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misguidedasgardian · 1 year

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The Winter Sun (2)

2. No man's land

MASTERLIST

Pairing: Cregan Stark x Fem!Targaryen Reader

Warnings: Death of characters, cursing, medieval and asoif customs, bullying, arrasment, kiss stealing, incest (c’mon is HotD), minor on minor violence, minors engaging in sexual activities, minors drinking wine, might miss some warnings

Wordcount: 3.3k

Notes: I’m running out of ideas for meet-cutes between Cregan and reader! haha and reasons for poor Cregan to travel two whole ass months to be in King’s landing. Anyways I want to say that in the White Dragon I was a stickler for the timelines and history… but here? nah, forget it! My story, my timeline, my rulezzzzz

Turns out Aemond didn’t take well to be told to fuck off

Your scalp still burned because of how hard he pulled your hair. You actually cried, he made you cry. You had never cried because of his teasing and bullying before, but now? you were tired of it, tired and angry.

When you turned around and he still had your silver braid locked in his hand, and he saw your tears, he froze. He fucking froze on his place. He released you almost immediately, and you couldn’t take it anymore and you slapped him across the face as hard as you could, as hard his face turned to the side.

“Don’t ever touch me again!”, you threatened, and turned to leave.

As you were leaving the hallway, Steffon Mangold, a King’s guard sworn to you, appeared

“Princess, i’m very sorry, I lost you”

“I was hiding Ser, don’t feel bad”, you explained, sniffing, you didn’t want him to see you

“You are crying Princess”, he muttered sadly

“I’m very sorry”, you said

“You don’t have to be sorry, next time, I will tell him to stop, I will stop him”

“It’s fine”, you interrupted him, with a shy smile, “Tell me, how is your younger sister?”. you changed the subject

“The medicine the maester gave her thanks to you, it really helped her”

“I’m so glad”, you cheered, recuperating your normal, happy self, “could you escort me, I need to dress for tonight”

“Of course princess”

It was almost like a game, to watch all those lords and ladies play “the young wolf”, to have a moment alone with him, they all wanted him for themselves, for their daughters, Cregan Stark was beginning to be the most eligible bachelor of the seven Kingdoms.

And he did not seem happy about it.

You hid behind the columns of the side of the Throne room while you watched the lords of court hoping to have a moment alone with the infamous Cregan Stark. He should be happy shouldn’t he? but he seemed miserable.

All the ladies blushed when he passed by their side, and it was almost chemical to see the different “tactics” each one tried to gain his attention, some would swoon, others would smile at him, or fan themselves, and other pretended they didn’t even see him while they flipped their long lustrous hairs

But nothing ever worked

The very next day, at the very same hour, you found yourself reading in your tree, and he would find himself underneath it.

“No luck?”, you asked, amused

“I’m starting to think this was a mistake, little dragon”

“Why would that be, mean wolf?”

“Mean?”, he asked, amused

“Why was it a mistake?”, you asked again

“This is some sort of circus”, he muttered

“I’m very sorry the ladies of the south do not please you, M’lord”, you mocked

“That is not it”, he mocked back, “it’s just… sad”, he said

“You will find the one mean wolf, south of the Neck”

“What did the boy have to say to you about yesterday?”, he asked, changing the subject

“I don’t know, I told him to fuck off”, you giggled, and he chuckled, “but I can’t scape him forever, is not that I could leave”, you whispered

“Do you miss your father?”, he asked

“Did you know him?”, you asked

“Briefly”, he muttered, “he helped me when my father died, he counseled me when my uncle tried to take Winterfell away from me”, he said carefully

“Oh”

“He was a good man, and I’m sorry he is gone”, he said firmly

“Thank you, My Lord I do miss him”, there was a comfortable silence, as you played with the pages of your book mindlessly, and again, it fell from your lap, right by his side. You gasped, it was your favorite book, about dragons and their Targaryen riders, starting with Aerion and Karnax, the first ever dragon and rider bonded, and through old Valyria. You had read it thousands of times

“My book!”

“Ups sorry, second time’s the charm, it’s mine now”, he said, picking it up and taking it with him

“No!”, you jumped from the tree, but he was already walking away.

“I’ll give it back the next time we see each other”, he said with a shy smile, and then he turned and left. Under your amused gaze.

Turns out you were right.

After a week of pitiful courting, and chasing, and blushes and rejections, a light showed the way for Cregan Stark

And that light was Alysanne Blackwood.

When she showed up at court all the other ladies gave up, she was some sort of legend, she was feisty, beautiful, and brave, they say she hunted with bow and arrow and had the precision of an eagle in the hunt, and she rode horses as well, she was tall and lean, and had beautiful long curly hair.

The game was pretty much won.

And just like that, Cregan left court with a fiery betrothed. And you were happy for him, happy because when you arrived at your chambers the night he had left, you found a surprise, a book about tales and legends of the North. Inside, it read, “property of the library of Winterfell”, and you smiled widely.

126 AC. Reader is 16 years old

It had been three more years until you even heard of Cregan Stark, apparently, he was a widower again. Alyssane has passed from a fever, and he was started to be known as “the lone wolf”

You lowered your gaze when you heard Uncle Viserys speaking about it, your uncle had also got a fever which he never recovered from. He was sicker by the day, and the maesters had started to exchange concerned looks. The worst part is that everybody knows, the court has once again grown grim.

You would have thought that cousin Rhaenyra would have shown her face, but she didn’t, not until now, not until… The King was bed-bound and Lord Corlys Velaryon suffered from a fatal wound.

So Rhaenyra was summoned to court to discuss who would inherit Driftmark, her son who everybody called a bastard, or… Vaemond Velaryon, Corlys brother.

You were watching Aemond train, with Criston Cole in the courtyard, when the Velaryon entered the game field, they wasted no time in spotting you walking towards you with smiles on their faces, mocking smiles, you caressed the idea in your mind of turning around and running away, but you couldn’t do that, you were now a woman grown.

“Dear aunt, how’ve you grown”, admired Jacaerys, and you only rolled your eyes. He had grown also, he was a young man now, you would even consider him handsome, if he wasn’t such a prick.

“Nice to see you again nephew”, you muttered softly, and smiled at them both, they looked back at you without shame, you were an adult now, a woman grown. Nothing to be ashamed of, but the change was obvious between all of you

“I haven’t seen you since…”

“Driftmark”, you answered, “if you excuse me, nephews, I have a sewing class”, dragonshit, you didn’t, but you ran away either way

“Nephews, have you come to train, or to stare at another man’s things?”, Asked Aemond.

To Aemond, you were his, his thing, his property, his to do as he pleased.

He enjoyed watching you squirm on his grasp, he enjoyed your scared eyes, but above all else, he enjoyed your nervousness around him, he knew that you weren’t oblivious to his advances, you liked to play with him, that is what he thought about you. Three years ago he changed his tactic, he didn't want your tears, he wanted your nervousness, your blushes, your gasps.

So instead of shoving you he started grabbing you, instead of pulling your hair he began to gift you things, things he knew you’d like, books, trinkets bought in the streets of King’s Landing, and flowers. But instead of bringing you joy, these gifts brought you fear. You did not want him, nor his attention, you’d wish you’d disappear to him.

He had never spoken a kind word to you in his life, and now he was giving you presents?

No.

You had designed your life to avoid him, your classes, your teaching with the septas, your time in the dragonpit, everything was made to avoid him, and it had worked to perfection so far.

But as you read in the God’s wood, you felt watched, and when you raised your eyes you saw Daemon Targaryen on the flesh, the Rogue Prince

Your uncle

He was a stranger to you, he had never even spoken to you, every time you saw him, he would look away, you didn’t know why, you didn’t know it hurt him physically to look at you because it was like looking at his brother come again, and he missed him. But you never knew that.

He was looking straight at you and you became so nervous you knew no better than to wave awkwardly at him, he only smirked, and left you alone again.

Weird ass family you were born yourself into.

Court turned sour the day of the hearings, you were instructed, passive-aggressively, you needed to be there, and since you had more acquaintances amongst your cousins that is where you stood. Alicent had suggested you dress in green, but you dismissed her “suggestion”, wearing pink instead, a neutral color, far from any houses.

And you felt eyes on you, you looked across the room and there he was again, Daemon, this time, he nudged Jacaerys, and they both looked at you, and you moved uncomfortably. You had been living in this court and inside this family for six years, why did you still feel like an outsider? Why did you feel like you didn’t belong?

Why the dark comments about bastarcy, the angry looks, the tension, the violence

You didn’t understand it. Nor the need for all of it

Because of the ugly chair?

Absolute power.

When Vaemond called Rhaenyra a whore, and your nephews bastards, ande Daemon took his head… you left the throne room, disgusted by the blood and the brains, you couldn’t handle it, you didn’t have the stomach for it

Instead you decided to lurk the hallways, this audience had stopped all life in the castle anyways, no lessons or classes were being held today.

You knew this night the King had invited you to a dinner, hosted to honor Rhaenyra’s visit, and he wanted to gather all of his family, and you thought it was sweet. As you were walking towards the private dining room of the Royal chambers, you accidentally eavesdropped a conversation you shouldn’t have.

“Marrying Jace with Baela is a mistake”, said Daemon

“She is your daughter, and he is my son”, fought Rhaenyra

“Aegon’s daughter…”, he said, “is a better match”

“She holds no real title, no lands…”

“She is his daughter”, he continued, “Aegon’s only child”

“Daemon…”

“You want the greens to have her?”, you wanted to hear no more, and you kept walking.

You wanted nobody to have you, you were not a thing to have, you were a girl of your own

When you arrived at the dining hall, something happened that had never happened before, both Aemond and Jacaerys wanted you to sit among them, and you looked around uncomfortably, wanting to sit everywhere but near them, but that wasn’t possible, you ended up sitting right in the middle of them both.

“So tell me aunt, what have you been up to these past years?”, started Jace, and you smiled fakely

“Well, I've been reading a lot”, you muttered, hiding your disgust in a cup of wine, “and riding Vhaelar”

“Remember when we used to mock you because we thought Vhaelar wasn’t real?”, he giggled, like it was the best time of your life

“I remember vividly”, you answered bitterly, and Aemond right by your side chuckled

“What is so funny uncle?”, asked Jacaerys, already tired of him

“That you think that was some sort of fond memory for her”, he mocked

“Well, we were children and we were bonding…”

“I wouldn't call it that”, said Aemond, and they started passively-aggressively attacking each other all through dinner, on top of that you felt Daemon’s gaze over you again, as he was watching, amused, the interaction between your cousin and nephew

They couldn’t possibly be attacking each other because of you, couldn’t they?

And to make it better, the toasts begin.

First it was Jace, toasting to the fond memories of your youth, and Aemond mumbling against his cup that truly it wasn’t, and then Rhaenyra and Alicent sharing toasts as well, that was kind of nice, so you smiled contently, but as the night went trough, Aemond felt it was time for his own toast

“A last tribute”, he said, raising his cup, “to the health of my nephews, each of them handsome, wise… Strong”

And all hell break loose

“I dare you to say that again”, said Jacaerys, raising from the table, so did Luke

Alicent tried to stop Aemond, but to no avail, he released himself from her grasp, while facing Jacaerys and you almost got caught on the cross fire.

Jace punched Aemond, but he barely moved. You knew how good he was fighting, a punch like that was not going to move him. Aemond only smiled and with a single hand pushed Jacaerys and send him flying on his ass to the ground

And Rhaenyra sent you all to your rooms, and you obliged, even if she wasn’t speaking to you directly.

But as you were walking towards your chamber, Aemond, who had left the room before everyone else, catch up to you

“(Y/N)”, he greeted firmly

“Aemond, the hour is late”, you said tiredly, “you should rest”

“Are you going to go find Jacaerys?”, he asked

“Why would I?”, he grabbed you by your wrist, stopping you, “Aemond”

“You like that bastard more than me?”, he mocked, “me?”

“No!”, you yelped

“Do you?”, he shook you, making you gasp

“No!”, he pushed you against the wall and trapped you with his own body.

“You are mine”, he growled, and you shook your head, “not that bastard’s”

“No! release me!”, you fought with all your might, but Aemond was strong, years and years of training.

He quieted your pleas with his mouth, kissing you. You still shook against him, but he seemed determined, so he tried to immobilize you, grabbing both your wrist with one of his big hands and the other.

He grabbed your hip, roughly, pressing you against the stone. You whimpered when he finally released your mouth.

Your first kiss, stolen.

You whimpered again… tears threatening to come out

“Prince Aemond”, you looked at the end of the hall, to see Ser Steffon there, “the princess asked for release”, he warned, Aemond only chuckled, and released you

“I expect you in my room later”, he said firmly, “or I’ll go to you”

Aemond left, and so did you

“I have to leave”, you cried, “really”, he only nodded. Steffon accompanied you to your room to get things, and then, he escorted you to the Dragonpit.

“People at your old home will be waiting for you”, he whispered as you were walking by his side through the streets of King’s Landing, “you will be safe there, tomorrow, I’ll explain everything to the King and Queen”

“They never believe Aemond grabbed me like that”, you whispered

“So I’ll say you just left for your home”, he said, and you nodded.

And as Rhaenyra departed at the late hours towards Dragonstone again, you found Vhaelar.

Your father’s dragon.

“Hey sweet girl”, you greeted, she cooed at you from her place in the pit, watching you with emotion in her deep golden eyes. “care for a ride?”

She didn’t like to be trapped in the Pit, when you lived with your father she used to hide in caves imbedded in cliffs near the castle, not here, all crowded with other dragons.

You guided her outside, you brought a small bag with a couple of dresses and you were wearing your riding gear. You couldn’t stay here any longer, there is so much Steffon could do to keep Aemond at bay, and your aunt? she won’t do anything to protect you, not even your cousin.

So you rode your dragon in the middle of the night, back to the place your father raised you in, a castle near Runestone.

People that still lived in the castle received you with open arms and in their nightgowns, surprised but happy

“We were waiting for you little princess”, many would say, as they lead you to your childhood bedroom.

Your uncle the King had kept the place running, paying the servants and letting them stay, it was his way of honoring your late father, a brother he loved so much. He had hopes one day that you would come here with your husband, and live it once again.

Even Vhaelar seemed happy to be here, flying over the cliffs you hear her roar happily, you watched her through the window and you saw her white-silvery scales shining under the moonlight.

When you were a girl you used to think she came from the moon itself, and your father, giggling, would never correct you.

You know you couldn’t ran away for ever, the King was going to call you back to King’s Landing, what were you going to do then?, but you had turned sixteen a couple of weeks ago, you were technically of age, you could, demand to stay here.

You were right, a week later a letter arrived, from the King himself, in it he demanded you return to King’s Landing, promising you he was going to control Aemond, and let you come back to your home when you turned eight and ten.

Additional to that, you received a letter from the Queen, who promised Aemond was not going to bother you ever again.

You took one more week to reply, and ended up spending one whole moon in your castle, before you willingly returned to King’s Landing. Your home was your home, but you were the only one living in it, you didn’t like to be alone.

When you came home, Aemond greeted you politely, and then backed away, he still gave you little presents, but that was it, he never touched you again.

But The rumors you heard and what Joanna told you… they were going to betrothed you to him, but the King wouldn’t hear of it, your clock was ticking, to find your own match before it was too late and when your Uncle was gone they were going to make you marry him.

In the far North, Cregan was looking down the hall and its people. His sister Sara by his side, smiling reassuringly up at him.

It had been one year after the death of Alyssane, and all the lords had gathered to hear their concerns.

He was twenty eight, unmarried, without heirs, a widower of not only one, but two wifes

“If I fail to produce an heir, and perish before”, he said firmly, “the seat of Winterfell shall pass to my younger cousin Bran”, he announced, and the lords showed their disappointment, “this is my decision”, and he left the hall, still hearing the complaints and the rushed voices of the lords and ladies of the North.

