#Anthropology Mains Answer Writing

[dresshistorynerd]

Hey, I noticed that in one of your posts you showed an Iron Age Finnish woman's dress. Would you happen to have a good idea of what Finnish men were wearing in that era? The information on it seems sparse. I do have a relevant book that I'm about to look through, but I'd like to hear your insight too!

Hi! Thanks for the question (and sorry for the slow answer), I do love Finnish Iron Age clothing so it's always my pleasure to write about it. I've been wanting to do a deep dive into this for a long while, so maybe I'll do at some point a post about women's dress too.

Unfortunately no one has good idea of the Finnish Iron Age men's dress (and if you find any book or other source that claims otherwise, do not trust it), since there's much fewer archaeological finds of men's dress than women's dress. The most accepted theory on why the textiles of women's dress survived surprisingly well is because of the bronze ornamentation commonly sewn into especially the fine women's dresses of the era. The bronze protected them from decomposing fully. Presumably men's dresses were not decorated similarly then. There are some finds though and we can piece together at least some kind of vague picture.

I will be discussing the period from Viking Age to Crusade Age in Finland. Viking Age is often defined to cover 800s to mid-1000s and the Finnish Crusade Age started right after the Viking Age and ended in the end of 1200s, where the Finnish Medieval era begins. Crusade Age refers to the period where mostly Swedish (also German) crusaders in the span of couple of centuries conquered lands of the Baltic-Finnic pagans. The crusades of this period targeted pagans all over eastern Baltic Sea, including Baltic-Finnic Karelians, Livonians and Estonians, and Baltic peoples, and the Scandinavia too, where Sámi people were targeted. After that the Finland and Sápmi were colonized by Norse people and stayed that way untill Finland was transferred under Russian rule, but to this day Sápmi still stays under colonial rule, including Finnish colonial rule. The current Finland was very multicultural area, mostly populated by Finno-Ugric peoples, including Sámi people, Karelians and various Finnish peoples.

It's important to understand that even just Finnish peoples where not homogeneous, but had distinct, yet of course strongly related cultures. These were Finns (suomalaiset) (yes most people we now call Finns were not in fact called that) in the coast of southwestern and western Finland, Tavastians (hämäläiset) in central-western lake-Finland and Savonians (savolaiset) in central-eastern lake-Finland. This means we can't mix findings from all over Finland to reconstruct a dress without evidencing that all the elements were actually used in one place. These three tribes had broadly similar base for their clothes, but distinctive jewelry and detailing. The big divide was and has always been between eastern and western Finnish peoples. This is because western Finnish people were in close contact through the sea with Norse people and southern Baltic-Finnic peoples, while eastern Finnish people, Savonians mostly, were influenced a lot by their proximity with Karelians. Another dividing factor was the very different environmental conditions between western and eastern Finland. The Finnish coast especially in west is very flat and fertile land, while the lake area, especially in eastern Finland is very rocky, hilly and quite infertile. The main way it effected clothing differences was that western Finland being more wealthy had more elaborate clothing. Tavastians in both occasions fall quite in between, but they tended to be more in the western cultural camp.

My most important sources are a study by a doctor of cultural anthropology, Jenny Kangasvuo, Savon historia I (Savonian history) digitized and open sourced here and the digitized archeological collection of Finnish Heratage Agency. They are all in Finnish so not very useful for most people unfortunately.

Finnish Men's Dress in Viking and Crusader Ages

The basic garments men wore were broadly similar as women. They wore a shift/shirt, knee or above-knee length dress, cloak, belt, shoes and some kind of headwear. Wool was used most commonly, though the shirt would sometimes be linen too. Even evidence of silk has been found in some western Finland graves. I would assume that would be from a dress of some great man, who traveled to gain riches, possibly with vikings. Embroidery and decoration with metals was a typical feature of the whole Eastern Baltic Sea area. In Finland during this period bronze was the most common decorative metal, but silver was used too. Decorative elements were usually woven with small bronze spirals into all kinds of patterns. Here's examples from the reconstructed Ravattula's dress (Finns) used by women.

Shirt

The shirt (in Finnish shift of both women and men was called shirt) was basically a long shirt or under dress. We can assume it was similar to those of women's except shorter since the dress men wore was shorter too. They were made from wool or linen, I would assume wool was used in winter and linen in summer, when linen was even available. The neckline had a cut and closed with a bronze brooch. Horseshoe brooch was common. The first one is a quite typical bronze horseshoe brooch with a bit of ornamentation from Salo (Finns). The second one is from Tuukkala, (Savonians), it has exceptional ornate detailing and is uncommonly silver, not bronze. The third picture has two quite uniquely ornamented horseshoe brooches, first from Köyliö (Finns), second from Kurikka (Finns).

Legwear and footwear

Very little of men's legwear has survived and it's unclear weather men wore pants or separate pant legs, leg wraps or perhaps long socks. Evidence of strings decorated with bronze spirals and tablet woven band has been found in leg area of men's graves. This could mean that they wore either leg wraps, long sock or some sort of pant legs that needed to be secured with string or band under knee. Women used strings and tablet woven tape to secure leg wraps and socks, which I think supports that theory. Sometimes both bronze decorated string and tablet woven band was found in the leg area, which would still be explained by this theory, since it was common to decorate the ends of the bands with bronze decorated strings. Here's an example of sock bands just like that from the earlier mentioned reconstruction of the Ravattula's women's dress. Since men's dress was shorter, I think it would make sense if they still wore some kind of pants or separate pant legs with socks or leg wraps like that.

However, the strings and bands could have also been part of the shoes. Everyone probably wore similar shoes - laced leather shoes with a bit of pointed end. They might have been short or ankle length and the lacing was done with either leather cord or tablet woven band, which would also explain the findings. Socks or feet wraps would have been used in them, and straw or wool could be added as filling for warmth. Here's a pair of traditional Izhorian shoes from Estonia from early 1900s, and a pair of traditional Sámi shoes. The designs were likely roughly similar in Viking and Crusader Ages, though obviously more simple, and it's probable that Finnish shoes very something like that too. Here's a 1893 drawing of what findings of shoe material from Korpiselkä (Savonian or Karelian) might have looked like. Considering the quality of archaeology of that time, copious amounts of salt should be applied. And finally as a fourth picture there's reconstruction shoes from Ravattula's dress.

These are not necessarily mutually exclusive theories. The lacing of the shoe could have been laced up the leg and used also to secure either sock or leg wrapping, or they could have been separately secured in ankle and knee respectively.

In some graves twill fabric has been found in the leg area. It could be part of pants or for example leg wrapping, which was often made of twill. One theory about pants is that they were similar as some findings in Sweden, where fairly tight pants made of twill were secured at the hem with buttons similar to cuff studs. These kinds of cuff stud buttons are quite a common find in Finland and some have been found in men's graves close to legs.

Dress

Again there's not much findings of dresses, but a little more perhaps. It was usually from wool. The shape was either a tunic or an open coat. In Karelia there's findings of men's dress suggesting tunics thicker than women's dresses and made from sarka, a type of broadcloth. On the other hand, in Masku (Finns) they found buttons in a row on top of the torso, which suggest a coat closed with buttons. The first picture is a drawing of the grave find. Similary coak closing amounts of buttons have also been found in other places in western Finland. This suggests that Finns and probably Tavastians too wore long coats buttoned to the waist and Savonians wore tunic of Karelian influence. Below there's couple of version of what might this western Finnish men's coat dress could've looked like. The first is an imagined version of the coat based on the Masku grave finds, second is just as imagined version based on Eura (also Finns) grave finds.

