#I removed the (non-ancient) specification because

[lyriclorelei]

Rules: 10 books for people to get to know you better, or that you just really like.

I wasn't technically tagged by @seiya-starsniper, but helping her brainstorm made me think about what I would choose, so here we are! Presented in the order I first read them:

Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery Anne and the residents of Avonlea have always been good friends. This was one of the few books on tape I had on a 2 week car trip when I was little and I didn’t get tired of listening to it on repeat pretty much the whole time (the same can’t be said for my parents).

Crisis on Conshelf Ten by Monica Hughes So, I first encountered this one when it was one of the passages in a reading comprehension section on a standardized test. I am so glad that I was able to remember the title without being about to write it down and that because of early amazon my parents were able to locate a copy of this out of print book.

Fullmetal Alchemist by Hiromu Arakawa When I got my first ever bonus from work, I bought the full set of this.

Leviathan by Scott Westerfeld I’ve thought about how violins would sound if they were made out of fabricated wood okay? I love this world and I love how in this one you see the 2 main technologies and then in the next books you see how they can blend and work together.

Real Men Don’t Rehearse by Justin Locke It’s possible I would have ended up as a librarian without having read this book, but this definitely planted the seeds when they did.

World War Z by Max Brooks I love when fiction uses nonfiction formats and Brooks in this really manages to think through all of the ramifications of something world altering like this in a way that truly captures my imagination. Also, as an aside, I have a talent for picking this up when it’s most incongruent to what’s happening in my life, like, you know, traveling to my cousin’s wedding.

Every Heart a Doorway by Seanan McGuire “Old enough to know what I’m losing in the process of being found” and “she was a story, not an epilogue.” Listen, I became obsessed with a whole fruit because of this one.

Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel I really love stories with sprawling interconnected points of view. And this one in particular with the Star Trek: Voyager “survival is insufficient” focus on the importance of art to living has a particular place in my heart.

Record of a Spaceborn Few by Becky Chambers I adore this whole series, but this one in particular is where my heart is. It’s funny because I love all the alien species in this universe, but I really do love the way humans are still vastly imperfect, but there’s still such a highlight on the good there is.

His Quiet Agent by Ada Maria Soto It’s quickly become a little comfort story since I first found it.

Tagging: @no-literally, @inkyghoast, @perspicaciouslynameless, @allstrangeandwonderful

[chernabogs]

Styx, Fae, and Malleus—Oh my!

Okay I'm writing this more as a marker for myself because I keep breaking my brain with connecting C6 to C7, but I've included my notes down below to kind of trail through how things might go with the next C7 update. Since the Shroud brothers are back in business, we'll be seeing a lot more of Styx's hand too, so I also wanted to collect as much information (canon) as I can on them too. Because I just think they're neat, and combining all the information makes them that much neater!

Warning for a long-ish post.

All About Styx (Up to C7, April 2024)

Styx, originally serving as just the Watchman before the Age of Gods (which Malleus discusses in C6 part 18),

is an independently operating institution (non-government affiliated) that specifically focuses on research pertaining to blot. According to the welcome video narrated by Idia’s mother and father, Styx covers the following:

Safe use of technomantic technology

Magical power analysis

Preservation of ruins and mage stones

Blot emission reduction

Post OB treatment

Magical disaster prediction systems

Maintaining phantom databases

Styx operates off of the Isle of Woe, an area mostly inaccessible to outsiders due to its status as being below the ocean and only accessible via the Oceanus Gate. Styx is seemingly composed of multiple units and teams, including the Hex Team, with most of the employees living in the residential block of Oceanus and using chariots (technomantic vehicles) to get to the tower. Another unit that Styx controls are the Charon members. These appear to be the equivalent of armed forces under Styx’s command. They specifically act as retrievers of over blotted mages, or more specifically the phantoms involved in the overblot. Magic Marshals and the Arcane Response Unit often handle overblot cases, but in extreme incidents, Charon members step in.

It’s mentioned that they also arrive regardless of if they have authorization from the government of the location the overblot is occurring. 

Regarding the technomantic equipment mentioned, this is what Styx seems to mainly use for all operations, likely due to the nature of its research. Technomantic technology has an ability to almost entirely nullify magic. Although not 100% effective, it was enough to even make Rooks UM limited, forcing him to only track the kidnapped students when there were second breaks in the tech. This tech was also used on the overblot students, with Riddle stating that it’s equivalent to his UM (C6 part 26). 