Sara tried to run to catch up him, she eventually did

“You are not marrying again?”, she asked

“What is the point?”, he asked roughly, “I found love twice and the gods did not seemed me worthy enough to keep it”

“That is not it!”, she said hastily, “Cregan… you will find love again”

“Doubt it”

“What about my dreams? my visions?”, she said

“Sara, unless a beautiful maid comes flying up here, I swear, I’m not looking for a wife again”, he said finally, and kept walking.

Sara just smiled, content.

Taglist! ❤️

@severewobblerlightdragon @missusnora @stargaryenx @poppyreader

#misguidedwinter #cregan #cregan x reader #cregan stark #aemond targaryen #hbo house of the dragon #house of the dragon #house targaryen #house stark #targaryen!oc #targaryen!reader

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mannylikessims · 4 months

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The True Story of the Villareal Family [1.1]

Welcome to the true story of the Villareal family of Windenburg, a family that Definitely Does Not Have Any Secrets.

home // next

It was a gorgeous day at the Von Haunt Estate and nobody wanted to be there.

Jacques Villareal gestured around the fancy grounds. “This is it, offspring – the cherished tourist destination that is the Von Haunt Estate.”

“We are having a Family Fun Day. Now smile.”

He looked at his children and didn't smile.

Hugo and Luna groaned.

“Max, you were too young to remember, but at our last Family Fun Day, someone died under mysterious circumstances,” Hugo explained to his little brother.

Max lit up. “Cool, does that mean someone’s gonna die?”

Jacques sniffed loudly, not answering the question.

“Now, bugger off, my pedestrian offspring. I don’t care what you do all day, as long as you meet me at the secret location after nightfall for some family-friendly and Definitely Not Criminal activities.”

Jacques said the last part loudly, just in case anyone was listening in on them.

Wait, total freedom to roam the Von Haunt Estate? Heck yeah! The kids peeled off in different directions, finally excited for the day.

───────────────✦───────────────

Luna strolled through the gardens – so lush, green, and romantic.

“All I’m missing is my Prince Charming,” she said, sighing dreamily.

“Hello, child!” A ghostly figure popped out of the bushes towards Luna. “Are you looking for love? I would like to offer my aid.”

“Uh…” Luna stared in shock.

“Apologies, let me introduce myself: I am Lady Mimsy. That is, her ghost!”

“Uh…”

“I overheard you pining for a prince. But I would like to tell you the story of a young woman who was married for money and at first felt resentful, but then grew to fall in love. And then her husband killed her in an accidental fire.”

“Uhhh…”

“So what I’m saying is, keep an open mind, because your future love may not seem like a prince at first! You never know when your knight in shining armor might appear!”

Knight in shining armor? This wasn't Sims Medieval; knights in shining armor didn’t exist anymore. But, regardless, Luna decided that Mimsy was cool.

“Sooo." She grinned. “You wanna look at cute boys’ Simstas with me?”

“Uh…” said the ghost.

Luna whipped out her cell. “See, you can look up the cute boys on your phone here. But we only follow the cute, nice ones. The uggos and mean ones, we unfollow.”

Mimsy frowned. “But… how do they get out of there? You’ve trapped them in your device…”

───────────────✦───────────────

Hugo was the only one of the family who actually cared about learning things, or so he claimed, so he made it his mission to read every informational plaque scattered across the estate.

He learned that the estate had been occupied by a wealthy Victorian couple: the kind Lady Mimsy and the cantankerous Lord Bernard. History, nice. Hugo could feel his brain growing with knowledge.

Their portraits hung in the museum, next to the very fireplace that allegedly killed them both. According to the plaque, Lord Bernard was so unhappy with one of his paintings, he tossed it into the fireplace and started a fire that killed him and his wife. Hugo nodded solemnly. History do be like that sometimes.

Hugo spotted another plaque, proud of how much history he was learning, and opened the Voidcritter Go! app on his phone. Hold up, was that a Dicoatl up ahead?? That Voidcritter is, like, super rare!

The plaque stood forgotten as Hugo blazed ahead headfirst, eyes down, into dense green shrubbery.

───────────────✦───────────────

The littlest Villareal, however, did not care for plaques. Max didn’t even know how to read.

History? Boring.

Art? Boring.

Beautifully tended gardens? Boring.

But wait! Who was that up ahead? A ghost!? Now this was interesting.

And it just so happened that Max had but one major wish in his young life.

───────────────✦───────────────

home // next

#thesims4 #simlit #sims4 #windenburg #luna villareal #villareal #get together #the true story of the villareal family #hugo villareal #jacques villareal #max villareal #ts4 #the sims 4 #Von Haunt Estate #tTSotVF

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baeddel · 3 years

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Please. Please can you tell me what a baeddel is and why people (terfs?) used it in a derogatory manner on this website for a hot minute but now no one ever uses it at all

you asked for it, fucker

[2k words; philology and drama]

baeddel is an Old English word. i have no idea where it actually occurs in the Old English written corpus, but it occurs in a few placenames. its diminuitive form, baedling, is much better documented. it appears in the (untranslated) Canons of Theodore, a penitential handbook, a sort of guidebook for priests offering advice on what penances should be recommended for which sins. in a passage devoted to sexual transgressions it gives the penances suggested for a man who sleeps with a woman, a man who sleeps with another man, and then a man who sleeps with a baedling. so you have this construction of a baedling as something other than a man or a woman. and then it gives the penance for a baedling who sleeps with another baedling (a ludicrous one-year fast). then, by way of an explaination, Theodore delivers us one of the most enigmatic phrases in the Old English corpus: "for she is soft, like an adulturess."

the -ling suffix in baedling is masculine. but Theodore uses feminine pronouns and suffixes to describe baedlings. as we said, it's also used separately from male and female. but it's also used separately from their words for intersex and it never appears in this context. all of this means that you have this word that denotes a subject who is, as Christopher Monk put it, "of problematic gender." interested historians have typically interpreted it as referring to some category of homosexual male, such as Wayne R. Dines in his two-volume Encyclopedia of Homosexuality who discusses it in the context of an Old English glossary which works a bit like an Old English-Latin dictionary, giving Old English words and their Latin counterparts. the Latin words the Anglo-Saxon lexicographer chose to correspond with baedling were effeminatus and mollis, and Lang concludes that it refers to an "effeminate homosexual" (pg 60, Anglo Saxon). this same glossary gives as an Old English synonym the word waepenwifstere which literally means "woman with a penis," and which Dines gives the approximate translation (hold on tight) male wife.

R. D. Fulk, a philologist and medievalist, made a separate analysis of the term in his study on the Canons of Theodore 'Male Homoeroticism in the Old English Canons of Theodore', collected in Sex and Sexuality in Medieval England, 2004. he analysed it as a 'sexual category' (sexual as in sexuality), owing to the context of sexual transgressions in the Canons. he decides that it refers to a man who bottoms in sexual relationships with another man. i don't have the article on hand so i'm not sure what his reasoning was, but this seems obviously inadequate given what we know from the glossary described by Dines. Latin has a word for bottom, pathica, and the lexicographer did not use this in their translation, preferring words that emphasized the baedling's femininity like effeminatus, and doesn't address the sexual context at all. Dines, however, only reading this glossary, seems to decide that it refers to a type of male homosexual too hastily, considering the Canons explicitly treat them separately. both Dines and Fulk immediately reduce the baedling to a subcategory of homosexual when neither of the sources to hand actually do so themselves.

by now it should be obvious why, seven or so years ago, we interpreted it as an equivalent to trans woman. I mean come on - a woman with a penis! these days I tend to add a bit of a caution to this understanding, which is that trans woman is the translation of baedling which seems most adequate to us, just as baedling was the translation of effeminatus that seemed most adequate to our lexicographer. but the term cannot translate perfectly; its sense was derived from some minimal context; a legal context, a doctrinal context, and so forth... the way Anglo-Saxons understood sex/gender is complicated but it has been argued that they had a 'one sex model' and didn't regard men and women as biologically separate types, which is obviously quite different from the sexual model accepted today; in any case they didn't have access to the karyotype and so on. the basic categories they used to understand gender and sexuality were different from ours. in particular, Hirschfield et al. should be understood as a particularly revolutionary moment in the genealogy of transsexuality; the Institut für Sexualwissenschaft essentially invented the concept of the 'sex change', the 'transition', conceived as a biological passage from one sex to the other. even in other contexts where (forgive me) #girlslikeus changed their bodies in some way, like the castration of the priestesses of Cybele, or those belonging to the various historical societies which we believe used premarin for feminization [disputed; see this post], there is no record that they were ever considered men at any stage or had some kind of male biology that preceded their 'gender identity.' the concept of the trans woman requires the minimal context of the coercive assignment at birth and its subsequent (civil and bio-technological) rejection. i have never encountered evidence that this has ever been true in any previous society. nonetheless, these societies still had gendered relations, and essentially wherever we find these gendered relations we also find some subject which is omitted or for whom it has been necessary to note exceptions. what is of chief interest to us is not so much that there was such a subject here or there in history (and whatever propagandistic uses this fact might have), but understanding why these regularities exist.

a very parsimonious explanation is that gender is a biological reality, and there is some particular biological subject which a whole host of words have been conjured to denote. if this were the case then we would expect that, no matter what gender/sexual system we encounter in a given society, it will inevitably find some linguistic expression. if, like me, you find this idea revolting, then you should busy yourself trying to come up with an alternative explanation which is not just plausible, but more plausible. my best guesses are outside the scope of this answer...

anyway, all of this must be very interesting to the five or six people invested in the confluence of philology and gender studies. but why on earth did it become so widely used, in so many strange and unusual contexts, in the 2010s? we're very sorry, but yes, it's our fault. you see apart from all of this, there is also a little piece of information which goes along with the word baeddel, which is that it's the root of the Modern English word bad. by way of, no less, the word baedan, 'to defile'. how this defiled historical subject came to bear responsibility for everything bad to English-speakers doesn't seem to be known from linguistic evidence. however, it makes for a very pithy little remark on transmisogyny. my dear friend [REDACTED] made a playful little post making this point and, good Lord, had we only known...

it went like this. its such a funny little idea that we all start changing our urls to include the word baeddel. in those days it was common to make puns with your url (we always did halloween and christmas ones); i was baeddelaire, a play on the French poet Baudelaire. while we all still had these urls a series of events which everyone would like to forget happened, and we became Enemies of Everyone in the Whole World. because of the url thing people started to call us "the baeddels." then there was "a cult" called "the baeddels" and so forth. this cult had various infamies attatched to it and a constellation of indefensible political positions. ultimately we faced a metric fucking shit ton of harassment, including, for some of my friends, really serious and bad irl harassment that had long-term bad awful consequences relating to stable housing and physical safety and i basically never want to talk about that part of my life ever again. and i never have to, because i've come to realize that for most people, when they use the word baeddel, they don't know about that stuff. it doesn't mean that anymore.

so what does it mean? you'll see it in a few contexts. TERFs do use it, as you guessed. i am not quite sure what they really mean by it and how it differs from other TERF barbs. i think being a baeddel invovles being politically active or at least having a political consciousness, but in a way thats distinct from just any 'TRA' or trans activist. so perhaps 'militant' trans women, but perhaps also just any trans woman with any opinions at all. how this was transmitted from tumblr/west coast tranny drama to TERF vocabulary i have no idea. but you will also find - or, could have found a few years ago - i would say 'copycat' groups who didn't know us or what we believed but heard the rumours, and established their own (generously) organizations (usually facebook groups) dedicated to putting those principles into practice. they considered themselves trans lesbian separatists and did things like doxx and harass trans women who dated cafabs. if you don't know about this, yes, there really were such groups. they mostly collapsed and disappeared because they were evildoers who based their ideology on a caricature. i knew a black trans woman who was treated very badly by one of these groups, for predictable reasons. so long-time readers: if you see people talking about their bad experiences with 'baeddels', you can't necessarily relate it to the 2014 context and assume they're carrying around old baggage. there are other dreams in the nightmare.

the most common way you'll see it today, in my experience, is in this form: people will say that it was a "slur" for trans women. they might bring up that it's the root of the word bad, and they might even think that you shouldn't use the word bad because of it, or that you shouldn't use the word baeddel because it's a slur. all of this is a silly game of internet telephone and not worth addressing. except to say that it's by no means clear that baeddel, or baedling, were slurs, or even insulting at all. while Theodore doesn't provide us with a description of how we can have sex with a baedling without sinning, and it may be the case that any sexual relations with a baedling was considered sinful, sexuality-based transgressions were not taken all that seriously in those days. there was a period where homosexuality within the Church was almost sanctioned, and it wasn't until much later that homosexuality became so harshly proscribed, to the extent that it was thought to represent a threat to society, etc. and as i mentioned, there are places in England named after baedlings. there is a little parish near Kent which is called Badlesmere, Baeddel's Lake, which was recorded in the Anglo-Saxon Domesday Book (as having a lord, a handful of villagers and a few slaves; perhaps only one or two households). it's not unheard of, but i just don't know very many places called Faggot Town or some such. it's possible that baedlings had some role in Anglo-Saxon society which we are not aware of; it could even have been a prestigious one, as it was in other societies. there is just no evidence other than a couple of passing references in the literature and we'll probably never have a complete picture.

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giotanner · 3 years

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Art Theft and Bullying in The Old Guard Fandom

Hey TOG fandom! Do you know that stealing art is a crime? Do you have a problem with bullying (“because that poc muslim artist deserves!11!” based on a random tumblr post) within Discord servers? You do?... then read on.

Please grab some cookies and tea (and get comfortable!) and read on. This is a SERIOUS matter that I, as an outsider, was able to see WITHOUT being influenced by anyone else. I am not friends with any of the people involved here, although after these events I have empathy towards them.

I’m telling you this so you won’t be able to say to me "you are allied with/you are influenced by"... That is not the case. I have facts and evidence, so please read! I will be talking about ART THEFT, BASHING, REPOSTING, AND DISGUSTING BULLYING BEHAVIOUR towards a person who is not even in the server. As a fellow fanartist I feel so bad because “this artist deserves it” in their mind.

(Now: apparently there is a part of the beautiful The Old Guard fandom that thinks: the characters and people’s headcanons are more important rather than an actual person's well-being, and with every new illustration by the artist, they are badly spoken of. Because… ugh, why not?)

I talked about facts, so here’s one:

If you joined this server (there are a couple servers with this name, please don't get mad at the wrong one - note the icon!) The first thing you know is: karanoidandroid is a racist and a homophobe… in their opinion. People and also these mods think this because of some posts on tumblr by white people. AH.

Why? Hearsay, bimbi belli. If you go to this artist's page you won't find a single racist thing (the artist is literally a POC who is brown and a Muslim. How? - you may say- What? Ah yes, she must be under "white influence! 11 !! bad POC !!" and who says that? Ah right, a white person. Or another POC with a different experience. wtf we have so many experiences, how can you say ‘you’re racist’ to a POC about this? Just because this artist’s preference is a different sex position, and no one is trying to force you to like it, eh!)

And from here on out... hatred. Terrible and personal hatred that has spread like wildfire. EVERYWHERE. Even people who know nothing about this fandom know that this artist is "racist and homophobic". Only.Because.Of.Hearsay.

So what did this artist do, you ask? She created a safe place on discord, away from tumblr. For people who like top!Joe. Don’t you like it? GOOD FOR YOU. That’s fantastic. We should as a fandom respect everyone's preference. This server was simply made so people could get away from tumblr and the drama and bullying. That’s it.

But did they leave this artist alone? No. The gossip had infected this fandom by now. It is now a "fact": this artist is x and y, you know. Because a couple people spread that, knowing nothing about the artist other than she was making a server they didn’t like.

Because THEY decided it. Because this artist decided not to fight and leave and you weren't satisfied with that.

