'Whoever prays to a star in an opportune and skilled way projects his spirit into the manifest and occult rays of the star, everywhere diffused and life-giving; from these he may claim for himself vital stellar gifts.' In the Platonic/Pythagorean tradition, music and the stars are inextricably linked as audible and visible images of an invisible dimension of existence, whose intellectual perception is made possible through the senses of hearing and sight. The foundations of the musical cosmos are established by Plato in the creation myth of his Timaeus, which maintains a vital connection to Egyptian, Chaldaean and other ancient traditions. In this dialogue, Plato sets up a model for a three-fold musical cosmos where the movements of the spheres, the passions of the human soul and the audible sounds of music are all expressions of a divine intelligence manifesting through the various dimensions of creation. Such a tripartite division was to be differentiated by the fifth century A.D. theorist Boethius as musica mundana, musica humana and musica instrumentalis, and it was commonplace for music theorists to work out elaborate systems of corrrespondences between astronomical distances and musical intervals, between the nature of musical patterns and emotional states, between planetary characteristics and audible sound. The key, in this tradition, to the ordering of the cosmos, whether astronomically or musically, is of course number - a discovery which was transmitted to Western thinkers by Pythagoras. Indeed for the Platonists number determines all things in nature and their concrete manifestation, together with all rhythms and cycles of life. Number revealed by the heavenly bodies unfolds as Time, and as the human soul was seen to be mirrored in the order of the heavens, divination, or aligning oneself to the gods, required the appropriate ritual at a precise time. Iamblichus tells us that the numbers gov erning nature are the outflowing energies of the gods, and if we wish to assimilate ourselves to them, we must use their language - that is, align ourselv es with the harmonies underlying the cosmos. Merely humanly contrived numerical systems, discursive conceptions of number, numerological theories, cannot reproduce an experience of unity which will give rise to true knowledge of first principles. In the Timaeus, we learn that the Demiurge created a substance called the world-soul and inserted it into the centre of the world-body. He then divided up this soul-stuff according to the ratios of the three consonant musical intervals, that is the octave which resonates in the proportion of 2:1, the perfect fifth, 3:2 and the perfect fourth, 4:3, continuing, by further division, to create the intervallic steps of the Pythagorean scale. The soul was cut into two parts which were bent around each other, forming the circles of the Same and the Different: the Same containing the unmoving sphere of the fixed stars, the Different containing the moving instruments of Time, or the planets. The Different was then divided into narrower strips which were arranged according to the geometrical progressions of 2 and 3; 1 2 4 Page 38 and 1 3 9 27. Permeating the whole cosmos, the soul connected the physical world with the eternal, being 'interfused everywhere from the centre to the circumference of heaven' and partaking of 'reason and harmony'.  The human soul, also partaking directly of the anima mundi, must therefore be regulated according to the same proportions. But due to the passions of the body, the soul on entering it became distorted and stirred up - only the correct kind of education could restore harmonious equilibrium. This education would induce a recognition of the soul's congruence with the cosmos through the audible harmonic framework of the musical scale, for as we have seen, the proportions in the world-soul could be reproduced in musical sound. The numbers one to four, or the tetraktys, thus not only form the framework for all musical scales, but also embody this dynamic process of embodiment in the fourfold m o v e ment of geometry from point to line to plane to solid; from the unity comes the duality of opposition, the triad of perfect equilibrium and the quaternity of material existence. Each stage both limits and contains the one following, and the initiate is warned in the Chaldaean oracles 'do not deepen the plane' - that is, extend towards the material world from a the perfect condition of the triad, but do not lose your limiting power by letting go of it and becoming lost in the quaternity, or chaos of matter. This can be understood musically as the imperative of maintaining the perfect intervals as defining structures. In listening to geometry in sound, the perfect intervals set a framework or limit on unlimited sound, and since the specific arrangement of sizes of tones and semitones within this framework mirror the exact astronomical relationships of the planets, the very fabric of creation is brought to the ear and, in Platonic terms, evokes a memory of the harmonies once heard with the ears of the mind. F r o m  this essential premise, the schemes attributing planets to actual pitches and astronomical distances to musical intervals abounded. In the Myth of Er at the end of his Republic, Plato suggests that sirens positioned on the rims of the planetary orbits each sound a pitch, making up a musical scale, much like a Greek lyre projected into the heavens. In another interpretation, found in Cicero's Dream of Scipio, the planets produce different tones according to their various speeds of revolution. We are told that 'the high and low tones blended together produce different harmonies' and that 'gifted men, imitating this harmony on stringed instruments and in singing, have gained for themselves a return to this region, as have those of exceptional abilities who have studied divine matters even in earthly life'.  Exactly how to imitate the music of the spheres thus became the question raised by music theorists, and the science of harmonics, or the study of mathematical properties of musical ratios, was considered to be the first step. It is very difficult to know how much this highly speculative procedure - considered by Plato to be the highest form of knowledge - influenced the practical music-making of classical times. We are certainly better informed about the connection between musica humana and musica instrumentalis, for central to ancient Greek musical writings is the concept of ethos, or subtle ethical effects produced in the human psyche by the use of different modes or 'set' combinations of tone-patterns. For example, the Phrygian mode moved men to anger, the Lydian soothed them, the Dorian induced gravity and temperance - each quality being reflected in the character of particular regions. By medieval times the ancient Greek modes had been replaced by the eight Church modes, but this did not interrupt the association of subtle ethical effects by theorists. One twelfth century writer notes that 'the modes have individual qualities of sound, differing from each other, so that they prompt spontaneous recognition by an attentive musician or even by a practised singer'. It is to our loss that the music we hear today is limited to only two types of mode - the major and minor.  But what of the connection between ethics and cosmology? Ethical powers were attributed to syst e m s of pitch, while planets were generally associated with single pitches - so in the writings of most classical theorists, it is difficult to see how an effective form of musica instrumentalis could influence the human soul through direct imitation of cosmic harmony - despite the model transmitted by Plato. Generally speaking, celestial phenomena were made to fit a preconceived notion of musical order, rather than the phenomena themselves being asked to reveal their order as principles of intelligence. Although the Middle Ages produced some great original thinkers in this field, such as John Scotus Eriugena in the ninth century, and indeed the influential Islamic school of musical and astrological therapy, it was only in the fifteenth century that the West began to explore the practical means by which the harmonic relationships in the cosmos could be expressed through music, not by literally reproducing astronomical measurement in sound, but by symbolically evoking a unifying principle at work in the manifest and unmanifest worlds. With the music theorists Georgio Anselmi and Bartolom¾ Ramos de Pareja, we see the seeds being sown for a revisioning of cosmic music. (PDF) The Music of the Spheres: Marsilio Ficino and Renaissance harmonia. Available from: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/290164617_The_Music_of_the_Spheres_Marsilio_Ficino_and_Renaissance_harmonia [accessed Apr 23 2021].

