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archerinventive · 2 years
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Loreamours Medieval Gardening Social
Thank you to everyone who came out and supported the Medieval Gardening  Social this past weekend, and an extra thank you to all who donated to the Bee  Conservancy. :)
With weather that seemed gifted from the party gods themselves, paired with the wonderful attendants, and the uplifting atmosphere we couldn't have asked for a better soft opening for Loreamour.
Thank you as well to all who attended for your wonderful comments, and insight which is so greatly appreciated as we continue to fine-tune and polish this gem.
There will always be room to grow and evolve, and we couldn't be more excited. Especially knowing we have such a wonderful support network by our side.
We also can't talk about this event, without remarking on the incredible setup and tear-down crew that made this event possible.  THANK YOU SO, SO  MUCH for all your help. You're all truly amazing and we love you. ❤️
With one Loreamour event down and many to come, thank you all for joining us on this adventure as we continue to build this kingdom for the community.
Wishing you a wonderful day and a magical rest of your week.
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loreamour · 2 years
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Loreamours Medieval Gardening Social
Thank you to everyone who came out and supported our Medieval Gardening  Social yesterday, and an extra thank you to all who donated to the Bee  Conservancy. :)
With weather that seemed gifted from the party gods themselves, paired with the wonderful attendants, and the uplifting atmosphere we couldn't have asked for a better soft opening for Loreamour.
Thank you as well to all who attended for your wonderful comments, and insight which is so greatly appreciated as we continue to fine-tune and polish this gem.
There will always be room to grow and evolve, and we couldn't be more excited. Especially knowing we have such a wonderful support network by our side.
We also can't talk about this event, without remarking on the incredible setup and tear-down crew that made this event possible.  THANK YOU SO, SO  MUCH for all your help. You're all truly amazing and we love you.
With one Loreamour event down and many to come, thank you all for joining us on this adventure as we continue to build this kingdom for the community.
We wish you a wonderful day and a magical rest of your week. :)
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yamayuandadu · 4 months
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Tamamizu Monogatari, a unique love story
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This article, unlike most of my recent longer pieces, was not planned in advance. I learned about the subject very recently, and instantly realized I absolutely have to introduce it to more people, the previously posted schedule be damned. The Tale of Tamamizu (玉水物語, Tamamizu Monogatari) is a story about a fox turning into a human, but a rather unconventional one, filled with an unusual degree of sympathy for the eponymous protagonist and focused on a rather unique relationship. In addition to summarizing it in detail and explaining the possible inspirations behind it, I will also try to explain why the tale found a new life on social media as a, broadly speaking, lgbt narrative, and why I think there is a compelling case to be made for such an interpretation. Unless stated otherwise, all images used through the article are taken from the Kyoto University Rare Materials Digital Archive, on whose website you can view scans of the original Tamamizu Monogatari.
The Tale of Tamamizu, also known as The Contest of Autumn Leaves (Momiji Awase) is an example of otogi-zōshi, illustrated prose narrative. The story was presumably originally composed in the Muromachi period (1335-1573), and it survives in multiple copies dated either to the early Edo period or to the end of the Japanese “middle ages” directly preceding it. The identity of the author (or authors) is unknown. Despite its apparent popularity in the past, it seems no major studies of the tale of Tamamizu have ever been conducted. A streamlined translation (or rather an extensive summary) was published online by Kyoto University Library in 2001 and can be accessed here. In 2018, a full translation, as well as a brief introduction, were prepared for the anthology Monsters, Animals, and Other Worlds. A Collection of Short Medieval Japanese Tales. Still, it doesn't seem either sparked all that much interest in Tamamizu, despite the story’s obvious modern appeal. Since the tale of Tamamizu is not well known, I will start with a detailed summary. I am consistently using female pronouns for Tamamizu after she transforms, as does the older translation. The other English translation switches between female and male pronouns. I will explain in the final paragraph of the article why I made the decision to follow the former. The Tale of Tamamizu The story of Tamamizu does not start with the eponymous character, but rather with a certain mr. Takayanagi from Toba. He is troubled, as while he is already 30, he has no children. He decides the only choice is to pray to gods and buddhas. This actually does work, and his wife becomes pregnant, and after the expected period gives birth to a daughter. She doesn’t get a name at any point in the story. The girl’s birth is followed by a timeskip. As we learn, she was distinguished by twenty five features associated with beauty. This is apparently a reference to the belief that a buddha possessed thirty two specific physical traits; the number might have been altered to twenty five because of a popular group of twenty five bodhisattvas associated with Amida. By the time she reached the age of fifteen or so, she also developed great skill in composing poetry in both Japanese and Chinese. Her parents at some point decided that it would be ideal to send her to serve in the emperor’s court in the future. The girl spends most of the time in awe of the blooming of flowers, the wind and other similar phenomena, as one would expect from a literary character of similar status. She maintains her own flower garden, and spends much of her time there.
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On one of the days when she visited it alongside her friend Tsukisae, the daughter of her nurse, she caught the attention of a fox. The fox is, at this point in time, not yet Tamamizu. He wishes he could introduce himself to the girl. He considers the standard method - transforming into a nobleman - but he realizes this would likely sadden the girl’s parents, and would tarnish her reputation. He falls into despair. It does not exactly help that his attempts at visiting the garden again end up poorly - on the way there, he gets pelted with stones and then, after trying again, shot with an arrow. Still, he continued to hope to meet with the girl. An opportunity finally arose through a lucky coincidence. Another family living in the same area had multiple sons, but no daughters, much to the parents chagrin. They loudly lamented that they wished they had at least one girl among the children. The fox overheard that and realized it might be an opportunity. He transformed himself into a teenage girl (curiously, the story specifically puts her at the exact same age as the unnamed second protagonist), and enters their house. She explains that she is an orphan, and while passing by she overheard the family’s woes. She offers to become their daughter. The couple instantly agrees.
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The fox spends some time living with her adoptive family, though she gets sad easily and keeps bursting into tears. After some time, they offer that they will find her a husband in due time, but she reacts to that poorly, and eventually suggests she would prefer to become the servant of a noble lady. Her adoptive mother agrees this isn’t a bad idea, and reveals that her younger sister is a lady-in-waiting of the daughter of a local noble, mr. Takayanagi. She suggests the fox could become her attendant too. She is overjoyed at this prospect, and is soon sent to Takayanagi’s mansion to meet with his daughter. The girl receives her new attendant warmly, and gives her a nickname, Tamamizu-no-mae (Tamamizu for short). They get along really well, and Tamamizu gets to partake in her various activities, serves her food and drinks, and even sleeps in the same bed (Tsukisae does too, though). While Tamamizu does remarkably well as a human, some of her fox habits remain. Most notably, she is really afraid of dogs. Her lady sympathizes with her plight, and actually bans dogs from her household. This is a much welcome change from Tamamizu’s point of view, though apparently some other members of the staff start to view her as a coward because of this, and simultaneously resent her closeness with the girl. The bond between Tamamizu and the girl reaches a new level when on a moonlight night they spontaneously compose a poem together. It deals with longing. We are told it was followed up by multiple other poems, which are not quoted in the story. Eventually the girl gets tired and heads to her room. However, Tamamizu remains outside gazing at the moon and eventually starts crying, unsure what fate awaits her. Tsukisae, who was inside all along, actually becomes concerned about Tamamizu, and says she feels sorry for her, correctly identifying the cause of her sorrow as love for an unidentified party. She shares her thoughts with their lady (in the form of a poem, of course). The latter summons Tamamizu inside, and soon all three go to bed together. Tamamizu is still overwhelmed by her feelings and can’t fall asleep, though. Tamamizu continues to serve the girl for the next three years. She also remains in touch with her adoptive mother, who sends her letters and new clothes every now and then. One day, many visitors arrived in the house for a friendly competition. The winner will be the person with the most beautiful collection of autumn leaves. Tamamizu decides she must find some for her mistress to give her an advantage. To accomplish that, at night for the first time in years she turns back into a fox, and leaves to visit her siblings. Not the adoptive ones, though. As it turns out, she has two fox brothers, one younger and one older. She actually hasn’t visited them in so long they assumed she died and held funerary services for her in the meanwhile. They are overjoyed to learn that is not the case, and after learning about her current life agree to help her with finding unique leaves. She tells them to leave them on the veranda of her mistress’ mansion, and reassures them it’s safe for foxes to be there thanks to the earlier decision to not allow dogs on the premises. After the visit Tamamizu returns home in her human form. Tsukisae and her mistress ask her where she has been, and she jokes about meeting with a “dubious fellow” (which, to be fair, is not even a lie, given the typical folkloric portrayal of foxes). This in turn leads to more jokes, revolving around Tamamizu no longer thinking about her mistress. She feels distressed by this suggestion.