Let’s BULLY a Muslim POC because we disagree with their views IN FANDOM! Because someone’s views on a CHARACTER are more important than an actual person, right? (According to sources who wished to remain anon, I know for sure the mod is white. A white mod is bullying and stealing the art of a brown Muslim woman because their views on FANDOM are different)

How?

READ these screenshots. They were posted a couple days ago. EVERY FUCKIN’ TIME this artist posted an art… they bully her. (So yeah, it’s NOT the first time)

No source, no link, no name. It was posted by a Mod (in blue) and the point is: a rule of this group is “don’t steal art/don’t put art without source” BUT HEY- WE’RE MODS and this artist deserves it!11!!1!)

This poc muslim artist didn’t insist on “top!joe only”. It’s just her preference, you know? I don’t care about people’s preferences. If you want to read more about how racial issues have somehow gotten involved in sexual position preferences, check out this post by +lgbtq poc with a degree in Medieval Islamic History x (note: his blog is gone (bullying again!) so the link is to a reblog)

“Where is the source?’ a person asks. They don’t want to put the source and THEY’RE THE MODS, they made that the R U L E.

But you already know, again only by hearsay: “the artist is homophobic and top!joe is full of bullshit”. (A mantra - but they’re NOT IN THE SERVER to know. It’s an assumption) What bullshit? I dunno. I’ve been on tumblr for the past few months and I read everything, and what I read is just a preference, not racism. But they went to the artist saying “you can’t”. Just because they have a different opinion. A ‘woke opinion’ against a POC Muslim artist. Well.

You don’t like her preference? Again: BRAVO. Amen, that’s okay. But it’s not “end of story kiss kiss”.

If you steal and you put a drawing without source… it’s not a joke anymore, do you know this mods? Even if you don’t like the artist or agree with all of her opinions, THEFT IS THEFT. There’s no excuse for it, especially if their excuse is saying the artist ‘deserves’ it.

Discord community Guidelines:

#1 Do not organize, participate in, or encourage harassment of others.

#17 You may not share content that violates anyone's intellectual property or other rights.

Anyway the artist deserves their art to be stolen ONLY BECAUSE OF HEARSAY everyone knows that she is..? (chorus: racist and homophobic!) And this was decided by white people and is now being used to bully a POC Muslim.

BRAVI! Have a biscuit!

You’re bashing and bashing and bashing and bashing for MONTHS, so now you don’t know the truth, but only this… because /this/ it’s common knowledge.

Stealing art and trying to say that's okay because they’ve decided that someone they don't know is racist doesn't change the fact they stole is disgusting. Then saying it’s just a joke? wow, the audacity.

The point of all this is clear: Since I hate this person/I have this immeasurable hatred towards this artist from posts that other people have made about her THEN I am a mod so I can do it, I am allowed to steal her art, bash the artist and mock her in other comments and every time this person just… exists.

THESE ARE THE FACTS. I have so many screenshots. Thanks to some people I know within the discord. This is only ONE day. It has happened before.

Why “that artist and linking her blog would break multiple server rules and make numerous people uncomfortable?” Ah, yes, c’mon you know… I know you know! (Chorus: Because the artist is racist and homophobic… even though they’ve never spoken to her, and are literally bullying a POC Muslim and refusing to source art)

Well, yeah, Without proof. Just “common knowledge and the same old “by hearsay” on tumblr. By ‘woke’ people and then it was shared by people like me or you if you don’t know the story.

And how did this story end? They stole the drawing. They put the stolen illustration in a group of TWO HUNDRED and SEVENTY PEOPLE and said “oops, i did it again” and they refuse to link the source. It’s stealing. And it’s serious. It’s terrible because they are bashing this artist all the time.

TO REITERATE

1.They STOLE an artist’s work and laughed about it, which is bullying and against their own rules. This has happened more than once with this artist.

2. When they were called out, they bullied the person calling them out.

3. When they didn’t like that they were called out, THE PEOPLE (yellow and green) CALLING THEM OUT WERE KICKED OUT OF THE SERVER, despite art theft and bullying being against the server rules. Again, the rules that they made.

Regardless of what you think of the artist, stealing art sets a dangerous precedent for future fandoms. If someone doesn’t like your opinion does that mean they can steal YOUR art/writing/creations? Because if you think it’s okay for this person’s art to be stolen because you don’t agree with them, that’s basically what you’re saying.

They were cruel. And TOG doesn’t deserve this. I love this movie so much. I love this fandom. I love to make fanarts of Joe and Nicky. Joe is so sweet, full of love, a true warrior and Nicky isn’t an Italian dramaqueen, he isn’t naive, he is kind and a bravo sniper. Two imperfect men, but perfect for each other. A Muslim and a Christian, a white and a brown man. Together. Not stereotyped. Wow, thanks at least for that 2020.

and I hope we can do better, in future.

#the old guard #the old guard fandom #the old guard art #bullying #stealing art in tog fandom #thank you very to all the people who worked HARD for this post #thank you for the informations #please reblog the truth with FACTS and not fake news about an artist only by HEARSAY #you can ask me (but not anon trolls)

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mercurytrinemoon · 3 years

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On houses, house rulerships & how ya'll should stop associating them with signs + a rant on the meaning of the 8th house

This is one of those moments where I'm going to say (read: rant, so heads up, I may sound pretentious) that modern times keep distorting astrology. I’m talking about associating houses with signs/planets (aka the “12 letter alphabet”, briefly mentioned by William Lilly in the 17th century but ultimately it became a product of modern astrologers: first attempted by Alan Leo and decades later popularized and named by Zip Dobyns). Can we just... use a neuralyzer and make people forget that method? It's ingrained in people's minds because, seemingly, it's easier to learn that way - search astro basics in google and you'll see things like "9th house=Sagittarius=Jupiter". This compressed version of astrology seems more accessible and easily digestible for a casual reader and not many newbies try to even question that approach. But there's a reason reputable astrologers these days are trying to erase it from everyone's minds. Signs are traits, planets are vessels, houses are areas of life. Houses are a completely different thing + every person has their own chart with their own house rulers. You can't say Mars is the “natural” ruler of the 1st... well unless, of course, you're an Aries rising, then yeah, your 1st is ruled by Mars, 2nd by Venus and so on.

Sure, some houses share accidental similarities with planets that have been assigned to them by modern *cough*lazy*cought* approach. Example, the 3rd rules communication... oh and so does Mercury. But then again, Mercury has nothing to do with health, injuries, work - all things 6th house. 7th is relationships and 2nd is money & values... and it so happens that Venus shows our attitude towards these things. I would sometimes find myself loosely refer houses to planets, like “oh the 3rd mercurial house” just because SOME of them do fit with the characteristics... and because it's a language that is well-understood (I won't do that anymore). BUT even when I started learning astrology, I had a red light go on in my head when people would straight up go "Moon in Virgo or Moon in the 6th". It never made sense to me. These are completely different things. And I've seen some awesome astrologers who would state things like "oh Aquarius Sun is basically the same as Sun in the 11th", like nah, dude. Because why? Aquarius is the friendly type and the 11th rules friends? Because Aquarius is the big innovator and 11th stands for hopes and dreams? But Aquarius is also a rebel who's stiff in their beliefs. Aquarius is a weirdo, is the 11th house the house of weirdos? No. Aquarius likes to be independent and usually has issues with feeling of not belonging anywhere, while 11th rules communities. THAT'S CONTRADICTORY. Because they're not the same.

Want more examples? Having Venus in Aries is completely different than Venus in the 1st. What do people usually say about Venus in the 1st? That it makes the native charming, lovely, well-put together, with great manners, maybe beautiful, graceful, maybe a bit shallow. When in Aries? None of these characteristics fit, on top of that, it's in its detriment. Our poor gal Venus is uncomfortable and confused in Aries. She's like, "conquer? Swords? Selfishness? Obnoxiousness? Sparring? You're telling me to fight people? What am I doing here???"

I think it most shows in the 8th house, which... *deep breath* has gone through so much (ironically since it rules transformation), like, there's a lot to unpack here. "tHe sCorPioNic HoUse": tell me in what way does Scorpio have to do with inheritance, death, taxes, other people's stuff? These are the og topics associated with the 8th house. And by the way, it doesn't have to be a material inheritance, because I saw people being confused by that. You can have your 10th house ruler in the 8th so maybe you'll inherit that job as a chairman in your father's corporation, along with its renowned name. Or your 6th house ruler is in the 8th so you'll inherit a genetic health condition from your parent.

Now, modern astrology, as per usual, tried to turn it into something positive (and psychological because apparently according to modern notion, astrology can’t predict anything so it’s only psychological *eye roll*) and put its rose-colored glasses on it so they'll say things like: transformation or taboo topics - like okay, makes sense, it's an intense house after all. Like a near-death experience or a metaphorical death will be transformative and maybe hard to talk about. And Scorpios do have the tendency to go through drastic situations in their lives and to dig deep & not being afraid to uncover secrets and all that's unknown and scary for others. There you have it, some convergence. But still, Scorpio and the 8th house are two different things.

Then there's the topic of the 8th house and sex. Actually, side note, a quick history bit, the 2nd century astrologer, Vettius Valens saw sex in the 7th house - because that was the thing that happened after marriage - it represented two people coming together. In medieval times it then moved to 5th house of kids - because children-making requires intercourse, duh. Listen, I get that the 8th, as the follow-up to the 7th, is seen as joined resources; and joined everything, including bodies... or bodily fluids... (tmi?) after you get married or whatever. I don't think that makes sense in the modern times. I mean, go ahead if you want to associate the 8th with sex but after some time of studying astrology, I see it almost exclusively in the 5th as it's the house of pleasures. Simply. Besides, technically you can get yourself off and don’t need anyone else to assist you. My issue, again, comes from the root of the association with the 8th. Modern astrologers started linking 8th with Pluto and Scorpio in medical astrology rules reproductive system and so Scorpio is seen as the fReAky sEx dEMon blAh blaH (honestly, try asking Scorpios about their intimate life and they'll run for the hills abashed). So it turned out that 8th house is the "plutonian one" (I had a moment today wondering if it's plutonian or plutonic and idk anymore) so therefore it must rule sex. Well that logic doesn't make sense because everyone knows that the first and most important planet in the matters of sex is Mars but none of ya'll go and say "1st house is the house of sex because it's ruled by Aries". So no, houses are not the same as signs/planets.

12th house has a similar issue. This one has literally nothing to do with Pisces. Like, I feel bad for Pisces honestly, you guys don’t deserve being dumped into the 12th. It's a rather gloomy house and the most positive thing you could come up with it is being the house of imagination and intuition - because it rules the subconscious and partially your mind. And Pisces is usually characterized by those two. Or you could say that they're both kinda foggy in nature - 12th is the unattainable. But that is literally the closest you can get with them correlating. Other than that, 12th is hidden enemies, succlusion, illness (but mental or chronic, it's a bit different than 6th). There's nothing piscean about it really.

But I get it, open most of the astrology books and you'll see chapters called that way. Why? Because it's easier to publish something that's shorter aka simpler for the reader (actually that was one of Dobyns' reasoning behind spreading that approach). That’s why I said it’s lazy. And someone would argue that it’s easier to learn this way - because the information is compressed into 12 sections (signs) instead of 24 (signs+houses) or even more if you include delineations of every house ruled by each sign. Like, “well if I memorize the meaning of Cancer and Moon then automatically I’ll also memorize the 4th house”. But in fact, it’s so limiting in the long run and then forces you to unlearn what you have learnt, which is actually harder than taking the time and grasping the proper meaning right away. And again, with time it warps the meaning of everything.

Saying house=sign completely discredits the purpose of even having houses. And then on top of that it leads to people not understanding their own charts because they don't know the core meanings of the houses and instead look at them through the lens of signs. "I have planets in Gemini but I'm not that talkative and extroverted". Well okay, where are those planets? Are they in the 7th? Then maybe they're not talking about you but about people you come in contact with? Are they in the 4th? Well maybe it's your fam that has those qualities? The 11th? Are your friends like that? Houses are areas of your life, you can't say "Moon in the 3rd or Moon in Gemini" - Moon is "how", house is "where" - these are not the same things, even if they have a few traits in common.

Ok, rant over, bye.

#wELL tHaT LoGic dOesN'T MaKe sEnSe #why do i sound like hermione granger #anyways #you can hate me now #and you bet i'm going to reblog this post regularly #just to annoy you #astrology #house rulers #astrology houses #8th house #mercurytrinemoon

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puff-poff · 3 years

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The Culture of the Demon World

One part of The Promised Neverland that I always wanted to learn more about was the demons and their culture. Demons are a whole new race with their own language, religions, traditions, food, and history, and I want to learn more about their society. So, I decided to do a bit of research on a few specific aspects of the demon world. After writing everything down and connecting the pieces while trying to remain true to canon, I finally have something clear enough to share with you all.

Without further ado, I present to you my analysis of demon culture.

Part One: Clothing Just like in real life, the clothing demons wear depends on their social status and wealth. The middle and lower-class demons wear loose, flowing clothes with wide collars and sleeves. They most likely do this just in case they aren’t able to eat human meat and maintain their form; baggy clothes won’t tear if the demons start to degenerate. This is why the wealthy demons wear tighter clothing. Tight-fitting outfits show that you can afford plenty of human meat and that you aren’t worried about degenerating.

Many demons, both poor and rich, wear long, layered clothing, but it’s hard to tell if this is a societal standard or a byproduct of cold weather. Almost all of the demons we see are wearing long-sleeved tops and ankle-length bottoms, as well as a jacket, shawl, cape, or scarf. However, the feet and hands are almost always uncovered.

A major part of demon clothing is, of course, their masks. This extra page explains the styles and functionality of the Goldy Pond demon’s masks:

Like the rest of their clothing, wealth plays a part in demon’s masks as well. Detailed masks with large horns, like Luce’s, are worn by rich demons who want to flaunt their wealth, while lower-class demons wear simple, paneled masks with short horns. Demons who want a more functional mask might choose one without horns so they don’t get in their way. The aristocrat demons also have a unifying feature between their territory’s masks to differentiate themselves from the leaders of other territories. Whether or not your mask shows your mouth appears to be a personal preference since Legravalima, Mujika, Sonju, Awla, and Mawla all have uncovered mouths despite the character’s drastic differences.

Another detail I would like to point out is the material of the masks. Most demon masks are likely made of a material similar to clay, but there are a few demons with special masks that appear to be made out of something else. Nous and Nouma, for example, have athletic masks coated with shiny material that’s probably similar to polyester. However, it was Legravalima and Sonju’s masks that interested me the most. Legravalima’s mask is smooth, glossy, and seemingly made out of metal. A metallic mask is likely a sign of royal status and immense wealth. This explains why Sonju had a metallic mask as a child, and why he doesn’t have one now. When he was a prince, Sonju wore a shiny mask with a design similar to Legravalima’s. After running away with Mujika, he grew out of his mask and now wears a clay one of the same design.

This might just be the art style of the series changing over time, but I also find it interesting that Sonju’s mask suddenly becomes glossy in chapter 156 during the battle at the royal capital. It’s his first time stepping foot in the palace since he ran away, and it’s as if his mask is suggesting that returning to the palace has given Sonju his royal status back.

Part Two: Architecture In many ways, the architecture in the demon world reminds me of places like the Sant Francesc Church in Spain and Royal Ontario Museum in Canada. As time goes on, old buildings are expanded and improved with modern additions to accommodate the changing world. This can be seen in the paradise hideout, where a newer building was constructed next to the original settlement.

The old, traditional demon buildings are made of clay and other types of stones. They don’t appear to have many windows, and the few windows they do have are holes without window panes. Many of the older buildings were carved out of mountains or trees, or at least rest atop a mountain with steps carved into the side. This traditional style of demon architecture is similar to old Pueblo architecture and adobe homes.