#demiurge #gnosticpowers #summongnosticpowers #therapy #healing #music #oldmusic #veryoldancientmusic #ancient #relic

[windstormwielding]

When Kotaro was still a student in the shinigami academy, what was his worst class? What was his best? Are these areas that he still struggles in?

{ ooc } Ooh, a question about eager, bright-eyed, Academy days Kōta! Just gonna shove this one under the cut for length-

The shinigami academy is the foundation where Gotei 13, Onmitsukidō, and Kidō Corps hopefuls learn the four combat arts of soul reapers: Zanjutsu, Kidō, Hohō, and Hakuda. Kōtarō’s time at the Shinōreijutsuin was one heck of an adjustment period for a soul who only ever knew the sticks, but the young spirit did show some combat proficiency right out of the gate.

Zanjutsu, the art of the sword, was the one area where he got a sizeable lead over his peers from the beginning and kept it. Though there was no formal training to be had out in Rukongai, Kōta was taught from young how to swing a weapon around in order to defend himself. After all, Kusajishi, 79th District in Northern Rukon, is no place to raise a child, and try as his bandit mother might to keep him safe, she wanted him to at least stand a fighting chance against other goons should push come to shove. Sure, he learned how to fight and comport himself with honour as an upstanding Gotei 13 soldier, but he can get dirty if that meant scoring a win like in the boonies – you can’t afford to be complacent with your life on the line!

Kidō, the art of spellcasting, would pique anyone��s curiosity unless you’re destined for the 11th Division, which Kōta wasn’t. He already knew how to exert his reiryoku during a life-or-death situation once before, so learning how to channel this strange power of his into Kidō proved to be enlightening for him! Incantations and spell books, a wide variety of offensive and support magic, new ideas for sneak attacks to blend into swordplay... there are so many applications for these! As a Lieutenant, he became proficient enough in Hadō and Bakudō that he can cast mid-tier spells without the attached chant, though they are still needed higher up he goes. He also developed some basic Kaidō skills over his career within the 13th Division; he felt it would have probably been a good call—just in case—as a seated officer serving a sickly Captain, though with Kiyone and Sentarō constantly shadowing Ukitake, this was rarely ever needed.