Take these "reconstructions" with a strong dose of salt. These are more artistic reconstructions than scientific, since there's not enough material and too much guesswork needs to be done. And because we can see in the Masku grave drawing right here that the other deceased has a large buckle to (probably) close the shirt (to be fair, it could for a cloak too), like was typical, I find it implausible that the coat neckline would be small and round covering the buckle. If you make a decorated big buckle, I assume you want to show it. I would find a v-neckline more probable. It's also easier to make without wasting expensive fabric.

The buttons are interesting. There were what you would imagine - your typical buttons made of bronze like seen in the first artifact from Hattula (Tavastians). But then there was silver jingle bells used as buttons, found for example in both Masku and Eura graves, Eura findings pictured below.

It's possible, even probable I'd say, that the hemlines of men's dresses were finished with tablet weaving patterns, like women's dresses. Also I would assume the pattern of the men's dress (and shirt) was mostly similar to the women's underdress/shirt patterns. So here's couple of different reconstruction patterns for women's dress. Different historians have made different interpretations of the patterns, so it's very much undecided what it really was like.

Belt

This is likely the most ornamental part of men's dress. They could be made out of leather or tablet woven band. And there's another east-west cultural divide here. Karelian belts were made out of leather, were usually 1,5-2,5 cm wide, decorated with iron or bronze studs and had a buckle made out of iron or bronze. These types of belts have been found in Savonia too, for example in Tuukkala grave find, which you can find very cool pictures of in this photo documentation of the dig in pages 173-175. In western Finland a "hela" belt was the common style. I don't think there's a world for hela in English. It's a sort of decorative lamella, small metallic plate (not necessarily square but often so) attached to fabric or leather with studs or sewing. Hela belt came from the Permians of Kama river, who were one of the many Finno-Ugric peoples who used to populate much of European side of Russia. Karelians lived closer to Permians, so you might think Permians would influence eastern Finland more, but my theory is that the costal Finns, who frequently joined viking crews and at least were in close contact with merchants including vikings, who would travel along the eastern route through the eastern European rivers, where they could go all the way to Kama river or at least meet traveling Permians. Here's yet another Finnish source more on the Finno-Ugric people around Kama river.

Anyway, hela belt was made of leather and filled with small decorated lamellas, often in square shape, but various other shapes too, like animal ornamentation. In this period hela belt helas were bronze. First image is a nice full set of hela belt metal pieces found in Pirkanmaa (Finns). Second is an older example, right before Viking Era, from Vaasa, costal settlement, (Finns), depicting a very Permian style. The third one is a lion hela found separately in Pälkäne (Tavastians). They are also found in Tuukkala, showing that both eastern and western cultural influences were present there at the same time.

Another western Finnish belt type for men had intricate tassels decorated with bronze spirals hanging on the waist at the end of the belt. They could be made out of leather or tablet woven band. First image depicts a reconstruction of such tassel. Belts in east and west would have strap dividers to hang straps for things like purse, knife and sword. The first picture above has couple of those, but the second picture below has two more of them in more detail in the middle of the picture. These finds are from Lieto (Finns).

Cloak

Like women's cloak, men's cloak was woolen and either a square or trapezoid. Cloak is yet another east-west divide. In western Finland men's cloaks have embroidery with bronze spirals. They in fact appeared earlier in men's cloaks (in 900s) than in women's cloaks (1100s). They were also a little different in men's cloaks. The spirals and the patterns themselves were bigger and the fastening thread itself was also used for the pattern creation, unlike in women's dresses, where the thread was mostly covered. In eastern Finland there has been no finds of bronze decorations in men's cloaks, mostly only cloak brooches have been left of them. Unsurprisinly same applies to Karelia. This also means there's very little fabric left too. There's one exception. In Tuukkala (Savonians) they found a piece of fabric probably from men's cloak, though it could be from a men's dress too. It was striped, with possibly white or brown base and wide stripes of red, blue and yellow. So perhaps eastern Finnish cloak was not non-decorated, but the decoration was in the fabric pattern. Unfortunately it's hard to know how common fabric like that was, when so little of it is left.

Accessories

It's safe to assume men too wore some type of headwear, but none of those has survived. It probably means it was entirely made out of fabric whatever it was. Some type of hat or cap was certainly used in cold weather at the very least. Tablet woven headband was also possible option for not too cold weather.

In Tuukkala there was couple of interesting jewelry finds too. Two graves had a necklace type mostly found in Karelia. It was birchbark tape covered with nettle fabric and had square helas sewn into it. There were also more typical Finnish necklaces made of beads and bronze spirals.

Razors have also been found with men in their burials, so we can assume shaven faces or at least trimmed beards and moustaces were fashionable.

[chargoeson]

Hello! Writeblr re-Introduction

hiiiii pals! I made my writeblr introduction last year and it was such a good intro to the community! but as time goes on and organizations fall i want to re-introduce myself and my writing without any associations.

my name is Charlotte, but you can call me Char as well. She/Her, I'm 25, queer, and live in the Pacific Northwest of the United States.

I write literary fiction with a special affection for surrealism and dream-like vibes. I do have a couple soft fantasy and short story projects that I've made posts for, but I'll stick to my litfic on this pinned post as they are my passion projects!

themes I often explore in these books are: isolation, anxiety, complex relationships between mothers and daughters, bisexuality, winter, dissociation, and overall rural misery!

I have a bachelor's degree in English Language and Literature and paid special attention to Gothic and Romantic movements.

on top of writing, I also love quilting/sewing, collage making, playing Stardew Valley and Baldur's Gate 3, and doing DIY home renovations.

Reading is my passion, even more so than writing! My favorite authors are Murakami, Mieko Kawakami, the Bronte sisters, Iain Reid, Han Kang, and Ottessa Moshfegh.

my three main WIPS can stand alone but are technically a trilogy. read about them after the cut!

The Ballad of a Blue Whale-- This novella was written in November, 2023. It follows Maren Hara, a recent college graduate who has to move back in with her father, a rigid and unfeeling doctor. To cope with the emotional distance of her father and the slow dissolution of her relationships she begins walking through the night. Both to be away from home and removed from her current life. It’s during these walks she finds a jazz bar in an adjoining city. The patrons, and especially the owner of this bar, captivate her. At the core of the narrative is her inability to open herself to others, and how attempts to do so are physically and mentally cataclysmic, although necessary. As she finds herself, she loses both her old life and this interim space. 

I Want to Build a Home with You-- This novel is in the first draft/development stage. I began in December, 2023. Its events follow Leonie Richards as she walks her grandmother, famed novelist Hellen Barnaby, through the final weeks of her life then inherits her home. Leonie, once an infamous performance artist, decides to settle into a life of portrait painting for a small but wealthy pool of clients left to her by her grandmother. Her old peers. After Hellen’s death, Leonie’s final connections to the outside world are her strange clients, the art store clerk, and her uncle Ox who is embittered by his lack of inheritance. The longer she stays in the home, the stranger things seem to be. She wakes up ragged, dirt under her fingernails with memories of a rock formation in the forest she has never seen. Forest spirits or generational curse, there is a limerence threatening her life. 

No Glory-- Special Agent Seth Barnaby has been tasked with investigating the mysterious, possibly cult-associated murders of young women across the state, but this one could be the key. To decode the newest set of clues he teams up with Director of Anthropology Dr. Miel Noh and they get into the field. The small town misleads them at every turn, from an odd boy named Calf to the corpse of a girl who was staying in his family’s motel. With Seth’s checkered past he recognizes the patterns, but time is of the essence and if they don’t find answers another woman could die. With no way out, they return to the only lead Seth knows: an institutionalized man who confessed to the first murder that brought Seth to the FBI years ago.

and that's a wrap! thank you for reading, would love to reconnect with writers from last year as well as new friends. feel free to slide into my asks, follow, or join the tag list.

tags: @annlillyjose @coffeeandcalligraphy @subtlefires @belovedviolence @onomatopiya @thelaughingstag

[lilareviewsbooks]

4 SFF Books For (Humanities) Nerds

Hey guys! I know I promised this like, last year, but life got in the way :( But now I can finally present to you - my list of books for humanities nerds!

