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eddie4bat-president · 5 months

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I can so perfectly picture Eddie as this doordasher wearing that shirt

He is. So So Tired, just to start off the day. Did not sleep at all the night before because first he was in the zone perfecting his latest campaign but then he went a little overboard with the villain's backstory; then he realized that if his party didn't question specific people and roll high enough persuasion to get this information, he wouldn't get to tell this story. So then he went on to craft an npc bard who would be singing about the villain and- wait he's a songwriter. Oh how sick would it be if he had his players in a tavern or something after they defeated the Big Bad and then Eddie, at the table, could take out his guitar and play that song to tell the villain's tragic backstory? Amazing, showstopping, incredible. Except he was almost done writing a song he could play on his acoustic that would sound kind of medieval-ly when he realized- wait this is good, actually. What the fuck. He should make a real song out of this for Corroded Coffin. And when he finally tries to go to sleep he keeps laying wide awake with ideas for a whole concept album from the viewpoint of the Bard and-

Point is he's borderline delirious when he gets dressed to dash to some doors - enough that when he looks at the “if she sits on your face, she legally owns you…. Squatters rights and all that” on the shirt Jeff got him for his birthday he giggles for a minute straight while getting dressed and then on and off again until he's in his van.

He loses some time in the routine of getting people their shit and driving until he rings a bell and a distracted pin-up angel from jock-heaven opens the door in some ratty green basketball shorts and nothing else unless you count the t-shirt he's decidedly not wearing but using to wipe... flour? And something else? From his face.

"Hi, sorry, give me a second - I don't care that you're old enough to drive, Henderson! You don't touch another thing in that kitchen until I'm back or I swear to God- give me a second, I want to give you the tip in cash, that's better for you, right?" "...Huh? Yeah, it's- yeah" Sue him, Eddie's distracted. There's hairy chest right in front of his sleep-deprived face and he's considering his conversion to becoming a tits man - except in that moment the (literally) dirty angel turns away and oh Jesus Christ. Yeah, no, still an ass man. Oh wow.

He loses some time again and when he's all there once more he's holding a marker and has just - in view of his future owner, fingers crossed - blacked out the "S" on his shirt so it says "if ■he sits on your face, ■he legally owns you" instead. He's still trying to figure out how this happened and if the surprised look on his doordashee's face is leaning good or bad when fucking Dustin Henderson walks around the corner.

#i ran out of steam here ngl - what happens next? who knows. maybe dustin asks ''eddie is that you?'' and eddie says ''no?''#maybe eddie goes big! ''HENDERSON! i'm here to become your new stepmom! or whatever applies here - put in a good word for me will ya?''#maybe he runs and gets a message from steve like ''? hey you uhh took my groceries with you?'' and he has tk walk of shame his way back #except this time henderson is mysteriously gone~#steddie fic #idk if this counts as a fic lmao #steddie ficlet #steddie prompt #steddie #hey i'm talkin' here #modern steddie

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muwapsturniolo · 2 months

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✯Sturniolos as Half-bloods✯

God version

warnings: mentions of drugs, and sexual escapades

goddess version

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Matt would be the son of Dionysus

Dionysus used to be the god of fertility, now being known as the god of wine, theatre, and ecstasy. Matt would eat this shit up let me tell you!! His style would deff consist of lots of red, leather, leopard print, and rings. Some of his fashion inspirations would be Freddy Mercury, Elton John, and the band Motley Crue. His father is the god of theatre, he's bound to be dramatic with his actions and style.

His cabin, number 12, would most definitely be known as the party cabin. He would throw big grand parties, each one having a theme ranging from the 70's to medieval. He would also host plays, all of them being dramatic, with dark plots. With the parties and plays, come drugs and alcohol. He has drugs of all types, weed, acid, shrooms, etc. His personal favorite is molly, the drug making him and anyone exceptionally horny. He finds that sex feels way better when he and his partner for the night are on it.

Speaking of sexual endeavors, this man is a freaky frog. The way he acts in the bedroom should be a crime! I'm talking rope, vibrators, blindfolds, ball gags, handcuffs, etc. Let's not forget, his dad is the god of fertility, BREEDING KINKKKKKK!!!!! He hates condoms due to his breeding kink, but god forbid he gets one of the girls at the camp pregnant. The only time he would let his breeding kink roam free is when he finally has sex with the girl he's had his eyes on since she arrived at the camp, the daughter of Aphrodite. He has a thing for ruining innocence.

He is known as the manwhore of the camp, most of the males hating him, but still hoping they get an invitation to his parties. The girls try to stay clear of him, knowing how he is but somehow still ending up in his bedroom. Let's get into the bedroom. It's giving Bruno Mars along with Shake & Go wig Anderson Paak. It's straight out of the 70's. It's clean and often smells like weed, wine, and cherries.

His bestfriend is Chris, the son of Hades. The two go hand in hand, partners in crime. When they first met, Matt asked Chris if he had any of his father's pomegranates so he could make wine. Chris couldn't help but laugh at the question, but Matt was being deadass. If Matt is throwing a party, Chris is right there cigarette in hand.

Dionysus's animal was a leopard and or a tiger. Matt would honor that by wearing leopard print and having tiger rugs.

I don't think Dionysus actually had children, but if he did I would imagine they had the ability to cause/cure both sexual and non-sexual madness with their words. like, imagine Matt just saying what he would do to you, and the more descriptive he got, you could basically feel him fucking you? yeah, sign me up!!

Dionysus's weapon of choice was a staff with a pinecone at the top, called a Thyrsus. I think Matt would have the same thing, but more like a cane an old-school pimp would have (thinking of Kat Williams) and it would have the head of a tiger.

His songs:

''I had a cane and a party hat, I was the king of this hologram where there's no such thing as getting out of hand" Don't threaten me with a good time- p!atd

"Hard candy dripping on me 'till my feet are wet" kiwi- harry styles

"And i crave your taste under my tongue everyday, keep the forbidden fruit coming my way." dopamine- borns

Chris would be the son of hades

Hades is the god of the underworld, defending the rights of the dead and protecting the world as well as his wife Persephone. His style would be somewhat similar to Matt's as far as color goes. Lots of black, a few white pieces, and red as well. You will always see him in a leather jacket, his feet adorned by a pair of white air forces. With his father being the god of the underworld, Chris unfortunately got his reputation. A lot of the other half-bloods steering clear of him, whispering when he walks past, not even daring to say his name. it hurt Chris at first, having his peers view him as evil, but he grew accustomed to it. Eventually saying 'fuck it' and playing into the role they made for him.

His cabin being number 13 is perfect because I would like to think he would be born on October 13th, a Friday specifically. It would be deep in the woods, the path scary-looking and eerie. The only source of light being the skull torches against the front door. The only people coming to the house were himself and his best friend Matt, the son of Dionysus. Because no one came to his cabin, Matt would use it as the storage for the copious amounts of wine and paraphernalia he keeps handy. His room is dark (duh). Silk black bedding, books strewn randomly in the room. His skateboard was always propped against the door as well as his multiple pairs of beat-up shoes. He loves music, multiple vinyls, and CDs stacked up in crates around the cabin. He had his signature black guitar right next to his bed, always ready to grab and play. He's a man of few words in this universe. He often found himself writing love songs for the girl in cabin 20, the daughter of Hecate.

Being the son of Hades, anger is unfortunately something he can't avoid. Even though he is usually quiet, all it takes is one person to set him off. One of the Zeus boys was pushing him around and he snapped, damn near killing the boy before Matt pulled him away.

As stated before, his best friend is Matt. He was the only one in the camp to speak to him. Granted he was asking for pomegranates to make wine, but he stuck with him. Matt brought him out of his shell, making sure he was the first to get an invitation to his parties and plays, encouraging his love for music, and also being there for him when his anger got out of control.

