#life the necropolis | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

desognthinking · 2 months

Text

WIP... Wednesday

Tagged by @willowedhepatica (thanks!) I'm so sorry that this comes so late 😭 life got in the way. Not sure who i can tag who has things in the works they can share, but please Please know if anyone has any snippets or sneak peaks I would love to see them and yell about them with you pleaseee

Not strictly a WIP but here’s just under 3.5k of an oldish experimental AU inspired by this post :’) in this one they’re… *checks notes*, ah, hmm. Chimerical tomb guardians carved from stone.

-----

It’s a wickedly stormy day when a procession scores up the hill through beating rain and blowing dust, but there’s no time to waste. The wedding will not wait, and on its occasion, as a symbol of the new ties between the families of the bride and the groom, there is a terrible, beautiful new guardian grotesque to be received by the Silva tombhouse from the Salviuses.

It is surely mounted on the property sometime during the silver-black onslaught of sky upon earth, but Beatrice cannot clearly see it through the rain and the maze of trees that still separates the Silvas from their neighbors. The families on this hill are not quite rich enough to expand at the pace of the wealthiest among them, who slice and raze to add to their already broad campuses of tombs. Instead, in this part of town, modest, often unmatching clusters dwell amongst the wildflowers and long-lived trees sprayed across the land.

Beatrice likes the nature. Her perch is kept cool by the damp and dewy mornings, birdsong flickering from above and around. In the filtered haze of heat and light there is some measure of peace too – here, there is less to fight over, and fewer lines of tension between the families. Hidden by farther slopes, there are fewer threats from beyond. And, overshadowed by the lower circuit of large gated tombhouses, there are far milder spoils for aspiring robbers.

It’s from one of these large inner-city tombhouses that the new stone protector is said to arrive. The Salviuses have money spilling out their hands and down their wrists. It’s said, it’s said, it’s said – it’s whispered in the wind that carries the falling leaves from vine to vane, so easy for Beatrice to stretch up and put an ear to. The pollen clouds dispersed over grass in shapes spelling disruption and newcomer. It’s gossiped over pages in the library, first with smug nods and just you wait and see, dear, we’re never wrong from the grandfathers and grandmothers as Beatrice pores through the volumes in the upper shelves, precious books pressed so high and so far back that they’re backed into both wall and ceiling.

Then, inevitably, it carries through the air in the giggles and hushed gasps of the living members of this family, hands curling over yarn and needle as the youngest children breathlessly run and hide behind the walls and in the shadowy pockets of the tombhouse. The Great-great-great Grandmother who had been the first to break the news is mollified by the confirmation, and generously refuses to gloat.

A Silva girl is marrying a Salvius boy, and the Salviuses are pledging a guardian – the spirits know they have too many anyway, but still, a Salvius guardian – to this hill.

“You’ve got to go over and see what’s going on,” Beatrice is instructed one morning, in no uncertain terms. They’re going over integration by partial fractions on the little platform at the back that looks down over the mills: her, Great-Grandfather, and Lilith, who’s slunk over yet again from the Villaumbrosias’ for some ‘peace and quiet’, and also because Beatrice’s family likes her for some mysterious reason. They pretend it’s because they need the extra pair – or, well, pairs, in Lilith’s case – of eyes. The massive, foreboding, Villaumbrosia affair the next hill over already boasts so many fearsome hands on deck, and they only have one Beatrice.

Great-grandfather is gentle and teasing about it; Beatrice (and Lilith, although she will never admit it) is his favorite captive audience.

Of course, it’s easy to treat her as one of their own on mornings like this — quiet summer days when she’s stripped of silica and scale, descended from her weatherworn perch. Devoid of the coarse matter of rock and metal twisted into hungry, flame-spitting fangs, and instead merely a soft-spoken spirit in a youthful skin. When the great grandfathers and mothers and their grandfathers and grandmothers look at her and see dark, almost-human eyes and loosely-bound hair in a bun above her shoulders.

And when Beatrice walks Lilith out and across the rocky way that leads home, it’s easy for them to wave the two of them off. After all, Lilith is just a young woman with black waves she tucks carefully behind her ears and a handsome, slanting jaw that could almost pass as being real; as being pressed and molded with muscle and mandible and a fragile, mycelial network of vasculature and nerves. Not another delicate illusion that would slip and shatter at the first sign of danger, revealing in a flash the grotesque ugliness within.

There hasn’t been an attack in a while. When there hasn’t been an attack in a while Beatrice thinks the family tends to forget where exactly they hold court.

(Here, cradled close enough within these hills to walk back to where home once was. Children’s handprints on the threshold, coal scribbles on the floor. Walls still perfused with the fragrance and vapor of hot homemade stew.)

This is a graveyard. This is a necropolis, a city of the dead. It slithers amongst the roots of the living but does not make a home of it. In its palm lies the fragile in-between, the sickly sweet intersection where the living and the after-dead mingle like the meeting of two clouds. Within its grounds the family is wont to forget the ruthlessness that’s sometimes needed to keep it in balance.

