#I don't have a proper thesis

[air-of-the-waterfall]

Goddard is definitely power hungry, but it's also deeper than that. He has such a raging inferiority complex it's not even funny. Actually, watching Carson Lusk and the Thunderhead bicker passive-aggressively is hilarious, but I digress.

On pg. 228 of Scythe, Goddard writes in his journal that "I do not miss my so-called relationship with the Thunderhead... The absence of [its] uninvited intrusions into our lives is a blessing... Without the crutch of a higher power, I am the highest power I know, and I like it that way."

He wants control and resents the Thunderhead, and that makes sense now that we've seen his backstory in "A Martian Minute." Instead of supporting him when he's having a rough time, the Thunderhead repeatedly decides to sass him and be a bitch (I say that affectionately, but still). It makes him feel powerless, siding with his parents against him instead of looking out for his best interests. It justifies this by telling Carson that the Mars colony work is more important than anything on Earth. His response is, "Blah blah blah. The Thunderhead was so full of itself. If it really cared about him the way it always claimed to, it would find a way to get him off this rock" (pg. 132 of Gleanings).

The Thunderhead prioritized the broader picture over Carson's personal goals, and there is always an ethical debate to be had about the needs of the many versus one. Neither of them was necessarily wrong on that front before Carson got the Scythedom involved. Interestingly, when it's time to launch another space effort at Kwajalein, the Thunderhead and Cirrus are adamant that no one will be forced to take the journey even though this project is important to humanity. This indicates a shift in priorities for the Thunderhead. It learned from watching Carson that the journey would be jeapordized if anyone was unwilling.

Carson isn't selfish to want to leave Mars, but when he's denied and belittled, he escalates into destructive and definitely selfish behaviour. The Thunderhead probably should have predicted that if it knew him so well. It made that mistake, underestimating a human's determination and overestimating his empathy. History is full of cases like Carson/Goddard who felt slighted and blew it out of proportion (literally).

The first chance Carson gets to align with the Scythedom, an entity above the Thunderhead's jurisdiction, he takes it, and he taunts it while he's in the control room with the reactor. When he later discovers the atolls, he interprets them as a slap in the face from the Thunderhead, who went behind his back and undermined all his power and plans. He then takes this rage out on Rowan and Citra to try and compensate for that insecurity. Even more interestingly, by attacking Kwajalein and forcing unprepared people to escape to the spaceships, Goddard does to them exactly what he resented about his own childhood.

What interests me the most is how this story ties into discussions about systemic power and violence. Cirrus says that Astrid is being selfish for harming humanity's chances in pursuit of her own goals, just like the Thunderhead thought Carson was selfish. The difference is that Astrid and the Tonists are victims of systemic injustice and Carson was a teenage boy who didn't get his way. If Carson had been patient (seeing as he's immortal), he could've gotten what he wanted without killing anyone. Astrid could not afford to be patient because her people were being slaughtered. It's a reflection of how people like Carson make themselves out to be victims while oppressed minorities are shamed for fighting back.

It irks me that Greyson as the Toll refuses to let Tonists fight back against the scythes. Mendoza is not a great leader and his motives are corrupt, but he's right that one can't bring a knife to a gunfight (or you can't politely ask someone to stop beating you). The "if you use violence against your oppressors, you're just as bad" argument is ineffective and just continues cycles of oppression.

Overall, Goddard/Carson's relationship to the Thunderhead digs deep into power relations and their consequences. He seeks power to boost his own ego, and so he fights against the most powerful entity no matter what the cost. He knows the Thunderhead will always be better than him, and that infuriates him.

[moongothic]

If being weak is a "sin" in Crocodile's mind, then isn't a painful defeat and maybe even death rightful punishment for it? A punishment you deserve for your crime of "being weak"? That's an intriguing mindset from him because it makes me wonder how Crocodile might view his own past and the things he has gone through? I might not go as far as to say Crocodile "blames himself" for the things he's gone through, as he doesn't seem like the kind of guy who dwells on the past like that. But I do feel like Crocodile has accepted in his mind that things like losing his hand happened because he was weak, and it was his own fault. That he can not blame anyone else for what has happened to him. He fucked around and he found out.