The tower that Styx operates out of is a large structure located in the centre of the ancient city that was originally attached to the Kingdom of Heroes. Within this tower, Styx keeps phantoms preserved frozen in the lower layers. This area is referred to as Tartarus and hosts approximately 10,000 subjects split into 12 levels. A-class are considered exceedingly dangerous phantoms, according to Ortho. Sector 12 is where the original Phantoms are housed, known as the ‘Titans’. These are three phantoms that have been sealed in Tartarus by the original Jupiter family members since the Age of Gods. 

The system designed to preserve these phantoms is known as the Cerberus System. This encapsulates the entire Isle, not just Styx. According to Idia, mages are taken and housed for testing in this region before being wiped by Lethe, another system operated by Styx that re-wires memories and implants false ones. Interestingly, Lethe works differently on fae than humans due to fae’s long lifespans. Idia states that it’s hard to adjust what information to remove and rewrite without making it obvious that there was an erasure. He does mention Malleus by name when discussing this, but not Lilia. 

All About The Fae in Briar Valley (Up to April 2024, JP Spoilers)

Fae appear to live broadly across Twisted Wonderland, but a large majority do reside in Briar Valley (other additions such as Fairyland/Land of Fairy have been mentioned and seem to host diurnal fae. More of this can be found in the fairy gala events. Diurnal fae are considered to herald the coming of spring with this gala, which ties in with later discussions about fae and nature). Various species were also noted to exist, including:

Dragon fae (note: Dragons are mentioned to have arrived for Meleanor during her youth, however after her passing a decade later it appears that Dragons have either gone underground or extinct across the broader Twisted Wonderland area)

Raven fae

Bat fae

Crocodile fae

Subcategories of crafter fae and the likes exist too, but don’t quite count as species 

There appears to be a hierarchy of value among fae. In one conversation by a Senate member (in Chapter 7, release 6), Lilia is referred to in derogatory terms due to his status as a bat fae. It is unknown if this bias is strictly the Senate member, Briar Valley, or if it spreads across broader fae populations. Fae also appear to have monarchies, although the only two known so far are the Queen of Fairyland and the Draconia Family. Fae also appear to age at different rates (Malleus states infant fae often take 30 years to walk, and it took him 20 years alone to gain his 2-legged form). 

Due to Briar Valley being the major focus of C7, we’ll look at fae in this region specifically. 

For context, constant conflict has arisen between fae and humans, specifically within Briar Valley. A major conflict and large plot point in C7 so far is the conflict between Briar Nation (former name of Briar Valley) and the Silver owls. The Silver Owls, run by Henrik, carried out mining operations throughout Briar Nation without permission from the royal family. Despite the name Silver Owls, it should be noted that they are also called Iron Ones due to their iron weapons and armor. According to Briar Nation soldiers, Silver Owls recklessly endangered fae by driving wildlife into villages in addition to colonizing the region. The Silver Owls (Henrik in particular) are aiming to attain Princess Glow. Henrik stated that he wanted it for his father (unlikely, lbr). Princess Glow appeared to be a gem associated with the Draconia Family that was capable of performing miracles like healing incurable ailments. It’s unknown if this is factual or not, but Meleanor does appear to put value on the gem when discussing it with Lilia. 

Conflict with the Silver Owls extended across several regions in Briar Nation, including:

Verdant Moors (outside the present day borders—confirmed by Sebek in C7)

Canyon of Howling Winds (also called Valley of Howling winds in some translations)

Mystical Mountain/Forbidden Mountain

Thunderclap Mountains

Cape Sunrise 

Tenebrae Forest/Dark Night Forest

Crimson plain

Dragon’s Tail Mountains 

Wild Rose Palace 

Black Scale Palace 

Dragon Capital City (surrounding Black Scale Palace)

Cradle Tower

Note: present day Briar Valley is situated farther up north and is said to have a cold climate for the most part, including particularly harsh winters (confirmed by Silver in release 4 of C7). Double note: Names may be susceptible to change with EN release. 

The conflict ended with Meleanor and Levan (Malleus’ parents) allegedly dead. Fae ceased intermingling with humans likely after this conflict according to Lilia in C6 part 18, leaving to heavy deficits in the validity of history surrounding the fae. This also means that a lot of human history books miss history that fae may have personally experienced or have to share (as spoken by Trein and Lilia). 