Once they depart, Beatrice and Lilith’s guises fall away. Invisible to a still-beating heart, two terrible chimeras gouge skid-marks through the dirt to get to the Villaumbrosia citadel before its guests arrive at ten-thirty. Miraculously, only twice during the entire trip does Lilith half-heartedly threaten to snap Beatrice’s tail off.

They make it there just in time. Beatrice watches as Lilith sweeps her way up the manicured moss columns and melds, in a quick thrash, with the magnificent dark-gray creature of stone that lunges out from the south turret. Frozen like this: mouth curled in a snarl and sharp wings flung out – in mockery, in bombast, in warning; Lilith at her most vindictive and most frightening, the elaborate Villaumbrosia insignia branded hot and painful down her side.

Beatrice knows it hurts, of course. Perhaps less so like this but certainly in the flesh, where it is always red and raw like the day it was carved down Lilith’s ribs in the workshop. Preserved unchanging in the meat as it is preserved forever in the rock. Lilith winces, when she thinks the others aren’t looking, but Beatrice knows. Camila might say something – probably does say something, but Beatrice doesn’t. She understands too well, and after all, what can they do?

After all, this is their work. This is life: whatever is asked of them. For Lilith today, it is to be a showpiece for guests at a bloated, overwrought tea ceremony. Broadly, it is watchman, and protector, and advocate. And at times like these, when there is a stir in the tangled ecosystem of bloodlines and their guardian-creatures, Beatrice is called upon to be an ambassador.

So, the day after the storm, Beatrice leaves her perch to seek out the Silvas. She glides down from the still-slippery stone, and lands softly on the wet earth, scale meeting fur meeting soil and humid air.

In her hands – her metaphorical hands – she clasps fistfuls of string that stretch, infinitely thin, to every corner of her tombhouse. She flexes each one and puts it between her teeth as she steps over the threshold and into the trees, testing their elasticity and tensile strength. If there is to be a twang, however minute, she must feel it. There is only one of her at home.

As she approaches the Silva tombhouse the air around her shifts and seems to solidify into a medium both probing and warning. Beatrice stills, allowing the woods to see her and course through her calmness. They know her, of course, and she waits for them to pass on the message to the newest guardian, still incredibly sensitive to the prickle of unfamiliar movement and sound.

Presently, physically, the world exhales.

Beatrice cautiously continues forward, until the treeline peels away to reveal the Silva tombhouse.

Tombhouse, as it goes, is a misnomer – a tombhouse is a complex rather than a single shell. It is no single cell for a coffin, but a collection of connected mausoleums and courtyards and passageways and corners and gates, lifted high and tunneled low. And as befitting a clan of esteemed craftsmen, the Silva tombhouse is a harmonious set spiraling outwards in organic whorls. Its walls are scraped clean and brushed beige, curled and leafed and folded in at the edges. Delicate and pretty in its strength in a way Beatrice’s own plain, stoic little set of residences could never be.

At the top of the central mausoleum, bounded by a parapet, rests a flat platform. On that ledge sits the new grotesque.

Ink-black stone peeks curiously down at Beatrice.

Immediately it is clear that she is like nothing Beatrice has ever seen before. Yes, as is tradition she is joined and jawed together piecemeal from various symbolic beasts, but this composition and style is unique.

She’s simultaneously entirely unlike both the typical statues produced by-the-dozen in the workshops, and the specially commissioned sculptures like Beatrice herself. This guardian is a patchwork of shapes and textures Beatrice has only ever seen in the watercolor sketches of her tombhouse’s own library as belonging to exotic creatures from faraway places. Still other elements escape her recognition and description, and everything meshes deftly at smooth, near-invisible seams.

Perhaps this isn’t surprising in a Salvius guardian – Jillian’s own commission too, it’s rumored. No less should be expected from someone the alchemists and scientists alike shy away from. Jillian Salvius considers herself a traveler, and a collector, and a dabbler, and Beatrice hears that the spokes of her gates are gnarled and carved in strange patterns from foreign lands.

The guardian shifts and cocks her head curiously, and Beatrice pulls herself together sharply.

“Hi,” the creature says. “You must be the neighbor from the east.”

Beatrice snaps back into polite, exceedingly proper posture. She nods, dipping forward in a movement resembling a bow. It makes the high-perched creature giggle, gauzy like air.

“Good morning,” she replies. “My name is Beatrice, and you’re right. How did you know?”

The guardian doesn’t answer. She separates from her stone in a miasma of color, swoops down noisily, and lands, a little clumsily, on a lower ledge. “Two heads, huh?” she says, thoughtfully. “Kinda perfect for the scholars.”

It’s not said judgmentally; more so with a further curious slant of her head, observational and light. Beatrice feels strange and semisolid all over.