It's just interesting because to some degree, One Piece thematically does agree with this sentiment, this is a world where the strong eat the weak. (One example at the top of my head; Luffy refusing Katakuri's apology when his sister intervened with their battle, saying he should've dodged the attack properly if he didn't want to get hit.) Chaka falling in this scene and being unable to stop Crocodile may lead to the deaths of so many more, including his loved ones, and if that comes to pass, it's is Chaka's own fault. For being too weak. But also Crocodile has twisted that idea; Crocodile is using his worldview here to justify himself and essentially saying he can do this (take over Alabasta and kill a million innocents doing so) and get away with it because he's powerful. When in reality "weakness is a sin" isn't about the survival of the fittest, but how this is a world where the strong are meant to protect the weak. (See: Luffy) (Also how Pell told Baby Vivi in that flashback about how he trains so he can protect the Royal Family; again, he he craves power not to oppress the weak but to protect them)

But, just to get back to Crocodile again, I feel like this worldview might also give us more insight as to how he acts in certain situations post-Alabasta. Like when we see Crocodile towards the end of Miss Goldenweek's cover story, both when he declines to escape from jail and in his Impel Down mugshot, Crocodile has a smile on his face. That really is the face of a man who has accepted his fate, is it not?

"Welp, this is what I get for losing to a child in flipflops"

Or when we see him come collect his debt from Buggy; Crocodile seemed quite relaxed and fully admitted he had assumed Buggy would've ran away before he even got there to collect his money. Of course, considdering his trust issues Crocodile would've been mentally prepared for Buggy skedaddling anyways, but the fact that he loaned the clown money to begin with while assuming he'd probably never get that money back-- like Crocodile knew that was going to happen and he just accepted it. And just rolled with it.

Of course, when things take an Unpleasant, Unexpected Turn, he will blow a fuse. Multiple, even.

Him angy

IDK man this is all just interesting to me

[tgtbata]

another year, still drawing people doing things to each other. you might or might not know this but i started working as a doctor this year and i'm happy/proud it hasn't kept me from still drawing my silly little fictional guys. it's not much but it's honest work.

thank you to everyone who's liking, reblogging and commenting on my art! it means everything to me <3

[2hoothoots]

i was having a chuckle to myself last night about Gristol, and how his plans are basically:

Restore Ford Cruller's memory

Find Maligula

???

Profit

but then... of course they are, right? this is Gristol we're talking about. Fatherland Follies drives home again and again that he's still operating on a child's logic, a warped and reductive version of the world that he never bothered to grow out of. both of his memory vaults center on the images of his childhood, this idealized version of the past that he clings to no matter what. and that's still how he remembers Maligula, too - as this saviour figure, who rushes in to help him when he's in trouble.

[ID: Two slides from Gristol's memory vault, Glory to Grulovia! Left: Gristol clings to Maligula's back as she summons waves to sweep away his assailants. Right: Gristol and Maligula waving from a balcony as the people cheer. Gzar Theodore brandishes a dagger in the background.]

like so much else, Maligula represents a return to this idyllic childhood - to the peace and simplicity of his youth, when he was free from worries and responsibilities. in his mind, he doesn't need to make any further plans - once Maligula's back, everything will go back to normal. Maligula will make everything better.