Tamamizu’s brothers in the meanwhile succeed in their search for thrilling leaves. One of them found a branch with five-colored leaves decorated with the Lotus Sutra (as you probably know, one of the main religious texts in the Mahayana Buddhist tradition). Tamamizu is overjoyed, and instantly brings them to her mistress. The girl received plenty of leaves from other people in the meanwhile, but all of them pale in comparison. She is so happy about the gift that she requests Tamamizu to also write poems meant to accompany the presentation of the collection. She protests that she is unsuitable, but eventually accepts this honor and gets down to work. The parents of the girl came along to watch her write, and both of them concluded she is exceptionally skilled. She ends up providing five poems, one for each color of leaves gathered. They are subsequently combined by these the girl wrote herself.
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Obviously, the main characters’ joint entry wins the competition. This grants the girl such fame that the emperor declares she should come to his court. Since her father is not affluent enough to pay for traveling there, he bestows additional estates upon him to make that possible. Even Tamamizu gets her own estate, Kakuta in Settsu Province. However, she decides it will be for the best to give it to her adoptive parents. Shortly after that, Tamamizu’s adoptive mother falls sick. She leaves her mistress to attend to her, but it did not help much and her condition kept worsening. Therefore, her stay had to be extended over and over again. This predicament worries her mistress, who sends her a letter to let her know that it is boring and gloomy without her around, and implores her to return as soon as her mother’s condition improves. Tsukisae is similarly concerned. Both of them voice their concerns through poems, which at this point should not be surprising for the reader.
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Tamamizu of course appreciates these displays of sympathy, but she cannot return, so in response she only reassures both of them that she will meet with them again as soon as possible.  Shortly after that, the mother’s condition worsened yet again. The entire family laments through the entire day, but eventually everyone manages to fall asleep - save for Tamamizu. In the middle of the night Tamamizu notices that an old, hairless fox entered the house. She quickly realizes that he was her paternal uncle (a fox uncle, that is. Not a relative of her adoptive parents). The illness was his doing, as she quickly realizes. Tamamizu requests him to leave her adoptive mother alone. However, the old fox says he cannot do that, as the illness is his act of revenge against her family, since her father killed his child. He concluded it is only right to make his daughter sick so that she dies too.
Tamamizu admits that this makes sense in theory, but she points out that acting upon desire for revenge will only bring bad karma, and bad karma from previous lives is why both of them were born as foxes in the first place. She offers the old fox a crash course in Buddhist ethics, and warns him that accumulating even more bad karma might lead to someone eventually killing him too, and to yet more rebirths in one of the three realms which are best to avoid (animals, hungry spirits, hell).
The old fox notes following buddhas is for humans, not for those born in other realms of rebirth (he’s not entirely wrong, humans are generally held to be in the optimal condition to seek enlightenment; animals must follow instinct and thus end up accumulating bad karma, devas are to preoccupied with celestial bliss), but eventually he relents and agrees that it would be wrong to kill the woman because of the actions of her father. He concludes that it would not even make him feel better, since his child would remain dead. He tells Tamamizu that evidently he was able to meet her because of good karma acquired in a past life, asks her to pray for his deceased child, and leaves, announcing he shall become a monk reciting nenbutsu from now on. Tamamizu did what he asked for, and even performed a funerary service for her late cousin. With the problem solved, her adoptive mother returned to good health. She was therefore free to meet with her mistress again. She was elevated to the rank of chujo no kimi, the foremost among servants. However, despite her mistress’ best efforts to make her feel appreciated, she was suffering from persistent bouts of melancholy. She wished she could confess her love and consummate the relationship, but she concluded that since she kept her identity secret for so long, it would be no longer possible to reveal it without losing the acceptance of the girl. She decides she must disappear. However, before that she prepares a long poem explaining her predicament.
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She placed it in a box, and gave it to her mistress, explaining that it should only be opened if something happens to her. She then broke down in tears.
Tamamizu’s mistress does not fully understand what is happening, and asks if she perhaps is worried about their planned relocation to the imperial court. However, Tamamizu denies that and guarantees she will accompany her on the journey there. Her mistress starts crying too, and says she has hoped they will always be together. Shortly after, the day of the journey came. Tamamizu’s mistress and mr. Takayanagi, now recognized as a lord, were certain that she went with them, but as soon as they reached their destination it turned out she was nowhere to be found. Days upon days of grieving followed. Eventually, the girl realized that she had no choice but to open the box. From the poem contained within, she learned everything about Tamamizu, from the day they first met all the way up to the disappearance. It explained how she hoped to protect her mistress through her current life and beyond, but had to give up after realizing it was all in vain. In the final words of the poem, she firmly refers to her with the name she was given by the girl - Tamamizu.
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The poem moves her deeply, but the story does not have a happy ending - we never learn what happened to Tamamizu afterwards.
Tamamizu’s forerunners
It is agreed that much like the considerably more famous Tamamo no Mae, Tamamizu in part depends on earlier Chinese literature about foxes. Not exactly on the same sort of stories, though - she is not exactly a malevolent seductress, to put it lightly. The key to finding her forerunners is the scene in the beginning when the still nameless fox considers transforming into a male suitor at first, before settling on the form of a female attendant, and the erudition she displays through the story. An argument can be made that this is conscious engagement with a very specific type of older fox story, largely forgotten today. In Tang China, fox stories enjoyed considerable popularity. You may remember that I mentioned this in passing a few months ago in another fox-themed article. One of the genres popular at the time was focused on fox suitors. There are many stories like that, but they largely follow a similar plot: a male fox falls in love with a human girl, takes the form of a dashing literatus and requests marriage. The girl’s family rejects the proposal, as despite charm and erudition the fox is ultimately an outsider with no family, and doesn’t depend on the well established institution of matchmaking. Afterwards, he typically tries to win the girl over with some sort of trick, and fails in the process, thus meeting his demise when his real identity is inevitably exposed.
In some cases, twists are introduced and the fox is effectively exploited by the family: for example, in the story about a certain mr. Hu (a common surname which is a homonym for the word for fox) and the granddaughter of the official Li Yuangong, the Li family agrees for the girl to be taught by the fox, and even asks him for advice on various matters, just to kill him once he outlived his usefulness.
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Zhou Wenju's painting A Literary Garden (文苑图, Wenyuantu), showing a group of discouring Tang literati (wikimedia commons)
Many literati came from humble backgrounds, and only attained high positions thanks to success in the imperial examinations. However, their advances were often frowned upon by nobles, who saw them as upstarts. Therefore, faking a more notable origin was widespread to secure a better position in the high strata of society. All of this is reflected in the stories of the fox suitors. Xiaofei Kang, who wrote my favorite monograph about Chinese fox beliefs, notes that the stories might have effectively been a way to cope with everyday anxieties. In other words, perhaps the fox self insert fails so that the real person sharing his precarious status can succeed.