In terms of powers, fae in Twisted Wonderland seem to rely on nature a great deal for their magical abilities. Idia’s father discusses the extent of what some fae can do due to their connection with ancient magic, including mentioning how fae have had control over climate change and diastrophism since the Age of Myths (presumably predating the Age of Gods). Malleus’ ability to alter the world in a designated area falls under this category. He is stated to have magic tied to the earth itself. Idia’s mother also mentions that fae can also draw magical energy from nature itself, building on Idia’s fathers statement about how fae’s magic directly connects to the earth. Generally, fae with elemental connections can do this, which proposes the idea that Malleus has such an ability. 

It also appears that fae can lend this magic to humans. The Knight of Dawn frequently calls upon the blessings of diurnal fae to aid him in his fights throughout C7 (note: he says 'fairy guardians', so this could be just this specific instance). 

So… what’s up with chapter 7, as of April 2024? (JP Spoilers)

Well… Malleus over blotted. Inconvenient, absolutely. Fortunately, his grandmother snitched and gave all of his information over to Styx, allowing them to formulate somewhat of a plan to use.

We know specifically that the Arcane Response Unit is unable to get access to Malleus through the thorns because, should the thorn wall be penetrated or collapse, it will kill whoever is caught inside of it. At the moment, ARU is likely on the borders of Malleus’ thorn wall while Ortho (acting as a stand-in Charon member, in this case) deals with the issue. Anyone who gets too close to the thorns (fae or human) are also being sucked into the barrier. 

Silver, Sebek, Yuu and Grim are currently travelling through various dreams. This allowed some insight on fae (see Fae in Briar Valley for more) as well as the abilities that they possess. Ortho has pulled the group into Idia’s dream, stating that Malleus is using all resources to keep Lilia asleep. Ortho was able to penetrate into the barrier using a counter-spell barrier and ethereal slicers, in addition to a magical cannon honed by Styx. 

We also know it’s confirmed that Malleus needs to either voluntarily end his spell or die in order to actually cause the barriers to drop. 

What might happen, then? (JP Spoilers)

Who knows! Yana likes to keep us on our toes. That being said, one of the biggest takeaways that came from this is the technology (technomantic) that Styx has access to, as well as what fae seem to rely on to continually use their magic. Styx’s access to technology that can almost entirely nullify magic in combination with their isolation from ‘nature’ (based on the brutalism architecture their facility had) could be two avenues of mitigating Malleus enough to at least let the students get an upper hand. 

However, Styx also did confirm that their technomantic equipment was not having as good of an effect on Malleus’ barrier as they anticipated. If technomantic equipment were to be used on Malleus, it would need to be something advanced, like Ortho’s Cerberus gear, but on a larger scale. Ortho has already shown that Malleus’ magic is ineffective when faced with the type of tech that Ortho is equipped with, positing the idea that this can be an avenue to take. In the battle with Ortho, Malleus does appear to freeze up and misses a hit. 

The comment about Malleus needing to break the spell himself was emphasized a lot in this section. Styx confirmed they’ll reach out to Queen Maleficia to see if she can persuade Malleus to drop the spell, but they’re also convincing the dreamers to persuade Malleus as well. 

So… it seems like a triple whammy of tech, Maleficia, and guilt tripping as a way to take Malleus down. Exciting!!

[phlurrii]

Really hoping I am posting this at the right spot…

Hey there, loving your work, you got me to jump into the theory wagon out of sheer suspense. Here is my try at seeing what will stick to this massive theoryboard of mysteries~

Missingo went from a creature stuck to Meau's shadow to having a body/vessel powerfull enough to kill Palkia.

Which braught me to what vessel could be powerful enough to do so? Meau's first cub died somehow (stillborn? Necktube fatality?) Meau designed Bucket after the Necktube drama to remove the necktube. But a cub that predates or happened to die during that drama should still have the old blueprints of being bigger and having a necktube. Traits Noe physically holds. Noe being a prototype non-ancient mew baby could explain why he and Meau could exist at the same time.

But that leaves an additional questionmark on why their lifeforce are linked.

Which is where I bumped into theory two (the most probable one I think) in which Meau was so done with living that she tried to birth an ancient mew. But if the birth went wrong and the ancient cub died there could have been a glitch. The world must have one ancient mew. If Meau passed her lifeforce to the cub yet the cub still died both should technically be dead. But that goes against the laws of the world. There needed to be something to fix/ballance that glitch. Missingo could be the way the world tried to fix that mess. Missingo might have inhabited the dead cub and taken on a weird alive status of not quite living. And whatever ballance his manifestation created could have allowed Meau to wake up (a lot more weakened than an ancient mew should be but alive nonetheless)

Both are merged to the same lifeforce and function or count as a placeholder for one ancient mew.