She doesn’t correct the new guardian; tell her that no, she hadn’t actually been crafted or blessed for this bloodline, only gifted to them just one generation ago. And gifted rather carelessly, at that; an obligatory token presented upon the death of the benefactor’s tutor.

Before that her two heads were designed not as a tribute to wisdom or a paean to collaboration, but in order to stare proudly over an excessive estate, stretching out in opposite directions over land too vast for merely one head to behold. An arrogant symbol of not just physical, but political reach. She was a status symbol for powerful people – two-faced might be a better descriptor.

Beatrice has always considered this with some bitterness, but today, she oddly feels no urge to self-flagellate. She feels, suspiciously, nothing at all; a fuzzy blank.

Instead, in response to the guardian, Beatrice blinks. Both of her heads do. They crane and incline together, like long-necked birds bending to convene. She feels sharp ears on each one twitch and flutter.

The creature laughs again. She descends further to the porch, then approaches Beatrice slowly. “I’m Ava,” she introduces herself, finally. Shyly. “It’s nice to meet you.”

“Ava,” Beatrice repeats, careful and hushed. She parses it over and traces it as though threading a needle – how the strange, simple symmetry of the word, the hypnotic up-down-up of A-V-A, doesn't begin to encompass the entity approaching her. On cue, Ava does a funny, shuddery motion that cascades down her whole form.

Beatrice, leaning her heads over old tomes like water jugs tipped over a parched tongue, dreams of fantastical things, from places that often sound even more surreal. And yet before her now stands the most peculiar thing alive yet, that defies everything she’s known and seen.

Yes, clearer now before her eyes, Ava is a patchwork of impossible parts.

Up close Beatrice can see she’s also a riverbed of illusory things. Small divots seem to scoop themselves out, sink deep, and then ripple back up into the surface of her body. Bubbling, and collapsing, and reforming, like springs of molten mother-of-pearl. Each little cavity shimmers like roughened gemstones: a gasping, dark blue, like well water under the sun; or a moody green like the light-starved undershade in a storm; or a thawing amber that Beatrice cannot even describe except that it looks like the smell of hot bread with a sweet cream core, tempting and steaming.

“Beatrice,” Ava echoes, her eyes gleaming and dark. They bubble expressively and endlessly deep. Gazing at Beatrice, straight, still and pondering. Searching.

Silence stretches until it doesn’t.

Something snaps – a bird on a twig above – and Ava shakes herself awake. “Where’s my manners!” she exclaims suddenly. “Come on,” she swishes around gamely. Beatrice, bewildered, sneezes.

She’s learning quickly that when Ava laughs, the dense tassel-like feathers on the back rise in delighted reflex and splay apart.

The two of them slip between trees into a little glade, buoyed by her relentless charm and a thrumming current of something else, in the undertow.

Once upon a time, this was a courtyard, although now that the Silva tombhouse has unfurled in the opposite direction it’s been allowed to tastefully overgrow into its former self, mossy and scruffy. Old pieces of wall and pillars still cordon off one side; Beatrice resists the temptation to bound about and explore, and instead parks herself primly at a corner, not fidgeting.

Ava has no such compunctions. She wriggles herself into a comfortable position on a large boulder. Her weapon of a tail dangles down and bats at the ground idly, uprooting chunks of grass.

“How are you finding it here?” Beatrice asks, trying very hard to be normal.

“Honestly? I don’t know yet,” Ava grins, “and you’re the first one of us I’ve met here.”

She pauses, cocks her head to one side so strikingly. The gesture almost looks human. “You know, my new folks think very highly of you,” She looks appraisingly over Beatrice with an indecipherable expression.

Beatrice feels quite hot. “Mine are curious about you.”

There is a shift in the air as Ava straightens abruptly. Her tail stills. “What will you tell them?”

Beatrice bites her tongues, undecided. She’d meant to think of it later, to phrase and rephrase and turn the words over and over in her mouth on the way back to get them right. It takes a while, usually, to distill her thoughts precisely into words that balance both insinuation and tone, and half the time it ends up all too stilted and formal anyway. How people seem to be able to do that, off the cuff – it’s confusing. Far easier, Beatrice thinks, to sit quietly beside and let such people do the talking.

Especially now that this seems, somehow, to be important to Ava. And especially now that she finds she doesn’t quite have any of the words.

If Beatrice had hands she would wring them. She thinks, distantly, of what someone else wiser than her might say. “They’ll agree with me that you’re certainly unique,” she starts, and it’s like Shannon’s talking through her, stately and gentle. Bold, like Mary.

She adds, in an abrupt impulse that’s, alarmingly, all Beatrice, “I do think you’ll fit in well here.”

“Oh,” Ava seems surprised. Her tail, heretofore curled tightly on the boulder, relaxes and turns a loose arc in the air, hacking at the grass. “Thanks,” she looks at Beatrice, and inhales sharply, although not unkindly.

Pauses. Sheepishly, she adds, “I’ve heard some people, uh, calling me devilish and other things, you see. But you know, it’s fine. Whatever.”