Hohō, the art of movement, made for classes Kōta was especially interested in. Zipping about faster than the untrained eye can follow with Shunpo, learning how to walk up to the same clouds in the skies he wished to fly up to when little, feeling the wind blow right through him with agility he only ever dreamed of... He had a rough time with these classes at first, but he managed to brush up his skills here well enough over the course of the six year curriculum to graduate with considerable competence. In the present, he is fairly agile already, sure, but there’s always room to improve!

Hakuda, the art of close-quarters combat... this definitely made for his weakest classes. True, he had as strong a grasp of the basic pillars in CQC as anyone else did. However, given his preferences for and proficiencies in Kidō and swordplay, Hakuda would become the most neglected facet of the Zankensoki for him while he went on to further hone the other three. This was the case during his academy days and it still is in the present. Fisticuffs were just never his style! So it’s all well and good given his talent with a blade and magic, with enough talent to fight at a range and up close, but if there ever comes a time he can only rely on his fists and legs, he may be in serious trouble against someone far more proficient like an Onmitsukidō member.

As for Kōtarō’s biggest obstacle aside from the combat arts... hands down, by FAR, it would have been general education. Perhaps he could have graduated from the shinigami academy sooner than the full six years through combat potential alone, but he had a lot to learn in extensive reading, writing, language, mathematics, so on and so forth. Compared to pluses who lived closest to the Seireitei, and those who apprenticed as shinigami by virtue of being born and raised within the court of pure souls, his starting line here was set much further back by consequence of his social status at the time, so he had a lot of catching up to do.

As one can imagine, this disparity left Kōta with few he could call friends back in those days... but he still managed to befriend a few people he could rely on.

#deivorous #{ cut for length } #{ whispers in the wind ☁ replies ☁ } #{ i’m falling free in the wind ☁ headcanon ☁ } #{ beyond the sky ☁ ooc ☁ } #{ ooc: two down! one to go-! }

[jrpneblog]

Memories, what memories.

Fifty years ago on Saturday I experienced my greatest high watching our famous club. It took place in London on a Beautiful Spring day by the banks of the Thames. More of that later as first we must concentrate on the matters in hand with an excellent win at Coventry last Saturday and the visit of play-off achievers, Barnsley, to Deepdale on Saturday for our final home game of the season. Please God let this be the last home game ever played at Deepdale when no fans will be there to cheer the boys on.

Last Saturday we mathematically made ourselves safe from relegation and by the time Monday had come I was trying to work out if we could make the top half of the league or not if results went our way. North End beat and in form Sky Blues by one goal to nil scored by Captain Alan Browne and I think on the day North End deserved the victory. Coventry play a lovely brand of football and it is a credit to Mark Robins what he has done for them given the almost impossible circumstances surrounding the club. North End won with a stonewall penalty midway through the second half nicely put away by Browne. To be fair we should have had another but thats another story. The win left North End on fifty five points with two games to go and the real fear after the Luton defeat at home had dissipated.

On Saturday we face Barnsley at Deepdale in our final home game of the season. It has been so tough watching the boys on a computer and hopefully this will be the last time. The Tykes have done an excellent job in finishing in the top six and they have proved that money isn't everything in the Championship and their achievement should really give North End some inspiration for the next campaign. This is one of those game that you just cant judge who will do what. Will Frankie try a couple of fringe players with next season in mind or will he stick with his tried and trusted system and try to make his case to get the job full time stronger. With Barnsley you wonder will they try and keep going for fourth place to get the second semi final leg at home of will they rest one or two of the key players for the big play off games that lie ahead. I think it will either be a very boring 0-0 draw or might be a real full bloodied encounter. Lets hope its the latter.