Most of Hades, children do have powers. Those powers are necromancy, shadow manipulation, the ability to manipulate the earth, and shadow fusion. Chris would have all of these, especially necromancy and shadow manipulation/fusion. He would use necromancy to fuck with the others in the camp, loving the way his peers screamed in fright. He would only use shadow fusion to spy on his crush, but he gets caught and shyly reveals himself (help I wanna write a fic on the way they meet).

Hades animal representation is a black ram, a screeching owl, and a serpent. let's not forget the three-headed dog Cerberus. Chris would have a big-ass Doberman named Orcus. That dog would hate everyone but Chris, Matt, and the daughter of Hecate.

His songs:

"It's no big surprise you turned out this way" twin-sized mattress- the front bottoms

"There's a light in the crack, that's separating your thighs, and if you wanna go to heaven you should fuck me tonight" Young god- halsey

"My church offers no absolute, she tells me worship in the bedroom" take me to church- hoizer

Nick would be the son of Hermes

Hermes was the god of trade, wealth, luck, sleep, language, thieves, and travel. His style would always consist of light blue jeans and some form of a white shirt/tank top. If he was delivering mail and or messages, he would also wear a blue jean jacket. Him being the son of Hermes is giving blonde Nick IDC idc idc!!!! He would always wear a pair of off-white Converse with wings on the side. Delivering mail can be boring, so he often wears headphones hooked up to a cassette player his best friend Chris gave him as a form of payment.

His cabin is number 11, a lucky number to most. I would imagine it to be a bit more elevated than the others. Perched on some type of high ground where the sun shines in the morning. His cabin would definitely be organized, with all the mail in a specific room in alphabetical order. All of the payments that weren't in cash were placed perfectly in the home, not a thing out of place. His bedding would be white with gold silk pillows. He loved to sleep so his bed was always unmade, blankets thrown all over the bed, even dipping onto the floor.

He often liked to cause a bit of chaos in the camp, it was his homage to his father. He would steal from the other campers, shrugging and rolling his eyes when they asked him about it. He would break into the counselor's office, picking the lock with ease to receive something of Matt's. He would do this often for the campers, but not without payment. If they weren't giving him cash, they had to pay by giving him something of theirs. The amount of jewelry he has is insane.

His best friends, despite not liking their attitudes, would be Matt and Chris. Matt had asked him to deliver invitations for a party, and Nick initially told him no after seeing the amount of invitations. He quickly changed his mind seeing the stack of cash and a gold chalice Matt offered. He and Chris became friends the day he guided Chris into the camp, much like his father guides souls to the underworld.

Most of Hermes' children have powers, those being enhanced speed, audiokensis, and Clauditiskinesis. Nick has all of these, his favorite being clauditiskinesis and audiokensis. He would use audio to listen in on everyone's conversations, it helped that he could be above them in the clouds, never being seen. That's how he figured out that one of the sons of Zeus has a crush on him.

He wouldn't have an animal in my opinion. I would imagine him to have a messenger bag that's like, never-ending lmao.

His songs:

"And i know it's no fun, when your first son gets up to no good" freaking out the neighborhood- mac demarco

"Like Peter Pan up in the sky" tongue-tied - group love

"If you could fly then you'd feel south. Up north getting cold soon." pink + white- frank ocean

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I don't think y'all get it. I'm actually foaming at the mouth writing this. plz send in requests or anything you want to read for half-blood stuniolos!!!

TAGLIST🍑

@bernardsgf @bernardsleftbootycheek @blahbel668 @mattfrfr @gdsvhtwa @sturniolo-aali @lily-loves-struniolos @kynda-avery @causeidontlikeagoldrush

@st7rnioioss @carolinalikesthings @mattslolita @suyqa @xxloveralways14 @pepsiimaxx @judespoision

@ivonchetooo1239 @imaslut4kehlani @that-general-simp @m4stermindd @itzdarling @gigisworldsstuff @adoreindie @braindead4l @pettydollie @chrissgirlsstuff @alexis007 @ratatioulle @yamamasjumpercables @luv4kozume @sturnioloslurps @kqyslyho3 @mattslolita

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sahonithereadwolf · 8 months

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I went down another research hole the other night. Y'all might know about "Big Rock Candy Mountain" from O Brother, Where Art Thou...

youtube

But it, like most of the songs from that movie comes from a tradition of American folk songs. Big Rock Candy Mountains very specifically this tradition of hobo ballads. And, like setting aside the overtones of American colonialism that purvey all these sort of "there is a dreamland to the west for you to claim" songs, there is a cultural tradition of these. "Life is a struggle but there is a place where it's not if you can find it" is a very human sentiment.

There are plenty of medieval works on Cockaigne, which has a similar kinda tone to it. A land where the harsh realities of a blue collar or peasant class struggle can not exist.

But did you know about the secret gay lyrics of Big Rock Candy Mountain?

After Harry McClintoc recorded his version of this ballad, which he claimed he wrote in 1895 based off the stories he heard as a kid working on the railroad, a bunch of people took him to court because they claimed he stole and took parts of his song from a bunch of other hobo songs in the same traditions. Sweet Potato Mountain, Hobo's Heaven, An Appleknocker's Lament... As part of the court dispute, McClintock was told by the judge to perform the song. As art of the court record we have a last stanza which is not used in the cleaned up version used for records and "reputable venues". This was recorded as:

"The punk rolled up his big blue eyes And said to the jocker, "Sandy, I've hiked and hiked and wandered too, But I ain't seen any candy. I've hiked and hiked till my feet are sore And I'll be damned if I hike any more To be * * * * * * * * In the Big Rock Candy Mountains." Now NO ONE KNOWS what that last lyric is. However we can make some very educated inferences. This is about gay sex.

And it's not like "Big Rock Candy Mountains" is immune to commentary despite the more sanitized versions you'd see later from the likes of Burl Ives.

I'm thinking very specifically: "In The Big Rock Candy Mountains All the cops have wooden legs And the bulldogs all have rubber teeth" and

"In The Big Rock Candy Mountains The jails are made of tin And you can walk right out again As soon as you are in There ain't no short-handle shovels No axes, saws or picks I'm a-goin' to stay where you sleep all day Where they hung the jerk that invented work In The Big Rock Candy Mountains" Going back to the lyrics "The punk rolled up his big blue eyes"

Punk in this context and original use, especially in it's use in hobo culture refers to a younger man or boy being kept for sex and other menial task.

Which, you know, should put a whole new context to see how it's been used against other forms of youth culture. Hippies, greasers, punks,ect. And at least for me makes it's misuse feel even more slapdash and pathetic.

If you doubt this, it is quickly followed up by the term "Jocker" "And said to the jocker, 'Sandy," a slang term of the era referring to an aggressive and usually straight passing dom top, especially in the context of prison.

To be a little flippant, this is a twink grumbling to a daddy.

As I mentioned before, no one actually knows what that missing lyric is. Or at the very least it's never been made public.

But give it's proximity to "sore" and "more" a lot of guess tend to jump to the word "Whore".

Sam Eskin actually interviewed McClintock for Folkway Records and which, when asked about the lyrics said “the ambition of every hobo was to snare some kid to do his begging for him, among other things,”

This is something you see in a lot of early gay panic lit all the way up through the 80's. Especially as the moral authoritarianism of the Hayes code kicked in. But it also found itself in the early pulp lit where queerness could still exist (if behind a little mask and a performative, if dramatic, finger shake)

Queerness and homelessness were intertwined. Still are, both from my own personal experiences and if you look at the statistics. And it's not much of a leap to understand why. ---

But we do have some offered lyrics from other authors: "To be buggered sore like a hobo’s whore,” Is a popular one, which has it's origins from a 2002 folk music site called mudcat and waaaaay too British to read naturally if you ask me.