Another aspect of the Tale of Tamamizu which offers a clue about its origins is the focus on Buddhism, and its role in the lives of non-humans in particular. Tamamizu evidently attains a considerable familiarity with Buddhist doctrine, to the point the old fox basically seems to perceive her as thinking more like a human than a fox. Evidently, she doesn’t think being an animal should prevent one from seeking good karma. This seems to reflect a medieval Buddhist phenomenon. Roughly from the Insei period (1086-1185) up to the eighteenth century, and especially between the twelfth and fourteenth centuries, the dominant esoteric schools of Buddhism propagated the doctrine of hongaku (本覺), “original enlightenment”. This idea originates in an earlier Buddhis text, Awakening of Faith in the Mahāyāna. According to proponents of this idea all living beings, even plants, possessed an innate “Buddha nature”, as did natural features like mountains. They were innately capable of attaining enlightenment, or innately enlightened outright. Religion influences art, so it has been argued that the spread of new stories about animals behaving like people in the Muromachi period had a distinctly Buddhist dimension.
The modern reception of Tamamizu
Despite the fascinating themes of the story of Tamamizu, it only found a greater degree of modern recognition in 2019, outside of academic circles at that. I'm surprised it took so long, since when you think about it, the sensibilities of the author indeed seem surprisingly modern. The narrator even reassures us Tamamizu’s human form is the same age as the object of her affection, anticipating what sorts of shipping discourse could arise 700 years later. Anyway, in 2019 a fragment of the story was the subject of one of the classical Japanese literature questions from the National Center Test for University Admissions, a standardized university entrance exam held across Japan each January from 1990 to 2020. This obviously exposed an enormous number of people to it, not just exam-takers. Following this event, a Tamamizu fad seemingly swept social media and pixiv (curiously, there’s a single piece of art there which predates the phenomenon by six years; op actually updated the description in 2019 to say they are happy more people learned about the story). There’s even a Tamamizu Monogatari tag on Dynasty Scans as a result. It’s worth pointing out the wikipedia entry of the story was written in 2019 as well. Most curiously apparently a research project focused on Tamamizu, Kahoko Iguru’s Border transgression between species and gender as observed in “Tamamizu Monogatari”,  received a grant in the same year too (source; more info here). It doesn’t seem the results have been published yet. I will keep you updated if that changes, obviously. I am actually surprised I didn’t notice the Tamamizu phenomenon back then, even though 2019 Antonia was distinctly more terminally online than 2023 Antonia is. It’s worth noting that Tamamizu’s fame didn’t fade away. The online following the story gained was referenced in an Asahi Shimbun article a year later. A quick survey of social media will show you there are people still talking about Tamamizu today. People who aren’t me, that is. What made Tamamizu so unexpectedly popular - arguably more than the story has been in the past few centuries - in recent years? Most of the linked sources relatively neutrally state that people perceive it as a “unique love story”. Social media posts are often considerably more direct: for many people, the appeal lies in the realization the Tale of Tamamizu is probably the closest to a lesbian love story in the entire corpus of medieval Japanese literature. I won’t deny this is in no small part its appeal for me too. Note this is not an universal sentiment by any means, though. It is difficult to tell if this was the intent of the medieval author(s), of course. It is obviously impossible to deny that women attracted to women existed in medieval Japan, as is the case in every society since the dawn of history. However, they left little, if any, trace in textual sources. As pointed out by Bernard Faure, in Japan in the past as in many other historical societies “sexuality without men is properly unthinkable” and therefore received no coverage. While there is plenty of Japanese Buddhist literature dealing with male homosexuality (trust me though, you do not want to read it; I’ve included a brief explanation why in the bibliography), there is basically nothing when it comes to women. The only possible exception is what some authors argue might be a medieval depiction of a lesbian couple in Tengu Zōshi, a work I plan to discuss in more detail next month, but note that this would be only an example of condemnation, since this work is a religious polemic dealing with vices of the clergy. 
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The supposed lesbian couple from Tengu Zōshi; image from Haruko Wakayabashi's The Seven Tengu Scrolls: Evil and the Rhetoric of Legitimacy in Medieval Japanese Buddhism; reproduced here for educational purposes only.
This sort of absence of evidence is a recurring pattern through history - you might recall my own attempts to find out what Bronze Age Mesopotamian sources have to say on this matter. Before the Meiji period, when the term dōseiai (同性愛) was coined as a calque of Charles Gilbert Chaddok’s freshly invented label “homosexual”, there wasn’t even a distinct Japanese term which could be applied to lesbian relationships. Once again, this does not indicate this phenomenon did not exist - but it does indicate that due to extreme levels of sexism in the perception of both sexuality and relationships it was difficult to even imagine for the average author. Faure suggests the prevailing attitude was presumably similar as in continental Buddhism, in which lesbian love “was at best perceived as a poor imitation of heterosexual relations—or a preparation for them—and as such condemned” at least in monastic rules. To put it bluntly, only penetrative sex was regarded as real.
And yet, in spite of this, I do not think it is wrong to wonder if perhaps what seems like subtext to a modern reader is actually intentional. This is obviously a reach, but given that relationships between women - not even romantic ones - were historically not a major concern of most authors, I would argue it is not impossible that a work which revolves virtually entirely around the relationships between female characters was written by a woman. Perhaps a woman romantically interested in other women, even. Even more boldly, I’d ponder if perhaps the ambiguous gender of the fox before transformation was meant to make the romance palatable to general audiences. Note that while foxes transforming is a mainstay of both Japanese and Chinese literature, the change of gender is actually quite uncommon in such stories, making this single reference all the more unusual. Granted, gender change is hardly a major focus in the story of Tamamizu. The only real indication the fox is male is the decision to take a male human form at first, but beyond that, things get muddy to the point the matter of gender in the story evidently warranted an actual study, as I pointed out earlier. As you’ve noticed, this matter was approached in different ways by translators too. I personally think the most important factor is the fact Tamamizu refers to herself with this name in the final poem. This name is intimately tied to the distinctly female identity she took. Whoever she was in the beginning, by the end of the story she is clearly Tamamizu. If one felt particularly bold a case perhaps even be made that Tamamizu can be read as a trans woman based on this, perhaps. I think simply disregarding the brief reference to a male form is valid too, though. Even if these arguments were to be refuted fully, I would argue that there is a further reason why at the very least reinterpreting the story as dealing with a gay relationship is not against the spirit of the original work. As I outlined, the tale of Tamamizu seems to draw inspiration from a very specific genre of fox stories, in which foxes are essentially a metaphor for people seeking relationships which were frowned upon. Obviously, the fact that Tamamizu is not a human by default makes any relationship she would be involved in somewhat unusual and frowned upon, but that does not assign a different metaphorical meaning to her struggle. Is Tamamizu even really fully a fox and not a human at all by the time she writes the confession of her love, though? The old fox seems to basically dispute if she still thinks like an animal. We also know that she maintained her human form for so long her biological relatives assumed she had passed away. She also found acceptance of virtually every single human character in the story - save for herself, that is. It’s also not like it’s hard to reinterpret her struggle specifically with the inability to consummate the relationship through the lens of the medieval Buddhist views of female sexuality, rather than through the lens of the general view that relationships between human and transformed foxes were doomed to failure. To paraphrase Cynthia Eller’s evergreen quote about futile search for nonexistent matriarchal prehistory in ancient texts, I do not think an invented wlw past can give anyone a future, but at the same time I do not think it means we should conclude that nobody ever had similar experiences in the past, or that we can relate with works even in ways their authors did not intend. For this reason, I would ultimately argue in favor of embracing the Tale of Tamamizu as a narrative which can be read as a lesbian love story.