Meau + Noe = one ancient mew. Cause of problem? = Lifeforce transference issue.

Why would the world chose Noe over deca? Probably becouse Noe was already present. Being at the right time at the right place. Or technically wrong time since he was way too early…

Basically the ingredients of stopping the whole world from imploding where already in the bowl so the world just mashed them all together into a weird yet functioning chimerical mush. What a way to recycle your resources.

Deca born all late because he became extra. When could this have happened? Why was it the domain of space that had to die? When and why did Noe and Giratina go rebel? My brain does not compute numbers very well. Not touching anything timerelated with a ten foot pole.

Anyways congratulations Phlurri, you got me to use the comment function on this site for the first time. Got me typing out a whole tower of text from the get go, have a good day~

First, let me say I am HONOURED to be the cause for your first even commenting, as a lurker myself I feel that XD

Second, 100% correct place, I LOVE these asks, but they definitely make me go dormant for a day or two in order to proceed and write my response carefully ehe

Anywho, ONTO THE THEORY!!!

To start off, Meau’s first cub did not die, Bucket is Meau’s first mew child. Bucket is currently comatose in a bubble in the Tree of Life. So I know that throws a wrench in the theory, but dw you have a lot of foundational things correct; just the bridging between points isn’t X3

As for the necktube stuff, Meau did create bucket without many of her own traits/characteristics due to her own experiences. She wanted to remove those issues from afflicting her child!

However, Meau specifically avoided EVER having a child until she felt she was mentally capable of raising one. Hence why she never had one in the nearly 4.5 billion years she’s been alive. Adopting? Sure, but raising a functionally immortal mew? Definitely not ready…. Given she was struggling a lot mentally with… things. So bringing a child into that mix was something she actively refused to do until those issues were no longer severely afflicting her. So she never attempted to have a cub, let alone an ancient cub, to remove herself from the picture.

But, I am genuinely impressed beacuse again, your foundations for things… are mostly correct, which makes me very excited to know someone can go through the comic and asks and get EXACTLY that,,, the foundations correct,,, meaning the rules and whatnot I attempted to put in place has indeed made it though in time for the Noe arc >W<

Noe indeed did not have a vessel and COULD not have one until a certain criteria was meant. Meau did assist in that criteria being meant, however his appearance was early and not how it was suppose to occur. It was a glitch, just like Noe is himself. The way he obtained a vessel… you’re awfully close, but it does not involve dead children I want to be clear!! Regardless, it’s scary and exciting at the same time at how close you are, I think one person (you know who you are.) may figure it out with the publication of this, but until then… I cannot comment further.

The way he obtained a vessel and comes into the world connects into how and why him and Meau share their life force. Though I will say, Missingno. cause the split, not Meau.

Also for the rest of time stuff you are too scared to touch, don’t worry, I spent 3 weeks figuring out how all it would work and then another 2 making. Digestible and simplifying XD

It will make sense, I have made SURE of it. As well as it will be satisfying most importantly. Very excited to be looser lipped about this all with how close it is ehe,,

Anywho, ty for your tower of words I quite enjoyed them and well DONE on the foundations, again that’s huge. Your skeleton is very close, the connecting tissues though would be hard to guess for anyone X3

[prismsoup]

hi helloo i was thinking about spears and was wondering why it is docile around ancients (if that fact is still canon idk) is he programmed to be like that or is it just how he is?

i wasn't sure if this fits with your askblog or not so i just put this here

Hi !! Yeah asking the question here is better because the ask blog is a bit inactive I need to like- remake it and stuff

As for why he's so docile, here's an old lil pearl text I made first :

Docility Protocols - This pearl contains a scrapped bit of code for a docility protocol. Docility protocols are meant to put heavy restrictions on the mind of a freshly constructed Iterator as to force it to build its mindset around the glorification of its creators - or at least deny it the ability to criticize them in any shape or form. The protocols are meant to be eventually overridden, though remnants remain as to keep the Iterator in check. Some considered those to be highly unethical, and not many Iterators were built with such high restrictions.