To put it simply, these are books I think broach topics that are close to the humanities nerds' interests - sociology, history, art, anthropology, political sciences... And sure, they could be considered "boring", but if you're into the humanities - you'll have a ball with them! (and, of course, anyone can enjoy these!)

The Goblin Emperor, by Katherine Addison

5 stars | 446 pages | standalone, but there are spin-offs | queer side character

This is the book that spurred this list, so, if you want a longer review, I have it on my blog. But suffice it to say that The Goblin Emperor is a fairly long and detailed account of what happens in the court of a country of elves when the youngest, unfavoured and half-goblin son of the king ascends the throne. This book is masterful. It seemlessly weaves in personal and political concerns as we follow Maia, the newly crowned emperor. The writing style is slow - we follow the emperor's every day life. We are with him when he rises in the morning until when he wakes up. It waits for something to happen, and is quiet and slow. It's absolutely delightful: despite his politicking, Maia is mostly and more ardently concerned with kindness. He wants to treat people fairly. This not only makes for a sweet main character, it also means the book is a fascinating character study, as well as an incredible feat of world-building. I think nerds will enjoy its slow and traquil pace, its dedication to politics, language and customs of this world and its charming main character.

A Memory Called Empire, by Arkady Martine

5 stars | 462 pages | completed duology | queer main characters

For a sci-fi twist, I think A Memory Called Empire is the way to go. The duology follows Mahit, a citizen of a small satellite of the Teixcalaan Empire, who is chosen as the next ambassador for her home. She must journey to the capital with a very important mission - find out why her predecessor mysteriously disappeared. Again, what there is to enjoy here is lush, expansive world-building. The Teixcalaani feel so, so real. Every little detail was thought of, from their language to their smiles. It's truly impressive, and the prose, I remember, is also beautiful, making these details pop out even more. This is also incredibly political, as Mahit descends into the belly of the beast, so to speak, in search of answers. But it is framed by a pretty straight-foward murder mystery, which might be fun for people used to mystery stories. And the second book broaches first contact! - it's just so much fun! I also have a longer review for this series, if you would like more details! Nerds will be drawn to the expansive world-building, attention to detail, and reflections on empire, memory and legacy.

Elder Race, by Adrian Tchaikovsky

4 stars | 201 pages | standalone | no one's queer, I don't think :(

This one might be a good pick for veterans of SFF - it has a fun gimmick! You must've heard the phrase "any science advanced enough in undistinguishable from magic", attributed to Arthur C. Clarke. This book takes that concept and runs with it. For Lynesse, a princess in a medieval society, Elder Nyr's "giant tower" is magical, and he, a magician. For Elder Nyr, an anthropologist come from a different planet, his interests are scientific, and his "tower", a spaceship. The fun of the novella is that we flip-flop between these two people's perspectives, so that half the story is a sci-fi, and the other half, a fantasy. I found this story to be unique, and to understand its place in the speculative genre quite well. It defies expectations and conventions in a creative way that I think nerds familiar with them will enjoy!

The Traitor Baru Cormorant, by Seth Dickinson

5 stars | 399 pages | uncompleted series | queer main characteres

Another good bet is The Traitor Baru Cormorant, the first installment in the Masquerade Series, which is not finished yet. It follows Baru, who, as a child, watches her country be colonized by the Masquerade Empire. She vows revenge, and to destroy the empire from the inside out. In this installment, she is finally trusted to be sent as an Imperial Accountant to Aurdwynn, a famously ungovernable territory... This one is very, very brain-y. It's dense political fantasy, and I admit I had some trouble following the economics, sometimes - that was never my strong suit!! The tapestry of betrayals, alliances and twists is rich, intricate and realistic. People have diverse interests, are multi-faceted individuals, and yet have a reason to be acting they way they are acting. This makes for satisfying plot lines, and incredible twists. I still haven't recovered from what the first book did to me, to be honest. Nerds, if you want to be dazzled and made to work for it, pick this one up. The Traitor Baru Corumorant will have you scratching your chin, thinking hard and having a lot of fun with (yay!) economics and accounting!

I have a couple more of these if anyone is interested :) And as always, if you need a book rec, feel free to send me an ask!

[redhoodinternaldialectical]

Author ask tag!

I got tagged by @laufire a uhhhh a while ago lol (check out her talking about her Underground Elysium story)

I'll be chatting about Chained, my big ol JayTim series. My pinned post is a big explanation of it, but I'll go ahead and slap the premise down here too for convenience's sake

Jason is set in front of a contract that will grant near omnipotence over every facet of reality. The catch is that it requires the person who actually gains the power to be permanently bound into the service of someone else. Afraid of what this could do in the wrong hands, Jason asks Tim to be his new Master. After many hours of intense negotiations, they produce a subcontract designed to maintain Jason's basic rights as a person while still granting them enough power to overcome whatever caused the contract to be written in the first place. Now all that's left is to destroy all evidence of the Contract's existance, and start remaking the world in their image...

What is the main lesson of your story? Why did you choose it?

It feels wrong to say that I went out and chose a lesson for this? But at the same time, because I'm handling so many historical and sociological topics I feel that I can't write it without imparting some idea of how the world functions which will operate as a lesson whether I want it to or not.

I suppose the thing that gets closest is the conviction that maintaining the status quo is not the best we can hope for; better is possible and when normality is based upon evil it is a moral imperative to change how our society functions. Also America is evil.

What did you use as inspiration for your worldbuilding?

The real world. I'm reading history, anthropology, religious texts; I'm doing my level best to give this story, with all of its time travel and world spanning consequences, the full depth and breadth of human experience to explore and impact. I have a special interest in the history and development of the religious and the occult so you best believe that when I make my characters into Gods, I'm gonna figure out how people reconcile that with their existing faiths and develop new ones!

Secondly, of course I'm pulling from an enormous amount of DC canon, especially the various 'crisis' events and in particular Dark Nights: Metal, the Justice League Doom War, and Dark Nights: Death Metal. If you've read some of these comics, you'll know who the main villain is far before the reveal :3 I'm honestly trying to stay as canon compliant as possible

What is your MC trying to achieve, and what are you, the writer, trying to achieve with them?

Tim and Jason's main goals will be the preservation of their own world, the creation of a perfect world, and trying to be good to each other while in a deeply power imbalanced relationship.

At its core, this is still a romance, despite the large scope of the plot. So, there's a really intense focus on exploring the emotions and perspectives of Jason and Tim. It's like half character study by volume. I want to enjoy sitting in their headspaces and watching them collide with the other characters around them and develop and grow and relapse :3

I also want to pose a series of questions about the ways the world works and the nature of power and humanity and present a series of possible answers for the audience to grapple with. Tim's decision to try to make everyone immortal has already lead to some fantastic stuff, as people have instinctively balked at the idea and written comments articulating why it's such a terrible idea (and excitement to see what kind of mess Tim causes with all of it ^w^)

How many chapters is your story going to have?

O_O; ...uhhhhhhh that's a good question!

It's taken me 23 to get here... 27 ish prob to get to the end of arc 1... arc 2 for time travel arc 3 for ___ showing up and fight one, uhhhhh another few arcs likely????