The newer demon architecture likely came into style sometime before Goldy Pond was built, seeing as Goldy Pond has buildings similar to those in modern demon villages. It resembles the European Tudor style with its grid window panes, timber frames, and sloped roofs. The walls were probably made using the wattle and daub technique and painted white or cream. Some of the buildings have stone foundations, but unlike the old style of architecture, the stones are laid like bricks. Buildings made using the new style of architecture also have shutters, awnings, and Juliet balconies.

This picture of the royal capital’s streets perfectly shows the mixing of the old and new architectural styles:

Here, you can see the original clay buildings with the balconies, awnings, and wooden frames of the new style added on. The buildings in the foreground have open windows while the ones further back have grid panes. One of the structures on the right is built in the style of the older demon homes, but it uses modern stone bricks and balconies. This blend of architecture helps show the development of the demon society through the years.

Part Three: Food Human meat is the most important food in demon culture since it’s what keeps the majority of demons from degenerating. I won’t be talking a lot about the farms and human meat in this post since it’s already been explored by the manga and people smarter than me. If you want to read more about demons and human meat, I recommend this post by the-silliest-idiot and this translation of the fanbook, particularly the Q&A sections.

As explained in the manga, the appearance of demons changes depending on the type of meat they eat. The aristocrat demons eat human meat, Parvus eats monkey meat, and the demon horse Sonju rides eats horse meat. As explained in the fanbook, humanoid demons will lose their human appearance if they don’t eat human meat, but monkey demons like Parvus can retain their appearance for a while. To keep themselves from degenerating or changing forms, humanoid demons don’t eat a lot of meat other than the human meat from the farms. When the demons do eat other meats, they eat bugs, fish, and birds, probably because those animals are difficult to change into.

While it’s unclear if demons eat the plants in the forest, we know that there are plenty of edible berries, nuts, fungi, and other plants that the human escapees eat during their travels. Demons also have a variety of fruits, vegetables, and nuts that they grow and harvest. In just these two panels, we can see that the demons have their own versions of pears, hazelnuts, pineapples, kiwi, and mangos (the mangos seem to be popular in the royal capital).

All demons, regardless of wealth or social status, appear to have equal access to all food except human meat. Lower-class demons get low-quality meat, but the same berries and nuts being sold at street markets are present in the Tifari offering.

Part Four: Language Unfortunately, I’m not smart enough to decode the old demon language. In the words of the fanbook, “Sugita created demon god's name, but every other text from the demon language that appeared afterward was Posuka's creation.” The language was made up by Posuka, and I’m not sure if there’s enough dialogue to translate a full alphabet. The old demon language looks like a combination of Japanese and Enochian, but that’s all I can gather from it. It’s also unclear if the language has a written form.

However, the old demon language isn’t used anymore. The language died out for two major reasons; a general lack of knowledge and to separate language from the old faith. The aristocratic demons know the language well enough, but we don’t see many commoner demons speaking it. The modern demon society writes in English, as shown by the signs at Goldy Pond, and it’s likely that they also speak English despite the story being written in Japanese. There's also a chance that the demons speak Old English since the promise was forged during medieval times. If this is true, then the aristocrats and heads of the farms could have a more modern accent because they often talk to people from the human world.

Part Five: The Arts Sadly, we don't know much about art in the demon world. The promise was made around the 11th century, so art in the demon world is likely reflective of that time. I can only assume they have their own literature, art movements, and music, but it's mostly speculation. One thing I noticed is that the demon world has a lot of embroideries, whether it be on the edges of a cape or banners inside the palace. This fits with my theory of medieval Europe-inspired art and languages. During medieval times, top layer garments such as coats and cloaks were commonly embroidered along the hemline and cuffs. This kind of embroidered clothing is worn by many demons throughout the series.

Banners, tapestries, and flags were also commonly created by artists during medieval times. Lines of flags are seen throughout the demon world, and a few buildings in the capital have banners hanging outside. The palace has a few banners of its own, though they're fancier than the ones in the capital streets.

Damask fabric is another example of demon artistry being influenced by medieval Europe. Damask is a reversible fabric created by weaving. The royal demons seem to have jumped on the damask train before the promise was sealed because it can be found in many places throughout the palace. Most notably, Legravalima's dress is partially made of damask, though the silhouette is very different from that of a medieval damask evening gown. Damask was commonly used to make curtains as well, like the ones draped around the Tifari offering.

We don’t know much about literature in the demon world. The books we see were written in the human world and sent to the farms, but surely the demons have their own books and stories. Seeing as the rest of the arts in the demon world were inspired by medieval Europe, I can only assume that their books, fables, and plays are as well. Much of medieval literature was based on religion and chivalry. There were also many fables and myths derived from old stories and religious texts. Demon children probably read many stories about the Evil Blooded, the runaway prince, and heroic knights who protect the demons from harm. There likely are many stories written in the old demon language as well. Similar to Latin and Old English in the Middle Ages, the old demon language was probably the main written language until the 11th century, when the demons began using English as a primary language.

I imagine that Anglo Saxon, Byzantine, and Norman (ha get it) art heavily inspired art in the demon world. The palace is likely covered in tapestries and murals depicting historic events. Metal and tilework were probably once a major part of demon artistry, but the practices died out over time. Instead, many demon artists practice painting and embroidery. Pieces of art in the demon world would be very vibrant and colorful, especially the works displayed in the palace.

When it comes to music in the demon world, there isn’t much to go off of. We know that the farms have access to instruments and sheet music because of Leslie and Nat. Barbara also sings a Japanese children’s song in chapter 113. Unfortunately, we don’t get much information about music in the demon world outside of the farms. I assume that demons primarily play string instruments and piano because of their long fingers. They also have more fingers than humans, meaning they can make a variety of chords that humans can’t. More fingers also allow demons to add more strings to their instruments. Even though it’s possible that demons have their own special instruments, we know that they also have human instruments like cellos, trumpets, and pianos.

Conclusion: There’s a lot more I wish I could talk about (mainly the elements of culture), but I’m stopping for now so this doesn’t get any longer. Feel free to correct me or add on anything I missed. If you made it this far, thank you for reading this incredibly long analysis of demon culture and I hope you have a great day.

#am I reading into this too much? yeah #the promised neverland #the promised neverland manga spoilers #tpn #yakusuko no neverland #ynn

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darkficsyouneveraskedfor · 3 years

Text

Secrets ~ 5

Warnings: noncon sexual acts later in series.

This is dark!Bucky and dark!Steve and explicit. Your media consumption is your own responsibility. Warnings have been given. DO NOT PROCEED if these matters upset you.

Notes:

So, I managed to come back to this one. So sorry for taking so long! My mind wanders easily but I really do enjoy this series!! I'm hoping to get a few more chapters done in the next week or two if I can. As it is, my time is a bit up in the air with a looming lockdown.

That being said, I love you all, I thank you for your patience and feedback as always! Please don't shy away in the comments and I promise to keep doing what I can for all my ongoing series.

As for tumblr, I’m just kinda in and out. I’m not here here in a way as I’m trying just to stay sane.

You sat across from Barnes. Rigid, as you kept in mind not to slouch. Tense, as you brooded over your hopeless situation. Silent, as you inhaled the scent of the savoury meal but found yourself curtailed at every attempt to eat. His eyes followed every move and you were met with either a tskk or a remonstrance; ‘not that fork’, ‘small bites, smaller sips’, ‘smile’, ‘keep your lips closed’, ‘elbows off the table’...

You sighed as your last attempt to sate your growling stomach ended in another reproach. His words, his even voice almost taunting, stoked your anger and made it difficult for you to follow his direction. You sat back and peered up and down the long table, the chairs empty and table cloth crisp and white.

“How much longer do I have to do this?” You bemoaned. “I’m hungry. Let me eat.”

“Duchess, you will be expected to act as a lady for the rest of your life.” His mouth twitched at one corner as if he would grin. “Do not be unhappy with me, it was not I who neglected your education.”

Your nostrils flared and you looked at the longest knife among the row. He chuckled and you squinted over at him. You sighed.

“Do not be a child, Duchess. When you are queen, you will be the beacon for all other women at court. And if you cannot set a good example, they will make sure you know it.” He pushed his shoulders back.

“I don’t care about those women. I don’t know them.” You sniffed. “This isn’t my home.”

“It is.” He said plainly. “As close to as you’ll have given that yours would be entirely lost to you.”

You stared at him. You tilted your head and frowned. “You don’t realise how absurd this is? Do you really think I could ever want to be here?”

“If you don’t even give it a chance, then no.” He shrugged, “But you haven’t. You were in school, you liked it?”

You ran your tongue along your teeth and nodded.

“We have tutors; the finest money can find. If you are agreeable, your husband might be too.” He ran his thumb along the line of his palm. “You like museums, well we have one of the grandest in the world. You must know of it given your interests.”

You looked away. It wasn’t the same. What would you do with an education if you were trapped in a royal marriage? How could you enjoy a museum if you just went to look? Your former life felt so far away, yet that before you, felt even further. You weren’t a queen; you didn’t want to be a queen.

“So what? I’ll beg for scraps from my husband? 'Oh, please, I would love to visit the library today, my king. May I? May I really?'” You spat as you clutched your hand together dramatically.

“The King can be amenable but if you approach him with the same attitude as you have me, this marriage will be exactly what you expect it to be. Perhaps you might consider how you could make it at least tolerable?”

You shook your head and rolled your eyes. “You want me to change everything about myself; how I walk, how I sit, how I dress, how I eat. That is not tolerable.”

His lips parted and he tore his eyes away from you as he thought. “Well, to be frank, the king won’t care what you tolerate and he does not tolerate much. So whether you wish it or not, you will at least pretend to change.”

“Mmm, sure.” You huffed.

“I am offering you advice and it is good advice. The king… He will not be as patient as me. If you embarrass him in front of his court, in front of the world, you won’t ever forget it. He’ll make sure of it.”

“You know, the more you tell me about him, the better he sounds,” you said dryly, “A hell of a catch.”

Bucky exhaled slowly and a deep line formed in his cheek. “Go on. Take the salad fork-- no, wrong one.”

You bared your teeth as you blinked at the line of forks. “I’m not very hungry anymore.” You grumbled.

“Hungry or not, you need to learn how to hold a fork, Duchess,” he rebuked, “Sit up straight.”

👑

When you were finally allowed to retire from your first day at Regia, you were exhausted. Your chambers were welcoming as you left your personal tormentor, Barnes, without and trudged over to the bed. As you dropped onto the bouncy mattress, you looked around and your irritation piqued again.

Your suitcase was gone. Only your toiletries remained in their beige leather pouch and a stack of books. You frowned and stood reluctantly. Your neck and shoulders ached from the tension nestled there from a long day of Barnes’ tutelage and his nuisance.

You grabbed the first book, the title wrought in gold on the fading spine; ‘Queens of Astrania’. You fluttered through the pungent pages and took the next; ‘A Lady’s Place’. You set that one aside and scowled as you went down the stack; ‘Manners and Etiquette’, ‘The Provinces of Astrania; Lands and Rights’, ‘Astrania the Bold; A Kingdom Without End’, ‘Queen Loren: The Royal Mother’....

You left them in the pile and covered your face with your hands as you resisted the urge to scream. You turned away and went to the dresser. You slid open the drawer but it wasn’t your clothing inside. Instead of your plain cotton tee and jogging pants, you found satin and silk night clothes in every cut. You opened the drawer beside it and found bras and panties you’d never have wasted a penny on.

You slammed the drawer shut and went to the closet with the thick wooden doors etched with curlicues. Inside, blouses, skirts, and pants hung, pressed and pretty. The wardrobe of a lady. You could see Princess Kate in your head wearing any piece of it and yet, each garment looked sharper, more modern than the British fashion.

You shut the doors and crossed your arms. Three weeks. Well, one day down. That was all you had left. You thought of the women who had come before you; the medieval maidens, the romantic ladies in their puffed sleeves, the Victorian stiff neck marms. Had they wanted it? Or had they been trapped like you? Did they feel the same hopeless despair?

You went to the window and looked out at the green lawns painted in silver moonlight. Clouds framed the shining crescent, the sky streaked in greys and blacks that sent a shiver through you. The gates stood closed and ominous at the end of the winding drive and trees stood sentinel around the palace.

Once, you’d dreamed of visiting a royal home. Your love of history held you reverent in awe of the remarkable architecture, the years marked by renovations and the contrast of styles often found between one room and the next. Visions of spectres stirred your imagination and you thought of the dead haunting the corridors as they retraced the footsteps of their existence.

No, it all just felt horribly empty. These places were prisons. History didn’t need to be kept alive, only remembered as an omen for those living. Let it go but do not forget.

You drew away from the window and slumped in the upholstered chair not far from it. Barnes had your phone, you didn’t expect to get it back. It wouldn’t be of much use. As much as you missed your mom, you had nothing left to say to her and hearing her voice would only make you feel worse. She would only remind you of what she’d done; of the secrets she’d kept from you.

It was only you and the whispers of the dead. They carried on the breeze outside the window as if to warn you. ‘You are one of us…’

👑

The second day went much the same. Barnes woke you early, his gaze tinged with judgement as he chose your outfit for the day and bid you to pay attention. You ate, slowly and with the same endless critique, and he took you to the palace library and sat you down with a large volume. He paced as you read and occasionally listed off all that you had yet to learn. In all your years of school, you’d never had a teacher as overbearing and relentless as him.

When you were thoroughly restless from the tight font and stiff pages, he took you for a walk around the lawns and pointed out the statues of your predecessors. When you returned to the palace, he gave you another lesson in posture, a book on your head as he had you strut across the foyer over and over again. When you were dizzy from the repetition, it was time for another meal and you growled at your cutlery in frustration.

The days went on as such. You snapped at Barnes when he breathed down your neck but he never again bent you over and spanked you like a child. Instead, he merely grinned and thought of another ridiculous activity. But when he caught you with a sandwich secreted from the house staff and your hand streaked in mustard, he looked close to another lashing. He only took the last of your crust and scrubbed your fingers himself.

On the fifth morning. You woke with difficulty. You were exhausted and angry and about to give up. Barnes tore away your duvet and tossed a dress at you. He stood before the rack of dresses you’d gone through on your first day. You groaned and snatched up the petal pink swathe and rolled out of bed.

You dressed as he waited in the hall and you stumbled out in the pair of steep heels. You held in a yawn as he bent his arm and you merely stared at it in detest.

“Duchess,” he sighed, “Let’s not do this today. We have a packed schedule.”

“What is it? Am I to balance on one foot and recite the royal family tree?” You spat.

He snorted and shook his head. He took your arm and hooked it through his own. He turned and led you down the hall. “Well, no, but I fear you might look just as silly.”

You narrowed your eyes and your stomach knotted. You wondered at his meaning but went along with him. Your days at Regia still felt like a dream; you just couldn’t accept that any of it was real.

He led you down the stairs, with some trouble, as your ankle bent and you caught the railing in panic. He righted you and continued lithely down the staircase. Your heels clicked on the marble as he turned you and guided you to the tall doors that opened into a grand ballroom. Long tables lined the perimeter with straight back chairs and portraits of women long dead and their respective husbands hung from the walls. The high ceiling was pointed and arched in the style of the seventeenth century and velvet curtains were tied back with tassles at the other end of the chamber.

A woman in black, a stiff white collar poking out from beneath her blazer, and a prim twist to her lips, stood expectantly at the centre. She held a stick that reminded you of a 1900s schoolhouse teacher and her round framed glasses magnified her cold glare.

“Priscilla,” Barnes released you and approached the woman. He greeted her in all courtesy, a small nod and a kiss on her hand. “Timely, as always.”

“Lord Barnes,” she arched a brow and her hazel eyes peered past him at you. “Duchess?” It was barely a question as she bent her knee and gave a stoic bow.

“The very one,” Barnes affirmed.

“An honour,” she stepped past Barnes. “I was present when your mother and her father visited our kingdom all those years ago.”