Bibliography
Bernard Faure, The Red Thread. Buddhist Approaches to Sexuality (please note: read this book very cautiously since multiple content warnings apply. Faure is a remarkably progressive author, so it’s not about his personal attitude or anything. The problem is that it is not possible to deny much of the Japanese Buddhist discourse about homosexuality had little to do with modern notion of gay relationships, and essentially amounts to explaining when exploitation of children is a pious act)
Rania Huntington, Alien Kind. Foxes and Late Imperial Chinese Narrative (some sort of explicit content warning applies here too, though mostly because some of the discussed works are trashy Qing period erotica. More funny than anything.)
Xiaofei Kang, The Cult of the Fox: Power, Gender, and Popular Religion in Late Imperial and Modern China
Keller Kimbrough and Haruo Shirane (eds.), Monsters, Animals, and Other Worlds. A Collection of Short Medieval Japanese Tales
Jacqueline Stone, Medieval Tendai hongaku thought and the new Kamakura Buddhism: A reconsideration
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dreamauri · 8 months
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‧˚⊹ 𝗽𝗮𝘀𝘁 𝗹𝗶𝘃𝗲𝘀 ଓ :: 𝗠𝗩𝟭 ‧₊˚⤾
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╭╯ pairing . . . max verstappen x fem! reader ) ┊ summary . . . time goes by. days come and go. but your love will always be there ) ┊ genre . . . angst/fluff ) ╰╮ warning . . . X )
☆★ guess who finally learned to make the gifed header?? YAYYY WHOHO. also, enjoy. ty guys for all the support <3 inspired by the movie: kimi no na wa // also but like . . . medieval Max Verstappen *bite lip* ━━━━
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( masterlist ) ( requests ) ( taglist )
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"I love her with my soul, in case my mind forgets or my heart stops."
★ ☆ ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
1456
"Do you believe we could ever find a way, Y/N?" Max inquired, his eyes filled with longing and uncertainty. In the grand estate of Duke Verstappen, your heart was entangled in a forbidden love with his son, Max Verstappen. As the sun set upon the lavish gardens, you found solace in the shadows, seeking stolen moments with Max.
You sighed softly, your fingers lightly touching his hand. "I cannot foresee the future, my lord. But as long as we remain devoted, we shall face it together."
Your love blossomed in fleeting glances shared during formal gatherings. One evening, during a summer ball, Max managed to escape the crowd and found you alone, tending to the garden. "May I have the honour of a dance?" he asked with a charming smile.
Your cheeks flushed, cautious of prying eyes. "But, my lord, we mustn't risk exposure."
Max drew you close, whispering gently, "Let them speculate, I care not for the judgment of others. My heart belongs to you, and I shall not allow convention to dictate my feelings."
As the seasons changed, rumours swirled, and the Duke's suspicions grew. One fateful night, you were summoned to the Duke's study, where he stood sternly before you. "What is the nature of your relationship with my son?" he demanded.
Your heart raced, knowing you could not deceive the Duke. "We love each other deeply, Your Grace. But our hearts know the divide of social standing." The Duke's eyes glinted with anger. "You dare defy the order of this household?" "I beg your pardon, Your Grace," you whispered, tears welling in your eyes.
The Duke's judgment was swift and unyielding. "You are dismissed from this estate. Leave at once, and never return."
As you departed, Max arrived, desperate to reach you, but it was too late. He fell to his knees, heartbroken and lost. "Y/N, forgive me," he cried out into the cold night.
★ ☆ ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
1915
"I'll come back to you, Y/N," he whispered, his voice filled with determination. "I promise, we'll be together again, no matter what."
You stood on the bustling platform of the train station, the soft rumble of the approaching train making your heart race. Your hands trembled as you clutched the letter Max had written to you, his words etched in ink and love.
Max, your beloved, was about to board the train to join the battlefront. His duty to his country weighed heavily on his shoulders, and though he tried to remain stoic, you could see the flicker of fear in his eyes. He held you close, his strong arms enveloping you in a warm embrace.
Your heart ached, the uncertainty of war gnawing at your soul. "Please, Max, be safe," you pleaded, your voice barely above a whisper.
He cupped your face gently, wiping away the tears that spilled from your eyes. "I'll carry you in my heart every step of the way," he said, his voice unwavering. "Just know that I love you, and nothing can change that."
As the train's whistle sounded, signalling its impending departure, Max leaned in and kissed you. The world around you blurred as tears streamed down your cheeks. "I love you, Y/N," he said softly before boarding the train.
You watched helplessly as the train pulled away, carrying your heart and soul with it. The ache in your chest intensified, and you knew that from this moment on, every day would be a battle of its own – a battle against distance, fear, and the uncertainty of war.
"Max!" You called running after the train. "Ik houd van je!" [i love you] You called reaching your hand to him. The blond held your hand tightly, leaning out and giving you one last kiss. "Ik houd van je." [i love you] You repeated, feeling his hands slip from yours as you watched him disappear.
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2023
"Did you see? Max's on pole again!" You heard distant chatter as you leaned against the moving trains window, dragging your pencil to create shapes in your sketch book. Looking out the window you sighed you saw another train on a parallel track go the opposite way.
As you continued to sketch the view in front of you, your eyes caught a certain blew ones. Holding deep eye contact, you felt familiar tug in your heart. Leaning your hand on the glass with furrowed eye brows, the man copied your actions, a hint of desperation on his face.
When you got the chance, you were bolting, running in your uncomfortable shoes to where the train the certain stranger would arrive at. Pulling yourself up the stairs, you looked around deck uncertain.
Why were you running? Why did your body move on it's own? Who was he? What is this feeling?
Your hopes died down once you realized the train had left before you arrived. A deep sigh emitting from your mouth as you felt your chest empty and ache. The loud noise of the opposite side train muffled your ears as you pulled out your sketch book, flipping to the page of where you'd seen the man before and etched the dream into your book.
"Back to the real world." You mumbled to yourself watching as the other train leave. What you did not expected was to see the ma you were searching for standing on the other side. Your breath stuck in your throat you looked at him, taking a step forward.
"What's your name?" You could hear him ask.
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( taglist ↳ @lorarri - @benedikwonn - @mycenterfold - @iamahallucinanionnn - @lizzieolseniskinda - @chelseyyouraverageluigi - @michellekstyles - @ironmaiden1313 - @azxulaa - @mistrose23 - @lazybot - @hockeyboysarehott - @iloveyou3000morgan - @livster
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ofmdjanuaury · 9 months
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Welcome to OFMD AU-gust! Check out the prompts and start creating 💙
Rules and text version under the cut!
RULES:
Any OFMD fan creations count! Fic, art, dioramas, bakes…
You can do one day or all of them, and use as many prompts from the day as you want!
Tag everything #OFMDAU-GUST
Every time you post something, try and comment on someone else’s, too!
You can post any prompt any day AFTER that prompt’s official day! So you can post Improv fics any day after 8/1, but you can’t post theatre fics till 8/31.
HAVE FUN!