“And be cornholed till my ass is raw.” is another one you see passed around a lot. Which feels too forum humor.

George Milburn in 1930 offers "To be a homeguard with a lemonade card.” which is naive and sweet to say the least.

The fact is we still don't know this lyric, gay punchline (or at least gay panic) as it might be. All we know is that Big Rock Candy Mountain "Was never meant to be a parlor song" in McClintock's own words.

Well that and the insight it offers into social perceptions of queerness at the time and how it's shaped and shifted in the future.

What do you think this secret gay Big Rock Candy Mountain lyric is?

#big rock candy mountain #folklore posting #homelessness #queer history

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utilitycaster · 5 months

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In your post about D20's up-its-own-ass syndrome you didn't say anything about Mentopolis, do you have any relevant thoughts about that?

It's fucking great and very underappreciated! Everyone go watch Mentopolis. I actually in my earlier drafts briefly mentioned Mentopolis and Dungeons and Drag Queens (which was ironically enough just good old fashioned classic D&D) as some recent D20 content that I've liked, but ultimately cut it for length. I posted a little about it at the time if you want to dig into my archives but basically the TTRPG system was a great fit, the production values enhanced the vibes, it didn't take itself too seriously and while my knowledge of neuroscience is far weaker I did take a few courses in it and nothing stood out enough to make me go "this feels incorrect in a way that takes me out of the story." The cast is great - I wasn't really familiar personally with Freddie Wong and Alex Song-Xia and both knocked it out of the park, I love Siobhan, Trapp, and Danielle Radford's prior D20 stuff and this was some of their best, and as someone who was broadly familiar with Hank Green but never deep into the vlogbrothers scene he was a standout.

I think D20 does best when they don't like, actually fuck around with genre so much as do a straight genre in an unexpected setting. Like, A Crown of Candy is straight-up Game of Thrones-esque high medieval low-magic political fantasy, it's just in a world where everything is food. ACOFAF is an Austen pastiche but in the Feywild. So "Noir, but inside of a guy's brain a la Inside Out" while echoing the noir themes and plot outside of it sounds pretentious but is actually weirdly straightforward if you think about it. Anyway. It's good. If you are looking for a solid D20 sidequest and you haven't seen it, go watch it.

#answered #Anonymous #d20 tag #mentopolis

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bluebudgie · 8 months

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So I have this long-standing tradition where, after I finish a video game, I sit down and listen to the soundtrack outside of the game's context.

It serves as a sort of "conclusion" to the experience and simultaneously helps me evaluate the game as a whole a little better... After all the soundtrack is often what sticks with us long after we're done actively playing a game. It preserves the memories we've made along the way.

That means: I have finally found the FF Sixteen OST online in its entirety and could finally follow through with this tradition. (Debatable how much it applies considering I didn't actually play the game myself, but it felt necessary.)

The final missing piece to the pissbaby gamer rage essay. Significantly less raging this time, though.

It's okay. I don't love it. There's worse.

I had very unfavourable opinions of the OST during the game itself which might have been due to the overall pacing issues, where large stretches were filled with the same hub music and then everything bombastic all happened at once and either side of the coin was exhausting in its own way.

I still can't believe there are over 200 songs in the OST when I could have sworn I heard like. Maybe 10 or so during gameplay. A lot of it is very same-y. A large part of the OST can be split into "loud choir explosion" or "sad piano". There isn't a whole lot in between. Good for people who like it, not so much for me.

Which means my biggest issue is the very subjective "I just don't like the style". It's not a bad soundtrack, but I'm just really not a fan of the direction the music took. The battle themes are over the top (fair for the equally over the top DBZ kaijū battles, annoying with 3 wolves that show up on the side of the road). The calmer songs don't really hit right for me. No chord progressions or melodies that hook me. Unfortunate. I did however appreciate the electronic influences in the music when the alien baddies were on screen. (in this fantasy game that is based on medieval reality and that's why people of colour cant exi-)

I have also since learned that there isn't one acoustic guitar song that plays for 20 hours straight. There are like 6 or so that all sound the same. I don't know if that makes it better or worse. I hate them all. (I don't hate acoustic guitars. It's these songs in particular.)

That said - I was curious about which ones are people's favourite tracks of the OST and went checking those out in particular. Consistently in people's tops was Ascension and I can't deny that one's been plagueing (semi-endearing) my memory a bunch the past days. Probably the theme that stuck out the most to me while watching the game. If not the entire theme, then at the very least That Violin Part. If you know, you know.

You know what. If you don't know, here:

(footage stolen from here)

Like damn. Good rhythm going on there with the off beats. Also fits the relevant character nicely in terms of mood. And I like that the battle phase before this one has a more low-key version of this song playing before it goes into this full ham version.

I just kinda wish more of the battle music had been a bit more... this. A bit more... subtle. Like yes it slaps hard but this song legitimately feels calm in comparison to the other battle tracks. This drives me nuts.

There's one other song I keep getting stuck in my head which is one that plays fairly close to the end (in the final... "dungeon" (cutscene? sequence? QTE battle?)). I figured out today that I don't actually really enjoy listening to the song on its own but I like it in-game in combination with the voice perfomance. There's an interesting dissonance in it that blends super nicely with the voice acting. (I'm being held hostage by the game's voice acting. It's unfortunately way too good. Voice actors are once again holding too much power over me.)

Other than that... I have one final criticism. The prelude theme. We must. Leave it. Alone. Enough. It's fine playing once as a gimmick somewhere in the game (I do genuinely like the menu (pause screen?) arrangement) but having it woven into what seems like every 5th song feels like someone is smacking a sign into your face that screams "YOU ARE PLAYING A FINAL FANTASY GAME." Seriously it's unbearable. (Also I did take notice of the FF1 overworld theme being rearranged into a battle theme for the final segment of the game. I don't know why, but fine. Not complaining about that one.)

Overall it's a solid "mh" from me. Not the worst OST we've had in the series (thirteen trilogy exis-COUGHAGFNJKN) but definitely on the lower end for me. Not of bad quality, but not my cup of tea at all. Dark Souls III OST executed the epic orchestra choirs better somehow. More interesting composition. Spaced out better throughout the game. Idk.

Welp. Back to getting haunted by voices and violins now o/

#at some point i will have made 122 posts about this game and every single one will be about the exact same battle sequence #like a horse wearing a blinker

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autistic-autumn · 4 months

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Interesting medieval Latin poems

Okay so I've been reading a lot of medieval Latin poems recently and some of them are pretty cool. My latin is unfortunately very limited so I've most been relying on translations. I am no expert in the field at all. A lot of these poems are quite long so I'm not going to post all of them. Some of them are just stuff I have written up part of in a google doc too so they aren't great.

Most of the translations I'm using are by Helen Waddell because she did an enormous amount of translation and her stuff tends to try preserve a lot of the meaning and poetic form over direct translations. Her translations are sometimes not all that direct but still poetic and neat.

This here is the Dies Irae, known as the day of wrath:

I've just stolen this straight from wikipedia because it's so famous. It is a 13th century poem of unknown origin got turned into a Gregorian chant and later became part of the traditional requiem texts as the Dies Irae sequence. As such there is a large number of music works for the text, the most famous being in Mozart's and Verdi's requiem. The text is often split into a large number of verses and makes up the full requiem sequence. The original Gregorian chant melody was picked up into general music works and being reused in a number of works (I believe the first instance of this is Berlioz's Symphonie Fantastique mvt 5). Overall just a very cool poem with some musical adaptations.

On a similar note a lesser known poem titled Dies Irea exists.

This poem here is by St Columba, a 6th century poet. Hellen Waddell suggests with her translations that it may be a precursor to the more well known Dies Irae above. This appears to just be a small snippet of the full poem by St Columba. It was set to music in 1962 by Benjamin Britten.