Beatrice grimaces involuntarily, then schools her expression back into an empathetic nod. It’s not unexpected. There’s bound to be a procession of curious gawkers and onlookers filing through to try and catch a glimpse of something hailing from the elusive Salviuses. Beartice knows the type: traditional, gossipy and busybodies.

They’ll take one look up the roof and gasp in disbelief or disgust, probably. Sneer up at the twisted, unnatural proportions, if they’re brave. Ava runs too close to the precipice of their diluted tolerance.

“The Silvas are good people. They’ll stand by you.” Beatrice isn’t sure if it helps, but it’s true. The households here are the little silver lining of this part of town, otherwise ragged and out of the way and a little discordant in its hues.

Ava exhales gently. Beatrice thinks there’s a small smile there. “I know.”

“It doesn’t make it easier.”

“Yeah. I know,” repeats Ava, her eyes shining, and it’s almost like she really does.

Beatrice understands. They did it to her, too, after all.

The people who commissioned her had made a puppet of her. They had demanded a departure from classical references and therefore affixed to her frame things like startling, swiveling joints and odd angles. Two heads, of course, among other modifications – all in an arrogant, ambitious drive to defy tradition and create a visionary symbol of fear and envy. Instead, the lay beholder glanced upon the warped anatomy and thought it blasphemy. And so, Beatrice rapidly became that to her own family too: acrid to the eyes, rotted in the soul, a disembowelment. Failure. An embarrassment.

The whispers billowed large like cotton sheets drying in the fields, caught and blown out in the wind.

It was a matter of time. Beatrice imagines the tiny family offspring being taught their true oral history in a sugary sick little chant, clapping their chubby hands cheerfully and squealing every grim word,

Then the old teacher died / and it was a great relief / The family rushed to ready / a token of public grief

Her, of course. Her, and not any of the cruder, more sedate, stone guardians that studded the estate. The small ones who, on a good day, sat patiently and circulated air and respired noisily, and who were not capable of thought or pain. The family had a lot of them lining their walls, not much more than large decorative lumps of dough programmed to trap, waylay, or bite at intruders.

Instead, they parted ways with the looming, ghastly and elaborate figure that guarded one of their main wings, and painted it as a great outpouring of sadness. Beatrice knew better.

The whole event was swift; almost planned in advance. She’d barely had time to send an urgent warning to Lilith before she was gone – a failed experiment in pomposity that took an unforeseen and regrettable turn into the profane.

In a matter of days she was transplanted from lush green gardens into dry hills bathed in reedy, half-obscured sunsets. The kind of neighborhood her old family would call avant-garde or ‘forward-thinking’, although with a scoff that betrayed what they really thought.

And at night, looking down to sleeping homes, Beatrice would hear in the nothingness the same whispers splashing down the stone like rain, all over again.

Mindlessly, now, she has the sudden urge to reach out and feel. Fluttering cells or hardened stone, it doesn’t matter. She wants to transmute a hand of tender human pulp and skin, and run fragile fingers softly over the strangest braided foldery and flattening of membrane, bumps and spindles until they catch, pierce and bleed.

And she so badly wants to tell Ava: I think you’re nightmarish and very beautiful. You would hold an army off this humble hill. like holding out a pathetic little bundle of flowers– but she doesn’t. It’s too long and too much; I’m here. is too short, and both are too naked. She’s not that kind of creature. She’s carved from solid rock and even when she sheds it it still feels like its weight chains her to the earth.

Her voices remain even and steady, somehow.

“I –This isn’t the customary welcome and introductory visit,” Beatrice confesses, in lieu of it all.

“Oh. It’s not?”

Beatrice shakes her heads. “There’ll need to be a more official one.”

The overlapping layers of spines along Ava’s limbs rise and then flatten, quickly. “So I’ll get to see you again soon?”

Feeling warm, or moist, or something like a pillar of pressurized foam, Beatrice clears her throats. “I suppose so. Yes.”

#“Ard wtf is this AU” 😭 listen. it was a strange and fun little thing/experiment to play around with #YEAH imagine a large town/small city that spills out over the hills in a labyrinthine necropolis of familial mausoleums / tomb complexes #pragmatic bulwarks of defence and important centers of social/intellectual/cultural life and death and the rich after-death #beatrice is the super serious guardian of a respectable but modest bloodline of teachers and scholars #when she's not staring moodily out into the distance she spends like all her free time in the library/underground heirloom chamber #and getting tutorials from fond but vaguely concerned ancestors #They love her unconditionally btw she’s just sometimes in her head too much to see it #the Silvas are renowned artisans! Jillian is jillian lol #If some of the words sound like they don’t exist it’s because they straight up don’t. I’ve no idea what old me was thinking.#hashtag avatrice hashtag meetcute hashtag wrarior nun hashtag mutually obsessed at first sight etc.