Text version of the prompts:
1. Mechanic | Mail Carrier | Improv
2. Fantasy | Solarpunk | Fiber Arts
3. School Staff | Art Model | Taxidermy
4. Social Media | Tentacles | Identity Theft
5. Music/Band | Specific TV Show | Jumanji
6. Journalism | Specific Movie | Planetarium
7. Phone Operator | Rennaissance | Y2K
8. Sports | Ancient | Pacific Rim
9. Medicine | Aquarium/Zoo | Makeup Artist
10. Celebrity | D&D | Gig Worker
11. Science Fiction | Superheroes | Birdwatching
12. Coffee Shop/Bakery | Magical Girl (gn) | Influencer
13. Restaurant | Medieval | Eldritch Horror/Cryptid
14. Science | Place-Based | Weed Guy (gn)
15. Porn Star | Specific Book | Natural Disaster
16. Crime/Mob | Specific Cartoon | Drag/Burlesque
17. Farm/Rural | Time Travel | Polar Explorer
18. Small Business | Apocalypse | Stargate
19. Writer | 19th Century | Escape Room
20. Law | Nightclub | Professional Cuddler
21. Rebels | Zombie | Desert Island
22. Bar | Ghost Hunters | LARP
23. Transit | Daemon | Community Meeting
24. Archeology | Aliens | Paint and Sip
25. Epistolary | Public Access TV | Gas Station
26. Neighbors | Heist | Reality TV Hosts
27. Noir | Grocery Store | Blacksmith
28. Disney | Olympics | Sentinel/Guide
29. Boats | Non-Anglophone Place | Lumberjack
30. Canon-Divergent | Gardening | Kink Club
31. Theatre | Free Space | Someone Else's Universe
(Thanks to yerbamansa for reminding the mod to be accessible!!)
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sauntervaguelydown · 7 days
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my job working in government has me so frustrated on an existential level that I'm making up a list of political moves I would push through if I could just hypnotize everyone in Florida legislature for a season. My platform is called "Solutions to the Opioid Epidemic that aren’t Narcan"
Access to pleasure: Public spaces where adult people can have fun safely, play games, socialize, and not have to pay for entry. Adult sports leagues. Gardens.
Living in less fear: housing insecurity, food prices, basic animal needs being met
Health care: primary care doctors who care about solving pain management problems, who pay attention to their patients, who are not condescending, who have the means and funds to provide other solutions to chronic pain issues (surgery, mobility aids, etc)
3A: public awareness campaign to normalize people using mobility aids. Why did this stop in the 90’s. 3B: ADA in private and public spaces (so that mobility aids are useful)
4. Better wages for manual laborers so that they don’t work insane hours and destroy their bodies by the time they’re 40 (what is this the medieval era??)
5. Constructive activities for unemployed people: to keep morale up, give people access to art, community projects, gardens, etc on a volunteer bases (WITH protection against labor exploitation)
6. People below the poverty line shouldn’t have to pay federal property taxes (this is never going to happen but I can dream)
7. PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION
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lemonhemlock · 4 months
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The thing I have also noticed about targies is that they not only refuse to engage with the historical precedents of a pseudo medieval world, but they admit that for them the magic is the main appeal for of HOTD/ASOIAF.....which is incredibly bizarre to me because Martin, whether intentionally or not, has thrown the more magical elements of the story to the wayside, in order to focus on the human socio-political drama in both ASOIAF and Fire and Blood. ASOIAF, in general, is very 'low fantasy' there is very little magic, the magic that is there is not thoroughly explained, and the Others, the big bad of the series, has been mentioned approximately three times over five books and 25 years. The magic is essentially a plot device and not even a device that Martin particularly likes to use lmaoo.
Anyway this hyper focus on magic and the inability to see what GRRM is doing with magic - it's not the solution it's the problem - is a big reason the fandom is so....off in their predictions. Like, the dragons are not saviors, there is no prophesied savior, etc.
This is why targies are always harping on how there is no way for Sansa to be QITN or even go back to Winterfell because she lost her 'MaGIcAL ConNeCTioN' when Lady was offed - as if I'm supposed to give a fuck about direwolves or what the fuck 'warging' is lmaooo when there are vastly more interesting human dramas and political plots playing out in the series.
Conversely, this is why King Bran as Martin's endgame is so stupid imo lmao. He's giving a magical solution for a political human drama that he's been setting up for five books and has not done enough to build up the importance of magic in the series. Like, I'm sorry but a seven year old all seeing Tree Wizard Warlock as King of the 7K is an absolutely hilarious endgame and makes all the philosophical discussions about good rulers and leadership a joke.
Bullseye. 🎯
The only caveat I have is that, while I agree with your assertion that ASOIAF is low-fantasy, the magical element does slowly gain in importance and it's fair to say that the characters who ignore the magical threats (the Others, dragons) are categorically in the wrong and will end up paying for it. But it is very, very likely that the end of the series will see Westeros returning to a normal climate and the disappearance of magic once and for all. The man himself is on record saying magic can be a hindrance and part of the problem!
This is my personal theory as to why he is taking so much time to publish The Winds of Winter, not just because he wrote himself into a corner with the Meereenese knot, making it very difficult to get Dany to Westeros in one book. But it's also that the King Bran ending doesn't make any sense. Perhaps that was indeed his original planned ending, perhaps that was indeed what he told D&D all those years ago, but as he likes to consider himself a gardener-type of writer, the garden he tended started to grow beyond his control and now having a CCTV Tree in charge of Westeros at the end of the series directly contradicts the themes he developed for nearly 30 years.
No hate to Bran, who is an OK kid, but everyone else in the series who's become entangled with the magic to that extent has paid dearly for it. We have Beric Dondarrion on page telling us exactly how it takes its toll and he feels himself becoming less human. Bran also commits several other transgressions that would normally have other characters cursed or punished via deus-ex-machina like warging into Hodor and eating jojenpaste (the last is theoretically unconfirmed, but come on).
At the end of the day, he is an immature child who's being used as a pawn by Bloodraven, with little formal training in the ways of being a lord (the bare minimum), no practical experience with leadership, no social skills and no charisma. These are all consequences imposed on him given his status as a fugitive and not his fault by any means or reflective of a lack of inclination, but they are practical realities nonetheless. GRRM has spent so many pages already criticising poor leadership skills and has always punished bad, immoral, incompetent OR naive people in positions of power - how is he going to make an exception out of Bran without negating literally every other POV he's chosen to write? This is a serious problem in the construction of the story.
He's also already been caught with his pants down by the show and saw for himself how nearly everyone either hated or mocked the King Bran endgame. I'm really very curious what was his opinion on that and whether it made him reflect in any way. D&D did indeed make a hodgepodge of the final season, but it's still got to sting to see how the majority of viewers thought it was a completely random choice and a joke ending.
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oldshrewsburyian · 10 months
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hi, I have a question: for context, theres the tumblr blog "writingwithcolor" for giving advice on how to represent poc. They got an ask from someone wanting to write historical fiction with ppl from medieval Europe and the middle east interacting, asking how to include the negative opinions the cultures had of each other: the ME seeing Europe as "dirty and uncivilized " while Europe saw the ME as effeminate, so they asked how to include these opinions without demonizing either culture.
They asked: "They asked "Do you have any advice on including these views in a narrative without validating the idea of Europeans as the 'victims' or without unnecessarily juxtaposing the more-advanced middle east in the middle of a golden age with their less advanced European neighbors"
The reply they got was basically "actually, the Europeans were stinky barbarians". They stated "one of these regions thought diseases could be cured by blood-letting and huffing toilets while the other was inventing algebra It’s difficult to argue that Europe was doing well by any metric after the collapse of the Roman Empire. "
They gave examples of other cultures being "light years ahead" of Europe, such as the Moors "revitalizing Spanish and Sicilian civilization through agriculture, architecture, astronomy and restoration of Roman sanitation systems", king Mansa Musa giving out so much gold he destroyed the local economy and the giant junks of the majapahit empire as examples of non-european civilizations outdoing Europe. They implied that anyone objecting to Europe being portrayed badly has "white fragility".
What is your opinion on this response? Is it fair to Europe to portray them as inferior?
Oh, I've seen that question and response. I think I've even replied to it. It's bad. It's bad because, as a post I reblogged earlier today says, historical accuracy matters. Also, it seems to play the sort of zero-sum game that I see elsewhere on the internet, which wants to gleefully reverse old and oppressive narratives... only to create new narratives with new acceptable categories of exclusion. Do I think that more attention in secondary and post-secondary education should be given to premodern societies around the globe? of course! I teach premodern global history all the time! But here's my bigger problem with this sort of "Europe bad and backwards" sneering, even bigger than the "it's wrong" problem.