Another very famous poem is the O Fortuna:

This too is just take from wikipedia and has many translations out there (Helen Waddell's isn't all that great I don't think and I don't want to type it out). The poem is of unknown authorship and taken from a 13th century manuscript known as the Carmina Burana. This manuscript is full of goliardic poetry. The goliards who wrote this poetry often spoke on topics such as love, fate, drinking. ect. A lot of this stuff was somewhat sacrilegious by 13th century standards and much of the poetry remains anonymous. Carl Orff famously took 24 of these poems and created the Carmina Burana, with the O Fortuna as the opening work.

One of the poets who we do (kind of) know the name of in the Carmina Burana is The Archpoet. The Archpoet had 10 poems, with all of his 10th and part of his 6th appearing in the Carmina Burana manuscript. Here is the Confession by the Archpoet:

This poem is a personal favourite of mine. I've mostly seen the original poem laid out in four line stanzas with slightly different spellings in the Latin. Waddell's own translation spells the first line as "Estuans inrinsecus" but splits the original into eight line stanzas. I have no idea why this is but I just quickly found a latin one online that matched up with the translations by Waddell. I find this poem very powerful and the translation very well encapsulates both the poetic form and rhythm while keeping the original meaning intact. I have set this text to music myself and have most extensively studied the latin translations of any poem on this list.

Another Goliardic poem that appears in the Carmina Burana Manuscript is the Portrait Of Despair:

This translation is actually by George Whicher in his book "The Goliardic Poets; Medieval Latin Songs and Satires". The full piece is three stanzas long (at least in the book) but this one here is just the one stanza I wrote up. I think this verse is the most interesting anyways.

Another poem from the Carmina Burana Manuscript in George Whichers book is Iste Mundus, This Dizzy World:

I don't really have a lot to say about this one. It just think it's neat

There are a bunch of other interesting ones I have that I might update this post with but that's a little collection of some of the interesting stuff.

#Autumn's Thoughts #latin #goliards #medieval poetry #I did not proof read this btw it's probably full of errors #likely the poetry I just typed up from the books also has typos

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always-a-knight · 8 months

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I've noticed something about Mizora's contract and Raphael's, which give me a headcanon idea

Mizora has Wyll's entire contract memorized, quoting it by clause and sub-section when you encounter her---both to remind Wyll of his obligations and explain the loopholes she wrote into it. The clauses are labelled with letters of the English alphabet and the clause explaining how Wyll can get out of the contract is labelled "Z"

Supposing that contracts with demons are written like the real world's, the contract would list the terms for annulment/termination last---in which case, it would be appropriate to name that clause after the final letter of the alphabet (Z)

This all being said, it makes me wonder if Mizora needs to make such lengthy contracts that they comprise 26 clauses---the same number of letters in the alphabet. In some mythologies, supernatural monsters (including demons) are compulsive creatures: Chinese vampires are said to be compelled to stop and count every grain of rice spilled in front of them. In Medieval Europe, it was believed that demons could be trapped inside a pentagram because they were compelled to follow straight lines (because a pentagram is drawn as a single unbroken line that connects at each point, forcing the demon to basically run around forever)

We also have Raphael's contract with the orthon, Yurgir. Rather than written on a long scroll or on papers in a tall stack, the terms are explained in the form of a song. Considering how much Raphael appreciates the arts (especially poetry), maybe his compulsion is to make every contract a song

Now imagine Mizora leaning over her desk, struggling to think of 24 clauses' worth of filler to put between the actual deal (whatever she wants from you) and how to get out of it. Now imagine Raphael making his clients sing their contract back to him---not letting them go until they do it "with feeling"

#ooc nonsense #baldur's gate 3 spoilers #bg3 spoilers

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jackredfieldwasmyjacob · 1 year

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hello everyone, the annoying spaniard is back to rant about the cultural references i'm seeing on my pokemon scarlet playthrough! here's my previous post in case you want to check it out :)

i have many thoughts about zapapico cause it's most likely based on almería and granada and my family is from there and yeah... anyways

the house design of that town, with them being excavated in the stone like that, is definitely inspired by the house-caves of guadix (granada) [pics 4-6], cuevas del almanzora (almería) [pics 7-9], and many others (those are just the ones i know about / been to). the sourrounding landscape reminds me of almería and its tabernas desert but, based on its location and the fact that there's another more likely desert in the other side of the region, i would say all of that area is based on los monegros desert (aragón) [pics 10-12], the other extremely arid area in the country.

and now i wanted to talk extensively (i'm sorry) about probably my favorite part of the game so far... team star poison squad.

to start, let's talk about the location. tagtree thicket is based on the oma forest in the basque country (i sadly forgot to take more pics of the location in the game so you only get this screenshot of my team before entering the base)

this might be a reach, but oddly enough i think it might be also at least partly inspired on sierra morena. i genuinely only got this connection cause at the entrance to the forest an npc (once again i forgot to take a screenshot of it) tells you to be wary of the forest, as the area is full of bandits and rascals and whatnot. that reminded me of the bandolero culture and the romantization of it, which flourished in sierra morena and other mountainous areas of andalusia. in particular there was a legendary bandolero called curro jiménez that got his own tv show (he was basically a spanish robin hood). there's even a cartoon in andalusian tv about a ragtag group of bandoleros with a bomb opening song. this is not actually too far off of the characterization of the leader of team star's poison team (my new favourite character ever)...

where to start with atticus?? (btw why is that his name in english?? in spanish he's named henzo which makes much more sense imo) let's start with the obvious: he's a ninja (which actually is an incredible design choice i'm kissing the pokemon team in the lips rn). but apart from that, everything else is heavily spanish inspired. basically, all of his persona is taken straight out of what's referred to as the spanish golden age (more or less the 16th and 17th centuries). i imagine his speech patterns and personality are an homage to shakespeare in the english version, but in the spanish one he speaks just like don quixote and actually has a lot of similarities to that character. for those of you who don't know much about don quixote, it is known as the greatest literature work in the spanish language ever and was written by miguel de cervantes (to help you situate all of this, he was a contemporary of shakespeare. in fact, in school we learn they died on the same day but on different calendars or something like that, it's a whole thing). in the novel, alfonso is a noble who spends all day reading chivalric romances to the point he at some points loses his mind and thinks of himself as a medieval knight that has to defeat evils and save people and whatnot. don quixote's speech patterns are mocked within the novel for sounding antiquated (just like atticus' speech sounds old for us). other direct references to don quixote are the fact that in the flashback the fairy dude comments on how atticus is a nerd of ninja and epic novels [pic 1], and the fact that during his presentation atticus says he is a 'desfacedor de entuertos' [pic 2], the same expression don quixote uses (it would kinda translate to 'problem solver' i guess?).

apart from don quixote, there's also references to playwright calderón de la barca, most noticeable through atticus' dramatic attitude (his first words are 'jumping to scene' [pic 1] and in his picture he is bowing to you [pic 3]), as well as one particular line after you defeat him where he says an extremely calderonian line [pic 2]

and that was all!!! sorry for the wall of text, i had many thoughts™️ for this one lol

here's next post !!!

#pokemon #pokemon scarlet and violet #pokemon sv #pokemon spoilers #pokemon sv spoilers

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jennyandvastraflint · 5 months

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I'm not quite sure which ones I have sent you already, so feel free to skip any <3

14. Are there any tropes you would only read if written by a trusted friend or writer?

26. Would you rather write a fic that had no dialogue or one that was only dialogue?

29. What songs would be (or are) on a playlist for Butterfly Queen? Explain your choices if you want!

38. Did any of your fics get surprisingly popular (whatever that means to you)? Which ones? Why do you think they were so successful?

Thank yoooouuu! Okay, trying this for the second time now, seeing as my laptop decided to shut all my windows and delete my answers...

