akallabeth-joie

[akallabeth-joie]

The funniest thing on my dash right now is folks who are familiar with The Untamed (i.e., the 2019 TV series) only via GIFsets reblogged by their mutuals honestly being under the impression that it’s, like, a period romantic comedy or something and going “wait, that guy is an evil wizard?”

#yeah that scans #also every named male character is Jin Ling's uncle #the untamed #mdzs #cql

[akallabeth-joie]

The battlefield at Waterloo.

was just tagging another post and ‘les mis’ autocorrected to ‘les moose’ and now I need to know:

if you could insert a moose anywhere into Les Miserables, where would you put it

#les miserables

[akallabeth-joie]

Friendly reminder for those working on projects, that we are 50 days out from Barricade Day 2024.

Other fandoms: celebrate their characters' birthdays

Les Mis fandom: celebrate their characters' massacre

#les miserables #barricade day

[akallabeth-joie]

that reminds me of my favorite cursed etymology fact: since the root of most "march / mark" words comes back to "to pace out a boundary line" (including -mark as a place-name suffix for border territories, "margin" via Grimm's Law, and the title of "marquess / marchioness," which originally designated the count of a borderland)....

...the Marquis de Sade was quite literally an edgelord

#thank you for this cursed fact #much obliged

[akallabeth-joie]

#honestly surprised this ended up on my dash not by means of The Blue Castle fandom

[akallabeth-joie]

Happy anniversary!

#nice #history

[akallabeth-joie]

*elaborate red stringboard argument about how different characters in Les Mis are living in different genres and Cosette is Fairy Tale so hard that she changes other people's narrative genres when she brings them in to her life*

#les miserables #this correct and true and perfect #delicious delicious meta #cosette fauchelevent

[akallabeth-joie]

Incomplete list of stuff that made me go apeshit reading Fellowship for the first time, medievalist edition (part II)

Part I here. Disclaimer: this is for fun!

Love that people keep stressing that they are going to the ELVES for COUNCIL. Old English names, especially among the rulers of Wessex, Northumbria, Mercia, etc, were often Elf Theme Names, one of the most famous and enduring of which is Alfred. Written the old way, Ælfræd or Ælfred (as in Alfred the Great), means Elf-Council, aka "counseled by elves". In their hearts... everyone wants to be Alfred... possibly this is only funny 2 me.

Tom Bombadil doing a training montage in the fucking magic system of Middle Earth?? He teaches Frodo to recite a poem that will summon him, Tom Bombadil, in times of need! Frodo gets kidnapped by undead wights in a barrow (like many a good young person in an Old Norse saga before him) and dutifully recites this magic poem. Frodo learned Recite Magic Poem! TOM BOMBADIL SMASHES THRU THE WALL OF THE BARROW LIKE THE KOOL-ADE MAN AND RECITES A BIGGER, STRONGER POEM??

At this point I gave up on trying to be normal about anything. As such, I'm pausing on Tom Bombadil again.

It helped (?? not psychologically) that Tom Bombadil recited something that felt a bit familiar, when he banished the wights. It's not anything like a direct translation, if indeed it bears any purposeful resemblance to the actual recorded medieval galdor called Against a Wen. Regardless, Against a Wen is an okay?? example of what a spoken word magic poem would look like, and why it's similar to what Tom Bombadil (and later Gandalf and others) do. Left screenshot is Bombadil against a barrow-wight. Right is Against a Wen, in English translation. (a wen was possibly a skin ailment, like a mole or a cancer). Banishing to/beyond the hills and shrivelling are the apparent themes. You don't have to follow me on this one, much less agree. Frankly this is the point I went off the deep end, probably.

Galdor can also protect! This just happens to be a banishment.

Gollum got exiled (the worst thing the early medieval and apparently proto-hobbit law could do to you) but not even for murder. No one found out about the murder. He just sucked.

ALSO Gollum lied and said that his matriarch (who exiled him) gave him the Ring. This implies it was plausible she'd give out rings, implying female ring-giver (standard role of a king). This is mentioned once and never again. ok!!

One last fun fact about galdor: it is the word at the end of "nightingale" isn't that lovely? Luthien's name in-universe means nightingale. This is fine!

I spent a lot of time researching Aragorn's favorite rock. I love these books. If I recall correctly it's a real rock! but possibly. just a cool rock.

#op you are a treasure and I am now going to go read all your LOTR posts #the lord of the rings #lotr #the professor

[akallabeth-joie]

one of the interesting things about actually reading the lotr books for the first time, age 30 and post grad school, is i genuinely cannot judge how much average (or big!) fans of Tolkien know about the historical works he's borrowing from and retelling, and the words he's pulling straight from ancient languages, and the poems he's cheerfully loosely translating into modern English-- etc etc. I am an early medievalist by training! I read "athelas" being a healing plant and laugh bc of course it's just called "noble" -- which in turn is a pretty traditional way to name healing plants lmao. Frankly, I assume that I'm not catching more than a third of what JRR is laying down, in historical storyworlds alone. Hell, maybe I’m wrong about how he intended to use athelas (athel— prefix does mean noble in Old English tho, I’ve translated that too many times).