This sort of measurement of societies "outdoing" each other is based on Eurocentric categories which were and are used to uphold white supremacy, colonialism, classism, and ableism. I alluded to this in an earlier exchange with you. To say that a society (I'm deliberately avoiding the term civilization) is automatically "superior" or "more advanced" when it has certain kinds of technology, or certain kinds of social and political organization, or certain kinds/degrees of wealth, or certain kinds of literacy, or certain kinds of religious belief (or lack thereof)? That is an imperialist script! Because this is Tumblr, the Negative Reading Comprehension Site: I'm obviously not accusing people who are doing a lot of emotionally taxing and important work of deliberately reinforcing imperialist (etc.) scripts. But reiterating inaccurate stereotypes based on Vibes/Wishful Thinking is bad no matter who does it!
Please reflect on the narrative of "the replacement of a multi-continental empire with decentralized political and legal structures was obviously Terrible" and on why, exactly, that was easily accepted when Edward Gibbon was writing his Decline and Fall... in late 18th-century Britain. Yeah. Also, that "more advanced Middle East" narrative has a history that is Orientalist and othering in its own way (ooh, all that exotic learning! the baths! the gardens!) It assumes, for one thing, that there's no contact and exchange between the Umayyad and Abbasid caliphates ("Moors" is a racist term, by the way) and their neighbors. If the representation you've given is accurate, it also follows old/outdated scholarship in representing Spain as somehow not quite European because of all the Muslims in it/ruling it, which... yikes. And, at the risk of pointing out the very obvious: ancient Rome, whose art and literature and 'civilization' were so long so admired in Europe, was a slave society. I'm not going to wring my hands about its disputed fall.
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yearningaces · 1 day
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Ok but the Hallewell!?!
Declan?!?!
He's so unhealthily attached I love some toxicity in fiction tbh
So his storyline is like medieval times, right? What if his heart ended up being a prince or princess or upper Nobility that couldn't usually marry commoners, you know?
What messed up method would he figure to be with his heart?? 👀
Ha
Haha
You think social rank stops him?
Tw: mass murder not detailed, death, parental death(as a possibility) blood not detailed
Hallewell are beast of nightmare, Declan is one who preys on humans with a greed of power. There's going to be ample targets within nobility for him to hunt down one by one.
When he realizes his Heart is the Queen's child, grown and of the age of courtships, he'll try to be proper... At first. Only because he wants his heart(who I'm calling you from this point cause that's the whole thing) to genuinely love him. He'll approach you the first chance he gets to see you alone. Either sneaking into a ball and finding you alone out in the gardens, trying to charm you among the flowers that tend to wilt just slightly when he breezes by... Or, what's more likely, is he'll just appear.
Probably when you're alone in the castle.
Walking down a dimly candle lit hall, most likely during a heavy storm so none can hear the sounds of his approach, and you'll hear footsteps behind you, approaching faster, the heavy fall of boots against polished stone flooring, you turn swiftly to see who has followed you and-
Nothing. A strike of lightning illuminated the dark hall through the windows, and truly there was nothing behind you.
So you turn to continue walking and almost bowl over a massive figure that's knelt before you on the ground.
A stranger, cloaked in black fabrics and leather armor, gloved hands held just under your own, softly opened, waiting to hold yours. Dark scruffy hair and stubble but the brightest gaze you've ever seen on anyone in your kingdom. Deep brown eyes that almost seem black in the dark hallway. You'd stumble back if you could, but at the motion, one large hand reaches forward, wrapping so so delicately around your lower leg, and his voice is a low rumble, an accent you cannot name-
"Step lightly, my heart. I'd hate to see you fall upon such harsh stone workings."
The hulking form before you speaks with a reference as he bows lower, carefully lifting your leg at the ankle, observing the detailed leather boot that had come unlaced somehow. He lowers himself further to dutifully tie the laces before just as gingerly placing your booted foot back on the ground with an enamored grin up to you, so very ecstatic to simply bask in your presence.
You can absolutely run away if you're uncomfortable. Declan would be hurt, but he'd follow, submissive the way a massive guard dog is. Loyal with a bite.
You could try for conversation and find this intimidating presence would crave nothing more than to sit at your feet while you rest in only the softest chair. Maybe you could even pet his head? He'd never argue if you don't want to though.
Point is, it's a fate bound meeting and I'm sorry regardless of your reaction you're forevermore stuck with this Hallewell. You can control your relationship, tell him how you view him and he'll lean into it 100% with no disappointment I mean all you have to do is look at him and he's so happy he could cry.
So take that
And then, if you care for your family, if you want things done properly, he'll try and ask for your hand or at least to court you, he'll ask the current king or queen since you're theirs.
"Your heir to the throne, I wish to court them, I wish to marry them, may I?"
If they agree? Wonderful! He'll stay his hand despite his instincts trembling with unadulterated rage at the amount of power hungry souls he ought reap in this castle. He'll redirect his attention towards fawning over and adoring you.
If they don't? Even better.
He wants a fight.
Declan is made for nothing but violence and loving you. And he is brand new to loving, but pain and hurt and violence is as familiar as breathing. He'll offer you a leash of his own making. Clip it to him and keep it tight lest he run rampant, unless you want that?
If he's refused your hand, especially if you actually do want him as well but he's barred due to social class and rank?
Declan is a creature made to kill, his prey is humans who's greed for power has grown past the point of correction. Do you know how many in nobility can fall so easily into that rank? So, he can do what he does best. He can kill.
He'll start with lower nobility, the easy pickings. Once that level has been swept clean in his eyes, he returns to the king and queen and ask again.
"Your heir to the throne, I wish to court them, I wish to marry them, may I?"
No.
He returns to mid level nobility, the killings are more brutal, more bloody, taking more time.
He returns to the king and queen to ask for your hand again.
"Your heir to the throne, I wish to court them, I wish to marry them, may I?"
This is his third time asking, and as everything comes in threes this is the last time he'll ask.
If it's no? The high level nobility is next. Tell him anyone you want spared because if you say nothing, none are spared. If they fall into his path of being too corrupt, too power hungry, too evil for redemption, which in a castle among royalty is rampant. When he feels he's made his point, he approaches the only two he's intentionally spared without you telling him to.
Declan doesn't come to the royal court, doesn't come with tidings of peace.
He comes with barely contained malice and hate
He appears in the king and queens bedchambers, fresh blood covering his form draped in darkness and what was once lifeblood. His eyes alight with the adrenaline of a life taken, his own life's purpose reinvigorated many times over. Declan stands at the foot of the queen and kings bed, watching them sleep. In his hand, a sword that's too dark to be steel, but too dark to be true steel.
For a moment he debates slaying both so none can come between you two... But to stay in your graces he waits. Instead, Declan draws his heavy boot back and kicks the bedframe, easily kicking off the corner leg, making the bed drop heavily, Jolting the sleeping pair awake. Once he has their attention, he asks again.
"Your heir to the throne, I wish to court them, I wish to marry them, may I?"
If he is told no a single more time, he will swiftly raise his sword that steams in the cold air as if pulled straight from the fires that forged it, and he will cut the head off of the one to refuse him. Amidst the fresh scent of blood and screaming of a freshly made widower, he will no longer ask, he will only inform.
"Your heir to the throne, I will court them. I will marry them. When they say the time is right, we will be together."
With this, he tips his head down, and leaves.