14. Are there any tropes you would only read if written by a trusted friend or writer?

Kid fics, I think. I'm not generally a fan of them because they just don't suit the vast majority of my ships, and they need to be done a particular way for me to enjoy them. I'm not generally very interested in children XD So there's that.

And smut. I've read a few, some better and more memorable than others, and the ones I enjoyed pretty much always carried a lot of emotional weight. Smut just plain bores me a lot of times because I have no connection to any desire to have sex.

26. Would you rather write a fic that had no dialogue or one that was only dialogue?

Definitely no dialogue because I love rambling, exploring characters' inner workings, and examining them very closely. Technically my Anura drabble is a fic with no dialogue, and Songs of Love and Death has quite a few chapters with hardly any dialogue at all because they were very introspective.

(as a side note for the only dialogue one, I have written plays and short audio scripts which are technically only dialogue. I'm just gonna link them here: Sontaran Composition, Amnesia, and Captured in Space)

29. What songs would be (or are) on a playlist for Butterfly Queen?

This is a hard one seeing as the fic is quite fluffy and positive and all my music goes in pretty much the opposite direction (look I just love either yearning or dramatic shit XD), but I will try to leave you at least a few songs...

youtube

Something something memory of her past, butterflies as a reminder, Jenny singing Vastra to sleep, or perhaps the memory of her mother(s) telling her to sleep in her head? Honestly the possibilities are endless, and the entrancing music and singing itself is just so magical to me.

youtube

This one's also fairly early on in the fic, as it's quite weighty and emotional. Also the song is Jenny/Vastra coded as FUCK. I'm going insane over it daily <3

youtube

Absolutely the wrong time period as this is medieval, but I love how bouncy it is and the spring vibes it has, and I think that fits quite well, despite the period obviously being a different one.

youtube

Some more instrumental that fits Vastra as a whole quite well, I think.

youtube

And something very positive and sweet! Honestly? This fits quite well XD Just gliding on through Looking down on the view from up here

And from up here The world is all yours Each mountain and meadow and mere

And from up here Life's duties and chores Are barely worth shedding a tear

And all of the sky lies before us Straight up to the far stratosphere So head for the blue and let's take in the view from up here

It's just me and you looking down on the view from up here Lyrics

38. Did any of your fics get surprisingly popular (whatever that means to you)? Which ones? Why do you think they were so successful?

I mean, this kinda goes for every single fandom outside of my little niche because there's actually a wider audience for them out there. I will say tho, the constant popularity of my KyaLin stuff (relative for me) made me reluctant to write them because that's kinda not anywhere near my main thing... I'm taking my two The Dragon Prince fics with the most kudos out of that because I think that was a spam attack (I also got like a dozen spam comments on each of them...)

I suppose one that did come as a surprise was my Lilith Clawthorne coming out fic? I had never written The Owl House before that (and quite frankly barely afterwards), and it was quite interesting!

But focusing on my Doctor Who ones which are my main thing, I'm surprised that both Pacing (a Thasmin fic with a heavy focus on autistic 13) and Emerald Scales (Colours Soulmate AU) got over 80 kudos. And You're not useless, never, to me... is also a surprise because reading it back, damn that was EARLY writing and could so do with a rewrite XD

Also, Burning Love (Jennah/Anise from Guild Wars 2) got a whooping NINE kudos, which is quite frankly so surprising considering there are seven fics about them and two of them are mine? Every single kudo/comment on my Guild Wars fics is a win for me honestly, it's by far the smallest fandom (in terms of interest in the canon characters) I write for.

I suppose most of the stuff outside Doctor Who is popular because I'm not filling a niche with an audience of 20 people at BEST. My Thasmin and Osgate stuff tends to be well-received as well, but I've just chosen a niche for me with a very small audience... XD

Thank you so much for the ask, and I hope you are happy with these answers :3

#ask #ask game #madame vastra #jenny flint #jenny and vastra #doctor who

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incoherentbabblings · 11 months

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Maybe the May prompt for year of the otp, fantasy/medieval/dark knights of steel au and flower language for dickroy ☆ (I barely see this two any more :()

Not me doing this on the last day of May orz apologies anon my brain is running on Tears of the Kingdom at the moment so I apologise profusely. Went for gen Fantasy/vague Europe mediaeval over Dark Knights of Steel because I haven't been keeping up with it one bit. Having said that - it's like literally just after midnight here so again apologies for how slow I am... Enjoy! This is just fluff.

Year of the OTP Requests

Roy was never quite sure if the Prince actually needed a host of guards. He was skilled in swordplay, that much was clear from days in the training yard. He didn’t need tutors either. At every council meeting he attended, sitting to the left of the King at that grand rectangular table, he spoke eloquently and with an experience and knowledge of time’s past, predicting things still to come. He needed not etiquette training. Half the court was in love with him, and the other half either respected him enough to bow each time he entered the room, or to at the very least, sincerely listen to what he had to say. There was a small slither of those who were resentful - those who believed no-one could genuinely be that confident, that kind, the clever, that strong (that handsome), without some crippling character of physical defect, surely?

Roy knew the answer to their grumblings. Yes, Richard (Dick) did have one very deep, irreconcilable flaw: Roy.

Being the son of the Lord Mayor had its benefits, or so Roy supposed. Access to the castle was nearly always a given, as well as access to the Prince. In certain scenarios.

Dick had a lot of siblings. It made alone time nearly impossible.

Those old romances, songs and tales that Roy’s brother would sing, speaking of illicit meetings in gardens or in back staircases - the kind of tales where Queen’s would take a lover and they would both lose their head over it…

Well, Roy was nothing if not optimistic.

As it so happened, their first kiss was in a back staircase. Dick, two steps up to reach slightly above Roy, kissed him very soundly on the lips, thumb pressed against his chin.

He pulled back as quickly as the lips were touching, Roy following just a little desperately. His hand flew up to keep Dick in place, to stop him slipping away.

“Promise you will not tell,” Dick asked. Those dark blue eyes were swallowed up in ink, watching Roy carefully. If he lied, the Prince would know. The Prince would probably cut off his head himself. The softness did not run all the way to his core. At least not for those he saw as traitors.

Roy did not fear such a thing, no reality was possible where he would betray Dick’s trust. What could he possibly want that was of higher value?

He made his vow, repeating his thoughts out loud. Dick had blushed so sweetly, and there had been one more kiss.

And then Dick’s brother was getting married.

Roy supposed it was somewhat unusual that a younger sibling was being married off before the eldest and heir, and with that did come whispers. Maybe the younger was being relied on for the next heir, in a way that Dick would not be able to match. Maybe the royal family knew it. Maybe Tim was just very much in love and it was no more deep than that. Roy had not pried, but those whispers had clearly made their way to Dick, who had simply shrugged one day watching Roy shoot, a pile of books at the table and what felt like two dozen infants under the age of ten playing in the nearby fountain. Their respective families only ever seemed to grow larger by the year.

“There will be a tourney,” Dick stated, “as part of the celebrations.”

Roy fired an arrow, it flying straight and true and landing exactly where intended. He did the same with a second, third, then nocked a fourth.

“Will you join?” he asked.

“I am not allowed,” the Prince replied, squinting in the sunlight. “You must, though.”

“Must I?” He tried to sound like he did not care one way or another, but the idea of getting to show off was tempting. Maybe knock a few young green knights from their horses.

“Are you not my champion?”

Roy set down the end of his bow in the dry grass, leaning against it with one ankle tucked behind the other.

“As your Grace commands.”

“I do command.”

Dick smiled, brighter than the sun. Roy turned away, returning to shoot. Like the sun, it hurt to look at him sometimes.