Basically it's hardcoded into him. But it is also partially taught behavior, enough so that even if you removed the protocols now, the behavior would remain (although it would risk spiralling into something more dangerous and obsessive than it already is).

The Docility Protocols work along the internal taboos (so that following the protocols doesnt accidentally cause it to bypass a taboo- a Benefactor cannot lead him to cross himself out for example) and the Order of Priority (an internal classification of the Benefactors : Creators > Clients > citizens (other) in his case) The Order of Priority dictates the base intensity of the Docility Protocols' programmed behavior depending on the individuals the iterator is interacting with. A Creator will be worshipped as a God, but a Client or citizen (other) will be regarded as merely god-like (and the iterator may behave in a neutral manner towards them).

The high intensity of Twenty Long Spears Pierce the Sky's specific version of these Protocols + the way he was taught to behave lead him to develop a sort of obsession over some Benefactors (which worsened as less and less of them visited his structure- he is not a "city handler" so he possesses no real Citizens (thus why his Order of Priority doesnt contain the Citizens class and only has citizens (other)), meaning he relies mostly on Creators and Clients for interactions).

Side note : a Client (in his context) is a Benefactor who visits the structure with an interest in investing in similar projects / iterator models or wishes to collaborate on related products with the House of Concerns (TLSPTS' House). A citizen (other) is a non-Client Benefactor visiting the structure, for any reason. A Creator is never classified as Client or citizen (other).

[drawingdroid]

Melting Point: Chapter II

A Sculptor Din Djarin x Art PhD Reader Series

Read Prologue | Chapter I

Chapter II: The Sculptor/Temper

Summary: You get a job offer you can't refuse and meet your new boss, a gruff sculptor who is so familiar.

Words: 2393

Warnings: This is a slow burn, you've been warned!; a lot of talking about Art and PhD life; Reader is not Grogu's nanny but this is very Grogucentric if that makes sense; And Reader is Din's employee too; Very grumpy and antisocial Mando; Grogu is human but the only thing described are his eyes; Reader appearance is left blank; Age gap of 10-15 years; Fluff fluff fluff

A/N: I darlings! I hope you enjoyed Christmas if that is your thing! I'm back with a new chapter, let me know what you think because I have a lot of feelings about The Armorer being reader's thesis tutor *cries in mommy issues*. Hope you enjoy this!

That morning you so were nervous. No, terrified. Finally, you were having your first meeting with your thesis tutor, the renowned artist and professor Dr. Armorer. You admired her work so much, and her deep knowledge of Ancient Mandalorian Art was admirable. All of her books were constantly by your bedside, extensively annotated. What would your role model think of you?

Your first impression was that she commanded so much respect with only her way of standing. She insisted on meeting in the faculty’s foundry, while you had expected to talk in her office. You couldn’t get your eyes off her while she was working with the red-hot metal against her anvil. She stopped hammering when she noticed you standing awkwardly at the door.

“Welcome kid.” Her voice was flat while the visor of her safety mask was fixed into you. “I’m sorry for the scholarship.” Okay, so right to the point, no pleasantries. You shivered, feeling self-conscious, and downed your gaze to the floor. “Your proposal is magnificent and I pushed for you to be admitted, but the budget is limited and now Nevarro City is placing its interest in other departments.” After placing her tools in their place. She didn’t remove her leather gloves though.

“Thank you Dr. Armorer, I’m well aware that investing in Art has never been one of the top priorities of the governments.” Your tone came surprisingly cynical while it was sad too. Your cheeks blushed for the sudden outburst in front of the professor.

“Do you drink caf?” You nodded and she directed her attention to a little coffee maker in a corner that you hadn’t noticed earlier. Soon she handed you a steamy cup of the dark liquid. She had brewed one for herself but hadn’t lifted her golden mask to drink yet. It looked like she was studying you.

“Professor, I’m very embarrassed to admit this, but I applied to the program expecting to receive that scholarship, and without it I’m afraid cannot afford my studies,” you blurted with your gaze fixated on your drink. “I’m very sorry for having wasted your time, but…”

“What brings you to want to study Mandalorian art, kid? She interrupted mid-sentence and you swallowed hard. A heat started expanding through your veins and it wasn’t because of the coffee. It was always the same when you spoke about your passion.