Your lip curled and you looked between her and Barnes. “I never knew my grandfather. Apparently, I never knew my mother either.”

Her eyes rounded and her face contorted as if she had tasted lemon juice. She looked at Barnes who shook his head.

“You know the nobility well, Pris,” he said, “They have the temperance of toddlers.”

“Wouldn’t you know it, my lord,” she quipped. “A blessing to her it is not Austin in my place.”

“I made certain it wasn’t,” Barnes approached you and took your hand, “I do appreciate your expedience.”

“I would never disobey the king,” she held the stick horizontal in both hands, “Very well, first position.”

Barnes turned you and drew you to him. His other hand went to your back. He held you to him, a small space between your bodies and you wobbled on your high heels.

“What the--” His sharp look kept your form profanity.

“You must learn to dance,” he said, “And if you can barely stand straight, I trust we have much to do.”

Priscilla came around you and touched your shoulders with her stick. “Head up,” she chided, “Straight, straight, straight.” She tapped the tip along your spine. “You are lucky.” She girded, “To learn with such a partner. Barnes… I hope that even you might sharpen this one.” She tutted, “There is much work to be done.”

“Would you stop that?” You tore your hand from Barnes’ and wipped at the stick against your back, “I’m not a dog.”

“Mmm,” she hummed and smacked your ass with the stick as Barnes took your hand again, “Move your feet.”

She rescinded the stick and tapped the butt of it on the floor as she began to count. You trod on your partner’s toe as he led you. You looked down at your feet and he hissed, “Don’t look down.”

“Well, what am I supposed to do?” You stomped his shoe again. “Or do you like broken toes?”

“Just back, forward, side, side, back…” He raised your hand. “Stand straight. Head high.”

“I hate you,” you snipped as you scrambled to keep the beat.

“A good thing you are not my fiancee, then,” he smirked.

“We can agree on that,” you sneered but found yourself pressed against him as you tripped. He caught you and chuckled as he stood you up straight.

“Graceful as ever,” he kidded, “My apologies, Priscilla, it is going to be a long day.”

“You’re apologizing to her?” You grimaced, “What about me?”

“You’ve tread on me nearly a dozen times, so far,” he turned you, “I would say you owe me a few ‘sorries’ yourself.”

“I’d say we’re even,” you snipped. “My freedom, your toes.”

His lips curved again as he watched you. You looked past him and focused on the numbers; one, two, three, and four… Your gaze caught on a queen with sad eyes painted in fading pigments. She had no husband beside her, only an urn on a plinth. A chill rippled through you as you were spun away from the sight. For all its radiance, there was something very grim about this palace of betrothed.

#steve rogers #bucky barnes #steve rogers x reader #dark!steve rogers #dark!bucky barnes #fic #series #dark!fic #dark steve rogers #dark bucky barnes #secrets #dark fic #mcu #royal au #au #marvel #captain america #king!steve

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cosmic-navel-gazin · 2 years

Photo

Compassionate aliens, Crime lords and Cat cafés

There’s this one scene in Hard to be a God... this one small, easily overlooked little scene... I’ll never forget about it for as long as I live.

It’s not like it’s THE most important scene plotwise, or that it sets up this big reveal later on, or anything like that. I just... I love it tremendously, I kiss its forehead tenderly and tuck it in every night, so I wanted to write down some thoughts on it.

@razielim I’m gonna talk about the beginning of Chapter 3, I go beast mode on this one and I can’t even tell anymore if it’s too spoilery for you so I’m hiding this under the ‘keep reading’ for your sake, you can try and dip in if you want

Let me just set the stage first in case someone is reading and has no idea what I’m talking about:

In the novel Hard to be a God, our main character Don Rumata (real name Anton), is a man from a future spacefaring utopian Earth. He is one of several people who have been sent as undercover operatives of the Institute of Experimental History, to an alien planet similar to Earth during the middle ages. He's been living there incognito for the last 5 years, masquerading as one of the feudal lords of a medieval-europe-like nation. Ethical dilemmas ensue on the moral responsibility to do good and how these earthlings should intervene in the development of alien civilizations and It's *chef's kiss* muah! it’s good shit. It might very well be my favourite take on the "Who Watches the Watchers" type of story, but that’s its own 1.000+ page essay, not what I wanna focus on right now.

Okay so, It's the very beginning of Chapter 3, and it starts with our boy Rumata daydreaming about kidnapping this Waga the Wheel character, a man infamously known as the uncontested head of all the local criminal forces, and bring him to Earth for observation. The goal? Well, Rumata hopes that this radical change in environment could lead the old man to hopefully turn over a new leaf. Without his complex web of murderers and thugs under his guidance, and really no need for it on the peaceful post-scarcity idyllic Earth, what would this “spider” do there? Maybe... maybe he could dedicate himself to the noble art of cat caretaking!

Yes! This is real! Here it is for your viewing pleasure:

I just, I'm not exactly sure I can explain why I love this passage so much. I want to try and do it justice without just going:

Come look at this! Can you believe it? The alien man, Don "i could fix him" Rumata, wants to kidnap the ruthless cold-blooded criminal mastermind and take him to his home planet so the aforementioned monster can focus on playing with cat instead of doing evil!!!

It's more than that, although, that is amazing in and of itself...

Like, this isn’t the only neat instance of daydreaming about kidnapping people and taking them to Earth either (I love the other ones too). And I also don’t just love it because it shows that my boy believes in The Healing Therapeutic Power of Cat.

I mean all those things help, but I think this stuck with me because in addition to all of that, it’s such a good early nugget that encapsulates the growing schism in Rumata’s psyche in an unexpected endearing yet sad way.

So, first of all I feel it’s important to really look at the person this daydreaming scenario is referring to, because of what it masterfully says about our main character without pulling attention to it.

So, in the previous chapter Rumata explains how much contempt he feels towards this Waga lad, saying that he

“inspired an extreme disgust in him but was occasionally immensely useful—literally irreplaceable”

, someone who interested him “as a scientific specimen”,

“a most curious exhibit in his collection of medieval monsters”.

In this chapter, while the hypothetical kidnapping bit starts out as just a curious thought experiment, he then starts saying things like:

“You know, the old man might sicken. He’d probably even waste away.”,

and

“After all, it can’t be the case that he doesn’t have a single small, harmless hobby—which only gets in his way here, but there could become the meaning of his life. I think he likes cats. ”

And I’m over here just- god damn it if this isn’t a great showcase of our boy trying to hold on to his humanist ideals and identity while simultaneously growing hateful by having to interact some of the most detestable of people. He can’t help but care about this old man’s well-being. while simultaneously despising him. And he can’t help feeling that especially because he has always been accutely aware of how environmental factors influence people: that had Waga and the people around him in general been born on Earth instead, that they would’ve turned out quite different.

On Rumata struggling in balancing his love and hatred we get another shift in personality in the scene that comes right after the hypothetical kidnapping. It’s great too because it adds, I want to say, the last piece of the magnificent triad that makes up the growing fragmented psyche of our boy. We’ve seen in these segments:

the level-headed historian;

the compassionate humanist;

and now we’re going to get the haughty noble bastard.

So after the meeting with Waga and thinking about kidnapping him, Rumata suddenly realises that his coin purse has disappeared. He’s there, in the middle of the street in distress, fiddling around in his pockets, when two lads start poking fun at him:

I mean, it’s right there:

“ The employee of the Institute couldn’t care less, but the noble Don Rumata of Estor went berserk. For a second he lost control of himself.”

He then realizes in horror that he would’ve cut them down into pieces if they hadn’t cleared out, that:

“They would have been lying here like pig carcasses, and I’d be standing here with a sword in my hand and wouldn’t have known what to do. Some god! Turning into a savage …”

This is the very next page after the whole cat thing I mean....arghhh it pisses me off it’s so good! You are never left with just one of these personas for too long a stretch of time (it helps build the growing feeling of uneasiness the book’s going for too). One is always coming right after the other in a very organic way, so much so that it makes the authors look like professional court jesters (affectionate), juggling all these disparate personalities without breaking a sweat. There are moments later on when you start to feel like you can't even tell where one begins and the other ends, as they become more and more dilluted. The historian, the humanist and the noble bastard, are all on the cockpit, fighting for control of the mecha man-god who wants to intervene but doesn't know how and is afraid of what happens when he does.

Honestly it's something I want to focus on more when I do a second reading: this rythm to Rumata’s train of thought and how his mind is always being pulled in different directions.

I see you *points at the Strugatsky brothers*. I see you planting the seeds for all the great rants and mental breakdowns coming later in the book. I see them slowly blooming beautifully later on when Rumata starts to grow more and more self-aware and desperate at the conflicting emotions taking hold of him, and the deep self-hatred pours out because he realizes he’s grown to truly hate the people he came there to help. All of that the result of having been put in the impossible position of trying to be tolerant of the intolerant, forgiving of the unforgivable, and just overall trying to act and right some wrongs without imposing force/his own will.

Just... the wonderful evolution from the cat rehab thing for Waga to this quote I’m going to link to here... it breaks my poor heart.

So in summary, here’s the conclusions I arrived at on thinking about the beginning of Chapter 3:

it’s great as just an alien who dreams about kidnapping a crimelord and have him play with cats instead of engaging in crime and murder;

it’s great because it advocates for the therapeutic power of cat, something I wholeheartedly believe in;

it’s great for the main character’s characterization and inner conflict;

it’s especially great for those last two things when you look at the scenes that came before and after, and how they work together to allude to the larger dillemmas at play;

it just makes the tragedy hit harder later on man...

I was going to say that, in my most humble opinion, these books (at least Roadside Picnic and Hard to be a God, which are the two I’ve read), are just as much about the big philosophical ideas as the little tender moments, and that together they make the book greater than the sum of its parts because even the smaller funny little scenes aren’t distractions disconnected from the main story, they all have winks and nudges of what the larger thread is about.

And I don’t know man, I guess I totally get what Ursula K. le Guin said about Roadside Picnic, and i think it fits this book too:

“ Most of the characters are tough people leading degrading, discouraging lives, presented without sentimentality and without cynicism. Humanity is not flattered, but it’s not cheapened. The authors’ touch is tender, aware of vulnerability.“

And last but not least, here! Have a complimentary crazy straw you crazy bastard, for somehow making it to the end of this rant. It will make its way to you in 24h or less!

I’ll be real this cat scene lives rent free in my head as does my HTBAG AU where Waga is kidnapped and taken to Earth, possibly Japan, where he opens his little cat café. This whole rant was just an excuse to disguise that as an intellectual exercise.

#my ramblings #OH BOY did this get outta hand #I think that title could be a good band name #I know what the gentle reader is thinking after reading this:#'Cosmic!' I hear you shouting 'Be real now you just want to be kidnapped by aliens and taken to their homeworld-#so you can spend the rest of your life petting cats (and doing art)! ' and ...I mean... YOU'RE NOT WRONG!#Hard to be a God #Трудно быть богом #Strugatsky Brothers #science fiction #russian literature #books #the compassionate humanist aspect of the earthlings; how it's the backbone of their identities...#...and how it is challenged in this new environment is something that worries me about the film adaptations...#...because I get this gut-feeling that it'll be at best: downplayed; and at worst: completely done away with #*sigh* I'll still watch them tho and try and keep an open mind

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qqueenofhades · 3 years

Note

Some additional points about that grave find in Finland that you may or may not find interesting. And that may or may not be dated, because I studied history 20 years ago. That said, I'm not sure if 1000 years ago is firmly middle-ages in this context? At least back in my uni days, they told us that here middle ages got going slowly during 1100's and 1200's when Sweden started converting the population to Christianity and the prehistorical era gradually ended. Maybe they teach differently now.

More about the grave. I don't know why The Guardian would talk about Vikings in this context at all, because the erstwhile population of current day Finland is not considered to have been Vikings, afaik. They were similarly warlike, and the graves from that era have a lot of weapons, and they certainly encountered Vikings, but they never participated in the raiding, and isn't that what makes Vikings Vikings? Their language and religion was also different. But anyway. I don't mean to correct you because the larger point stands. When I saw the headline in a Finnish news paper about that grave and traditional gender roles my first thought was, well, maybe the gender roles hadn't become traditional then yet. Just some additional context, which could be illuminating or could be totally dated.

I did the stupid thing and sent you asks about the Suontaka burial before reading the Cambridge article about it: I'm reading it now, and my comments seem fairly useless. Feel free to ignore with extreme prejudice. We're in agreement on the guardian article.

Aha, well, we all make mistakes from time to time, so no worries! However, since you do touch on a few points that I would like to discuss, I'm going to go ahead and answer, whether for you or anyone else who might find it useful. (It's the teacher in me, I'm afraid.)

First, I have to say that I had a definite "eeegh" moment at the idea that the eleventh/twelfth century isn't "medieval" in Finland just because it (at least prior to the Baltic/Northern crusades, if we're considering them to begin with the Wendish Crusade in 1147) wasn't yet fully Christianized. Scholars pretty universally accept "medieval history" as referring to the time period between 500--1500 CE (the fall of the Western Roman Empire to the Renaissance). These, of course, are horribly Eurocentric frames of reference, but there you have it. Any event or culture taking place within that span of dates, no matter where in the world it is or what its socio-political circumstances may be, is medieval. We have to call out the pernicious equivalence of "medieval" with "Western Christian European," since that seems to be the underlying assumption. This is also what makes people mistakenly think that the medieval world (which, y'know, was just as big as it is now) is exclusively about white Christian Europe, and that no other global regions have a medieval history. Either way, the eleventh/twelfth century is actually closer to the end of the medieval era than it is to the start. I'm certainly not suggesting that you were consciously implying this; I have no trouble believing that that is indeed how they taught it twenty years ago. But yeah, the idea that still-largely-pagan eleventh-century Finland couldn't be "medieval" until it's Christian is definitely not the case as understood now.

The idea that anywhere in eleventh-century Europe is still "prehistorical" in any sense of the word is likewise a little baffling, tbh. Once more, it associates "history" only with "Christianity," and that would get quite a bit of pushback if included in a paper on medieval studies today. That is what also annoys me deeply when I see people describing the pre-Columbian Americas as "prehistoric" (read: pre-white-people-historic). If the chief marker of "history" is "written history," sure, there is a very narrow pedagogical argument to be made that these societies don't have narratives or chronicles in the standard historiographical sense. But also, uh, European colonialism and conquest destroyed vast swathes of records that we have never been able to read, understand, or even access, because they're just not there anymore. There is ample evidence that the ancient (and I do mean ANCIENT, up to thousands of years BCE) and early-to-late-medieval Mesoamerican societies had complex systems of writing, astronomy, calendar-keeping, and other history-recording practices, right up until 1492. There are something like four (FOUR) pre-Columbian Mayan scrolls still in existence, out of probably thousands and thousands, because the Spanish destroyed the rest. So "prehistoric," unless you're literally referring to the Stone Age, is never a politically neutral word or a word to use uncritically...

...and speaking of the Stone Age, we actually have histories for that too! Or rather (iirc) the Ice Age, because for example, Aboriginal Australians transmit their history orally and require each new generation to memorize it, word for word, exactly as taught to them. Some of these histories stretch back over ten thousand years, which means that we actually have first-person accounts of life during the end of the Ice Age, and scientists recently discovered that these traditional narratives accurately reflected the archaeological and geological record of Australia during the time period in question. (Indigenous people know what they're talking about and should be listened to, example number 85,000.) Of course, the Western-white-supremacist model of historiography calls these just "legends" or "myths" or "folktales" rather than history, because I guess not writing it down in a chronicle as a monk in a European Christian monastery in the year 1015 or whatever doesn't qualify as history for some people. (I don't have strong opinions about this or anything. Welp.)