...is what i thought, but then i remembered this line:

[Screenshot source. ID: Gristol, in Truman's body, bows on his hands and knees in front of the newly-awaked Maligula. The caption reads: "Yes, High Priestess! I am here to correct the mistakes made by my father!"]

and that's kind of interesting, right?

to be clear: this happens directly after Maligula sees Helmut-in-Gristol's-body, and recognises him. her line before this is:

"Little Gzesaravich! Have you come to pay for your father's sins?"

my first thought was that Gristol hadn't expected to still be in Truman's body by the time he managed to find Maligula, and this was him trying to placate her and buy some time until he could explain the situation. but watching the cutscene back, that's clearly not what's happening here. Gristol is answering as himself, and his response of throwing himself to his knees before her is, as far as i can tell, genuine.

so what is going on here?

in Fatherland Follies, there's this line in the ride narration that stuck out to me:

"Why didn't the Gzar help Maligula in her time of need? No one knows, but historians agree - it is Gzar Theodore's biggest failure."

other lines mention Gzar Theodore's "mistake", and it's wording Gristol himself echoes in the screencap above. evidently, he believes that his father abandoned Maligula, leaving her to her fate at the hands of the Psychonauts, and it was that mistake that lead to them being driven out of the country - that mistake which he seeks to correct. maybe he even feels like he has a debt to repay to her for his family turning their backs on her all those years ago.

the 'High Priestess' thing, though - that's kinda weird, and threw me for a loop the first time i played the game. it took me until my second playthrough to connect the dots, and remember how the room in the Lady Luctopus - Gristol's room - was full of Delugionist scribblings and symbols.

[Screenshot source. ID: left, the walls of the hidden backroom in Gristol's hotel suite, covered in scrawlings of eyeballs and Maligula's name. Right, the pinboard from the hidden backroom. On its surface are photographs and newspaper clippings connected by pieces of string.]

i mean, look at this stuff! he had a whole conspiracy board and everything!

we learn very little about the Delugionists and their beliefs as a whole during the game, but i think drawing the connection here suggests two important things. one: that Gristol was in deep with this stuff. i don't know how he linked up with them - maybe via old family connections, or just good old-fashioned digging (we know he's skilled at worming his way into peoples' good graces, after all) - but it seems likely that he's begun to internalise their ideas, maybe even warping his own memories of events. and two: the Delugionists themselves are, if you'll pardon the pun, pretty far off the deep end.

like... i understand why PN2 didn't go heavy on the "mass-murderer cult worship" aspect of things, in the end, but man this is such a tantalising glimpse into the wider mythos around Maligula. Gristol is proud and haughty and thinks himself above everyone else; the fact that his first reaction seeing Maligula is to throw himself to the ground at her feet says so much about the way he's come to see her. he's not just trying to bring back Maligula, his childhood bodyguard. he's trying to bring back Maligula, the High Priestess of the deluge, the semi-mythical figure whose supporters believe even death couldn't stop. he doesn't even flinch at the way she confronts him, and maybe it's because he's bought in so completely to this deified figurehead, this idea of Maligula; more a living force of nature than a person. and it all comes back to the same place: an abdication of responsibility, not just to the person who protected him when he was little but to this avatar of floods and destruction. Maligula will make everything better.

i'd write more about my thoughts on the Delugionists but that'd be taking a hard turn into speculation, and this is already kind of long and rambling so i'd better end it here. but what an unexpected and evocative line, right? it's some of the only stuff we have to go off of regarding the Delugionists as a whole, but i think it does such a good job of hinting at the wider story - at teasing another layer to the mythos surrounding Maligula, one whose ripples we see throughout the game but which never quite breaches the surface.