Final vague estimate: approximately 150 chapters?!?!?!

I'm not allowed to die until this fic gets finished, which might just make me immortal idk, don't @ me about the feasibility or length xD

Is it fanfiction or original content? Where do you plan to post it?

Fanfic. All my original characters happen in role play contexts and if I were to write professionally, I'd want to write these characters anyways. DC let me have Jason I prommy I'll make good good comics out of him, you let tentatodd happen at least twice surely you can let me have at him too!!! (Seriously tho, I already have have a story arc outlined up, CALL ME)

Anyhow, my AO3 is Tinerian, and here's a link to the series so far :3

When did you start writing?

Ever? Idk, I guess high school??

This particular project? Also vaguelly in high school technically, but that was only the first 18,000 words that I spilled out in three days lol, more realistically I've been working on it for a little over a year now, publishing roughly twice a month for most of that time.

Do you have any words of encouragement for fellow writers of writeblr? What other writers do you follow?

Every project, no matter how failed, propels you forwards. This is my fourth or fifth serious attempt to write something like this and every prior attempt has taught me invaluable lessons that are the reason this series is actually going to work.

We got this :3

Oh heck let's see, whomst to tag... @swamp-spirit, @bestangelofall, @vigilantecore, @lazaruspiss I feel like I'm probably missing like a million people but oh well! If you see this and u wanna then go for it! Would/will be interested to hear about it :3

[snowdice]

Creased Hoodies (Chapter 12: The End (For Now)) [Folds in Time Universe]

Fandom: Sander Sides

Relationships: Logan/Virgil, Janus/Patton (background), Remus & Roman  (background)

Characters:

Main: Logan, Virgil

Appear: Patton, Roman

Mentioned: Janus, Remus

Summary: Virgil just wanted to go on his planned summer research trip to do an anthropological study in 2005 America. However, when he is taken off course by an unknown enemy, he ends up stranded in the summer of 2018 with no way to get back the the 44rd century. Luckily, 2018 happens to be where a certain illegal time agency is based, and he might have an in with one of its agents.

This is the intermission for the story Folds in Paper. It takes place between Folds in Paper Book 1 and Book 2. It also takes place after the first 5 chapter of “Messages for a Hacker” which are side stories in the universe. Check all of this and more out on my Folds in Time Master Post.

Chapter Summary: It's finally time for Virgil to return home.

Notes: Time travel AU

This is a fic I’ve been writing on study breaks that you have probably all already seen at this point. I’ve slightly edited it for wording and grammar, but not for content from my previous posts. Feel free to send in asks to direct it because I’m not 100% sure where this is going and you can help decide if you feel so inclined! You can see the process I went through to build this at this link.

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Part 9 Part 10 Part 11

It took Logan a few days to ensure the timepiece and the distortion device were not at risk of blowing up the fabric of time itself. It took about a week more for him to properly study the distortion device Patton had brought home.

“It’s similar to what little we’ve seen of TPI technology,” Logan concluded. He debriefed them all while sitting on the couch with a notebook in hand. “It’s derived from the same technology unlike our time travel devices, which explains why it can block TPI timepieces but not ours. However, it has its differences, and this model in particular is rather shoddily made. While it was meant to create disorder, I doubt almost ripping time apart was its intended purpose, though that is almost what it did.”

“So, you’re thinking whoever made that is from my time then?” Virgil asked.

“Most likely,” Logan agreed. “Though it could always be a Roman and Remus type situation where the culprit was originally from another time period and ended up in your time accidently. However, the origins of this device were certainly the 4500s.”

Virgil glanced at the device set on the coffee table in front of them. It looked more like a 21st century light switch than something with the power to almost destroy time. Even though Logan had been able to study it, there were still many questions Virgil doubted he had an answer to. They didn’t even know why it had been made.

“Do you think whoever made this trapped me here on purpose?” Virgil asked.

“It is a possibility,” Logan mused. “You do work with the TPI and with Janus, a time agent who both is often caught in the chaos these devices create and who runs into Patton frequently. Plus, you know Remus, Roman’s brother, though we didn’t know of the connection before you came to be here. Also, we had a correspondence before this situation. It’s all quite a coincidence if it was not by design.”

“But why?” Virgil asked. “Sure, I’m connected to all of this, but I’m no time agent. All I am to the TPI is a walking history book. I’m not actually involved.”

“Well,” Logan said. “Perhaps someone knows something we do not. Or at least something we do not know yet.”

“Or maybe it’s just a happy accident!” Patton said, though Virgil felt it was more to break the sudden tension that had befallen the room.

“Accident or not,” Logan continued, “we do now have a solution to you being stuck here. I’ve managed to use this device to recalibrate my calculations and pin down its sister device’s current location in this time with much more accuracy. We now just need to get it and turn it off to allow Virgil to leave with his own timepiece.”

“Where is it?” Roman asked.

“A local trash dump,” Logan replied.

“Well, that should be easy enough to get,” Patton said. “Give Roman and I the exact coordinates and we can go and get it now.”

“Wait,” Roman protested. “Why are we the only ones who have to dig through a garbage dump?”

Patton gave him a meaningful look.

“Oh!” Roman said, eyes lighting up. “Oh right!” Then he scowled, remembering the detail that he’d be digging through garbage. “Fine,” he sighed. “The things I do in the name of…”

“Adventure!” Patton cut him off. “It’s an adventure!”

“We’re time travelers. There are so many more exciting adventuring opportunities than dumpster diving, Pat-Pat,” he whined, but he still got up. “I’ll go get changed.”

Patton stood up then and handed Logan his phone, so Logan could download the location of the distortion device onto it.

“We’ll text you when we’re heading back!” Patton said after changing and getting his phone back. “I’ll make sure to give you a 15- and 5-minute warning.” Patton said this with a wink. Virgil immediately hid his face in his hands.

“Do you think the TPI is hiring,” Logan asked as the door closed behind Patton and Roman. “I’d love to move to a different century without those two.”

“Time agents don’t usually live in 4500s,” Virgil said, face still hidden behind his hands. “They’d probably still place you in this century, especially since you’re comfortable here.”

“No escaping them then,” Logan sighed.

“Mmm,” was Virgil’s response.

He felt Logan shift on the couch next to him and a warm palm touched his wrist, gently tugging his hand away from his face. Virgil chose not to resist and let the hand fall away with a sigh. Logan smiled at him when his face was revealed, and Virgil smiled back despite how he could still feel heat in his cheeks.

“You will be going home this evening, I imagine,” Logan said.

“Yeah,” Virgil agreed. It hadn’t fully dawned on him yet. He’d grown used to living here in the past few weeks. He was used to briefly living in other places and times, but here had been different. He hadn’t felt like the observer he usually was. Because Logan, Patton, and Roman knew about time travel and what he really did, he’d had a chance to almost fit in with them. It would be weird to be back in his own time.

“I would like to give you a gift before you go,” Logan said, “If you’ll allow it.”

“Oh,” Virgil said, “uh, okay.”

Logan nodded and reached into his hoodie pocket. He glanced over at Virgil once he’d pulled his closed fist back out. “It is a ring, by the way, but this is not a marriage proposal.”

“Well, I’d certainly hope not,” said Virgil dryly. “An impulse elopement would be off brand for both of us.”

Logan grinned. “Very true,” he agreed. Then, he opened his palm revealing a small, plain ring as promised.

“What is it?” Virgil asked.

“This is an emergency time travel device,” Logan explained. “It’s not particularly complex. It can only take you here to this room between 2 weeks and one year from now, but if you ever find yourself in need, you can use it.”