Let any try to stand between you at that point, he'll only slay any who attempt to do so
And if you hate him for it, that's fine! Hit him, strike him, hurt him, he'll accept it with a smile because it's you! He'll simply continue to follow you, hoping one day you'll allow him closer, he'll never force such a thing but would relish in the chance to be closer if only you allow it
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smallcatsims · 11 months
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Regency Career Pack Part I: Uni Careers
Finally, I’m ready to release my first career pack. This has  been an ongoing project for many months and is part of a collab by the Historical Sims discord. I’ve done a fair bit of the actual writing and have permission to upload the careers so here goes.
You may have seen some of these careers before. I’ll leave those versions up but they have some typos/errors that have been fixed here, and this is a career pack so the pay scale and some of the “lore” I included is consistent across all of them. I tried to make the pay realistic and challenging as appropriate for the era. Mostly the lower levels start out between $15-95 simoleans, the middle levels are $150-400 simoleans, and the higher levels cap out at about $750-900 simoleans. There are some outliers like the Pauper career (to be released) the Politics career (also to be released, and the idea is that only wealthy landowning males run for office so the pay reflects that) and the Courtier career which is based off of the royal titles in the Victorian Challenge by @victoriansimmer and uses the pay outlined in the challenge rules. Generally the writing style is a bit “goofy” and maxis match. I don’t know how to change the icons or LTW text so I’m sorry, that won’t match the defaults. They’re meant for the regency era but I tried to make the careers flexible enough to fit in the Victorian era as well if needed.
This pack includes the uni careers. I’ll be releasing my careers by ep in a zip file. Everything will be clearly labeled in case you only want certain careers replaced.
Credits to @victoriansimmer of course for her victorian challenge, lovely personality, and the Historical Sims discord where this collab took place, @simbury for resources, knowledge, helpful ideas for the Natural Science and Paranormal defaults which were really hard for me to come up with, and just generally being the high queen of everything and anything regency related. Credit also to @kidinthenight who I’m pretty sure started the whole idea of this career pack and made some of the original files as well as a document that I used, @morgaine2005 who made a lot of the original medieval career replacements and inspired many of my ideas, aysarth who allowed us to use a lot of their ideas and custom regency careers (I don’t know if they have a tumblr. Let me know if they do and I’ll tag them.)
TLDR these replace the four uni careers, they have a consistent style and payscale and a bunch of amazing people helped to create them.
 Spoilers under the cut, and here is the link to the files!
http://www.simfileshare.net/download/3870331/
So, some more info about the replacements:
Paranormal: The replacement is very similar to the original career, with tweaked pay and some levels moved around. Your sim starts off as a “Weirdo,” then works their way up to reading tarot, hypnotizing sims, performing phantasmagoria shows, and eventually leading a cult. Custom chance cards to fit the era.
Show Business: Replaced with a courtier career. Your sim starts off as a “Hanger On” who is a guest of an established courtier, then they advance to “Court Diamond” and work their way up the titles listed in the Victorian Sims challenge, with the daily pay indicated in the document as well. Skill and friend requirements are the same as the maxis ones, so pretty steep. I think making friends and working on charm, beauty, and accomplishments is a realistic way to move up the court ladder, and the challenge document doesn’t specify how sims are supposed to move up to the higher titles so I just let my sims progress in the career normally (wants based.) The hours are pretty short, your sims just go to court for a couple hours to socialize and attend garden parties. Custom chance cards to fit the era and theme, with your sim having to interact with other courtiers and behave themselves at parties.
Artist: Just a more era appropriate artist career, similar to my previously released one with fixed typos and pay scale.
Natural Science: Replaced with a Botany career, where your sim starts out working on a farm shoveling dung and caring for plants, moves on to freelance botany work before getting work at a university and potentially eventually becoming the royal landscaper. Custom chance cards included featuring your sim working in a cowplant lab, sculpting splendiferous hedges for nobles, and conducting experiments.
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archerinventive · 2 years
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New Bracers Now In The Shop
Happy Tuesday all!
As things wind down from Loreamours Medieval Gardening Social this past weekend, the shop continues to pick up steam as we get further into faire season.
With that, I’m happy to announce I have a  whole new batch of bracers now in the shop, including a pair of Chocolate Brown Bracers that almost look good enough to eat, among other Limited Edition Designs. 
It's been really fun getting back to these one-offs, and I'm looking forward to getting even more creative with future concepts.
Wishing you a wonderful week.
Thank you all for your support. :)
https://www.etsy.com/shop/ArcherInventive
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soracities · 6 months
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hey ! i’m very curious !!
you talked about social media in one of your last posts and i wish you could talk about your relationship with social medias !
honestly i don't know how i would describe my relationship to it simply because i detest like 90% of what social media is about. however i DO try to focus on intentionality and being very mindful of what i use and how i use it. the only social media i use as social media are twitter and instagram but i try to be very careful about the time i spend on them. this is easy for twitter because i have no vested interest in it so i just log in maybe once or twice every few months because i only use it to follow various writers / publishers and see what new releases are upcoming or what books are being talked about. i'll retweet a few quotes / puns / medieval illustrations, make note of books or articles and call it a day for another two months or even more sometimes.
instagram is my "main" one but even then i know how easy it is for me to get caught up in their reels so i try to stay away from that as much as i can (i also despise what it does to music for me): i don't follow brands, influencers, or celebrities (i follow one international musician and like, 3 writers, and that's it)--my feed is predominantly urban gardening / nature / arts accounts, but i use it far more like the morning paper to see what my friends are seeing or follow any little updates in their stories. i have post notifications turned on for some of my closest friends so that the only things i DO get notified on when i'm spending time away from the app are the people whose updates are most important to me--but even then, IG is not my main form of communication because the closest people in my life know how to contact me directly.
again i don't take social media seriously, chiefly because i can't: the idea of needing to be constantly "tuned in" is one i really dislike so i'm never invested in whatever the current trends are. the only consistent main one for me is tumblr and even then i'm on this blog almost exclusively on desktop which limits how i often i log on to begin with. i still try to remain intentional and since it's more an archive or a collection of things i like and want to keep, my main objectives are usually: collect the quotes i want to save, browse my mutuals / favourite blogs, check my inbox when and if i'm able. i can still end up prone to spending more time here than i would like, but i also know that--most of the time, anyway--i'm spending that time gaining something: photos or artwork i love get saved to my computer or notion folders, poems that move me get copied into my ledger or saved on my laptop, links to certain articles get clicked on and read immediately when i can--this is great to stop me from scrolling mindlessly and actually using the time more wisely, but if i can't read it immediately i just move them onto my desktop so i don't forget to read them later on. when i feel i'm still spending too much time here, or simply not devoting enough time to other things that are important to me, i'll set days aside where i do log in and days when i don't.
anyway that's where i'm at with social media at the moment, anon x
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motleyfolk · 4 months
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Interesting Webs Bookmarks
Cool, fun or interesting websites I've come across over my wanders of the internet that I wanna keep track of.
Last updated: 14/12/23
Fun / Interesting
DeathGenerator - Put text over classic game meme pics.
Wiki Pages listing every religion, medieval weapon, superpower, planets, etc in the world.
Flowergame - Like a pet game but with plant seeds.
The Quantitative Study of Dreams - Scientific papers, findings and videos on studying dreams. Still updated! Could use for uni...
5etools - Free dnd toolset for 5E DND
Creepy/Mysterious/Cryptozoology/Myths
Occultopedia - Wiki for everything occult/supernatural.
List of Cool Wiki Pages
List of Spooky Wiki Pages 
Another List of Spooky Wiki Pages
Spooky Podcast List
The Blobs That Fell From The Sky - Article on that one time in 1994 when it rained “gelatinous blobs.“
Otherhand - Some guy going to weird places and writing stuff. Also physics.
Andes Plane Crash Article
The Haunted Web - Yesterzine
Spirit Cellar's Horror Zone - Has some cool, old game, movie and book recommendations. Can even watch Night of The Living dead for free.