[neverbelessthan]

I got tagged by the lovely @sleepystede to make an adorable little picrew blorbo dude. Thank you for tagging me! 🥰

I was feelin' the spots. He looks like a little chicken stuck in a stress ball. Also this is a 10/10 accurate representation of me in a few weeks, glasses and noise cancelling headphones on, listening to @lindie-kninjaknitter's podfics while i wander about Japan ✌️

tagging: @jessystardust, @adickaboutspoons, @scorpiostarseed, @wickedlycaskett, @endevouring-to-surprise, @daria-meoi, @pumpkinspicepirates and sorry sorry sorry if i've tagged anyone who has already done it, and if I missed someone who would like to do it please just pretend that I'm better at this than I am and that I tagged you. (And if I keep tagging you for these things and you hate them, please tell me to stop.) *social anxiety jazz hands*

(I've been buried under mountains of uni work and only just realised that i've been tagged for a bunch of things! Sorry! I'm slowly toddling my way through them, thank you so much for thinking of me! ❤️)

[hillerska-official]

Sometimes I worry about writing my masters thesis and then I get a chance to outline an aspect of it in a reading response and I write like 600 words in 30 minutes without a second thought and I'm like oh right. I'm incredibly passionate about this topic and find it very easy to talk about.

[isfjmel-phleg]

Here's the tentative outline of the TSG paper, as okayed by the professor whom I've been discussing the project with:

intro to the trend of recent adaptations/retellings reframing TSG as a story about grief

an assertion that the book is really about healing from childhood e m o t i o n a l n e g l e c t (CEN) (my thesis?)

defining CEN and distinguishing it from traditional grief

an analysis of CEN in the text

how this interacts with what these adaptations/retellings are doing

conclusion about the importance of the text’s depiction of CEN and why it’s worth acknowledging/exploring

It's a relief to pin this down and be able to go into this with some kind of focus. I've already got a start on the first paragraph. I'm trying a method of drafting by just constructing the basic argument and then working in all the evidence and research later. My college papers tended to take forever to write because I drafted them with Finished Perfection in mind for each sentence, which is stressful and easy to get bogged down with. We'll see how it works. The paper needs to be completed by October, probably the end of the month at the very latest, but I'd like to get it finished in enough time to fully polish and not have to stress about a tight deadline.

I can do this. Probably. It's been a few years but I might still have it in me.

[agentravensong]

hey, r&g heads, you ever notice how

cause. there's something there, for sure. something about tying whether or not a person takes some meaning away from a work of art and whether or not it sticks with them long term (thereby making the art and artist immortal) to whether it makes them afraid.

can't quite put into words what, though.

[ebbarights]

hyperfocused on my thesis and came out of it realising i hadn't eaten a thing and my stomach is digesting itself

[astudyinimagination]

*sighs heavily and drags hands down face* Windows XP was released in 2001. Which means it could be, and was used by, children born in the 1990s. The oldest of whom are now only 34, which, let me be the first to assure y'all, is still pretty young (and if you don't think so, go hang out in a fandom where the average age is 70). Plus, since Vista wasn't released until 2006, the oldest Gen Z kids used XP as well.

(And, fyiy, it's entirely possible that '90s kids didn't even have this OS for a while, and started out on something like, say, Windows 95. Which I did. And, yes, I was born in 1990.)

Darn it, now I just miss XP.

[titansarmy]

i’ve been putting off watching before sunrise for so long bc i think it will make me spiral and i’ll get on the next train to vienna like the lover girl i am at heart

[unrelatedwaffle]

I'm still thinking about hbomberguy's Plagiarism video and I think there's still going to be a lot of student plagiarism because...writing based on synthesizing info from multiple sources is tough, and rephrasing someone's entire sentence structure FEELS like "writing in your own words" enough that it's not obvious to beginners how blatant it is.

if you struggle with writing research papers, often procrastinate and then scramble to assemble a paper from a single source, you are setting yourself up for likely plagiarism. here are some real tips for avoiding this and getting better at academic writing. these are a short version of sonke ahrens's great book on the Zettelkasten method, How to Take Smart Notes (which i recommend reading, but it is one of those Books That Could Have Been a Blog Post, as If Books Could Kill would say, and the full Zettelkasten method is probably overkill for most people).