12 notes · View notes

boricuacherry-blog · 2 years

Text

2 notes · View notes

white-haired-mahariel · 3 months

Text

Does your heart ever long to return to the type of peace you’ve only ever felt while surrounded by millions of the dead.

#this post is about the paris catacombs #sometimes life is hard #and i just get overcome with this feral craving #to get on a plane and go back #i’ve never felt that same level of calm and belonging anywhere else the way i did there #sometimes you just have to have a spiritual experience in a necropolis #i miss it tbh

0 notes

andreacurryjeidajeitafanfic · 4 months

Text

you're out here making bald man post on twitter that shit grosses me out there should be a law against that kinda stuff

#this is desantis country #ppl like this do not want their image to be represented thats the point of why they shave their heads they're trying to look violent #deadass #nuyorican #those who don't exist #xenomorph #dystopia #thats how far off from the truth your self esteem is towards me #necropolis #that's my wife sent here from andromeda #japan is the little brother of china #in the interest of maintaining international communications #you're telling me this isn't the white house #for life i'm not seeing nobody else #promise #i'm getting the thumbs up #we're in love

0 notes

ddarker-dreams · 7 months

Text

ranking the current husband rotation on how well they handle you crying.

even if he's the reason you're crying, chrollo is unfairly good at providing comfort. he considered himself numb to the sight of tears, but you plucked a cord buried deep inside his decayed heart. he assesses the scene before him with a quiet intensity. unless it's an event that just unfolded, he can always guess what got you this emotional based on past conversations and observation. his immediate instinct is to check you over for injuries. once he's assured that isn't the problem, he makes his presence known. softly saying your name, beckoning you toward him with open arms, offering an embrace deep enough to get lost in. the smooth tenor of his voice paired with his familiar warmth and scent envelop you in a comforting cocoon.

he doesn't tell you that it's okay, that there's no need to cry. he just allows your emotions to run their course. once you've settled down, he'll lead you by the hand to a couch and sit beside you. he'll quietly wonder if this is about so and so, gauging your body language for an answer if words fail you. he doesn't need to ask if you need anything. he just knows, his intuition has been sharpened to perfection by the time you've spent together. he's already thought through a myriad of solutions to whatever predicament you're facing, but he'll save that for later. the future is put aside so he can focus on you in the present.

scaramouche doesn't consider himself a sentimental person. he's allowed whatever goodwill he was born with to rot, gleefully accelerating the process so nothing but thorn and bristle remained. this garden turned necropolis returns to a shadow of itself at the mere sound of you sniffling. if that wasn't bad enough, the sight proves itself infinitely worse. he'll freeze as if his system powered down. this can't be right. you, the only being he considers worthwhile in this world, crying? he storms over, takes you by the shoulders and implores you to tell him what happened.

it's likely his abrupt appearance and grave demeanor won't prove an effective approach. he knew it before he took the first step, but his ability to rationalize succumbed to fear. fear that you were hurt, no matter what form this hurt takes. he wants an enemy to throw all this onto so he can tear it asunder. that'd give a semblance of control, something tangible to work with. if you can't provide him with names or details, he's at a loss. all he can do is think back to the many times he cried alone and trying recalling what it was he wanted then.

he'll hold you in a stiff, uncertain manner. the rough edges prove how genuine the act is.

blade is acquainted with grief and its numerous shades. the difference between you being that he's clawed at his retinas until he couldn't perceive those colors anymore, figuring it best to blind himself rather than granting outside influences the privilege. you cause the monochrome to revert. his empathy is raw, painful, and beyond verbal expression. he initially hesitates to confront this situation head-on. he couldn't offer sweet nothings if he wanted to — and he doesn't, platitudes are revolting — so what does that leave him with? he could say something insensitive, or his inability to form words might be an insult of their own.

he's fought few battles as fearsome as this. there's all the hallmarks of a bloody fight looming over the horizon. his breathing's picked up, adrenaline pumps through his abused nervous system. his hands itch to hold his sword. except there's nothing to slaughter here, no, he's tasked with the far more complicated task of imbuing life. he'll have you lay your head on his shoulder. he'll apologize, though he doesn't know what for. he just keeps you steady. you apologize for getting tears on his jacket as if he wouldn't let you tear him limb for limb if it made you feel a bit better. you probably don't want to hear that, so he presses a chaste kiss to your head instead.

#me: cries #me when i'm done: hmm how will my fictional men assist me in my time of need ??#chrollo x reader #scaramouche x reader #blade x reader #scaramouche brainrot #chrollo brainrot #blade brainrot #<- the rotation of my brain the past month

752 notes · View notes

spooky-donut-ghost-house · 9 months

Text

Okay gonna go on a slight tangent here

Am I the only one who thinks Oliver Swanick kinda ruined Nipton?