BUT I don't really know how to excitedly yell abt it bc I don't want to preach shit everyone knows, bc that sucks for us all. but if ppl DON'T know the fun history stuff I want to be a little more specific when I yell about stuff? Because it is so great! No matter whether you already know leagues more than me or whether you have, like i originally did, absolutely zero basis in the medieval stories that invented what we now call medieval fantasy. (Like. Look, I once asked my British friend if Merlin was a historical person and then I almost immediately became a medievalist in some sort of cosmic joke, so I have seen all the sides of this scale! but as a consequence I have no idea where everyone else is.)

#lotr #the professor #I need to start following op because this joy of discovery is a delight

[akallabeth-joie]

Tips for Spotting Bad & Bullshit History

There's no way to make sure you never fall for historical misinformation, and I'm not expecting anyone to fact-check every detail of everything they read unless they're getting paid for it. But you can make an effort to avoid the Worst Takes.

Ask yourself – if I wanted to verify this, where would I start? If you look at a statement and can’t actually find any facts to check, then you already know it’s bullshit.

Read the Wikipedia article on weasel words. Some experts say it’s very helpful!

Look for specifics: a who, a what, a where, a when. If one of those is missing or very broad, that’s a red flag. Statements need to be rooted in a time and a place. “People in the past have always…” Nope.

Vague is bad. Unless you’re looking at a deliberate large-scale overview that’s being broad and generalizing on purpose, you want names and dates and places and primary sources, pictures and quotes and examples.

But an example is not a trend. There’s a difference between what’s possible and what’s common, and history is full of exceptions and outliers. Extremely unusual people and events are overrepresented in the historical record (because nobody writes down what’s normal,) and they can tell us a lot about history, but they’re not directly representative of their place or time. Imagine a historian trying to reconstruct the 21st century based solely on Kiwifarm.

If a historian is competent or even just trying, you won’t have to go digging for sources, they will be shoved right into your face. Not out of mere academic rigor, but because a person who found them, either first- or second hand, is proud to have found them. People who have proof want to show you the proof, people who figured something out will want to show you their work, walk you through it. If they don’t, ask yourself – how do you know this? And - why won’t you tell me how you know this?

Someone might have a legit historical source, and then try to stretch it to cover times and places where it no longer applies. What’s true of 12th century England may not be true of 14th century Venice, even though both are “Medieval Europe,” so watch for those stretches.

Anecdotes are fine, they reveal a lot about people’s values and perceptions, pro historians often use them for context, but what anecdotes are not is factual truth. Notice when someone is feeding you cute anecdotes.

If someone attributes a large-scale social or cultural transformation to a single person or event, yeah that’s usually bullshit. Chances are, that person was part of a larger trend, a small link in a long chain. You can still appreciate their contribution, just put it in context!

Second-guess anyone who acts like they possess secret knowledge that the Media or Academia (or somebody) is hiding, they’re usually bullshit. Remember, if something has a Wikipedia article, it’s not actually a dark secret.

Remember that if it happened in the past sixty years, tons of people will still remember it, and you can literally just go and ask them.

Learn to recognise a smear tactic. Did this person really fuck dogs, or was their posthumous biography written by their worst enemy? Should we take it at face value? Also learn to recognise overt propaganda in the opposite direction: is the king that great or does he have a court historian on retainer? Remember that people sometimes *lie* in their autobiographies.

It’s fine to speculate about what “could” or “might” have happened, professional historians also fill the gaps in the sources with the occasional educated guess. But failing to differentiate clearly between fact and speculation is a huge mistake.

Do not seek validation in history. It's not there. I’m not saying you should approach history in an impersonal, apolitical way, of course not. Our present situation influences our interpretation of history, and it should. What I’m saying is, try not to hang too much of your individual or group identity on a historical narrative. Especially if it’s bullshit. You’re worthy and human because you’re worthy and human today, not because of the deeds and misdeeds of people in the past.

#quoted for truth #cite your sources or perish by my sword

[akallabeth-joie]

someone just called the science museum to complain that this eclipse wasn’t as good as the one in 1979.

he wasn’t even a visitor, he was just mad about the eclipse not being visible without special glasses and wanted to complain to me about the eclipse “not being dark enough” for ten solid minutes

#sorry science folks #but I experienced the same eclipse at a history museum #we just left the collections storage area to go outside and marvel at the fk'd up shadows #and then went back inside where there is no weather nor sunlight but only eternal 65F 35%rH dim filtered light of the archives

[akallabeth-joie]

#ai #living in the '20s

[akallabeth-joie]

#current events #living in the '20s

[akallabeth-joie]

Captain’s Log, April 5th, 2063. The voyage of the Phoenix was a success, again. The alien ship detected the warp signature and is on its way to rendezvous with history.

STAR TREK: FIRST CONTACT (1996) dir. Jonathan Frakes

#star trek

[akallabeth-joie]

Pin for survivors

#boop

[akallabeth-joie]

i would have booped you my brother, my captain, my king

#boop #lotr

[akallabeth-joie]

the only Amis who have to Actually Care about their studies are the med students

all the rest are on a sliding scale from 'we don't actually know if they're even in college' to ' actively resisting the college they are enrolled in like they've been dumped behind enemy lines'

they are shit terrible students and that is actually canon

#les miserables #meta #with bonus Gavarni illustrations! #dying of laughter at the thought that Bahorel the law school hater is actually the most successful law student of his time