1. Take notes on what the texts make you think while you read, with a pen and paper, in your own words. These are not summary notes, but "this section reminds me of that one episode of the simpsons" or "i don't think it's true that willpower is finite..." these are your own thoughts and feelings

2. When you're completely done with an article or book chapter, start a note file on the computer with the proper citation at the top and write a 1-2 sentence summary of the content of what you just read. Without looking at the text. Yes, this is hard!!

3. Go through your personal notes from step 1 and see if anything there is a Big General Idea or theme. It may take reading a few articles or stepping away/thinking in the shower before these emerge. "Hmm I'm noticing that a lot of societies have similar rituals about food and gratefulness, I wonder if it's a superstitious way to ensure future abundance?" Elaborate on that in a separate note.

4. You can weave the notes from Step 3 into a thesis statement with supporting arguments properly summarized and supported with info from Step 1.

[gay-impressionist]

Hi! I’m starting to learn French and one thing that’s both cool and weird to me is how everything is gendered in a way (referring to someone/whose saying the statement/etc.) and I was wondering how that relates to people who identity as non-binary or gender fluid in France? Are there equivalents to they/them pronouns or neo pronouns in French?

I do plan on doing my own research about this but I figured since I love your blog and you’re really open about different cultural lgbtq+ communities I’d try here first!

That's an awesome question... with a complicated answer lmao. So buckle up and bear with me !

Basically, you can't be non-binary in French. The community found ways to do it but it's not mainstream. Most of the time, they're going to get misgendered or will have to misgender themselves to get understood.

Some things I'm going to list here are not proper French. Actually, they can even be forbidden in some circumstances, according to the law (the use of inclusive language, and more specifically le point médian, was made illegal in schools in 2021 for ex) or simply because your company etc forbids it. So use this wisely, there is a time and place for inclusive language in France.

That said, things have greatly developed over the last two decades. Which was partly because of the queer community and mainly because of feminists, who are tired of the way French erases women. More and more people are using inclusive language, at least in some circumstances and circles (for ex, i wrote my master's thesis in inclusive language and it was accepted bc i was in a leftist faculty). And inclusive language is debated as a serious issue now, which is saying something.

So, how do you use inclusive language in practice?

There are different ways, as it's informal and mostly new. People are still testing new things and trying out various methods. You can stick to one or alternate or mix them up.

Pronouns

Officially, there isn't a gender neutral pronoun. We don't have an equivalent to they. You're either talking about a man or a woman. If it's both, you use masculine pronouns ("masculine trumps feminine" rule). Same thing if you don't know the gender of the person ("masculin générique").

The most common neopronoun is "iel" (plural : iels), which is obviously a contraction of the masculine pronoun "il" and its feminine equivalent "elle". It works for nb folks or to avoid talking about someone's gender or to refer to a group of men and women. So it's equally used by the queer community and feminists.

I'm pretty sure other neopronouns exist but I can't think of any at the top of my head.

Choosing the right words

Sometimes, inclusive language is just about learning to use alternatives.

Instead of using gendered words, you can choose to use gender-neutral words or words "épicènes", aka words which are identical in their feminine and masculine form. For ex, instead of "homme politique" or "femme politique", you can use "personnalité politique". Personnalité is a feminine word but it's actually gender-neutral as you can use it for women and men alike. "Élève" (student) is épicène, as a female student and a male student are both referred to as "élève". Although épicène words as a gender-neutral option only work in their plural form, as you have to choose either a feminine or masculine article for the singular ("les élèves" is inclusive but it can only be "un" or "une" élève).

As good as this method is, it can be quite limitating. Your vocabulary will be drastically reduced and it can be quite hard to master that kind of speech so you can reach the point where you don't have to think everything over for ages before you open your mouth.

With oral French, you can take it a step further by choosing words that sound the same even if they have a different spelling. Ex, friend is "ami" or "amie" but it's pronounced the same way so if you say it out loud, people can't know how you're gendering it (as long as there isn't a gendered article/word with it ofc).