And finally this week:-   Indulge me as I take a personal trip down Memory Lane and to an event which now seems a lifetime away. The date is Saturday 1st May 1971 and the venue is Craven Cottage, home of Fulham Football Club, in West London. The game is Fulham v Preston North End and with the home side already promoted the Football league have brought the Third Division trophy to the game to present to Fulham after they have duly won the encounter. For Alan Ball`s Preston there is a chance of automatic promotion as North End sit three points clear of their only rivals, Halifax, with just two games to play (2 points for a win in those days). The equation is quite simple for Preston - win the game and we are promoted back to the second tier at the first attempt after being relegated 12 months earlier by Blackpool at Deepdale. I cried that night as a nine year old and thought the world had ended after my beloved North End had dropped into the third division for the first time ever. Just ten years after Sir Tom had retired and we were down with the also rans. The day started around 5.30am as I excitedly scurried about bursting with anticipation and anxiously asking my Dad was it time to set off for the coach. Fishwicks ran two coaches to the game from Leyland and they were to depart at 7am prompt with the long journey to London ahead of us.Finally the clock ticked round to 6.40 and we set off on the 10 minute walk to Fishwicks to catch the coach that would take us to our destination. London seemed like the other side of the world to me and as we passed Charnock Richard I thought that we must be getting close as we had been on the road for ages. My Dad and my Uncle chatted to the others on the bus as I just looked out of the window hoping to spot a blue motorway sign saying London. We stopped at Keele for half an hour and my excitement grew as there were hundreds of other North End fans on the same pilgrimage. Off we go with the next stop being Watford Gap. Even more North End fans who were singing and shouting and even though we were 90 miles from Fulham the atmosphere was starting to build. Finally I saw a sign “London 44”, we were getting nearer as Lunchtime approached and we hit the North Circular Road to take us towards Hammersmith. It must have taken us half an hour in those days to do the mile and a half from Hammersmith to Craven Cottage as the traffic was horrendous.At last we are there and are met with a buzzing around this famous old ground the likes of which I had never heard before. The crowd was officially recorded at 25,774 but it seemed almost like Wembley on Cup Final day with the chaos and noise around the ground. The queues to get in were massive but my Uncle Charlie could get where water couldn`t get (God rest his soul). Suddenly he burst out - “stay there, Stan” (to my Dad), I will be back in a few minutes. Incredibly he was back in no time with three stand tickets for the Stevenage Road stand right in the middle of the Fulham fans. Most of the North End fans were on the open Putney End but there were pockets of Blue and White all over the place. We are in and as the clock ticks round the teams run out separately at 2.55 with North End playing in Red.The Teams are announced, Fulham first then North End …. Kelly Ross McNab Bird Hawkins Spavin Heppolette Ham Lloyd Spark and Clark, with Dave Wilson as sub. John Gow from Swansea is referee and the game kicks off to a thunderous roar as North End are cheered by about 5,000 fans.The game is cagey but quite open and North End are holding their own kicking towards the Hammersmith End in the first half. Twenty two minutes gone and North End get a corner on the right hand side. Clive Clark jogs over and takes an in-swinger which Norrie Lloyd flicks on to Ricky Heppolette who gives North End the lead with a diving header into the Fulham net. The Putney end goes mad and all round the ground the satellite groups of North End fans are dancing with delight. Fulham counter quickly but Bird and Hawkins see them off like two rocks in the middle of the North End defence. Half time comes and goes as the Preston fans start daring to dream, can we do it against the odds at the home of the league leaders. North End are on the back foot in the second half but only really have one scary moment as Fulham throw everything forward. Five minutes to go, four, three, two, one, “TIMES UP” my Dad announces to the world as half the stand give him a look of disgust. How long will Mr Gow add on as North Ends slender lead remains intact? All eyes on the man in black as the whistle goes to his mouth Yeeessss…….ah No, wait, the whistle hasn`t blown and Fulham have the ball. Suddenly, from nowhere, the long shrill blow of the three whistles and we`ve done it - yes we`ve done it, Preston are back. Alan Ball runs on to the pitch and kisses the turf as the Championship Trophy quickly disappears from out of the stand. The Putney End is going berserk and me and my Dad and my Uncle are hugging each other amid a crowd of home supporters looking slightly mystified as to why the plan has not worked out. The North End players hug and congratulate but its not euphoria just a job done by the late great Alan Ball and his boys. We come down the steps to the stand entrance and our coach is the first one we see among about 60 others the length of Stevenage Road.Its 5.50 before we move an inch but nobody seems to care as the singing goes on and on until we finally make our way back up the M1. By the time we reach Coventry it is well past 8pm but the coach is thirsty and its an ale stop for the adults and pop and crisps for the ten or so kids on the bus who are entertained by a jovial coach driver. Finally we get back to Leyland, it`s Midnight but nobody seems to care as the streets echo to the sound of “Preston, Preston” and the road back to the second division is finally complete. Without actually trying to count them I have probably seen over 2,000 North End games since then but I doubt anything will ever surpass that day in West London and if it was ever in doubt before where my footballing loyalties would lie I knew from that day that me and Preston North End would be together for a lifetime.

.

JR`s HIGH FIVES                              

West Ham to beat Burnley 6/5                        

A £5 Stake returns £11.00 on bet365                

SEASONS STATS                              

Returns  £209.75    Stake £170.00    percentage profit  + 23.4%                       

Predictions 34   won 19   lost 15