Like you know Nipton is the player's first introduction to The Legion and everything is perfect

You got Necropolis playing in the background people strapped to telephone poles tire fires that go up to the sky heads on pikes it's a perfect introduction to show how ruthless The Legion is

And then it gets ruined by some asshole yelling about a lottery completely oblivious to his situation before hand

Like I think Swanick would have been perfect if he tried to get you to turn around and get away from The Legion rather than screaming about winning a lottery as if everyone in his gang wasn't brutally tortured enslaved and killed

I mean sure you know he could not care about you or his gang like Boxcars but at least have him be in a rush to get out of Nipton before Vulpes changes his mind

I dunno I think it would be interesting to have a member of a faction most players would start off as enemies with and perceived as an actual threat by both The NCR and the local settlements be actually fucking terrified of a much larger faction and a much bigger threat rather than screaming about a lottery which isn't even a valid lottery so he really didn't win anything just his own life

Going into Nipton for the first time in a new playthrough is such a chilling experience if you have a mod that removes Swanick from the game

I dunno I just think that Swanick was a bad choice because how am I supposed to be terrified of what The Legion did to the town of Nipton if I have this guy and his stupid haircut yelling about a lottery in my face?

#fallout #fallout new vegas #fnv #new vegas #fnv powder gangers #powder gangers #nipton #caesar's legion #oliver swanick #vulpes inculta #fnv legion #fnv caesar's legion #ncr #new california republic #goodsprings #sloan #primm #fnv boxcars

192 notes · View notes

lifethenecropolis · 11 days

Text

Kup reference for all you Transformers fans!

#scifi #scifiart #scificomics #comics #comicbooks #webcomics #webcomic #Kamloops

#webcomic #comic #kamloops #art #comics #scifi #webcomics #drawing #draw #illustration #Nick klie #sci fi art #sci fi comics #life the necropolis

10 notes · View notes

blueiskewl · 2 months

Text

A Major Tomb With Gold and Ceramic Artifacts Discovered in Panama

In an archaeological find in the El Caño Archaeological Park, located in the district of Natá, province of Coclé, in Panama, a tomb has been discovered that sheds light on the sophisticated Coclé society of pre-Hispanic times.

The tomb thought to belong to a Coclé lord and dating back to 750 CE, was found to contain a wealth of funerary offerings, including ceramic and gold artifacts.

The El Caño Archaeological Park is well-known for its necropolis of tombs and stone monoliths that date back to 700–1000 CE. American explorer Hyatt Verrill first realized the importance of the site in 1925 when he discovered ancient monoliths beside the Rio Grande River.

Linette Montenegro, National Heritage Director of the Ministry of Culture (MiCultura), explained that this discovery is part of the ongoing archeological project in the park.

The project, started in 2022 and financed through a cooperation agreement between the Ministry of Culture and the El Caño Foundation, aims to thoroughly explore Tomb No. 9 during the 2021-2024 campaigns.

The tomb’s contents, consisting of 5 pectorals, 2 belts of gold beads, 4 bracelets, 2 earrings in the shape of human figures, an earring in the shape of a double crocodile, 1 necklace of circular beads, two bells, bracelets, and a skirt made with dog teeth, and a set of bone flutes, is testimony to the cultural and social wealth of the Coclé society.

Dr. Julia Mayo, director of the El Caño Foundation and leader of the archaeological project since its inception in 2008, highlighted the importance of this discovery.

The collection, which probably belonged to a high-status adult male, represents a window into life and death in the Rio Grande chiefdom. The tomb, built around 750 A.D., is especially intriguing due to the presence of sacrificial attendants buried alongside the lord, indicating multiple and simultaneous burial practices.

Dr. Mayo noted that the excavation process is ongoing, making it difficult to determine the exact number of individuals buried within the tomb. She said that this type of burial, known for burying a variable number of people in the same tomb, provides valuable information about the beliefs and funerary rituals of the Cocle society.

Dr. Mayo explained that the Coclé lord was buried in a face-down position, a customary practice in this culture, often atop the remains of a woman.

El Caño Archaeological Park, built around 700 A.D. and abandoned around 1000 A.D., has yielded significant archaeological discoveries. In addition to the known monoliths, the site includes a cemetery and a ceremonial area with wooden structures. This discovery stands out for its uniqueness and the insight it provides into Cocle society’s funerary practices.

By Oguz Buyukyildirim.

#A Major Tomb With Gold and Ceramic Artifacts Discovered in Panama #El Caño Archaeological Park #Coclé lord #ancient tomb #ancient grave #ancient necropolis #ancient artifacts #gold #gold artifacts #treasure #archaeology #archeolgst #history #history news #ancient history #ancient culture #ancient civilizations #Coclé society #pre-Hispanic times

93 notes · View notes

theteasetwrites · 9 months

Text

Begin Again

Series Masterlist

❧ Media: The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon ❧ Pairing: Daryl Dixon x Female Reader ❧ Era: Seasons 1-? ❧ Reader Pronouns: she/her ❧ Status: ongoing

❧ Synopsis: Some say Paris was once the city of love. Now, it's only a shell of its former self, where the dead aimlessly roam its cobbled streets and monuments of human innovation now are left to ruin in an abandoned necropolis. But the arrival of two Americans who were mysteriously lost at sea soon breathes new life into this crumbling gothic landscape, with trouble at every turn. As one chapter ends, another begins, and this time, there's so much at stake as you and Daryl struggle to find your way back home, all the while accepting a mission that could save humanity.