He offered the ring and Virgil opened his palm. He studied the ring once it was placed in his hand. It was warm, though if that was from Logan’s touch or the technology running in it, Virgil did not know. It was surprisingly light and a rose gold color.

“It also has some security measures,” Logan continued. “It wouldn’t do to make an emergency time travel device that someone else might easily take from you. So, it’s designed to disappear when you put it on. You’ll still be able to feel it and take it off whenever you wish. It will become visible again once it leaves your finger.”

“An invisible ring?” Virgil asked, studying it even more curiously now.

“Yes,” Logan said with a smile. “Full disclosure, it is designed to store your space-time coordinates for up to 48 hours, but as I said, you can take it off whenever you wish and… I promise not to use it against you.”

Virgil looked away from the ring and back up at him. “Okay,” he agreed, surprising himself with the ease at which he accepted this. “Can I put it on?”

Logan nodded, and Virgil slipped the band on his finger. As promised, it disappeared as soon as it passed his first knuckle. He could still feel its unfamiliar weight on his finger.

“You must turn it three times counterclockwise to activate the time travel,” Logan said, making Virgil look up from the seemingly empty space on his finger. “It would drop you pretty much exactly where you are sitting now if you did.”

“Thank you,” Virgil said. He did not feel those words were enough to say when gifted something as impressive as this, but he hoped his tone said enough.

“Don’t use it against me?” Logan asked with a half-smile, and only then did Virgil realize just how much trust was being put onto him. He’d just been given a device that was linked directly to their base of operations despite Virgil working with the TPI.

Virgil shook his head. “I won’t,” he swore.

Deciding to throw his nervousness and embarrassment over last time to the wind, he shot forward to kiss Logan quickly on the lips.

They bumped noses and Logan’s glasses ended up askew in the process, but Logan didn’t seem to mind judging by his delighted laugh when they parted.

“Thank you,” Virgil said again because he still didn’t know what else to say.

“You’re welcome,” Logan replied.

~

The ring continued to sit on Virgil’s finger, invisible but heavy even after Patton and Roman returned from the dump with the device that had caused this whole mess. It was still there when Logan turned off the distortion device and Virgil’s timepiece reactivated. The knowledge of its existence was always in the back of his mind even once he’d made it home and gave the TPI and university an excuse as to why he’d left his trip early. It would stay there even when he received an email from an “unknown sender” making sure he got home okay.

Want to read more? Click below!

Folds in Time Universe Master Post

My Main Masterpost

[asksythe]

The meaning behind MDZS names - Wei Ying Wei Wuxian

My work has been hectic lately, so I don’t have time to tackle more complex topic, write longer articles, or answer trickier questions that require a lot of time and writing. I still want to write anthropological blog posts about MDZS. So I figure something shorter and more simple would be the answer. 

In any case, MXTX once said that she named (things and characters) based on feelings. I find this very interesting, because character names in MXTX works tend to foreshadow things about the characters themselves. 

Let’s start with Wei Ying Wei Wuxian, whose name foreshadow his founding the Path of the Dead (Guidao).  

 - Wei Ying’s surname composes of two words: 

Gui 鬼 Ghost / Dead soul . The Gui of Guidao 鬼道 (Path of the Dead), the proper name for the cultivation school that Wei Wuxian created. 

Wei 委 : which simultaneously mean ‘to stand alone,’ ‘to tower over other’, ‘to be abandoned’, and ‘to be wrongly accused.’ 

I wrote about Wuxian before in the Wei Wuji post, so I shan’t repeat myself.

And now for something fun! 

- There are three radicals for female / woman 女 in Wei Ying Wei Wuxian. One in his surname Wei 魏 (repeated twice in the proper full address Wei Ying Wei Wuxian)，one in his given first name Ying 婴. He is the only one in the main cast whose name carries the radical for woman.

- Wei Wuxian was associated with female / woman three times in the novel: his name (in which there are three radicals for woman), when A Yuan calls him mom, and when he himself likens him and Lan Wangji to his parents, imagining him in his mother’s place atop a donkey and thinking that only a child was missing to complete this image.  

- The number 3 in Daoism represents the female aspect as it is the number that gives birth to all other things (Dao De Jing, 400 BC) 

道生一 一生二 二生三 三生万物 (Dao births one, one births two, two births three, three births all)

- In modern vernacular, important things must be repeated three times. I’m sure fans of SVSSS know this phrase well. 

What do you do with this information? I don’t know. Have fun, maybe? :D 

[practically-an-x-man]

Talk Shop Tuesday for how you approach whump in your writing?

Ooooooh, good question! Thank you!

Talk Shop Tuesday

The first part of my answer is going to be that I've been interested in anatomy and biology since I was a very young child. I mean, for a while my favorite book at my grandma's house was a kid's anatomical encyclopedia! Not to mention, I was a forensic anthropology major before I dropped out of college. It's genuinely fascinating to me.

So a lot of my whump fics play off of that - anatomy, medicine, forensics, et cetera. That's kind of where I anchor my writing when it comes to whump. As soon as I know what I'm going to try and convey (such as the severe hypothermia in Deep Freeze), I do a bit more research to brush up and take note of certain symptoms or effects that I might be able to use in my writing. I may take certain liberties here or there, especially when it comes to superpowered characters who may not have an "ordinary human" reaction to the stressor, but I feel like basing it in that genuine reality and anatomy as much as possible makes for a more compelling piece.

The other thing I need to remember is that I have a much higher tolerance for gore and other dark subjects than most people might. I've got that interest in anatomy and forensics, I read a lot of horror books and watch a lot of horror films, I work in special effects and have to research a lot of gruesome injuries for that, and all of that means that I'm fairly desensitized to those touchy subjects. I just... don't get grossed-out the way other people might. And while I do try to convey any darker subjects in my writing in the most respectful, grounded light I can, I struggle with knowing how much I can really write about them before it becomes a trigger for someone (yes, I tag my fics thoroughly, but it's still a worry of mine).

So the second thing I try to think about, once I've decided what I'm basing the fic around, is how to find that balance between "this is compelling whump and I enjoy it" versus "this is torture porn and it's too much" - which is funny, because I only ever watch "torture porn" movies (like Hostel or the later SAW movies) when I'm curious about the special effects, I'm not really compelled by it as a genre.

I just don't know, in the general fanfiction climate, how my heavily horror-inspired whump might stack up against what others might want to read. I'm sure that logically there's a lot of overlap in those communities, and I know that properly tagging my fics is really the important thank and I can write whatever I want when it comes down to it, but it's tough to determine where those lines fall when I'm just posting these works to a faceless audience on the other side of a computer screen.

I guess I would say, as a whole, whump comes fairly easily to me as a subject because of my combined interests in anatomy/forensics and the macabre. Once I've got a good prompt or concept, it's pretty easy for me just to let things flow and I generally don't need to do much deep planning. The main struggle is just finding that point of temperance, where it can be a enjoyably-dark fic without just being needlessly graphic.

It's like... taking a literary biopsy - you're slicing up these characters in the hopes that you find something interesting, and sometimes you might not find as much as you hope, but there's a purpose behind whatever pain you might cause. Not every whump fic has to involve character development, but I do think they're much more compelling when you can dig into the introspection and understand the characters rather than just torturing them for the sake of grossing out your readers.

[blogger360ncislarules]

The season one finale of The Agency ends with Michael Fassbender’s Martian in nearly the same emotional space as he was when the show began: longing to be reunited with Dr. Samia Zahir (Jodie Turner-Smith), the Sudanese anthropology professor he fell in love with while stationed as a CIA operative in Ethiopia.