I likewise don't know why the Guardian article brought up the Vikings, aside from the fact that they were quoting someone who explicitly used the Vikings in a hypothetical scenario about "traditional gender roles." This person expressed surprise that an intersex person living in a medieval Scandinavian society could rise to a high social role, by citing the widespread belief that "Vikings" were all dedicated to being very manly at all times and nobody with feminine qualities/feminine-coded social power could rule over them. I don't know if this was just a bad phrasing (plus, it obviously overlooks the often-egalitarian nature of medieval Scandinavian societies and plays into the favored white supremacist stereotype of the Vikings as some Master Aryan Race Where Men Were Men, etc) or what, but yeah, it's wrong across the board. Viking is the name of an occupation, not an ethnicity. It comes from the word wicing, meaning "seafarer" or "sea raider," and referred only to those guys who went out on their longships and stole a lot of stuff from their neighbors, most notably in the eighth to eleventh centuries. Their families back at home were part of the exact same society and benefited from those raids, but strictly speaking, they weren't vikings. We use the word "Viking" to describe any member of a medieval Scandinavian society, but it's similar to describing everyone living in the eighteenth-century Caribbean, no matter who they were or their social status or ethnic background, as "pirates," which is obviously inaccurate.

As you correctly point out, the Finns aren't considered quite the same as the Norwegians, Danes, and Swedes (as anyone can tell from looking at their written language; N/D/S are mutually intelligible and derive from the same linguistic family, while Finnish is COMPLETELY different and comes from an altogether separate branch of the tree) and therefore it's even more baffling that the person quoted in the Guardian article would cite them as an example of a "Viking" society. Likewise as you note, the whole phrase "traditional gender roles" is intensely problematic in most contexts, and especially here. It assumes that modern Western ideals of sex and gender have been static and unchanging throughout history, and that means that we tend to read our own (biased) assumptions onto the historical record and then get surprised when, shock of shock, they don't fit. The burial at Suontaka seems to have been of a biologically intersex person (i.e. someone with Klinefelter syndrome), but this is also the case when it comes to people assigned the usual male or female at birth, without any complicating genetic conditions. I'm working on a book review for an entire edited volume that discusses the intense gender-fluidity and proto-transgenderism in some medieval saints' lives, and how obviously the fact that they have been held up as a holy example, while explicitly subverting the so-called Traditional Gender Roles of the Middle Ages, means that it was (and is) a lot more complicated than shallow stereotypes and Bad Medievalism would have it.

Anyway, this is long enough (especially considering that you graciously offered me the chance to ignore it) so I think we'll stop here for now. But yes, there you have it. :)

#history #ancient history #medieval history #queer history #anonymous #ask

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hiccanna-tidbits · 3 years

Text

Autistic Hiccup x ADHD Anna Headcanons

SO I’ve been really into the whole Autistic x ADHD ship dynamic and Hiccanna...highkey fits??? Like y’all know I will die on my “Anna has ADHD” hill, but after reading this post by @hobie-brown I’m like wait, the autistic Hiccup headcanon is wonderful too??? And blends SO WELL with ADHD Anna??? And I absolutely HAD to explore it more so BOOM headcanon time! Another special thanks to @hobie-brown for writing the super lovely autistic Hiccup headcanon masterpost that inspired me to do this!

Disclaimer: I myself am not on the spectrum (part of the reason I’ve always felt a little weird about definitively HCing characters as autistic unless I see actual autistic people HC them that way too), so most of the stuff here is stuff I know secondhand from my autistic friends! I do have ADHD, so I can always promise that ADHD Anna will be 100% authentic XD

~Anna absolutely gets into Hiccup’s special interests to try and impress him. The most obvious one being, of course, dragons, but also dinosaurs (extinct dragons), lizards (tiny dragons), and Dungeons and Dragons (An RPG game that does, in fact, include dragons). Hiccup absolutely had that dragonology book as a kid and got obsessed with it beyond all reasonability. Hilariously, Anna’s wooing strategy of indulging his special interests works like a charm--mainly because a) he’s pretty flattered that someone takes THAT much of an interest in what he likes and b) half the time, ANNA finds that she genuinely gets into whatever said special interest is and finds them easy to hyperfixate on. It helps that the more she obsesses over it herself, the more she has to talk to Hiccup about XD

~Specifically, Anna definitely joins a DnD campaign at some point so that Hiccup will think she’s a “cool gamer girl”--and then gets unironically obsessed with it and starts writing 10-page backstories for all of her characters. She later tells Hiccup it started out as a ruse to win his heart via nerdiness, and he absolutely loses his shit laughing.

~One of their overlapping special interests/hyperfixations is high fantasy. Hiccup is, unsurprisingly, all about the mythical creatures while Anna is more into the magic and the zesty political drama, but you dun best believe they catch every CGI-ridden fantasy movie that ever comes out. They’ve both spent a literal fortune on fantasy movie tickets, even moreso on watching them in 3D or Imax. How embarrassing for both of them.

~Another less-obvious overlapping interest is history. Hiccup gets into it while looking into the cultural mythos of dragons (he’s pretty fascinated by the fact that so many cultures around the world thought up similar creatures independently), while Anna gets into it because she grew up cooped up bored and lonely in a big house, and entertained herself by looking into the history behind some of the family paintings. They don’t seem it at first, but they’re actually both huge medieval and ancient civilization history buffs.

~Hiccup is THE most touch-repulsed person you will ever meet. This is unfortunate, as he is also SUPER touch-starved and absolutely does not realize it (I mean, I’ve never gotten the vibe Stoic was the super huggy type, considering his and Hicc’s relationship in HTTYD 1). This means he has absolutely no fucking clue what to make of Anna when they first meet meet. Anna’s the sort of person to give physical affection pretty freely, especially if she likes you--usually in the form of hugs, arm pats or playful swats, putting her elbow on your shoulder, etc etc. Hiccup is kinda just like “this is way too much touching but like??? I kinda like having her this close to me??? What do???”

~Anna, meanwhile, notices that Hiccup kinda stiffens up whenever she touches him and seems to not be crazy about it and she’s just immediately like “yo what’s wrong???” And as SOON as he admits he’s not all that crazy about being touched randomly she’s like “OH MY GOD I AM SO SORRY” and never touches him without asking again.

~As soon as she finds out touch a kind of A Whole Thing for him, Anna is like...AGGRESSIVELY respectful of Hiccup’s boundaries when it comes to physical affection. Almost annoyingly so. She gets in the habit of basically never initiating any kind of physical touch without asking first--even long after they’ve started dating, and he’s told her it’s okay to initiate touching as long as she’s not smothery about it. She still refuses out of principle.

~They come up with a kind of “consent language” so Anna can pretty quickly determine when it’s all right to touch Hiccup--because Anna still really likes being physically affectionate with him, and he does actually like receiving physical affection a lot of the time (because, again, touch-starved), he’s just choosy about who does it. They work out a system based off of small, light touches that Hiccup doesn’t mind where it’s basically 2 taps on his shoulder for “can I hug you around the neck,” 2 taps on his side for “can I hug you around the waist,” 2 taps on his arm for “can I grab/lightly slap/punch your arm,” and 1 tap on is shoulder for “can I put my arm/elbow on your shoulder.” If he’s cool with it he’ll either nod or just say “yeah go ahead.” It works a lot quicker than asking “can I do such-and-such specific touch” every single time, and allows Anna to keep some of her spontaneity. They develop this during their friendship and it ends up rolling over into their relationship, even after Hiccup has basically told her she doesn’t need to ask permission for a lot of these anymore. She adds a new one after they start dating--she taps him a couple times wherever she wants to kiss him to ask if it’s cool to give him a smooch! It usually is.

~INFODUMPING. Literally SO. MUCH. INFODUMPING. Hiccup absolutely WILL NOT SHUT UP when he gets to talking about one of his special interests. Anna just will not shut up in general, but when the topic changes to one of her hyperfixations, it’s even worse. If you try to have a conversation with these two while they’re infodumping, you WILL get talked over. Honestly, left to their own devices, they could probably infodump to each other for literal days on end.

~Despite how much they both like to infodump, they’re both pretty good about being patient and indulging the other when it’s their partner’s turn to infodump in the conversation XD They are, however, notorious about accidentally triggering a barely-related infodump in the other person. It’s not uncommon for one of them to finish a rant and then the other goes “OH THAT REMINDS ME” and sets off on a completely different, barely-related rant.

~Hiccup actually really appreciates how overexpressive--and occasionally overdramatic--Anna tends to be. He never has to try and figure out what she’s thinking because she just says everything in her brain, and her body language basically always matches how she’s feeling to a ridiculous extent, so he never has to give himself a headache trying to read her. The fact that she’s the opposite of subtle and has no filter whatsoever works great for him, because he doesn’t have to drive himself insane trying to understand her. He gets her better than he gets most people because she’s an open goddamn book. The boy’s never been the best with social cues at all, never mind the nuanced, obscure ones, so Anna’s general straightforwardness and utter inability to hide her true feelings at literally any time is a breath of fresh air. What you see is basically what you get, and Hiccup wouldn’t have it any other way.

~People think when Anna and Hiccup start dating it’s gonna be a disaster, mainly because he’s so blunt and she can be...”oversensitive” (i.e. has a REALLY bad case of RSD). Turns out they’re dead wrong--because Hiccup has RSD too! (I mean, come ON--look how BADLY he wants to get his village’s approval! And how hard he takes it when his dad or someone else is mad at him--even if he tries to hide it with snark) He’s actually one of the few people who can be blunt enough with Anna that she realizes when she’s being a dumbass but tactful enough not to hurt her feelings or set off her RSD--because god, has he been there. When Anna is being especially difficult and has worked herself into a real bad funk, Hiccup (and sometimes Elsa) is the only people who can talk to her and get through to her without getting blown up at.

~They stim in similar ways!!! They both tend to fidget or kinda bounce up in down in place as a way to comfort themselves and calm themselves down (I see them both having a lot of anxiety and generally being kind of paranoid, although Anna is MUCH better at hiding this via putting on a cheerful face). They both do the leg bounce!!! Also if they get SUPER excited they’ll do a little awkward happy dance!!! They both also tend to stim by rubbing things in small, repetitive motions--with Hiccup, it’s usually his sketching pens, his ear, his head, or the back of his neck, while with Anna, it’s usually her other hand, her arm, her clothes, or really anything with kind of a comforting, consistent texture (some favorites are rubber, felt, and velvet). After they start dating, they actually will stim with each other’s hands while holding hands--usually by squeezing the other person’s hand in kind of a repetitive pattern or doing the thumb-rub thing on the back of the other person’s hand. It’s not uncommon for them to each be doing something completely unrelated while holding hands and just stimming on each other’s hands the entire time. Anna especially really loves when she feels Hiccup stimming on her, because it’s her little indicator that he’s happy and feels at peace and content in her presence and she LOVES being able to do that for him!

~They both stim by playing with hair too! Anna likes to play with her own to stim--mainly by figeting with the end of her braids or tucking hair behind her ear. She DOES love to ruffle Hiccup’s hair too (and she LOVES how fluffy it is!), but it’s usually not a stim thing. After they start dating, Anna does occasionally stim by massaging Hiccup’s hair/scalp, but she doesn’t usually do it for very long. Hiccup really loves braiding Anna’s hair, or just playing with it when it’s down. it helps him relax and clear his mind to have something fairly repetitive and/or mindless to do.

~Even after gaining some confidence, Hiccup still has a fair bit of social anxiety, so he and Anna basically always go to parties and social events together and stick with each other the whole time to make it less intimidating for him. Hiccup generally prefers to let Anna do the talking when they chat with people, and sometimes if he’s REALLY nervous he’ll sometimes even let her kinda talk for him (not in a condescending “speaking over” kinda way, but more in like a “I can sense you’re not comfortable speaking here so I’ll help you out as best I can” kinda way). She always makes sure to leave space in the conversation for him to take over talking if he wants. She’s also incredibly prone to bragging about his accomplishments to basically everyone they know. Hiccup is both embarrassed and flattered by this.

~When Anna finds out about meltdowns (probably through Hiccup mentioning it kind of offhandedly--“Eh, sorry I went AWOL last night, I was having a bit of a meltdown. Don’t worry about it, I’m fine now.”) she lowkey gets super anxious and frustrated because she REALLY wants to help, but has no idea how. Cue literal HOURS of research on the internet and AGGRESSIVE memorizing of any and all tips that she reads that she thinks would help. Which, of course, means several MORE hours spent going over flashcards like she’s studying for a goddamn test, because Anna has never been known for her sharp, expansive memory.

~The first time Hiccup ever has a meltdown in front of her (maybe after a really bad phone fight with his dad or something? Just general sensory overload?), she takes him to a secluded room and IMMEDIATELY gets rid of anything that could be agitating sensory-wise. She dims the lights! She closes the blinds! She throws a nearby clock, an alarm, a timer, and several other objects with only the slightest potential of making an annoying noise out of a nearby window in a fit of passion! She goes on a frenzied quest to find Hiccup’s noise-cancelling headphones--and finishes it in record time! Even in a state of emotional turmoil, Hiccup realizes that Anna’s being just a little too methodical in how she goes about all this--these are the kind of things that wouldn’t ever occur naturally to her to do. So as soon as he calms down a bit and has screamed into a pillow for a while, he’s like “...did you go on the internet to look up how to help with meltdowns?” and Anna’s like “...yes?” And Hiccup is lowkey so touched he starts crying all over again...and then, naturally, makes a long string of snarky comments to try and distract from it XD

~For their anniversary Anna saves up a bunch and buys Hiccup a lizard and a terrarium!!! She gets him a crocodile skink because, I quote, “Well, they always look annoyed, they’re kinda shy, they don’t like to be touched, and they look like tiny dragons, so they reminded me of you!!!” Hiccup screams like a goddamn fangirl, he’s SO excited. As luck would have it, Hiccup’s crocodile skink is a lot less skittish and prone to hiding than they usually are, and he actually lets Hiccup pick him up and pet him without much issue. Which is honestly great, because repeatedly touching something smooth and even like lizard scales helps calm Hiccup down when he’s agitated and helps with some of his sensory issues.

~Probably goes without saying, but Hiccup basically NEVER genuinely gives Anna a hard time about her memory problems or how she’s not always the quickest on the uptake, and if anyone tries to call her annoying, dumb, or immature he will absolutely roast them into oblivion. He does sometimes like...lightly tease her about jumping into things without thinking or never shutting up, but he never pushes it if he can tell she’s genuinely bothered by it (and, again, Anna is very easy to read, so it’s not hard to tell XD)

~I’ve seen other people in the fandom HC either Hiccup, Anna, or both of them as BOTH autistic and ADHD, and honestly...fuck yes!!! I’m down for this too! I love the idea of these two disaster ND kids just vibing with each other on so many damn levels that it’s like...incomprehensible to the average human XD Like man, they fuckin GET each other!!! I’m pretty happy with most combinations of ADHD + Autistic headcanons for Anna and Hiccup, so long as they end up vibing!!!

~THEY JUST. THEY LOVE EACH OTHER. SO MUCH. THEY LITERALLY WOULD DIE FOR EACH OTHER. I AM SURE OF IT. I’M CRYING.

#hiccanna #hiccup x anna #anna x hiccup #hiccup #anna #hiccupxanna #annaxhiccup #autistic hiccup #adhd anna #headcanons #hcs #httyd #frozen #crossover #rotbtd #rotbtfd #hiccup haddock #princess anna

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theres-an-impulstor-among-us · 3 years

Note

I’m back! With more oneshot suggestions! Woo!

Please, if you have the ability to, supply me with alter brainrot. Here’s a basic plot outline (I always come prepared lol):

BadTimes has finally been banned. After years of antics with his counterpart, he finally stepped over the line. He doesn’t know what he did, all he knows is that it was too much. He gets dragged out of the void by EX and Hels, who also want to apologize to their counterparts. The three set out on a short flangsty journey of misunderstood-ness and attempts at proving themselves worthy of forgiveness.