❧ Series Disclaimer: The reader insert in this series is essentially an OC, as she has her own detailed backstory and is even related to a character in the show. Nevertheless, I like the second person format and the concept of not describing her physical appearance, so that’s what I did. Despite being related to a character in the show, I am not trying to imply that she has to be any race or look any certain way. Please feel free to use your imagination and see the reader insert as whoever you want to be.

Additionally, this series is a spin-off of The Beginning Is the End Is the Beginning. You do not need to read this series, but it is certainly recommended as Daryl and Reader have their own family/extensive backstory together.

❤️‍🔥 = smut (18+)

❧ Chapter 1: Aux Portes de la Mort ❧ Chapter 2: Ami ou Ennemi? ❧ Chapter 3: L'élu (coming soon)

#begin again series #begin again #the walking dead #the walking dead: daryl dixon #daryl dixon #daryl dixon spin-off #the walking dead fanfiction #the walking dead: daryl dixon fanfiction #the walking dead fanfic #daryl dixon fanfiction #daryl dixon fanfic #norman reedus #norman reedus fanfiction #norman reedus fanfic #twd fanfiction #twd fanfic #daryl dixon x reader #daryl dixon x female reader #daryl dixon x you

205 notes · View notes

onehundredandeleventropicalfish · 8 months

Note

In your opinion which of the Endless do you think has the hardest job and why?

short answer? death

slightly less short answer - either death, dream, or none of them, depending on the angle you're looking at it from

long answer... they're all perfectly suited to the task they were made for, so in the sense of physical ability, none of their jobs are difficult. which means difficulty can only be measured by emotional toll. and that's not really based on the job so much as it is on how much they care

the big thesis in sandman is that life = change. that's an equation that cuts both ways, and a theme that runs through almost every character. the endless, as the fundamental aspects of life, all have power over something that can change people, right to their core

and that's a huge responsibility, which they all have their own ways of coping with

we never learn that much about how it affects destiny or despair, but death had a huge character arc to go through (everything she says in the show is originally in a winters tale, as well as the fact that she stopped collecting souls, because it was getting to her too much - until she realised that was doing more damage), so now she copes by finding meaning and purpose in it, by befriending everyone she comes to take, by living in some ways a human life of her own

desire ignores it, and tells themselves that mortals don't matter to them, so why should they care who gets hurt? they turn it all into a big game and they don't let themselves think about it for even a second, because if they did it would destroy them (the narration tells us this at the end of dolls house)

destruction didn't cope with it, he left, and refuses to let there ever be another destruction of the endless

and del... just observes it. she accepts the difficulty and the responsibility, and sees it with a lot clearer eyes than her siblings. and sometimes that means she's the most fit to cope with it. other times it breaks her too, and that's when she gets her bad days

the reason i list dream as a possible option here, is because dream is not coping. he's trying to do everything his siblings do at once and none of it is working for him. he can't be desire, because he cares too much about mortals to ignore and laugh at them. he can't be death because he doesn't see himself as someone with a life, just someone with a job - that has to come before everything else. he can't be destruction because again, he values his purpose more than his happiness, leaving is inconceivable. and he can't be delirium because that would require him to see the world as it really is - and his nature runs fundamentally contrary to that

so that could be why dream. but this could also be why none of them - because that's not really the job that's hard, so much as it's not working for dream specifically. if he was somebody just slightly different, he'd be able to handle it a lot better

(the other reason i might consider dream is the vortexes - we don't see enough of the other endless to know if this is something they have to deal with (or something similar), it might be, so this might not be a dealbreaker? but it's definitely not easy for dream, overture goes into that plenty, he viscerally hates the idea of killing people, it goes against everything he is, and yet he has to, or the entire universe will die. and that's a tough responsibility to have)

so why death? because she's the only one who will never die. she doesn't, herself, change, not even if you force a reincarnation like with dream. her sigil will stay the same forever, the necropolis only holds six funeral cerements - death is unlike the others, its written in the rules. it's not the only way she's an exception either; it's mentioned at one point in brief lives that the endless all feel uncomfortable in each others' realms, they can sense that this place is made of an entirely different energy to the one they're used to. except death, who can traverse all the other realms as easily as her own, because even her siblings have to die eventually

more people under your charge, more people to care about. the more it hurts if you let it. her job covers every being in existence, and for the most part it involves being something they don't want you to be. she has had every negative emotion people are capable of directed at her, in a much more first-hand way than her siblings may get. and you have to be okay with it, you have to

because the only way to be free of it is to be the only person left in all existence

#sandman comic spoilers #ask #dream of the endless #death of the endless #delirium of the endless #desire of the endless #destruction of the endless #mine #meta #the sandman

207 notes · View notes

mindblowingscience · 24 days

Text

Colourful paintings of daily life in ancient Egypt have been discovered in a tomb dating back more than 4,300 years. The tomb, known as a mastaba, was found in the pyramid necropolis of Dahshur, about 40 kilometres south of Cairo, during a recent Egyptian-German archeological mission. Dahshur is the southernmost of the great pyramid necropolises of the Old Kingdom in the vicinity of the ancient capital of Memphis. The main attractions there are two large pyramids of King Sneferu: the so-called Bent Pyramid and the Red Pyramid.