It avoids misgendering people but the downside is that, as masculine is considered neutral in French, people will often think : no gender specified = masculine. Not even because they're sexist or whatever, it's just so ingrained in our brains that it's a knee-jerk reaction.

That's also why most feminists often prefer to use explicitly feminine words when talking about women. For ex, they prefer the word "autrice" to "auteure" (female writer) because the second one sounds the same as its masculine version "auteur". And as previously mentionned, out loud, people will assume by default you're talking about a man. It's a big debate though, lots of women prefer words that sound masculine - going as far as refusing to use feminine words at all! Which sounds cool and gender-bending as fuck but in reality comes from feminine words traditionally seen as less legitimate and serious. Even today, if you look up the word empress "impératrice" in a French dictionary, the first definition that comes up is "wife of an emperor". "Woman ruling a country" comes second. Using a masculine title to refer to women can also be a way to mock them and show they're not welcome (a french deputy got fined in 2014 because he called the female president of the national assembly "Madame le président" and refused to use the feminine title "Madame la présidente").

Recently the tendency and official guidelines have been to feminize words, so I'd say go with that by default, but respect other people's choice if they specify how they want to be called.

Anyway I'm getting off-track but what I meant was that in French, if you avoid talking about gender, you're automatically erasing women (and nb people). So if you want to include everyone, you need to make it obvious.

Inclusivity as a statement

The most common way to make women and men equally visible is the "point médian" rule, which you can also use to refer to non-binary people as it avoids picking a specific gender.

Basically, it means pasting together the masculine and feminine forms of a word and using dots/middle dots/hyphens/parentheses/capital letters to create an inclusive word. For ex, instead of saying acteur (♂️) or actrice (♀️) for actor, you'll write "acteur.ice". For the plural form, there are two schools of thought : either you separate the feminine and masculine form AND the suffix used to signify the plural, or you don't. Aka, "acteur.ice.s" or "acteur.ices". Personally I prefer the second option because less dots makes it easier to read and faster to write, but it's an individual choice, both work.

There are two major downsides to this method : it only works in writing + it isn't doable for every word, as feminine and masculine words can be quite different and pasting them together that way would be unintelligible. Ex, "copain" and "copine" (friend or boyfriend/girlfriend depending on the context) would give something like "cop.ain.ine"...

You can work around that by choosing alternative words (as previously stated!). And it's still a pretty good method, especially as it works for any type of word (adjectives etc). Some people argue that it's hard to read and ugly but personally I think it's just a matter of habit (although it does pose a problem for people using screen readers). Be aware that it is the most controversial version of inclusive writing, as it's the furthest structure from how languages typically work.

If you don't like dots or want an alternative for oral speech, you can also straight up create new words that sound both feminine and masculine, making them gender-neutral. To use the previous example, "copain" and "copine" become "copaine".

Obviously, this only works if it's obvious which words they're based on. I think it's a great way to make French more inclusive but I'd advise against using it with uninitiated people as it would probably confuse them more than anything. This method is still quite niche.

An inclusive, yet binary language

As you've probably figured out, inclusive language remains quite binary in the way we approach it. It's more about making things both masculine and feminine than transcending gender and creating gender-neutral alternatives. Probably because inclusive language was more often a will to stop women from being erased rather than a non-binary friendly gesture.

Which means, there are also some rules that were created to avoid the "masculine trumps feminine rule" but don't allow room for non-binarity at all. I'll still explain them because they're interesting and you might encounter them at some point.

The proximity rule ("règle de proximité") is one of these. It existed in Ancient Greek and Latin but was dropped in Modern French in favor of the masculine trumps feminine rule. Basically, you gender things according to what's closest in the sentence instead of systematically using masculine words to gender a mixed group. For ex, instead of saying "Les hommes et les femmes sont beaux" you say "Les hommes et les femmes sont belles", as the subject "femmes" is closer to the adjective "beau/belle" than "hommes".