“Mandalorian culture is one of the most ancient ones still alive. The artistic manifestations were present early in their history and bound intimately with the development of the technology necessary to process beskar. The importance of the clans' signets was another factor to push for a more refined technique when working the metal…”

“I didn’t ask you for the book definition of Mandalorian art. My question was why you, a non-Mandalorian, want to specifically specialize in our art.” Her tone was still flat, but commanding. Had you made her mad? Was it wrong that you wanted to study Mandalorian Art?

“The way your sculpture is so raw and naked and still conveys the most profound, earth-shattering feeling while using something as cold as beskar, turning it into living and breathing things. It’s bold and succinct, it shows and hides and that gives me goosebumps every time I look into a Mandalorian sculpture.” You didn’t want to be so passionate in your first encounter with Professor Armorer, but the fear of being rejected not only by the scholarship commission but also by her, made you snap. Your skin felt hot and your heart was hammering inside your chest.

The Armorer, as everyone called her, hummed in contentment, and then she grabbed a notepad and a pencil that had seen better days and scribbled something. 

“My friend is looking for an assistant to help him around in the studio. Since your background is in Fine Art, I think you’ll manage just fine.” She gave you the paper with only a number and address on it.  You looked at her quizzically. “The salary he offers should cover your stay here. I’ll arrange your schedule so your obligations as a PhD student are met.” You could cry with gratitude right now, even though you knew nothing about this job. “And concerning your tuition fees, let me move some strings. I can’t promise anything kid, but I may know someone who’d be interested in sponsoring you.” You could hug this woman, kiss her on her protection mask. But you stayed in your seat grabbing the mug she gave you like a lifeline.

“I can’t…I don’t know…” You babbled with watery eyes.

“I only expect the best of you kid, it’s gonna be hard work. Now go.” And then she returned to her work in the forge, leaving you trembling with excitement. 

After scrolling down some job portals, you closed your laptop with a sigh, calculating the best way to manage your savings to stretch them to the limit. With maximum frugality, you could make it through three months.

Professor Armourer had given you that mysterious number, but even though you were going to try, you didn’t want to depend 100% on her kindness. Moreover, you didn’t know which type of “studio assistant” job this would be since she provided little description. You grabbed the piece of paper and called. Nothing. You went on with your routine and tried again later, but no one responded.

Would it be too bold to just show up there? After all, your tutor had provided an address, so it was assumable it was okay if you just went there to speak to her friend in person. Like the old times, didn’t people do that? So you made up your mind and grabbed your tote bag and your trusty flannel. Slipping in some sneakers, you went outside to explore Nevarro City.

The area was definitely more industrial, certainly convenient for someone who was a metal artist, nevertheless, it had some charm to it. The warehouses were old, some of them reconverted into homes or other artist’s studios. You looked again at the paper provided by the professor when you recognized a building with large windows and a silver, old truck parked in the door as the one you were looking for. A big container with metal scraps was against one of the walls. You looked for a doorbell or something similar but nothing was in sight, so you decided to just pound the door.

Metallic sounds could be heard from the interior, and you asked yourself which kind of artist they were. After a while, you pounded the door again, it was clear they hadn't heard you. But the noise was loud and on top of that some electric guitar music was playing. You decided to make a bold move and try to open the door.

The inside was bright due to the big windows. The studio was neat and functional with all the tools one needed to work metal from small to large scale. Semi-finished projects were here and there, but it looked like everything had an order inside the warehouse. You could spot a little kitchenette too and a mattress in a cosy corner. 

The man you were looking for was working at the big wooden table that occupied the centre of the room. It looked like he was polishing a metal piece, and sparks were flying all around. The first thing you noticed was the welding mask. It was beautiful, reflecting all the little sparks like fireworks, and had a similar design to the one The Armorer wore. It was shaped like a traditional Mandalorian helmet, the one the ancient warriors once used as battle armour. You smiled to yourself.

You went closer to where he was working, being cautious to not startle him, but it looked like he hadn’t sensed your presence yet, so you just observed him. The sleeves of his work jumpsuit were rolled and you could admire how muscular his forearms were between the fabric and the leather gloves he used for protection. The zipper of his clothing piece was down until his sternum, letting you see thigh undershirt under it, revealing sculpted pecs.

Maker help me if this man is gonna be my boss.

His black visor was suddenly pointed in your direction and you almost jumped from the surprise. He had left de welder on the wooden table and lowered the volume of the music on a radio that looked as old as time and then approximated you. All his movements were slow and restrained. 

“What do you want?” He asked drily, without removing the welding mask from his face. As his friend the professor, he didn’t waste a second in pleasantries. His voice was as gruff as his looks. He didn’t look like an artist at all but a sort of mechanic or technician. 