Considering he was the groom, apparently the King had no problem with Timothy being the one to compete in the tourney. For some undisclosed reason, Dick remained next to his father under the shaded canopy. Alongside him was his youngest brother, a boy of ten, his sister, a woman of twenty, and her dearest friend, the bride to be. The two woman were not paying much attention to the day’s events, though the moment where Tim had approached the stand, lance under arm and mounted on his horse had led to an interesting scene. Stephanie had risen up, ring of flowers in hand, and tossed it onto the lance, allowing it to fall down to the hand guard. Tim had inclined his head, Stephanie had curtsied, returned to her seat, then that was that.

Tim quite comfortably unseated his next three opponents.

Dick had caught Roy’s eyes part way through the day. With a quick word to his father, who seemed rather bored of the entire occasion, he left the stand, circumventing the main arena, to join Roy over by the tents.

“Are you suitably impressed?” he asked, the clanging and exaltations of the fighters and crowds masking their conversation.

“Your brother is very good at hitting people with a stick.”

Dick got a dangerous gleam in his eye. “I challenge you to unseat him.”

Roy laughed, then found fit to fiddle with the leather straps around his arm.

“I dare not.”

“You do not think you could?”

“I could. I could also get a splinter in his eye spurting blood everywhere and having him die of an infection three days before his wedding.”

Dick smirked, and Roy complained further, “I am an archer, not a knight.”

“I would ask you to impress them all.”

Roy chewed his lip, then glanced behind Dick, at the lance Tim held, at the flowers and leaves tied in a tight circle.

“What’s with the garland?” Roy asked.

“Hmm?” Dick turned to see what he was looking at. “The favor? You must have been given a lady’s favor before.”

Roy resisted the urge to stammer. “I am aware. I meant the flowers. Are they important to her? To them?”

Dick inspected the circle of foliage as it sped by, Tim candidly taking out another competitor. His lance shattered this time, and yet he managed to grip the ring of flowers before it fell under the horses foot. Riding by, he tossed it back up to the stands, where Stephanie was waiting, hand outstretched. Her catching it was immediately followed by the crowd's joyful shouts. Dick whistled, and Cassandra appeared to be begging for a turn herself.

“Myrtle, sweet william, irises…” Dick turned back to Roy. “They all have meanings, it tells their story - but you have to learn to speak the language. I cannot tell it for you.”

“Boo.”

Dick laughed, then nudged Roy onwards. “Go. I want my knight to prove himself. In front of everyone, my father most of all. Your father.”

“You have such faith in me,” Roy complained, but he set out as bid. Dick watched, not even trying to hide the unabashed affection as he did so. It made Roy almost shy, for once.

“I have faith in my champion, yes. I do.”

Roy proceeded to knock Tim off his horse, and well enough that he was simply winded, and to the screaming delight of both his bride to be (a laughing joy to see him humbled, just a little) and the youngest brother, who clapped, utterly delighted.

The following week, when what felt like a full month’s worth of celebrations had died down, Dick had entered his chambers to find a garland of flowers, spun tightly and neatly into a circle. The Prince laughed, but he should have expected as much. Roy was a quick student.

Bellflower, clove and coriander (oh Roy), edelweiss, violet and leaves from the grand oak tree in the courtyard.

Dick stroked the foliage reverently. Maybe the time would come where secret presents and backstairs kisses would no longer be required, but for the moment, there was something rather quaint in the courtly love the two had. He was sure it would all come crashing down in fire and flames, but as Dick breathed in the scent of the plants, he could not quite find it in himself to care.

He had been the dutiful son his entire life. He could allow himself this one unshared treasure.

#dc #dick grayson #roy harper #dickroy #my fic tag #Oh god it's three past midnight here but it's still May in the US it counts it counts it COUNTS #thank you for the ask!!#ask and i'll babble

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orlaite · 4 months

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favourite books you read in 2023? least favourite?

To the surprise of absolutely no one, my dearest, favourite book I read this year was T.E Lawrence's Seven Pillars of Wisdom. It was the kind of book that was not only damn good but also changed me fundamentally as a person and put my personality and interests on a new trajectory with a jetpack strapped on. It's impossible to overstate the impact this book has had on me. The actual, physical edition I read is also part of my dearest 2023 memories: I was on a mission to find it when I went on a solo-trip to Berlin this summer, the first bookshop I went to gave me a postcard and wrote some suggestions for where to find it on the back (I have the postcard taped up by my bed) - I took the U-bahn straight to the first shop and they had it! I loved that shop, it had such a cool vibe and the man at the register was really nice. Bought way too many books there most of which I still haven't read. When I open that edition of Pillars it's like I'm back in Berlin in the summer heat. I've said all of this and not even talked about the inherent qualities of the book, but they're many and I loove it. WE SEVEN PILLARS POSTING IN THIS INVIOLATE HOUSE AS A MEMORY TO YOU.

Lawrence's The Mint was also another favourite, as was Jeremy Wilson's Lawrence biography and John Mack's Prince of Our Disorder.

On the topic of non-fiction, I read a very entertaining book called The Fires of Lust: Sex In The Middle Ages which I recommend. Really interesting and enlightening research and assertions. It humanizes peoples of the past and effectively makes the point that people, across time and space, are pretty much the same while pointing out the differences between medieval sexuality and our popular (mis)conceptions of it.

Back to literary fiction, I also read and very much enjoyed The Color Purple by Alice Walker, The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath and Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison. James Joyce's The Dead was my favourite short-story, with E.M Forster's The Life to Come and D.H Lawrence's Fanny and Annie coming in at 2nd and 3rd, respectively.

I didn't read any fiction I would call bad or anything, but if I have to say least favourite it's probably Emily St. John Mandel's Station Eleven. Just not my type of book.

Some of the (new) books I hope to read and finish by 2024: War and Peace (cirka 200 pages in rn), Anna Karenina, Orlando, The Odyssey, A Passage to India, The full Oxford text of Seven Pillars of Wisdom, and Jens Bjørneboe's Bestialitetens Historie.

This got kinda long but thank you for the ask darling❤️

#asks

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warningsine · 1 year

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Philomena Cunk, the host of Netflix and BBC Two’s Cunk on Earth, a mockumentary series about the history of human civilization, asks the stupidest questions. Half historical tour guide and half field reporter, the character, played by comedian Diane Morgan, trains her glassy gaze upon real academics who’ve dedicated their lives to scholarship and poses queries like, “How did Egyptians build the pyramids? Did they start at the top and work down?” and “Were numbers worth less back in ancient times?” These experts, many of whom are in on the bit, play along by answering her questions as sincerely as they can. In episode five, Ashley Jackson, a professor of imperial and military history at London’s King’s College, gives in quickly after Cunk accuses him of “mansplaining” the distinction between the Soviet Union and what she calls the “Soviet Onion.” “If you want to talk about Russian Soviet vegetables, we can,” he says.

But Charlie Brooker, the show’s creator — best known in the United States for creating the anthology series Black Mirror — knows Cunk on Earth can’t sustain itself on dopey interview questions alone (Morgan’s Cunk character originated on Brooker’s mid-2010s BBC Two series, Charlie Brooker’s Weekly Wipe), so the show etches out different ways to maintain its profound commitment to stupidity. Cunk’s narration is packed with factual inaccuracies, anecdotes about eccentric characters from her personal life, and daffy non sequiturs. “What’s ironic about Jesus Christ becoming a carpenter was he was actually named after the two words you’re most likely to shout after hitting your thumb with a hammer,” she says in episode two. For no apparent reason, the show’s go-to benchmark for the measurement of time is the 1989 Technotronic song “Pump Up the Jam.” Each reference to the “unrelated Belgian techno anthem” is accompanied by nearly 40 seconds of the song’s extremely ’80s music video and a chyron displaying jokes about the song like, “‘Pump Up the Jam’ is an anagram of ‘Jam Up the Pump.’” There is a commercial for a hotel resort played completely straight, a solo reenactment of a medieval feast turned mêlée soundtracked by expert sound design, a Black Mirror–inspired bit about traumatizing an artificially intelligent Beethoven by re-creating his sentience within a smart speaker, and more.