#Science #Archaeology #Ancient Egypt #Egyptian Tomb #Egypt

68 notes · View notes

thedepartmentofdiscoveries · 1 year

Text

This 1986 B horror film about a Reincarnated “Satanic Witch” from New Amsterdam, circa 1600’s comes back to revive her cult members by sucking the life force out of people is so ridiculously 80s cheese but I've got to admit that it is highly entertaining, the music is good and Leeanne Baker's sexy biker babe fashion is fantastic!

202 notes · View notes

vivacissimx · 1 year

Text

well anyway i don't see adwd!theon's time in winterfell as a reckoning to the tune of too late does this heedless villain see the error of his ways or any such narrative justice. personally i find it the most thematically interesting and, stay with me here, hopeful of theon's three "returns" i.e. his return to pyke, his acok return to winterfell, and finally the adwd return in question. this probably hinges on how of late i've grown more comfortable identifying winterfell as a decimated metropolis, yet a thriving necropolis—a place where the dead have been dead longer than the living have been living. without getting too much into that, i'll leave it with how siri hustvedt paraphrases lewis mumford: "people want to live close to the burial places of their ancestors, to whom they are drawn with mingled feelings of worship and dread, and that is how the city is born."

in acok, winterfell died when it was divested of starks (a symbolic death of winterfell as there are none left to inherit it) and burnt to the ground (a physical death). my point in all this is to say there is mutuality, a symbiosis that characterizes theon's third and final "return." he comes as reek, horrified to hell by ramsay and roose. theon's dehumanization has taken from him both a physical identity—his looks have changed so drastically that he is unrecognizable—and a metaphysical one—he is no longer afforded even the nominal identity of theon greyjoy. the reason i keep putting return in quotes, which i will now stop doing, is because obviously that's a myth. in reality, return occurs in the memory, and if memories contradict then returns cannot happen even there. theon cannot go back to a time prior to his torture. on pyke his family rejects him ("your blood and your heir." lord balon grunted. "we shall see."), in acok winterfell refuses any memory of him in lieu of classifying him as an invader (she gaped at him as if he were some stranger), and in adwd he remarks that winterfell is no longer "the castle he remembered from the summer of his youth." there are no homecomings.

however, a big thing that occurs in adwd is that we see both theon and winterfell being raised back to life. these two plots are connected or perhaps even the same. reek is forced to reclaim theon greyjoy in order to renew the stark claim via jeyne-as-arya. by doing this, by becoming theon, the stark return is recognized, and winterfell is revived. the proof is in the pudding: winterfell rapidly becomes a site of conflict thanks to it's value being restored. we see that jon is unwilling to renounce his vows in order to be named lord stark until the situation with ramsay and jeyne-as-arya comes to a head. elsewhere in the north, it's suddenly time to dust off those banners and rescue valiant ned's precious little girl. wyman manderly makes his way to winterfell only after sending davos on a quest to retrieve rickon stark. in each case, it requires a living stark to make winterfell any sort of prize.

back to theon. thanks to a nifty sidequest with barbrey, theon is also the one to find the entryway to the crypts, which represents a limb of sorts to the structure of winterfell. he is the one the heart tree speaks to. two bodies destroyed yet they know one another / know each other's names. what does the beating heart of winterfell say to him? "theon." what does he say back? "the old gods... know me." okay. self-recognition through the other. love it. love it so much in the face of that whole spiel tyrion once gave:

Tyrion had only the vaguest memory of Theon Greyjoy from his time with the Starks. A callow youth, always smiling, skilled with a bow; it was hard to imagine him as Lord of Winterfell. The Lord of Winterfell would always be a Stark.

He remembered their godswood; the tall sentinels armored in their grey-green needles, the great oaks, the hawthorn and ash and soldier pines, and at the center the heart tree standing like some pale giant frozen in time. He could almost smell the place, earthy and brooding, the smell of centuries, and he remembered how dark the wood had been even by day. That wood was Winterfell. It was the north. I never felt so out of place as I did when I walked there, so much an unwelcome intruder. He wondered if the Greyjoys would feel it too. The castle might well be theirs, but never that godswood.

so yes. i am contextualizing theon's final return as a rebirth, actually. worship and dread.

#asoiaf #valyrianscrolls #theon greyjoy #winterfell #winterfell crypts #acok #adwd #text

218 notes · View notes