;)

Now THIS was a lot of fun to write! Ended up being very long tho so I’m sorry about that, but I hope the quality is still good. I also hope you like the ending, even though it went off in a different direction than I originally intended :)

...

“He’s there! He’s right there! Just grab him!”

“It’s harder than it looks, okay?! Back off!”

He gasped as he felt himself get wrenched back into existence. Stumbling as his feet touched the ground, he pitched forwards and would have fallen over if he hadn’t been caught by a pair of strong arms.

“Easy, man,” came a British-accented voice. “Easy. Just breathe, alright? Breathe.”

He took in a few gulping breaths, his oxygen-starved lungs drinking in the fresh air, and closed his eyes against the dizziness that was threatening to topple him. He widened his stance slightly, his shaky legs strengthening by the second.

Finally, he opened his eyes and found himself looking at two people. One was wearing a familiar helmet and the other was dressed in full armour. They both looked almost exactly like two people he knew very well.

“Who are you?” he asked.

“You first,” said the helmeted one, identifying them as the British-accented one who had caught him earlier.

“My name is BadTimesWithScar,” he said. “You can call me BadTimes, or just Bad.”

Bad could see a spark of interest in the helmeted person’s eyes, even through the visor. “You’re GoodTimesWithScar’s evil counterpart?” They circled Bad, looking him up and down. “I guess I should’ve expected that, huh? Considering you look almost exactly like him.”

“In that case, am I to assume you guys are Xisuma and Welsknight’s evil clones?” said Bad.

The helmeted being nodded. “Sure am. I’m Evil Xisuma, but you can call me EX.”

“Hi, I’m Helsknight,” blurted out the armour-clad one. “I like rap battles and medieval-style architecture.”

Bad stared at him.

“I’ve been making him do group therapy,” EX explained tiredly. “He was utterly obsessed with violence and destruction when he got here. It got a little too much to handle after a while.”

“Speaking of which, where is “here”?” Bad asked, staring around at the blank world they were standing in.

EX shrugged. “It doesn’t really have a name. It’s the place I ended up after I got banned by Xisuma.”

“B-Banned?! Wait a sec…” Bad frowned as memories came back to him. “How did I get here?”

“Well, I pulled you out of the void,” said EX. “That’s where people go when they get banned.” They jerked their thumb at Hels. “I fished him out of the void too a few weeks ago.”

“I tried to kill them,” said Hels helpfully.

EX nodded wearily. “He did.”

“Wait, wait.” Bad stared at the two in shock. “Does this mean… I’VE been banned?!”

“Yup.” EX spread their arms wide. “Welcome to the banishment club.”

“What did you do to get banned?” Hels asked eagerly. “Did you destroy stuff? Kill someone? Try to take over the server? I did that, by the way.”

“I…” Bad hesitated, his shoulders drooping. “I don’t know.”

Frowning, EX and Hels exchanged a look. “How do you not know?” the former asked slowly. “Surely you must have done something bad enough to get flung into the void permanently.”

Bad shook his head. “Look, you guys are legendary on the server. So legendary I didn’t even believe you existed. Everyone knows the evil stuff you guys did to get banned, but I’m not like that. I like spreading mischief and pranking people. That’s what I exist to do; it’s literally what Scar created me for. So the fact that I’ve somehow crossed the line without even realising what I did is beyond worrying.” His eyes widened in fear. “Oh no, did I hurt Scar?! Oh no, oh no… I gotta… I gotta go apologise to him!”

EX caught him by the wrist as he tried to dash off. “Hold on, there. You’ve been banned, remember? You can’t just waltz back onto the server.”

“There has to be another way!”

“There is, there is.” EX gave him a serious look. “But it’s risky. Going back to a server you’ve been banned from can be more trouble than it’s worth. If someone sees you before you get the chance to talk to Scar… Well, let’s just say there’s worse punishments than just being banned.”

“I have to see Scar,” said Bad determinedly. “I have to find out what I did and apologise for it. Are you two gonna help me or not?”

After a moment, EX said, “I’m up for sneaking back onto Hermitcraft. I’d like to apologise to Xisuma for… uh… the incident that got me banned. What about you, Hels?”

“I just wanna have another rap battle with Wels,” Hels said.

Bad frowned at him. “Are you… you know… alright? In the head?”

Hels stuck up both his thumbs. “Nope!” he said cheerfully. “Thinking about rap battles and medieval-style architecture is the only thing keeping my taste for blood at bay.”

A pause followed his words.

“Wonderful,” EX sighed. “Remind me to join you in group therapy next time; it doesn’t seem to be working all that well. Anyway, time to sneak back onto Hermitcraft. Let’s get going.”

…

“Are you sure this is the right way?” asked Bad, unable to see even his companions in the pitch black tunnel. “Who even put this tunnel here? And where does it lead?”

“I’m not taking questions about secret tunnels and whether or not I know where I’m going,” came EX’s voice from the front of the group. “Something tells me the answers won’t alleviate your fear.”

Thoroughly unnerved by this, Bad leant forward slightly to address Hels, who was walking between him and EX. “Hey Hels, what are you gonna do when we get back to Hermitcraft?”

“I’m gonna apologise to Wels for trying to take over the server, explain to him that group therapy has helped me calm my bloodlust, and then destroy him in a rap battle.”

Bad sighed quietly. “Well… at least you’ve got a plan.”

“Up here,” called EX after a few more minutes.

Light was starting to shine through the end of the tunnel. As Bad followed EX and Hels out, blinking against the light, he recognised the place they had ended up.

“Wait, is this the Mycelium Resistance headquarters?” he said.

EX shrugged. “Don’t ask me; I’ve never been in this world before. I got banned on the last one and I’ve never had a reason to sneak back. That being said, what on earth is the Mycelium Resistance?”

“Oh, it’s a loooong story. But the good thing is nobody uses this base anymore, so we should be safe down here if we need to flee from an angry mob of Hermits. Which we will.”

“That’s the spirit,” EX responded wryly. “So which way out?”

Bad led the other two towards the giant hole in the wall. “We can get out this way. I remember Scar brought me down here to show me the excellent work he and his government buddies did at destroying the rebel base.”

“Government?” repeated EX confusedly.

“Oh, yeah, Scar’s the mayor. You didn’t know that?”

EX shook their head. “Like I said, I’ve never been in the Season 7 world. Not properly, anyway. Not enough to know the ins and outs of what’s going on.”

The group made it to the surface of the shopping district. Bad could see the town hall nearby. “Okay, I’m gonna go see Scar.”

“Good luck,” said EX. “I’ll wander around and see if I bump into Xisuma.”

“I’ll take you to his flower farm,” Hels offered. “I went there once to hide from Wels and steal some flowers. Didn’t work; he caught me and banned me.”

“Well, hopefully history won’t repeat itself.”

Bad left his new friends behind and headed to the town hall, keeping a wary eye out for any Hermits nearby. He didn’t see anyone around, but that didn’t mean nobody was there.

But thankfully, he made it to the town hall undetected and entered quietly. He found Scar just inside, polishing the diamond throne. The mayor glanced up, his eyes widening when he registered his evil clone standing there. “Bad? Oh my gosh, I… What happened to you? Where’s your hat?”

Bad’s hands flew to his head, realising for the first time that he didn’t have his hat anymore. “It must have fallen off in the void. Scar, I got banned and I don’t know why.”

“You were banned?! And you still came back here?!” Scar shook his head. “You need to leave before Xisuma finds you.”

“But I-!”

“No, just go! Before we get into trouble.”

“I just want to know why I was banned,” said Bad desperately. “Then I’ll go right back to where I came from and I’ll never bother you again. I promise.”

Scar hesitated, a conflicted look on his face. Finally, he said, “I’m sorry. I didn’t actually think X was gonna do it.”

Bad frowned. “What do you mean?”

“Back during the war, I was under a lot of stress. I did things I’m not exactly proud of. Eventually, I realised that what I was doing… was making me more like you. I couldn’t handle that, so I went to Xisuma and asked if he could get you out of the way so people didn’t notice I was turning into you. I didn’t-.”

“Wait, wait, wait…!” Bad waved his hands to stop his counterpart. “Let me get this straight… You got me banned because you were afraid you were becoming evil, like me?”

Scar nodded slowly. “I swear, I didn’t think he was actually gonna ban you.”

“What else did you expect the server admin to do?!” snapped Bad.

“I don’t know! I’m sorry, Bad, really!”

“If you’re really sorry, then go to Xisuma and explain you want me unbanned!”

To Bad’s surprise and dismay, Scar shook his head. “I can’t do that. I’m sorry, but I’m the mayor; a good mayor now. A good mayor can’t have an evil clone of himself on the server anymore. I really am sor-.”

“Oh, stop saying you’re sorry!” Bad’s voice cracked. “I can’t believe this! After all these years of funny pranks and harmless shenanigans, you’re just tossing me aside?”

“Bad, you’re not harmless,” Scar snapped back. “You don’t realise it, but you’ve caused some real damage over the years. You’ve destroyed things, killed people, upset people, caused irreparable damage to the server. The only reason Xisuma hasn’t banned you sooner is because I kept standing up for you. Did you seriously never notice the fact that I was the only Hermit who ever had kind words for you? You never noticed the other Hermits glaring at you in the shopping district or walking the other way when you came by?”

Bad stared at Scar in shock and horror. “N-No, I… I didn’t… Scar, I… I never meant to cause bad things.”

“Your name literally contains the phrase “Bad Times”!”

“I-I can change, Scar!” Bad was almost physically begging at this point. “I can change, I promise! I can be worthy of forgiveness if you give me a chance.”

Scar firmly shook his head. “You’re an evil Hermit and you always will be. I’m sorry, but there’s no place on the server for you. Not anymore.”

Red hot anger started to build inside Bad. “No, you… you can’t do this to me. After everything we’ve been through, you can’t just decide I don’t belong here anymore!”

Scar took a step back, away from Bad. “Just get outta here before I call Xisuma to deal with you.”

Bad hesitated.

In the ensuing pause, a loud crash sounded from outside.

Seizing his chance, Bad snatched the hat from Scar’s head and dashed out of the town hall. When he got outside, he found Xisuma and EX locked in a battle just outside the building. Xisuma appeared to be winning.

Bad dashed down the stairs and slammed right into Xisuma, sending the admin tumbling to the ground. Before Xisuma could recover, Bad grabbed EX’s hand and pulled them back towards the shopping district.

“Where’s Hels?” Bad demanded.

“I sent him back to the tunnel. Whether he’s still there, I don’t know. Bad, what happened?”

“I’ll explain later.”

The two jumped down the secret entrance to the base and rushed back towards the entrance to the tunnel.

“Hey, guys.” Hels emerged from one of the rooms, holding an armful of mycelium. “They have purple grass here.”

Letting go of EX’s hand, Bad beckoned to Hels. “C’mon, we’re getting outta here.”

“Can I bring the purple grass?”

“Will it help distract you from, as you put it, your bloodlust?” EX inquired.

Hels beamed. “Yes.”

“Alright, then, yes. You can bring the… uh… purple grass.”

As the evil Hermits made their way back through the tunnel, EX eventually decided to break the silence. “So… Long story short, Xisuma didn’t forgive me. How’d it go with Scar?”

“Scar got me banned because he was afraid of turning into me,” replied Bad shortly. “And he refuses to get it reversed because he’s afraid having an evil clone whom everyone on the server hates will damage his image as mayor.”

A pause followed.

“Oof, that’s rough,” EX remarked sympathetically. “What are you going to do now?”

“There’s nothing else I CAN do. I’ve been banned and the only person on the server who might stick up for me is refusing to do so. I guess that means I’m stuck with you two permanently.”

Another pause.

“I didn’t even get to have another rap battle with Wels,” said Hels sadly.

“Hey.” EX stopped at the very end of the tunnel, turning back to face their friends. “Let’s all quit moping. We tried asking for forgiveness and it didn’t work. No more grovelling, no more trying to change, no more stupid group therapy. We’re evil Hermits, right?”

“Yeah!” cheered Hels.

“And evil Hermits want to spread chaos and destruction, right? We should be who we are, without worrying what our counterparts will think of us. They’ve rejected us, so now they think we’re no longer their problem. Let’s show them how wrong they are. Let’s show them how evil we can really be.”

“YEAH!” Hels whooped, his red eyes flashing dangerously. “BLOODLUST!”

“We’re not straight-up murdering people, though, Hels,” added EX sternly. “That’s not the kind of chaos we spread.”

“Oh.” Hels settled down. “Okay. Fair enough.”

Chuckling quietly, EX turned to Bad. “What do you say?”

After a moment, a grin spread over Bad’s face and he swept Scar’s hat onto his head. “I say let’s do it. If Scar says I’m evil, who am I to deny it?”

“Exactly.” EX slung one arm over Bad’s shoulders and the other over Hels’s, grinning at their evil compatriots. “It’s time to be the evil Hermits we were created to be.”

#hermitcraft #evil xisuma #helsknight #badtimeswithscar #xisuma #goodtimeswithscar #welsknight #long post #Vaunna writes

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antoine-roquentin · 3 years

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The popular conception of chivalry, as a moral code guiding the behavior of honorable knights, is flat-out, laughably wrong. That’s a creation of 19th-century authors like Walter Scott, and the popular fantasy authors (basically up until George R.R. Martin) who built on their worldview in the 20th.

In reality, chivalry was all about one particular version of Guys Being Dudes. Chivalry could refer to a few different things, but the most common meaning was simply battlefield deeds, executed with some style. This, what knights referred to as “prowess,” was at the core of the broader ideology of chivalry: raw, bloody, physical performance, violence done effectively and to an agreed-upon aesthetic standard. The second major concern of chivalry, honor, grew directly out of the first. Honor wasn’t an abstract concept to medieval knights; it was a possession, a recognition of their particular status and place in the social hierarchy, which they were well within their rights to violently defend and assert through their prowess. Piety was the icing on the cake, but no knight really doubted that God approved of their actions.

An oral culture, passed around during training sessions and drinking bouts and feasts and military campaigns, produced this culture and inculcated new knights into it. A whole universe of texts, the kinds of things knights read or had read to them, sent the same message, like this 12th-century poem called Girart de Vienne:

When I see the whinnying war-steeds plunge

With worthy knights into a battle’s crush,

And see their spears and cutting blades well struck,

There is nothing on earth I love so much!

These were dudes who loved getting after it, and for them, getting after it meant blood-soaked deeds on the battlefield. It’s not that there was nothing more to it - sure, there were some bits about romance and ladies, debates about religiosity and moral actions, exhortations to do better - but the core was always physical, male violence. And it obviously wasn’t for everyone: Knights were members of a hereditary military aristocracy, and their possession of chivalry was what set them apart from dirty peasants.

Two aspects neatly parallel modern Bro Culture: first, the emphasis on physicality and the body, and how that provided both a sense of the self and secured social status; and second, the restricted, bubble-like world that produced and emphasized it, with its fictional and real heroes, its stories about great deeds, its values, and its models to be emulated. Your average knight would absolutely identify with and appreciate this impossibly toxic meathead sentiment:

Obviously, there are pieces that don’t neatly parallel, the biggest ones being the hereditary and explicitly military nature of chivalry. You don’t have to be a soldier to be a Bro, though it doesn’t hurt. And - much more important - you aren’t born into being a Bro; you become one, by doing worthy deeds of prowess.

That’s a quintessentially American value: the idea that anybody can make something of themselves if they work hard enough, move enough weight, run fast enough, practice enough to shoot a tight grouping, make the right sacrifices. The physical meritocracy (and its potential rewards of fame and fortune) is open to anyone willing to do whatever it takes to climb the ladder. Even the least intellectually gifted meathead can make something of himself if he does the workouts, takes the right gear, and builds his audience on YouTube and Instagram. Don’t forget to like and subscribe, and smash that follow button.