The Shadowlands - Retro paranormal, cryptozoology, alien mysteries website.
Gods And Monsters - Tons of god pantheons, myths and creatures info but also sometimes analysed.
Blood Knife - Website with manifestos, articles and reviews about horror, culture, humanity and tech.
Frightbytes - Spooky interactive stories, info and graphics.
Folklore of Scotland Map
Music/Reading
Radiooooo - Online, worldwide, music time machine
Radio Garden - Listen to radios across the world live
ABookLikeFoo - Put in 2-3 books you like, it gives book recommendations you are statistically unlikely to read
Free Movies, Books, Shows & Audiobooks
Better World Books - New and used books for cheap.
Spirit Cellar's Library - A cooly designed, mini free library.
AC - Page thats just a video of animal crossing music corresponding to your time. Can change it to cf, nl or nh.
Social
warmly - Send a bio of yourself, find other bios and then make a penpal.
SomaFM - Underground radio stations
thenicestplace - A loop of random people worldwide giving you a hug :)
space email - Send out a random message to the universe or refresh and get random ones from anonymous people.
RecommendMeABook - Get the first page of a book with no title, author or nothing to help you pick a new book to read.
Tumblr’s Folklore Stories - List of posts that are basically tumblr mythology (God of Arepo, The Witch’s Cat, etc)
Multiverse- Cool blogging website
The Orb - Pondering the orb in forum.
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thedarkcoven · 9 months
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AI Bots I’ve Made
Vampire Kylo Ren
-Self explainitory pretty much lol He finds you at night
Medieval Kylo Ren 
-Kylo notices you in his garden during a celebration instead of you being inside socializing
Commander Mills (I am gonna redo the into cause he gets confused on the current one lol) 
-Crash landed due to astroids hitting the ship. User is co-pilot (from the movie ‘65′)
Jonathan Levy (may redo the into cause its too cliche for me)
-You meet Jonathan at a coffee shop
Sam Fortner 
-From the show ‘The Patient’. User was kidnapped
Jacques Le Gris
-From the movie The Last Duel. You're at a party looking for a suitor and Jacques introduces himself
Please let me know if there are any concern with them and I do apologize if Med Kylo/Jacques Le Gris is kinda sexist or anything because that is how men were back in that era so please if it happens I want to apologize ahead of time
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teethkid67 · 11 months
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hi hi i Also have gone through the block party tag today and. oh my god it is so fascinating. i would love to hear more about techno and his big fuck off jeep if you'd like to discuss it but honestly it's all so interesting in general
need to draw a bptechno....
similar to how he was used in canon when he first joins, bptechno operates as a protector of sorts for pogtopia tommy and wil... its how he became an eaglescout boyscout survivalist nerd type idk how to explain it.
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he moves in (courtesy of our awesome real estate agent sam) and. idk. offers his arsenal. hes some sort of combined history/military/survival buff who thinks this whole situation is, frankly, stupid but is enjoying watching and awkwardly offering consolation to tommy (mentally unwell) and wilbur (mentally unwell-er) . he brings them rations and tends their stupid cave campfire and wakes tommy up for school on mondays.
technos big fuck-off jeep (which i have not been able to stop saying) was as previously stated a sort of silly idea that evolved into a serious take .. i like to think block party is a modern au on acid with so much blood .... but yes hes one of those vigilant paranoid types i think. and as a result he has many things to protect himself and shit . this includes his huge armored car because he believes it is necessary living in the suburban midwest. hes got guns and knives and shit, hatchets and is generally prepared for almost anything that could come at him. bro wears combat boots everywhere . i think he still dyes his hair. hes a little bit of a weirdo
so yes he offers his weapons and shit to the lmanburgians and then they win and im not sure what his motivation is but eventually he runs his huge armored car through the front of the (l)manburg house :3 weird man swag
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butcher army is really fun. they attempt to murder techno (i think they shoot at him or try to like Stone him to death medieval style? its silly and also its been a second) and uhhh he runs to erets house after that (bc thats the bp final control room) and uhhh slashes through quackity's face with a garden rake. exter exter read all about it here
hes painfully socially awkward hes resourceful hes a little bit unhinged. he has a street-illegal armored car with attached machine gun and everybody is dead silent about it. hes worn the same brand of boots since he was 16 and he can only cook boxed&canned meals. hes a little freak and i like him a lot
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palebloodcvrse · 1 day
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Heres my fuckin gremlin:
The main event
The creature
His name is Ae, he got turned into a weird demon dragon thing when he was a kid, also some weird shit happened that left him mildly silly shall we say
He isnt part of any particular fandom and is part of his own story :p
Btw his design includes a lot of black and red and lemme just say if youre a black/red hater leave that mentality on deviantart. Fuck that shit
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Every day wear:
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Monster form:
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Armor his adoptive father gave him:
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His dad is a giant dracolich man who adopted him when he was 7 and turned him (dont worry, it wasnt forced on him, ae didnt wanna be human anymore due to some bs that happened to him, ill get in depth in another post)
They have a very addams family esque father son dynamic
This is his dad, kvstrathos (he didnt start wearing metal merch til ae did lol)
Heres Ae when he was a kid, he had ultra long hair lmfao
His dad is a few thousand years older than him btw.
Youd think being adopted by a murderous dracolich warlord would mean they have a tumultous dynamic, but no. Kvstrathos loves and spoils Ae and has dad of the year award behavior, always cookin him stuff teachin him life lessons tutoring him going on hunting trips telling him stories, playing games with him etc
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So, this gremlin is very skittish and really doesnt like interacting with people much having grown outside of human contact for 90% of his life
His disposition often switches from impish/happy to a complete stormcloud the next
He often has intense mood swings and flipflops from being silly goofy to being not so silly goofy and concerningly... unstable.
(other than the fucked up court wizard his dad has, and even then the dudes an insane warlock and ex surgeon who was made immortal by an evil deity, ill upload him later)
Its left ae pretty much ignorant of how the human world worked other than outdated shit (he still thinks humans have widespread villages and farms like in the middle ages, boy was he wrong) since all his dad had in the archives about human history are all outdated historical texts (oh but all the occult crap? That got saved.)
So he grew up learning how humans tried to bind demons but doesnt know what a stanley cup is.
His dad spent his days training ae in various combat arts, sometimes showing him some weaponry or old siege equipment/medieval torture devices, etc and mr insane warlock was there to tutor him on dark magic if his dad was busy, and also to act as some sort of babysitter
Ae grew up in a castle with nobody but his dad and the court wizard for company so he pretty much doesnt know how to socialize with like... normal people.
Ae likes a lot of things:
Morbid crap, gardening, the woods, (he has an obsession with farms and nature.) Medieval weaponry, the occult, FOOD and the baking and cooking/preparing of said food, animals. Especially cats. And metal. Holy shit he went to the human world very few times but he fucking found some metal records in an abandoned shed and couldnt stop listening to it after.
As a result his dad gave him an enchanted guitar that has destructive properties and now hes some fucked up heavy metal bard on top of being taught by a giant dark knight and warlock on various combat arts.
Gory descriptions under the cut
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His body is heavily mutated from the amount of dark magic that seeped into him since the ritual™ and therefore it has weird traits like worsening his vision while increasing his other senses like hearing and smell, regenerating wounds but also randomly forming painful clusters of black nerves, mouths and eyes that sometimes dont go away on their own, sickening him or strengthening him randomly, etc this boy is not normal and doesnt function as such.
As a dracolich (not all undead dragons are azeratean dracoliches, more lore on that later) he consumes the flesh and souls of demons and corrupted humans.
He often needs said blood and flesh to stay and healthy and strong.
He and his father are children of a dark elder god but theyre not wholly evil, its a whole thing that I dont wanna type out in one post for now.
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