#zis

Artist: ZIS

Impulse/Skizz/Zedaph

His whole body went limp as his hair was carded through, and short nails scratched along his scalp in rhythmic patterns.

Saturdays were made for sleeping in, but he'd set that alarm in the hopes he could get a start on his plans for the day early. Zed had a new desk and two shelving units delivered yesterday for his home office set up, and he wanted help in assembling the hefty pieces of furniture.

__________

Or

Impulse gets frustrated at assembling flatpack furniture

New piece for my new Modern AU: Sunshine In Seattle! I've been feeling rather inspired recently.

I have scarce knowledge about the Thracians so I had to do some research about their religion and.... they did not worship Ares??? The Thracian religion had two deities, a female one (Bendis) and a male one (Zis) and then a demigod (Zalmoxis / Orpheus). These deities encompassed all the qualities traditionally associated with their sex, so Zis was a father god and he had multiple sides to him, he was celestial, chthonic, a hero, a hunter, a royal ancestor of humanity and a warrior. Warrior Zis took a wolf-like appearance and was riding a horse. He was often described in the Thracian language as "bestial".

There is something in ancient literature described as interpretatio graeca, which means that a load of info we have about ancient cultures come from the descriptions of the Greeks and not the other ancient cultures themselves. In this case, Herodotus wrote about the Thracian religion and it is believed his works are a prime example of interpretatio graeca as he was trying to make the foreign religion easily comprehensible to his contemporary Greeks. So, Herodotus would say things like "this is their Ares", "this is their Artemis" and so on. However, the structure of the Thracian mythology appears quite different from the Greek one, especially in its origins.

What could also perplex matters is that Greeks from their side considered the Thracians descendants of Ares, because they were renowned warrior people, but that doesn't mean Thracians worshipped the exact "Ares" Greeks had (and barely even worshipped).

This is an interesting difference. The warrior quality is given to the Thracian father god. Greeks reserve this role for the father god's son who was not all that worshipped either. While Greeks really admired good warriors either among themselves or in other nations, they did not acknowledge themselves as appreciative of the frenzy of war and this is even reflected on how often gods, even Zeus, appeared to dislike and avoid Ares. On the contrary, it is clear that Greeks considered Athena as their primary deity of war, since they viewed themselves as supporters of the defensive war or the war that is inescapable or fully justified or a war that is based on strategy and the evaluation of cost and benefits rather than the wild manly joy or sheer force that was associated with war in some ancient cultures. Furthermore, Ares is portrayed as a young, handsome and strong warrior who however has an unpleasant attitude and does not possess many heroic qualities. So the worship of warrior Zis and the, well, more lukewarm worship of Ares were different.

ZIS 101-A SPORT (1939)

The two-seat 101-Sport was designed in 1939 as a sports version of the luxury 101 and was actually very well received. However, only one or two copies were ever produced, which makes it more of a prototype model, rather than a production car.

The 101-Sport sourced its engine from the limousine – an inline eight-cylinder petrol unit, retuned to deliver 141 horsepower (105 kilowatts) – 31 hp more than the standard version. It was mated to a three-speed manual gearbox, sending power to the rear wheels. This setup provided a claimed maximum speed of 101 miles per hour (162 kilometers per hour).

Well, there’s actually only one weird thing about that car ... it never reached the mass production it deserved. It has a beautiful, modernistic body with super long engine hood that covers the inline eight-cylinder motor. Add massive muscular fenders, short rear and front overhangs, and a retractable fabric roof and you get a vehicle that stands out from the sea of boring and enormously large Russian vehicles of that time.

Saying big, the 101-Sport was actually pretty huge too. Just think for a moment ... it was 226 inches (5.75 meters) long, 74 inches (1.89 meters) wide with 142 inches (3.6 meters) wheelbase. A quick comparison with a modern vehicle, the 2016 BMW 7-Series Long, for example, shows the Bavarian machine is shorter and, naturally, significantly lighter.

There’s one more special thing about the 101-Sport ... it was designed and produced to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the so-called Konsomol, a political youth organization in the Soviet Union described as the youth division of the Communist Party. The project was approved personally by Stalin, but, sadly, shortly after the celebration it was abandoned.

Only 2 cars produced ever - 6.0 liter 8 cil engine - 141 hp - 162 km/h topspeed