Another method is to systematically use both masculine and feminine words (which I personally find excruciating to write and read). Meaning, instead of writing "Les étudiants mangent à la cantine" (students eat at the cafeteria), you'll write "Les étudiantes et les étudiants mangent à la cantine".

This is mainly for the subject of the sentence : adjectives and such are gendered according to the masculine trumps feminine rule. The point is to explicitly include women, not to make the sentence unintelligible or gender-neutral.

When following this method, you also have to pay attention to whether you put the feminine subject first or the masculine. The rule is to follow alphabetical order. For ex, in "l'égalité entre les femmes et les hommes", "femmes" comes first because F comes before H. But in "Les auteurs et les autrices de roman", "auteurs" comes first because E comes before R. Etc.

This method is common as it's the only inclusive language you can get away with, given that it's a valid way of speaking French. It's even mandatory in some situations now, like in job descriptions for the french administration, in the spirit of gender equality.

So, how do I gender a non-binary person?

In short, you can use the pronoun iel + avoid gendered words and/or use the point médian and/or make up new words.

But keep in mind that if you're not talking to someone familiar with these rules, you'll have some explaining to do. And looots of people are still very anti inclusive language, because they're sexist and/or transphobic, ignorant, language purists, etc. A few years ago it was the thing to be angry about for conservatives and anti-feminists so it's still very controversial. But if you're in a trans inclusive queer space or talking with intersectionnal leftists, go for it !

I hope I covered everything (fellow french, don't hesitate to comment!) and didn't put you to sleep lmao. If you want to see some examples, you can look it up on Wikipedia or check #bagaitte on tumblr (it's the french queer tag) 😉

[breadandblankets]

#tim is the type to hiss when duke glows in his vicinity

extremely tru, this immediately gets put into evidence for vampirism. there is a board in the hatch that duke and cass started at some point (cass is immune from suspicion due to: 1) eating lots and Often 2) garlic bread addiction 3) enjoying sunshine and Going In It)

#imagine if he thinks he’s being helpful#and then alfred (gently) reminds him that vitamin d pills exist#and the cave doesn’t need a human glow stick

duke full on pouts (dramatically) like what do you mean im not being helpful alfred??? theres not even railing into the chasm he's helping to incrementally increase the osha compliance of the batcave

Duke having been pulled away from the hatch (against his will), in the batcave like looks to his left, looks to his right, all these bitches have vitamin d deficiencies

solution: he just starts glowing around the other bats, if anyone asks he just pretends like he doesn't notice he was doing it, everyone becomes 20x easier to tolerate with very minimal effort! win win!

[valyrfia]

top five lestappen moment on track or off track from you to change the vibes

You do know how to sweet talk a woman.

5. Lestappen Monaco 2024 hug. Biased because I just have fond memories of this one including but not limited to me putting my phone on the table in a coffeeshop and sliding it across to @thearchercore like it's a particularly sensitive piece of blackmail, but there's literally zero reason looking back on it for Charles to have gone in for that hug. He didn't do it for his future teammate, why Max? WHY THE WAIST? MEN DON'T KNOW THE WAIST EXISTS? It's compelling as hell, and raises a lot of open questions that's for sure.

4. The Austria 2023 wink that's been immortalised across a thousand thirst edits. Charles' entire face goes laser focused the second he sees Max, he winks, proceeds to say good job, Max blushes like Bridgerton protagonist. What's best is that I've seen this in every single Charles thirst edit ever and everyone is slightly ?! when they discover Charles was doing all this at MAX.

3. On track sex at Silverstone 2019. Each other driving like madmen and Charles coming to press afterwards grinning ear to ear saying it's the most fun he's had in his career. Compare to Nico Rosberg's most recent comments about being terrified driving wheel to wheel with Max because Max is a nutcase. It's proof that Max and Charles are able to race each other like no one else, it's the thesis of the entire pairing.