However, their inability to be together is no longer just a matter of distance and duty to one’s country, as it once was when Martian ended their relationship upon returning to his post in London to resume life under the cover of Paul Lewis. It’s now one of life and death, as Martian’s failed attempt to recruit Samia to the CIA has not only put her life in danger but also his own when he agrees to become a double agent for the U.K.’s Secret Intelligence Service in an attempt to save her.

The episode, aptly titled, “Overtaken by Events,” is an action-packed ending to a slow burn of an inaugural season that saw the CIA nab a major win by successfully executing Operation Felix and facilitating the return of Coyote (Alex Reznik), an agent who was held for ransom by a Russian mercenary group when his cover was blown in Belarus. Daniela “Danny” Ruiz Morata (Saura Lightfoot-Leon) also completed part one of her mission to uncover Iranian nuclear engineers, landing in Tehran, Iran, with her professor (Reza Brojerdi) where she’ll continue to work undercover. And Martian, who spent the season going rogue to satisfy his own personal interests, must now exist in a world where he ultimately answers to senior MI6 official James Richardson (Hugh Bonneville), who exploits his desperation for Samia and manipulates him into being his mole.

“This is a world where everybody’s playing chess against everybody else,” says John-Henry Butterworth, who co-created the Showtime espionage thriller, which is based on the French series Le Bureau des Légendes, with brother Jez Butterworth. “Martian treats [James] as a friend and asks him for a favor, and instantly this man weaponizes it and uses it against him. He sees Martian having a personal vulnerability and he uses it as a professional weakness and suddenly he’s on him, he’s controlling him and he owns him, and Martian has to try and get out of that trap in order to survive.”

Below, the Butterworths talk with The Hollywood Reporter about Martian’s decision to betray his country and what it symbolizes. They also dive into plot points for season two, following the show’s early renewal, including whether they’ll explore the global issues currently unfolding with the incoming U.S. administration.

***

Going back to the early stages of developmen, why did you choose to set the intelligence agency in London versus the U.S.?

JEZ Originally it was going to be in Italy.

JOHN-HENRY It was always about a foreign station house, so it was always not going to be in the U.S.

JEZ It was the U.S. abroad, and so we looked around for where it could be, and, of course, looked everywhere except on our own doorstep, and then discovered that it felt like the best place to set it for a whole bunch of reasons. One of them was that it would happen on our doorstep (laughs), but the main thing was this is based on a French original and when you’re looking for events and locales, it felt like it came into focus when we looked at it through a London lens.

One of the big changes from Le Bureau was bringing the global issues The Agency deals with into the present day. Were there any other major changes you made from the original in season one?

JOHN-HENRY There’s a huge, huge change geopolitically if you’re writing about America instead of France. The stakes are much greater. The effects that America can have, the shadow they have and the different theaters they’re interested in are much greater. So it becomes a very different story and it was that opportunity to write about places that were in the news right now. Like Ukraine and places that I felt quite strongly should be in the news and weren’t being covered enough in the Western news, like what’s going on in Sudan, that I think that we are seeing more coverage of now, but certainly when we sat down to write this wasn’t on the front page.

In season two, you’re heading into Iran where Danny’s journey as a new officer will continue. What might you explore there?

JOHN-HENRY She’s a really interesting character. Saura, the actress who’s playing her, is superb, an enormously talented young actor and the part has kind of been grown around that bit of casting.

JEZ It’s great fun, isn’t it, when somebody does it better than you imagined? And by the way, this is happening across the board. We are spoiled by our fellow storytellers. It just seems ridiculous when you think about it. You’re writing scenes for Jeffrey Wright, you’re writing scenes for Richard Gere, you’re writing scenes for Jodie and she’s bringing stuff to it that is so much greater than we imagined. We’ve had that experience before, but I don’t think to this intense and concentrated across-the-board degree. Sometimes, if you’re writing a film, you encounter that. But you never get the chance to revisit it. We’re already into the thick of writing season two, and it’s absolutely been informed by the talents and the magic that we’ve been presented with in season one.

In episode seven, Dr. Blake (Harriet Sansom Harris) suggests Naomi (Katherine Waterston) has romantic feelings for Martian that have blinded her ability to accurately assess his actions. Is she right?

JOHN-HENRY I think there’s a sense that a character like this in this environment has in different ways charmed and manipulated and created an attachment that is controlling with almost everyone he comes into contact with. Some of it is conscious and some of it is unconscious, and I’m fascinated by writing those types of characters. I think you keep changing your mind about what is and isn’t intentional with Martian. What’s an accident? What’s him playing the notes like a puppet master, what’s him just being able to move on the fly really fast and change his direction? I think that’s a fascinating question of who has fallen for him or what he’s doing and, is it real? I think that’s what’s at stake between him and Samia for the whole of their relationship: is what they experience the real thing?

JEZ That’s really at the heart of any good espionage, isn’t it? It’s the question mark of, did you mean what you just said or are you just saying what you just said? Is that truth or is that for effect? How am I being manipulated here? And that’s why people come to stories. I think stories are puzzles, the way you learn to spot lies, and spotting lies is almost the most essential tool you need in life, and it’s the hardest.

What does it say then that Samia wasn’t willing to betray her country to save her relationship with Martian, but he ultimately agrees to in the finale?

JOHN-HENRY I think there’s a purity to their relationship that she is the torch bearer for and that he spends, certainly most of the early stages of this story, trying to live up to and trying to bear the responsibility for in an honest way. And he’s not used to it. He’s not been living an honest life, he’s not been living a whole life, and he suddenly encounters this person who is, and it changes him.

JEZ This story equates betrayal of your country with becoming human. If you are willing to do that, you are willing to recognize the human in yourself. That’s what it kpresents you with. And then it throws up all the complications of that because at that point, your humanity is costing everybody around you and your country. So it’s a really, really phenomenal ambiguity where you can position drama endlessly.

Is Samia dead, as Osman (Kurt Egyiawan) claims in episode nine?

JOHN-HENRY I don’t want to spoil anything for anyone.

Henry (Jeffrey Wright) can sense Martian’s personal life is going off the rails a bit but he also gives him a lot of rope with which he somewhat hangs himself.

JOHN-HENRY It’s such a great relationship. I love the way that it develops. I love that it’s got deep roots and you sense that there’s a history between these men and that at some point [Martian’s] been a protégé of Henry’s and he’s somebody who’s taken him under his wing and taught him the ropes of this world. Then they start to come into conflict, and, as the story goes into season two, there’s more of an antagonism there. For much of season two, Henry’s actually hunting for him, trying to prove what’s happened towards the end of season one actually did happen. And it’s just another way of showing this conflict that Martin has running through his character like Brighton Rock.

I was having an early conversation with Michael Fassbender and I said as a sort of throwaway phrase that he loves his country, this is why Martian’s doing what he’s doing, and Michael just blinked and went, “but he met something he loved more,” and I suddenly felt goosebumps go up the back of my thing as he understood this on such a deep level that that’s what this story is about. I think Henry’s character sits there to remind you of the Martian who loved his country, that that’s where he comes from because Henry still will do anything for the agents. He is as pure as it gets in terms of his commitment to what’s going on and his self-sacrifice for the greater good. And what he starts to see in Martian is someone who maybe has a personal agenda that conflicts with that. That’s something you’re not allowed in the CIA.

That’s an important perspective because with each passing episode, I thought more and more, who would want to do this for a living in real life?