In a moment of stagnant social mobility, rising inequality, and incredible uncertainty around the future, this strongly visual message of self-betterment and improving one’s socioeconomic status through literal sweat can resonate deeply. It’s all within the individual’s control, if they simply work enough - an antidote to all that uncertainty, everything that’s so obviously beyond an individual’s control and reckoning, no matter how misleading and incomplete the formula actually is.

That’s especially appealing to the many millions of American men who don’t have college degrees (many more of them than women, given the gendered trends in undergraduate enrollment) who are effectively locked out of professional-managerial culture and its straightforward path into the comfortable upper-middle class. Accomplishment through physical prowess is thus a means of building both a sense of self and community.

The connections to this particular moment in American culture and history go much deeper than that, though. This whole edifice of Bro Culture grows out of the broader rise of influencers, performative self-branding through social media, and the construction of identity through consumption.

With the right protein powder, shilled by your favorite strongman, you too can deadlift 800 pounds, or at least tell yourself you’ll get there someday. With the right brand of CBD tincture, which sponsors your favorite Crossfit athlete, you won’t feel that burning pain in your rotator cuff after you clean and jerk too much weight with suboptimal technique. By religiously listening to the right Bro-approved entrepreneurship podcast, hosted by some guy who happened to get booked on the Joe Rogan Experience during a slow week, you too can buy a McMansion in an affordable suburb.

Much of what happens in Bro Culture is driven by lifestyle consumption: ads for sunglasses on Barstool Sports’ Pardon My Take podcast, brand partnerships between supplement companies and YouTube stars, tactical holsters for concealed-carry that an ex-Marine with a million Instagram followers wants you to buy. It’s self-actualization through sponsor codes.

The tactical lifestyle craze, a natural outgrowth of this particular slice of Bro Culture, is the logical endpoint of all this. It’s where entrepreneurial late capitalism and influencer trends meet imperial wars, the militarization of the police, and the emergence of Gun Guys as a default protected class within American society. You’re not a Crossfitter anymore; you’re a “tactical athlete,” doing varied types of interval, cardio, and strength training so you can be a more effective soldier or cop or firefighter or whatever, or you just want to feel like you could be one. The physical training is only part of this, since you can prominently declare your tactical affiliations with a variety of lifestyle products, ranging from coffee mugs to American flag stickers for your car to, naturally, firearms....

Just as much as its coffee, whose quality I can’t speak to, Black Rifle Coffee Company is selling the tactical lifestyle. They offer a staggering variety of T-shirts, hoodies, hats, mugs, thermoses, and stickers, many of them prominently branded with the eponymous “black rifle” of the brand. There are a lot of American flags and pieces of law-enforcement and military iconography, signifiers of the in-groups to whom the consumers of BRCC’s products belong, want to belong, or for whom they want to signal their support. BRCC has explicitly labeled itself as a coffee company for conservatives, an active participant in the culture wars. If you don’t like Starbucks and its effete, refugee-supporting, liberal tendencies, buy some Black Rifle product instead. If you like Trump, you’ll be at home with BRCC. Don Jr. endorsed them.

After the picture of Rittenhouse in the Black Rifle Coffee Company shirt appeared, its founder Evan Hafer quickly disavowed the youthful shooter. Even for an explicitly MAGA coffee company, supporting a teenaged AR enthusiast with blood on his hands was a bridge too far. But Rittenhouse had already been shaped by the world BRCC and its fellow-travelers have made. He got the message, loud and clear: You too can become a hero, or at least dress and drink coffee like one, by purchasing the right products, watching the right videos, and following the same Extended Bro Culture influencers. Don’t forget to like and subscribe.

The Veteran-owned piece of BRCC’s appeal isn’t a coincidence. They’re selling a position in the culture wars, a sense of belonging, but also a particular vision of what it means to be American, a man, and an American man. A staggering number of this part of Bro Culture’s key figures are veterans. Jocko Willink, perhaps the best known (and least openly political) of the bunch, was a Navy SEAL officer; he was actually the commanding officer of the famous sniper Chris Kyle during the Battle of Ramadi in 2006.

After retiring, Willink turned his SEAL experience into a career as a leadership consultant, motivational speaker, media personality, and energy drink salesman. His intensity, built on his military service, is legendary: His exhortations to do hard things regularly, to live by a code, and take responsibility for oneself, resonate with millions of people. And Willink is far from the only one to do so, turning overseas service in imperial wars, especially as a special forces operator, into a key component of his entrepreneurial appeal. This isn’t a judgement on his military service; it’s a statement of fact. Being an undeniable badass is a the core part of why Jocko Willink is a quintessential Bro Hero.

Imperial wars overseas always come home eventually, and they do so in complex ways. The fact that millions of people listen to Jocko Willink, buy Black Rifle Coffee Company merchandise, and dabble in more extreme fringes is a product of decades spent elevating not just military service writ large but violent combat overseas against ill-defined Others. For every Jocko Willink, there’s an Eddie Gallagher, the SEAL who was convicted of and then recently pardoned for war crimes after becoming a cause célèbre for large swathes of the online right.

If these are the heroes Bro Culture puts forth - special operators accustomed to high-intensity, high-volume fighting overseas, who then develop enormous media platforms - it’s obvious what message Kyle Rittenhouse and the innumerable police officers, tactical fitness enthusiasts, and more run-of-the-mill viewers and listeners will take. Millions of people listen to Joe Rogan when he talks to Jocko Willink, Tim Kennedy (the Green Beret and MMA fighter and increasingly open right-wing figure), or Cameron Hanes (who advocated for Eddie Gallagher’s release). They’re warriors. Joe Rogan isn’t a soldier, but he’s a black belt in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, a former competitive kickboxer, a bowhunter, and a firearms enthusiast. If these are the people at the core of Bro Culture, a culture that directly touches tens of millions of American men, then there are bound to be knock-on effects. If they’re constantly telling their listeners to be ready, to be tactical, to be prepared to fight and to be good at it, that means something.

This is why I think Bro Culture, or at least its extended reaches, deserve more scrutiny and attention. The code of American manhood that’s developing out of this social-media melting pot has some aspects that bear watching: A love of firearms centered on tactical usefulness (for use in what context, exactly?), a vision of muscular physicality, self-defense as a personal obligation, an unquestioning hero-worship of military culture, and far too often, a deep suspicion of people who don’t subscribe to this precise view of being a guy. Support the Troops, and if you don’t, you’re not really a man at all. If cops - quintessential subjects of Bro Culture - are told that they need to be bigger and stronger and quicker on the draw, that they’re basically Troops, and that the targets of violence deserve what they get, what’s the likely outcome of tense interactions between police and the people they’re supposed to serve?

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depressedhatakekakashi · 3 years

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Making her way down the hallway, Sakura dug frantically in her back. Searching for her favorite notebook that she loved to use on her biology class.

She couldn’t go to class without her notebook. It had all of the notes she was going to need to look back on, plus she couldn’t write new notes without it.

“Where’s the last place you left it?” Looking up, she sighed when she saw Ino walking by her side watching her. “If you think back we can go try to find it. Rin-Sensei will understand if we’re a bit late.”

That was the bonus of having Rin-Sensei as her next teacher. As long as you didn’t interrupt the class she had no issue with people being late.

Stopping in her tracks, Sakura thought back through her day. She had just left organic chemistry class with Shizune-Sensei, but she hadn’t taken her notebook out there.

The last time she had seen it was..

“Oh!” her eyes widened. “I took it out of my bag to reorganize everything in my Medieval Japanese history class. I must have left it there.”

If she was lucky, Kakashi-Sensei had spotted the book after everyone was gone and put it on his desk so no one else took it.

“Then let’s go,” Ino grabbed her arm and started to pull her down the hallway. “His class isn’t far from here. If we’re quick enough we might even avoid being late.”

Being dragged down the hallways of Konoha University, Sakura couldn’t help but smile. Even when Ino could just leave her to get her own notebook and head off to class without her, she still insisted on being by her side. Even going so far as to be the one to start them on the way back to her Medieval Japanese History class.

It was no wonder she was head over heels for Ino.

“Here we are,” Coming to a stop in front of Kakashi-Sensei’s classroom, Sakura frowned when she saw the door closed. “What is it? Go in and get your notebook so we can get to class.”

“Well, it’s just...” She wasn’t sure how to explain it. Seeing Kakashi-sensei’s door closed wasn’t normal. Usually her professor would leave his door open, allowing students to come in at any moment to talk to him, or retrieve forgotten items.

There’s not a moment in the last three months that she can recall ever seeing the classroom closed. Even when Kakashi-Sensei was elsewhere he’d leave the door open.

“I don’t think we should go in,” She couldn’t explain why, but there was a voice in the back of her head telling her to just leave it be and get her notebook tomorrow. “We should just get to class. It’s really not that big of a deal. Kakashi-Sensei will hold onto the book until tomorrow.”

“Don’t be silly, Sakura,” before she could stop her, Ino had reached out and grabbed the door knob, pushing the door open with a proud smile. “See it’s unlocked. You worry too m-“

Ino fell silent when she looked into the classroom, the colour leaving her face as soon as she looked inside the room.

Stepping past her girlfriend, Sakura peered into the room and sighed when she saw Kakashi-Sensei sitting on top of Gai-Sensei’s lap. Both of them looked as if they had been caught in the process of something they definitely should not have been doing on school ground, not that they were the only one’s.

Sakura had learned to tell what a closed door meant after accidentally walking in on Rin-Sensei and Shizune-sensei in a much more inappropriate scenario once.

“S-sorry,” placing a hand on Ino’s shoulder, Sakura started to direct her girlfriend out of the classroom. “I-we-we’re leaving.”

On the way out she heard Kakashi-sensei calling back to her “you forgot something!”, to which she turned just in time to catch her notebook.

“Close the door, would you Sakura,” Kakashi-Sensei smiled, his face in complete view without the mask that he usually wore gone. “I wouldn’t want anymore interruptions.”

She felt bad for anyone else who made the same mistake as Ino.

Holding her notebook close, she grabbed hold of the door handle and pulled the door shut behind her once more, glaring at Ino who was still stunned by what she had seen.

“I told you not to open it,” she grumbled under her breath. “Closed doors means danger in this school.”

“F-face...” Ino whispered, her eyes lighting up and energy returning to her body. “Sakura, we saw Kakashi-Sensei’s face!”

“So?” Sakura huffed, holding her book close to her chest. “I’ve seen his face before. Every time i bring doughnuts and coffee to class.”

“You what!?” Ino’s hands came down on her shoulders, shaking her slightly. “And you didn’t tell me? Sakura do you know how amazing this is! Everyone’s always talking about what he looks like under that mask and we have an answer! The gossip potentials are amazing!”

Rolling her eyes, Sakura reached up and carefully slipped her hand into Ino’s, smiling when her girlfriend looked at their joined hands with confusion.

“We can gossip after class?” she chuckled. “Come on, before we miss everything.”

There was no doubt in her mind that Ino would be spending the next week telling as many people who would listen about Kakashi-Sensei’s completely normal, uninteresting face. Some of them would believe her and find themselves incredably disappointed. Some would cling to their increasingly ridiculous ideas of what he actually looked like, rejecting Ino’s explanation of what she saw.

Either way, Sakura would spend the week both enjoying the excited, energetic story over and over again, while also trying desperately to forget the fact that she had clearly seen Gai-Sensei’s hands cuppinh Kakashi-Sensei’s ass.

#school au #college professors au #History teacher Kakashi #Pre med student Sakura #Pre med student Ino #Mythologies/sports teacher Gai #Kakagai #Inosaku

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defensefilms · 2 years

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Ridley Scott Says “Millennials Don’t Want To Be Taught Anything”.

For months now, I have been seeing ads and trailers for the “The Last Duel” and I largely ignored it. Not my cup of tea really. Plus I’m really tired of guys with swords and magic nonsense, can movies get back to the gritty stuff please?

The film has not done as well at the box office, and to be honest I think that the first thing to be blamed is bad Hollywood mathematics. You spend a 100 million dollars to make a film but industry only counts first week sales, so that kind of handicaps any profits that are made in theatres because the movie will be showing for longer than that, right?

Then you have the fact that you’re doing a theatrical cinema release.

Why?

No one cares about going to the movies anymore. GET OVER IT.

Seriously Hollywood needs to stop thinking that consumers are going to enjoy the movie the way that you tell them to because it’s dumb and bad for business. There is absolutely no way on earth that you guys think that what you do is that important.

I don’t wanna deal with other human beings in my peripheral while I’m enjoying a film. True say, I was socially distancing way before my government ever mandated it.

I am not gonna sit there in a crowd with snot-nosed kids and their idiot parents, and oh by the way, I can’t even have a cigarette while I’m sitting there and the snacks are way overpriced. That whole experience is overpriced.

So of course, Ridley Scott did what film schools all over the world teach on a daily basis and blamed the film’s bad box office performance on millennials who grew up on smartphones and who don’t want to learn from anything other than their phones.

Oh, Ridley, sit down, let me talk to you, playa.

First of all, sir, you’re part of an industry in decline. You know what that means? It means that simply putting some Hollywood A-lister in your film is not enough to guaruantee anything anymore, because no one cares about celebrities.

One of the things that the film and television industry struggle with, is that a lot of the above-the-line crew/ heads of department are old. This is not inherently bad, but it also means there comes a point when, as a writer/director/executive, you lose your touch.

Is that fair to say? Probably not. However in the entertainment business one’s age can be used both to their favor or detriment. If a young director fails, he is just that, a director who failed because he’s young. So couldn’t the reverse be true. That Hollywood’s longtime mainstay storytellers, just don’t have the juice anymore? Namely, Ridley Scott.

The point about Millennials and smartphones is just pure avoidance of the fact that, you made something that can’t keep people’s attention. That whole diatribe was just pure head fakery.

But where Ridley really goes wrong, is in saying millennials don’t want to learn anything.

This demonstrates pure ignorance and a clear attempt to lash out at an audience he really doesn’t know very well, or have anything interesting to show.

Those smartphones are loaded with information, free courses, demonstration videos, instruction manuals and yes, books. Furthermore they are in fact a more effective learning tool than humans who are prone to both, memory loss and bias.

There’s no way, a full grown adult, working in the entertainment industry, constantly immersed by the changing technologies that affect the production of his works, can be this ignorant about technology.

So in the era of lockdowns and financial hardship, here I have an elderly adult male that thinks his movie, set in some medieval castle place, is a better teacher than a search engine that can literally access any information in recorded history.

That’s funny because all those production designers, art directors, hair stylists and make-up artists that were under Ridley’s direction, likely used smartphones to access Google, so they could have reference images to guide their aesthetic choices in pre-production. If Ridley had his way, they would have had to get library cards instead.

Oh, the irony.

The idea that Millennials don’t want to learn is absolutely insulting.

In my circle there’s a man that wants to get in to trading and investing. The other one is teaching himself to code, the other wants to start freelancing as a graphic designer and the other one wants to start a football club for kids.

These are the people you’re talking about? These Millennials are too lazy to learn?

First off, the economy and job market are in such a porous state that Millennials don’t really have a choice. Everybody got 2-3 hustles, living on their wits and out of all those revenue streams, you were likely only properly trained or schooled to do 1, and you had to learn how to do the others in your spare time.

What the fuck planet is this old geezer living on?

The pandemic flu has really worn down my ability to tolerate older folks talking out their necks. I just can’t do it anymore and they don’t deserve my patience.

I work with kids for a living, you know, one of them “lazy side hustles”, I do.

I’ve learned that children deserve all the patience. When kids make a mistake, it’s genuinely because they don’t know better because their kids.

Not so with older people. A lot of people you’d call adults, do the wrong thing because they just don’t care to do the right thing. It’s not that they don’t know, it’s that they just couldn’t be arsed to act as if they know.

Like, they think they don’t owe you the respect of acknowledging their wrong doing by correcting their behavior.

Stuff like this, is why I spazz out daily.

#film #movies #the last duel #ridley scott #matt damon #okay boomer #millennials

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