2. The first padel date in October 2023. Lives were changed. Something shifted. Lestappen Gate 2023 began. @tsarinablogs was on a place and I was freaking out in her undelivered messages. Internet went wild. First inkling they might actually be proper friends. What a time to be alive.

1.The 2023 Vegas double interview. With the marriage jokes flying about that weekend it was just perfect timing. Max and Charles' little nerdy racer 'come in', 'copy!' back and forth, them answering questions like a couple while being perfectly weird about each other. I miss them. It was peak Lestappen (so far!) and we didn't even know it.

+1 honourable mention to Austria 2022. I can't not include this iconic moment. Max beaming like HE'S won the grand prix, the sex tape on the podium. It's a Lestappen cornerstone and cemented itself and the ship in the F1 RPF history books.

[enkidusbi]

can i read your thesis i wanna know about how mesopotamians kept their loved ones close. i feel like there might be something about roots or foundations or grounding, connecting the family to the home & people to place both physically and metaphorically. gravesites are powerful powerful place connections and im really curious about what we know about a culture whose gravesites and homes were one and the same. i imagine they were pretty comfortable with death

so it's not online yet because i want to publish it first in a journal BUT i can tell you a bit about it. this is gonna be specifically about the old babylonian period (19-15th centuries BCE) because that's what my thesis is on, but with some changes it's pretty much applicable throughout mesopotamian history

so the basic thought behind burial under the houses is that the dead don't cease to part of the family. ancestor cult is an important aspect of mesopotamian culture and domestic religion. the netherworld is not a nice place, it's dark and dusty and all the spirits have for food is dust. but if you feed your ancestors (this is a ritual called the kispum which consists of food offering, libation and the calling of their names. it's a regular ritual that some sources say was done monthly, and others say it was during the yearly festival of the dead in the month of the god dumuzi/tammuz) then they'll have things to eat and drink in the afterlife! and if you are a spirit, the more descendants you have, the more your well-being is ensured! it's a symbiotic relationship. if your ancestors are satisified, they can help you out with things and act as sort of benevolent protective spirits over the household and the family, and also welcome you in the netherworld when you die. but spirits who were not properly buried or aren't given the proper offerings can wander, come back to haunt you and cause harm. if you would like to know more about this, i recommend dina katz's book, the image of the netherworld in the sumerian sources, an amazing read. the point is, the dead are part of the family, they have their metaphorical place in the family structure and a physical place in the home

people in the notes mentioned that moving probably was difficult. and it definitely was. some of the people buried in these houses were in underground tombs, built from burnt clay bricks, and some others were just in graves dug into the earthen floor, all around the houses. now these brick tombs are often found completely empty, no skeletons, nothing. which means that the family took them when they moved away. probably because they were in some way the most important ancestors, maybe the main lineage of the family? this part is not really clear because these bones are missing, they took them, we don't know anything about them. however, in ur, there are two examples of just the skull being buried and i think that means that family moved to this house from somewhere else and brought the skulls of their ancestors along and re-buried them. it's a very rare find though

from an anthropological perspective, the phyisical proximity of the graves in the same place where the living slept, ate, worked, raised children, etc, was a kind of constant reminder. of their shared ancestors, of their shared identitiy as a family and as a larger clan or kinship group. from a psychological point of view, it was a strategy of coping with grief

important to note also, that this was not practiced by every family. there are houses with no graves at all or just one or two graves, certainly not the whole household. this means that most likely there existed also cemeteries, burial grounds outside the cities. to my knowledge, no cemetary like this has been found yet. but it would be insanely interesting to see what they were like and how the people buried there were different from the people buried in the houses at the same time!

in the end, let me give you a quote from the myth of erra and išum (translated by karel van der toorn in the book mesopotamian magic). this is what a man says about his house:

"These are my living quarters, I have personally made them and will have my peace within them, and when fate has carried me off, I will sleep therein."

i said i can't write a poem about this. and i don't have to, because they already did and it's beautiful