Sometimes, the way Cunk on Earth subverts this formula is by being deceptively smart. The phrasing of an ostensibly silly question will illuminate something insightful about human behavior, or Cunk will travel so far down the path of apparent stupidity that she loops back around to intelligence. When she asks Joyce Tyldesley (professor of Egyptology at the University of Manchester) in episode one about whether the shape of Egypt’s pyramids was designed to prevent “homeless people from sleeping on them,” for example, the answer seems obvious. But just by asking the question, she makes an implicit point about how accepted anti-homeless architectural design is today by comparison. In a similar move, when Cunk asks University of London’s professor of history Kate Cooper in episode two if she could call Jesus Christ “the first celebrity victim of cancel culture,” she cuts off Cooper’s reply. “Sorry, that wasn’t a question,” she clarifies. “I’m literally asking if you could call him the first celebrity victim of cancel culture for our show.” To go viral, her show needs to reduce hot-button issues to zippy sound bites, after all.

In the show’s first episode, during a conversation with Douglas Hedley (professor of the philosophy of religion at the University of Cambridge), Cunk posits, to his dismay, that the human brain is full of pipes. “You know how philosophers have these thoughts, and they try and push these thoughts through these pipes?” she asks a weary-looking Hedley. “When you’re having a big idea, is it best to break it up into lots of little thoughts, about the size of peas, and squeeze them through in quick succession, or just bite the bullet and force it through your mind pipe in one huge clod, like gritting your teeth and thinking for dear life?” Hedley’s expression softens as the question progresses. “That’s a very interesting way of describing two general tendencies in philosophy,” he replies. “The more analytical style, which means cutting problems up into bite-size portions, and the other, a more synthetic approach, which takes on a larger perspective. Your characterization is, in fact, a rather intriguing delineation of two major strands in current philosophy.” All of that from an unacknowledged poop joke.

That scene is reminiscent of a classic clip from Sacha Baron Cohen’s Da Ali G Show when Ali G shocks a group of animal-rights activists he’s otherwise antagonized with a sneakily thoughtful question. “What happens if they say, ‘Here’s a chicken. You eat this, or we kill another chicken’?” he lobs at them. “You’ve just asked a question that was the hardest question that the toughest moral philosopher, when I did philosophy at university, asked us,” answers one activist, a big smile pasted on his face. Watching experts react like this to Ali and Cunk feels like seeing someone coincidentally check the time on a stopped clock at one of the only two times it happened to be correct that day. But none of this is the product of happenstance. Being stupid is easy, but committing to a comedic brand of stupidity that revels in and explores stupidity in all its forms like Cunk on Earth is a much taller order. It requires a command over the brain-breaking, the groan-inducing, the squint-causing, and an understanding of how to reconcile all of these elements into an end product that justifies the effort. Cunk on Earth is like a symphony of stupidity, and at its helm is its virtuosic maestro of the form, Morgan’s Cunk.

In episode three of Cunk on Earth, Cunk sits across from Dr. Shirley J. Thompson, a composer and professor of music at the University of Westminster, to interview her about classical music. “Beethoven wrote that song that goes ‘Dum-dum-dum-dum. Dum-dum-dum-dum,’” she says, humming the composer’s “Symphony No. 5.” “What do those lyrics mean? … It’s just the word ‘dumb’ over and over again. Is it a dig at his audience?” Cunk on Earth doesn’t play the same dumb note over and over again. Unlike Beethoven, it has some respect for its audience.

#comedy #bbc #netflix #cunk on earth #diane morgan #charlie brooker

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isabelpsaroslunnen · 1 year

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[Original date: 5 July 2016]

The more I write, the more I feel that “Oh, but it’s a fantasy world! You’re not actually depicting any real cultures” is not at all useful or productive. For one, if you can’t see the connections between things like Lord of the Rings or A Song of Ice and Fire and medieval Europe, I don’t know what to say to you. They are not direct depictions, but they are very, very evidently rooted in history and culture—and the baggage that comes with them.

It’s true that the connecting fibers are much thinner for some works than others, but while most are not on quite the scale of Middle-earth or Westeros, many follow in that kind of tradition. Speaking as a writer—in my day job (such as it is), I study early modern and eighteenth century British literature, and my interest in those periods constantly pervades my fiction. I did as much historical research for the first chapter of my fantasy novel as for straightforward historical fiction, because many aspects absolutely are drawn straight from history.

At the same time, of course, it is a fantasy and a secondary world, and those are never going to be directly equivalent.

For instance, ASOIAF is obviously and unabashedly inspired by the Wars of the Roses, enacted across a continent rather than one small island, but the Starks and Lannisters are not simply fantasy versions of the Yorks and Lancasters. During the Wars of the Roses, both families were Plantagenets, branches of the royal house of England with rival claims to the throne. In ASOIAF, neither the Starks nor Lannisters have any direct claim to the Iron Throne at all—we see the Plantagenet vs Plantagenet dynamic more with the deposed Targaryens vs their Baratheon cousins who won the previous phase of the conflict.

The Baratheons’ ebullient warrior-king, Robert, is probably most comparable to Edward IV, and his beautiful, ambitious wife to Elizabeth Woodville. However, Cersei Lannister is altogether a wilder, more amoral figure than Elizabeth, and Robert marries her out of political expediency rather than Edward’s passion for the unsuitable Elizabeth. Also unlike Elizabeth, Cersei triumphs over the austere northern lord who would strip power from her and her children, where Elizabeth lost the immediate battle to Richard of Gloucester—a far more ambiguous figure than Ned Stark.

In character, Cersei is perhaps more akin to the Lucrezia Borgia of legend, if not history. She comes with an ambitious, highly intelligent father who ruthlessly uses all his children (Tywin Lannister/Alexander VI), an incestuous brother-lover locked into an order that denies him an inheritance (Jaime Lannister/Cesare Borgia), and a second, widely loathed brother (Tyrion Lannister/Juan Borgia).

The parallels aren’t exact there, either, though. Cesare’s strategic and administrative brilliance goes to Tyrion, Lucrezia’s overriding loyalty to her family at odds with (in the fictionalized versions) a burgeoning conscience goes to Jaime, and Juan’s incompetent, wild recklessness goes to Cersei.

As far as Wars of the Roses analogues go, Daenerys Targaryen’s place seems to draw nearest to Henry Tudor, Earl of Richmond, the future Henry VII. Daenerys and Henry are, respectively, exiled survivors of the deposed branches of the royal family (Targaryen/Lancastrian) who, with local and foreign support, return to reclaim the kingdom. Yet Daenerys is wildly dissimilar from Henry. Even her claim to the throne differs. Where Daenerys is the only surviving, legitimate child of the old king, Henry’s Lancastrian heritage came through an illegitimate and female line, and he had a prudent, restrained personality in general, more like—say, Jon Snow.

That’s ASOIAF. If you jump to Tolkien, it’s not surprising that he linked Gondor to the Byzantine Empire in its decline. Like the Byzantine Empire, Gondor is the surviving half of a once-towering empire, holding on while the other half (Arnor/Holy Roman) loses its territory and decays into little states and feuding communities. The Battle of the Pelennor Fields has striking parallels to the fall of Constantinople, and Tolkien directly referred to Minas Tirith as a take on Constantinople.

Yet again, the parallels are not 1:1, even setting aside the basic fact that it turns out completely differently. Denethor is at most a tragic inversion of Emperor Constantine, but even that seems a stretch. His sons, Boromir and Faramir, don’t plug into any particular historical figures, and the faithful Rohirrim don’t exactly map onto anyone despite their clear Germanic inspiration.