JOHN-HENRY That was one of our intentions. There is a genre out there, which is the spy movie or the spy show, and the second you meet real spies and real people who work in intelligence, you realize it bears no relation. We’ve got an advisor on this who actually was in the CIA for a while, and we were laughing about this. He’s like, “what is the spy genre?” There isn’t one really, because as soon as you’re driving a tank through Moscow with everybody chasing you, like happens in Bond films, you’re not a spy anymore. I don’t know what it’s called, but it’s not this. By its very nature, it’s secret and it’s quiet and it’s subterfuge, it’s second intentions, and trying to portray that is fascinating to me. Trying to portray the human cost to them. This is what they’re so good at, this group of actors, showing you that all of these other things that you’ve seen, there’s a different thing going on out there. And as we move into this period where all these countries that we are part of and are frightened of are all in conflict with one another, there is a group of men and women who are out there who are prepared for reasons I fully don’t understand to do this.

You said you’ve written most of season two already. Do you plan to implement aspects of what’s presently happening with the new U.S. administration into that?

JEZ We’re offset by a couple of years.

JOHN-HENRY There’s an offset, but the forces that have come to create what’s just happened there, it’s a definite factor. I think it’s dangerous to try to guess what’s going to happen next in the world with a show as fast as we’re doing it; it still takes a while to come out and I don’t think we’re trying to look into any crystal balls and work out what’s happening. It’s been enormously gratifying to see that the work that we did do hasn’t been superannuated or made inaccurate. I think that’s the challenge with writing a show that’s set in the last five minutes.

But I think it’s fascinating what’s happening in America at the moment. It’s going to have a big bearing on everything. I grew up in a period in the ’90s and, internationally speaking, it was quite boring. The golden age of espionage that John Harry wrote about was over around 1989 when the Berlin Wall came down. But we’re entering another golden era. Espionage now is more important than ever. I thought that human espionage was going to stop when technology caught up with everybody. But I think that being able to disappear off a grid where everyone’s under surveillance, got it in their pocket, is now the most valuable thing in the world.

Have you heard any feedback from Éric Rochant, the creator of the original series, or anyone else who worked on it?

JOHN-HENRY I met the producers in London, and it was nerve-wracking that he was going to be watching it because there’s a responsibility to the original show, which we both thought was wonderful and we wanted to live up to, and he was delighted.

JEZ I sat next to him at the premiere in New York and the lights came down and he did not double his fist and punch me in the face. That was a relief.

[aboutanancientenquiry]

If you are still interested, I have read Edmonds’ “Redefining Orphism” and am working on his “Gold Tablets” book now. I must say that, like you, I am not convinced by his skepticism to the existence of Orphism as a movement. Eg, evidence such as the graffiti from Olbia (5th C. BCE) point to those who called themselves “Orphics”. And while certain myths and themes differed across the corpus, there was always a certain commonality of ideas. To say with Edmonds that the only similarity between sources and texts is marginality and otherness to polis religion is true only marginally itself. Turning back to Orphism, a concern with afterlife in underworld and reincarnation are common tropes found in all the sources so far. Again, taking an example from the Olbia bone tablets, we find the inscription, “Life-Death-Life” accompanied by an inscription mentioning “Orphics”. The golden tablets also mention liberation from the cycle of sorrow. So too there is similar evidence on the Apulian vases and in the Derveni krater. And the similarities do not stop there, but it seems that “Orpheoskeptic” scholarship does not most fully reflect this reality. However, this is not to say that there was not a great deal of fluidity and multiplicity within the Orphic movement. And it is pretty clear that there were derivations. But to claim with Edmonds and the Orpheoskeptics that “Orphism” was simply a label for being outside the mainstream cults has little support by emerging evidence today. From all that I can see, an Orphic religious movement — not to say that there was only one form of Orphism that remained constant across centuries — did in fact exist, of course with similarity and differentiation. And re. the question of whether the related cults referred to themselves as “Orphic”, the Olbian graffiti suggests an answer to the affirmative…

I totally agree about the "Orpheoskeptics", despite all the uncertainties that surround early Orphism, and you are I think totally right that the graffiti from Olbia is particularly important as evidence.

Perhaps one could also say that Orphism was a part of a broader mystery and "Bacchic" movement, a movement which had as main themes the special relationship of the worshipper with a deity (most often, although not exclusively, Dionysus) and the prospect of a blessed immortality through this relationship, breaking with the traditional Homeric bleak vision on the afterlife for most humans. Not of course that every celebration of Dionysus in the Greek cities would be necassarily based on such an eschatology, neither all mysteries in ancient Greece promised a better afterlife.

Orphism was probably a particular tendency in this Bacchic movement aspiring to a blessed immortality through the relationship with Dionysus. This Orphic tendency focused more particularly on the person of Orpheus as founder of rites and "prophet" of Dionysus (although it seems that initially Orpheus was associated with Apollo), created a corpus of literature attributed to Orpheus and developed a theogony and cosmogony alternative to that of Hesiodus. Orphism put also a special emphasis on the myth of Dionysus Zagraeus and its anthropological significance with the double character of human nature (divine and titanic) that it introduced, as well as on the transmigration of the souls and the necessary purification till the human "debt" for the ancestral crime is paid and the human soul is admitted to a blessed afterlife near or even among the gods. It seems that already ca 450 BCE Orphism had acquired such an importance within the broader Bacchic movement that Herodotus could write without distinction about Bacchica and Orphica and see in them a common Egyptian origin.

This Orphic movement was not for sure itself totally homogenous, as it seems that there existed at least two Orphic traditions, one South Italian, the other Athenian-Eleusinian, but also a difference between a more serious religious and perhaps also proto-philosophical version of Orphism and the more controversial ritualism of the itinerant orpheotelestai, the ones that Plato in his Republic mocked essentially as charlatans. Moreover, there are later Bacchic cults like the notorious Bacchanalia in the Greek cities of S. Italy and in Rome, especially after the second Punic war and until its ferocius repression by the Roman Senate in 186 BCE, in which it does not seem that Orpheus played a role.

But I believe that all this does not refute the existence of an Orphic movement in Late Archaic and Classical Greece with the broad characteristics that I have described above. This is for me the most plausible reconstruction of the facts.

[riddlerosehearts]

OC ask game!

i was tagged by @nerdalmighty! tysm for tagging me! 💖

going to talk about my tav, elenion, and will try not to ramble too much about them!

do they have any special hobbies or skills?

well, aside from being a skilled musician (he is a bard, after all), i guess the main thing would be that he's also a great storyteller! and he's very passionate about history and anthropology, so he reads and researches a lot and uses topics like historical figures and folk tales as inspiration for songs to write and stories to tell. needless to say the adventure he ends up on during the game gives him plenty of material, lol. OH and they've always had an affinity for the night sky and loved stargazing as well due to the influence of their mother, who's an astronomer.

do they have any unique scars, marks, or tattoos?

hmm, i don't imagine that they do! so i'll answer an extra question at the end since i don't have much of an answer for this one lol

what's their fighting style? do they stick to the back and wait for a strategic opening, or charge in guns blazing?

oh, they definitely try and stick to the back or the sidelines and rely on ranged spells and crowd control abilities, while also doing everything they can to buff their allies/debuff their enemies. they're very overly cautious because of something that happened in their past--specifically, they've always believed that their own lack of caution while using fire magic during a performance caused their father's death. so in combat they want to be able to keep their distance and carefully plan and strategize as much as possible.

what does their tent look like? what do they keep inside it?

ooh okay so i've actually thought a bit about this already because i came across a fun little template on here for describing your tav's tent and i kept meaning to fill it out. i even looked at photos of tents on pinterest for it and i decided that elenion's would have a design similar to this, but imagine all the gold accents are silver instead. inside, he'd keep his lute or his lyre (whichever one he's not using at the moment) and probably other instruments the party finds on the journey, alongside a big pile of books. included among that pile are several journals he's filled with a combination of song lyrics and research notes and random personal thoughts, and his father's old songbook which he carries with him wherever he goes. he's also got a small music box, and some skin/haircare products because yes he's on a super dangerous journey and has a parasite in his brain to worry about, but if he doesn't at least try to take care of his appearance he's sure he'll go insane faster than you could say "ceremorphosis".

they'd also have a little exterior area that's similar to shadowheart's--some nice decorative pillows and a stool beside a table with a quill and inkpot, even more books and journals stacked up, and sheet music on a tabletop stand. everything they need to be able to sit under the stars while they attempt to relax or work on things. they have their own telescope too, but unlike gale's, theirs is a much more compact telescope that's meant for travel. and finally they've been accumulating a small collection of artifacts that they find while traveling and think are interesting!