He waited for your response with his gloved hands in his narrow hips, a leg slightly flexed. The way he carried himself made him look like a statue in a museum. He was observing you carefully, from head to toe. You noticed your mouth was dry.

“I…The Armourer sent me…because of the job…assistant.” You said finally. Perfect, you now had made a fool of yourself by speaking like you didn’t know grammar when you indeed made a living of writing. You could die of the embarrassment. 

“I told her…” He started and then sighed, lowering his broad shoulders in defeat. “Come, have a seat.” He said tilting his head towards a desk next to the large windows.

You assumed it was a desk because it was completely covered by stacks of diverse documents and you couldn’t even guess the material of the piece of furniture. You observed them as you sat in a beautiful vintage chair, while he did the same in front of you.  A lot of invoices, a PC as old as time, sketches of what looked like sculptures, sheets with budgets, newspapers, exhibition brochures. You smiled softly when you distinguished the characteristic doodles of a little kid. You kept that last info to yourself, thinking it wasn’t polite to be nosy in your first meeting.

He then looked at you like it was the first time he acknowledged your presence. His legs were wide apart, but while he looked confident you noticed he was fidgeting with his gloved fingers. What a curious man. And why was he so familiar?

“What can you do?” He asked, always the eloquent one. You looked around you for a moment, gathering your thoughts.

“Anything you need around here.” You responded, now a bit more confident. “I can operate almost every machine in this place, know the basics of wielding, and can help with molds and the foundry” He now looked more interested, bending his large body towards the table. “But for a start, I think the most urgent matter is this mess.” Sure, you were cheeky, but you needed the job, and it was obvious the man needed help with admin. You went from nervous to sassy in five minutes. “Does that even work, or is it part of an art installation?” You pointed to the PC that looked like it was stuck in the 90’s. He made a noise that could be a chuckle or a grunt.

“The Armourer sent me your CV.” 

Oh, so he knew you were coming after all.

“What makes a qualified researcher as you want to work as an assistant?” This was probably the highest number of words he had put together to this moment. His low baritone was warm and nice to hear. 

You blushed a bit. Of course, you had made your apportations, but you were only starting in the Academia even though you had some articles published. But qualified was a bit of a stretch. You could tell him the truth. That you needed to pay rent after being denied the scholarship. But that didn’t put you in a good light, especially in a job interview.

“Being a researcher, I tend to spend most of my day in my head. Manual labour grounds me.” You bit your lip a bit nervous because you had just offered a piece of personal information, even though anything in your tone revealed that you weren’t referring only to your job.

He only nodded in understanding, crossing his thick forearms over his chest. 

“You start tomorrow at 1500.” Okay, former military maybe? That was rich. And it was the shortest job interview of your life. “I usually wrap up at 2100, is that okay for you?” His voice had a kinder tone now, although sounding still gruff. You recounted mentally the bus timetable to your home and calculated it would be tight but you could make it.

“Yes, is perfect.” You offered him a big smile for the first time feeling grateful. “Thank you for the opportunity.” Then he accompanied you to the door and you realized he hadn’t provided you a name. He probably knew you from your CV though. You panicked a bit, trying to recall if Professor Armourer had told you his name but you couldn’t remember and it seemed awkward to ask now.

When you made your exit through the door, he leaned against it and you noticed he was as wide as the frame. The perks of being a sculptor, you supposed. You had to stop admiring his physique if he was going to be your boss. You arranged a bit your heavy tote bag on your shoulder and put a stray lock of hair behind your ear.

“I’m looking forward to tomorrow.” You said to the statue man. He just nodded and you awkwardly acknowledged the interaction was over, so you left with an energetic handwave while he was standing there nonchalantly. Was he observing you? Just having some fresh air? You couldn’t tell with that damned mask. You found yourself wondering how he’d look under it. But it felt weird you didn’t know your boss's name or how he looked.  You turned on your heels and gathered some courage.  He was still in the same position and you felt super awkward. “I’m sorry, I think I didn’t catch your name and it felt wrong leaving without…”

Your new boss sighed heavily, and so so slowly, started to remove his welding mask. Your jaw dropped. Those sad eyes weren’t easy to forget.

“It’s Din, Din Djarin.”