Gondor is also heavily inspired by various regions of Italy, complete with internal strife and ruling princes who have discretion about sending armies to the Pope Steward to defend Rome Minas Tirith. Tolkien insisted that the rejuvenated Gondor at the end of LOTR is not Northern European, but essentially a restored Roman Empire with its seat at Rome. He identified various areas of Italy as the real life counterparts to Gondor, most notably Venice/Pelargir and Assisi/Lossarnach.

However, Gondor is geographically far larger than Italy, large enough to extend to Greece and Turkey, and has influences from ancient Egypt as well. The Egyptian influence lies not only in Gondor’s embalming practices but their massive monuments, their religion (which also has Jewish influences), royal imagery (especially with regard to the crown), and the general trends of Gondorian culture.

None of these, of course, are perfect models of reference—though at least you could legitimately argue that the films’ casting choices for Gondorian Dúnedain weren’t actually accurate to “Tolkien’s vision,” as is often claimed. But these are probably the most recognizable models for Gondor, with strong connections to history—and even with those, the references are multi-layered and flexible.

Essentially: this particular genre of quasi-historical fantasy absolutely draws from real history, sometimes closely, sometimes less so, which makes it perfectly possible to talk about accuracy, appropriation, and so on, in the context of fantasy. At the same time, it’s complicated by the fact that references are never direct and are worked out in the context of their own stories—a complication that is silenced rather than addressed by dismissing the relevance of history.

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storm-and-starlight · 14 days

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Top Nine No Skip Albums (as tagged by @heronfem), organized in favorite album order! I just straight up don't listen to music by album (and am also truly ridiculously picky about stuff) so this was. a lot harder than I was expecting! (this isn't so much "top nine no-skip albums" as "literally the only nine albums I can think of that I don't skip any songs on" lmao)

Tagging anyone else who'd like to do this, just tag me back so I can see!

How to Train Your Dragon OST by John Powell HTTYD my best beloved. I watched this movie when I was seven years old, got Test Drive stuck in my head and Forbidden Friendship stuck in my heart and haven't gotten either of them out since. I know it's not teeeeeeechnically an album, but I love it anyways and it holds an incredibly special place in my heart. Favorite song: Forbidden Friendship

Save Rock and Roll by Fall Out Boy The yearning... the yearning. Something about the nostalgia and the ache and the... the everything about this album sank into me. Alone Together is the song that got me to actually start listening to Fall Out Boy's entire discography, and we all know how that went. Favorite Song: Alone Together

Love Run by The Amazing Devil I just. I love this album so much, with all its motifs and melodies and intertwining songs. It's chaotic and beautiful and I will never get over how every single song but the last is about love going wrong in some way and yet the chorus of the very last song is love's worth running to. Favorite Song: Love Run (Reprise)

Vices & Virtues by Panic! at the Disco A collection of Absolute Bops and also The Yearning (Panic! version) and it's just. It's fun! The music clicks exactly with my brain in both a melodic and emotional sense, and that is extremely rare for an entire album to pull off. Favorite Song: This one's from the bonus songs that I think you can only find nowadays on Youtube, but it's Stall Me!

Masterharper of Pern by Tania Opland So this is a published CD of filk music based off the songs and poetry from the Dragonriders of Pern books, and. look. I like medieval-inspired folk. That's what this is. It's also about a book series that was extremely formative for my love of dragons, so just like. It's good. I like it. Favorite Song: Star Stone

Inside by Bo Burnham Every single song on this album is simultaneously an Absolute Banger and an Absolute Mood (which is everything Bo Burnham writes, really, but this one especially). That Funny Feeling is the best example of what it's like to be alive when it feels like the world is collapsing down around you that I've ever found. Favorite Song: That Funny Feeling

Ola Gjeilo by Ola Gjeilo Ola Gjeilo is probably my all-time favorite choral composer -- he does such fun things with harmony without being boring like some people (*cough* Whitacre *cough*) can be. Favorite Song: The Lake Isle

PTX, Vol. III by Pentatonix I went through a massive PTX phase in middle school (I was a preteen choir kid, what were you expecting), and this is one of the albums that stuck around. Favorite Song: Rather Be

Artificial Intelligence by Tom Cardy Every single song this man has ever produced is absolutely fucking flawless and I have nothing else to say. Favorite Song: Read Between the Lines

#music

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kroashent · 10 months

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Pride of Alvez '23 - Heroes of the Past

Kroashent is intended to explore the themes of acceptance, identity and love that Pride represents, and I hope that you come to love these characters as much as I do. I plan on doing a few for this set over the next month, sharing the different identities of Alvez, and of course, our own world.

Happy Pride from Muldumarec and the rest of the Kroashent cast (and of course from Val as well!). Neutral acknowledgement from Talus. Stay proud, stay strong and stay seen!

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Val's Notes: I actually drew this one a year or two ago, but never got a chance to finish/post it (Hence the slight differences in style and composition). I've briefly introduced Muldumarec before, while this is the debut of Talus, the Man of Iron. I hope to draw more of them and their allies in the future though.

The Alliance of the Brekilien were a group of adventurers roughly 800 years before Kathalia's time, and while they do not appear in the present-day, their presence is continually felt by the main cast, and they are known as legendary heroes of times past.

Muldumarec Artegall, AKA the Goshawk Knight, was the Princet of Cleopolis, an Eladan City-State in the Fortunate Isles, and Leader of the Knights of Maidenhead, a Knightly Order of the Sidhe. Seeking adventure, they set out for the continent as a knight errant, coming into conflict with the Lethan warlord Conomor. Muldumarec positioned themself in opposition to the Black Dog, becoming his primary adversary.

Talus, the Man of Iron, is the precursor of the Brassguard, complex automata that are found across Alvez. Signficantly more powerful and complex than these later creations, they appear singleminded in their actions, but act according to their own unique agency, unlike those that follow them. They serve as Muldumarec's companion, for reasons no one can quite figure out, as the flamboyant, passionate Muldumarec and the taciturn, calculating Talus seem like odd friends, which the former insists they are.

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Deep cut notes: Muldumarec is inspired by a combination of two sources. Firstly, Edmund Spenser's the Fairie Queene, a 1590 epic poem that somehow manages to play the tropes of Courtly Love and Knights in Shining Armor completely straight, and yet surprisingly innovative and subversive for the time, with female warriors kicking ass, non-traditional romantic relationships and robot superheroes (Again, this is 1590).

The other inspiration is the Lai of Yonec by Marie de France, a Medieval poem about a princess and a shapeshifting knight that starts as Rapunzel and ends as a revenge plot. Its pretty amazing, and, together with a few others of Marie's works, is a foundational part of Kroashent. The Knight, Muldumarec, is a fae shapeshifter, who at one point very casually takes the Princess's form and place to prove they are not a demon. So, when developing Muldumarec for Kroashent, it seemed a good fit for the character to have that same casual fluidity.

Talus is another character borrowed from Spenser, because there was no way I was going to find out about a Renaissance Vigilante Robot superhero and not make use of that. Talus is a mechanical man, the companion of Sir Artegall, and the embodiment of untempered justice. While Artegall represents Justice balanced with human empathy, Talus is Justice in its purest, coldest form. Its a pretty intriguing allegory that just happens to read like a medieval Justice League.

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More Kroashent Pride:

Alptraum: https://www.tumblr.com/kroashent/719492538159988736/pride-of-alvez-23-ace-inventor-kroashent-is?source=share

Marie deCygne and Morgiana: https://www.tumblr.com/kroashent/719679929331204096/pride-of-alvez-23-song-and-dance-kroashent-is?source=share

Kathalia Bisclavret and Gwae: https://www.tumblr.com/kroashent/720040226101313536/pride-of-alvez-23-gwaethalia-kroashent-is?source=share

#kroashent #happy pride 🌈#pride 2023 #pride art #nonbinary #nb #enby #lgbt #transgender #Muldumarec Artegall #Talus

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