...and now i've just rambled on a bunch about what might be in my character's tent LOL, whoops! i'm adding one additional question and then i'll be done.

what song represents them best?

i've been listening to pluto by sleeping at last a lot lately because it makes me think of elenion, so i'm going to say that one! to explain why as briefly as possible, by the start of the game he's been very much stuck in his past and in self-destructive patterns for a long time and throughout the game's story he realizes that he needs to let go and break those patterns if he ever wants to actually heal and be happy. so i think this song represents that really well.

tagging @smooti if you'd like to do this for your tav, but no pressure! i don't have a lot of bg3 mutuals and i'm not sure who else has OCs for it that they'd like to talk about! so if anyone sees this and wants to participate just say i tagged you.

my questions for your OCs:

Where is your OC from?

Do they have a romantic partner (or multiple partners), and if so then what first drew them to their partner?

Do they have any unique scars, marks, or tattoos?

What does their tent look like? What do they keep inside it?

(you can also answer any of the other ones that i answered above if you'd like to!)

[yzeltia]

Y'zel Tia & Friends

Just a little guide to my blog. Currently a bit of a WIP. Open to Asks and Comments. Sometimes it takes me a while to get through my inbox but I will eventually get to it! I'm a proud member of Gage Acquisitions on Crystal/Coeurl and many of my entries here involve the members and their characters. Pages will be added to explore family and friends of the characters below.

Y'zel Tia

My main character and subject of most of my writing. He is pointedly not the Warrior of Light. As of Dawntrail, he has settled in as Hien's husband in Doma, taking a teaching job at the enclave while also maintaining his relationship with his soulmate, Claudien. On top of his duties as the Doman Consort, he returns to Old Sharlayan to further his studies under the Anthropology department on the reflections of Hydaelyn and continues to curate for Gage Acquisitions in partnership with Gubal.

The Warriors of Light

For my WoL line, I have three warriors of Light!

Violet Fisher - A former student of Louisioux disillusioned after his sacrifice. She worked odd jobs to fund her drinking and sailing until called to adventure by the Mothercrystal. Try as she did to resist, she eventually found herself with family and friendship she long needed. As of Dawntrail, she's recently found Hien to be her half-brother and has started a relationship with Riol Forest. U'rahn Nuhn -Son of U'odh Nuhn. He set forth on an adventure to prove himself a hero and worthy of becoming of a Nuhn. While he stumbled all the way, he more than proved himself alongside his sisters-in-light. As of Dawntrail, he's proposed to his girlfriend, @driftward 's Nyx Blackmoon, sired eight daughters, and has embarked on a new relationship with Erenville.

Jannie Eyradoux Fortemps -Once engaged to one of the Heavenward, she fled to seek a life of being simple governess in Gridania but was bound by duty to answer the call of the Mothercrystal. As of Dawntrail, has married Artoirel Fortemps and has one son, Haurchefaunt.

[davepetaspite]

Hi, my name is Ripley/Jaws!

As it says in the bio, I'm 25, a she/it, and a researcher!

I'm relatively new to kinning, but this is my kin/research blog. Currently I'm setting out to work on an independent research project on otherkin community online, particularly focusing on fictkin, and particularly focusing on trans identity in relation to fictkin identity. This is a project using ethnographic methods, so my purpose here is to immerse myself in the practice and community surrounding kinning.

This project is entirely independent. While I did do a bachelor's in cultural anthropology at the University of Florida (you can find my previous work here) I want to continue my research outside of the bounds of the academy, as I believe strongly in the potential of grassroots academic work.

In the long term, I intend to write a paper based on my work here, see if/where I can get it published (though I'll definitely be publishing it here for all to see). I might make a video essay version of the project, but we'll see. Anyone who is interviewed or otherwise involved in the project will have their identity obscured in any published material.

I'm also a long time tumblr user, and you can find my main @jawslightning. I've had it since I was 13 so it ain't exactly pretty if you go back far enough. That being said, this blog will be dedicated to this project, as well as my own personal kin-related exploration and growth. I'll be posting updates on my work, maintaining a reading list, trying to make friends, and probably sharing art and stuff related to characters I kin.

I kin:

Characters: davepetasprite^2(hs), Roxy Lalonde(hs), Rose Lalonde(hs), Jade Harley(hs), Spinel(su), Cal Strider(gs), Double Trouble(spop)

Entities/Creatures: robotkin, insectkin, wormkin

Please reach out with any questions! Any answers! If you'd like to be interviewed for the project! Or if you just wanna be friends!

Also, I am fine with doubles, and I don't have a DNI because my goal is to interact!

likes do not equate endorsement

[setaripendragon]

Who is your OC that is the most fleshed out? Anything you care to share about them? What is a small detail about them that you rarely think about?

*Asks are sent for fun, no pressure to answer within a certain amount of time or at all.*

Ooh, um... That's probably Meira Winchester, my Dean/Cas/Gabe baby who's the star of a (currently) four book series over on Ao3 XD

She's the only one of my Next Gen OCs that not only has a family, childhood trauma, and general personality traits, but also relatively well fleshed-out friends, hobbies, a favourite weapon, and a college degree. (Although, by that standard, my flame-retardant SmoAce baby would come in a pretty close second, but since I'm currently reworking her entire backstory, I'm not sure she really counts right now... I'm working on it XD)

Um... Most of what I want to share about her is already in the fic I'm writing, tbh XD Honestly, the thing I haven't talked about much yet that I really want to is her friends; Azura, Jack, and Lucy. Only Azura's been mentioned in the fic so far, but the four of them have become my babies, and I love their dynamic together so much (they all of them think they're the Only Sane Man, and they're all fucking wrong XD)

But, uhh... I suppose I think it's really interesting that Meira is... at least the third (possibly fourth or fifth) in a line of my OCs who are recklessly confident social butterfly daddy's girl eldest daughters who've been condemned for something out of their control and who end up in a queer-platonic polycule with their main friend group. I'm honestly not sure what that says about me as a writer or as a person, but it's gotta say something XD

(There's Meira Winchester, of course, Gol D. Morgana and Altaria Lokdon, and then also possibly Phoenix Halliwell and Jennifer Strange... and Wei Feihao probably counts once she recovers from the childhood trauma... possibly a few others who aren't really well fleshed out enough to count, but... I can feel them taking shape that way and laughing at myself for being so damn predictable XD)

The detail that I keep forgetting and then have to remind myself of is that Meira went to college and got a degree in anthropology. It honestly wasn't a planned part of her backstory, it just came up as I was writing and I realised she would have gone to college, given the opportunity, and she would have loved it. And she would have wanted to study people, but things like sociology and psychology and such really didn't feel right, so in the end I settled on anthropology.

It keeps slipping my mind all the time, and then I'm like 'oh yeah that happened' and, honestly? I think that's probably how Meira would be about it, too, so XD