Next Chapter

Taglist: @technicallykawaiisoul @dameron-grant-spector

[speculativepages]

I recently started world-building for a new story idea (I know—bad when I'm supposed to be in the middle of revising my current project) and in trying to figure out the level of technology and feeling of my new world I got lost in google searches about the different punk genres.

So I decided to make a master list.

According to Wikipedia (a highly reputable source by all accounts) a punk genre can be described as “a world built on one particular technology that is extrapolated to a highly sophisticated level (this may even be a fantastical or anachronistic technology, akin to retro-futurism) a gritty transreal urban style, or a particular approach to social themes.”

There are so many (so so many) and some people roll their eyes at every new addition but I think the names and distinctions are interesting and fun (I mean, Magicpunk may just be regular fantasy, but it sounds so much cooler). I love the idea of scientific fantasy, and of blurry the lines between the sci-fi and fantasy genres. Who’s to stop you from mixing the culture of the Japanese samurai with an epic space opera in the stars?

This is an incomplete list. I've organized it by time period (loosely, because some overlap or can go anywhere). I've also provided an example of a published work (for those that have them).

Established Fantasy Punk Genres: An Incomplete List

Magicpunk/Dungeonpunk: Fantasy punk genre where the “one particular technology” that the world is build on is magic. You have trains running on lines of sorcerer-fueled energy and ships powered by wind magic and computers running on sub-dimensional energy from the demon realm. Popular examples include The Sleeping Dragon by Jonny Nexus and The War of the Flowers by Tad Williams.

Aetherpunk: Subgenre mix of Magicpunk/Dungeonpunk where the magic source of the technology is specifically the element of Aether. Often, if not always, also has Steampunk elements. The Aeronaut’s Windlass by Jim Butcher is the only example that comes to mind.

Mythpunk: A punk genre that is inspired by or incorporates myths and legends. These aren’t usually a retelling of a popular myth, but rather one that includes elements of the myth, or twists and changes the story around to it’s own ends. Popular examples would be American Gods by Neil Gaiman or Deathless by Catherynne Valente.

Stonepunk: Set in the stone age, this genre is characterized by the use of non-technology as technology, creating pseudo-tech and modern inventions with natural, basic resources like stone, wood, water, fire, clay, and rope. The Flintstones would be the best example.

Sandalpunk: Sandalpunk is on thin ice as a punk genre. Rather than being inspired or defined by a technology, it instead focuses on the period of time of the ancient world before the Middle Ages, often set in Greece or Rome. There aren’t many examples of it. But the name is cool.

Steampunk: Arguably the most popular punk genre (after Cyberpunk) featuring science fantasy stories set in Victorian era, with advanced technology powered by steam engines and clockwork mechanics. Doctor Who perhaps described it best, “The Victorian Age accelerated. Starships and missiles fueled by coal and driven by steam.” There are many examples, both in literature and film, including His Dark Materials by Phillip Pullman, Mortal Engines by Philip Reeves and The Parosol Protectorate by Gail Carriger.

Clockpunk: Close-cousin subgenre of Steampunk, characterized by a lot of clocks and inspired by the pre-steam energy period of the Renaissance and Baroque eras. Pasquale’s Angel by Paul J. McAuley is more Clockpunk than Steampunk.

Silkpunk: Silkpunk is another subgenre of Steampunk, one generation removed. While steampunk is defined by it’s Victorian era brass and steam aesthetic, Silkpunk is inspired by East Asian culture during the period of the Silk Road. Examples include The Dandelion Dynasty by Ken Liu and The Tea Master and The Detective by Aliette de Bodard.

Cattlepunk: Yet another subgenre of Steampunk, Cattlepunk is the across-the-ocean-bastard-cousin set in the wild west of early America. Cowboys, bank robberies, and train heists meet robots, warmechs, magic, and super-weapons. The Wild Wild West and Firefly verse are classic movie examples. Book examples would be the Mistborn Era II series by Brandon Sanderson and The Dark Tower series by Stephen King. (And I didn’t realize until I just did all this research but based on examples this is like my favorite punk.)

Dieselpunk: This genre is set in the aesthetic of the 1920s-1950s era and is characterized by the use of diesel-powered technology. Commonly incorporates alternate history elements, as well as themes surrounding the Great Depression and World War II. It’s been called the darker and dirtier version of Steampunk with an emphasis on air travel and combat, dirigibles, and air pirates. Examples include The Iroon Dream by Norman Spinrad, Dreadnough by Cherie Priest, and Pirate Utopia by Bruce Sterling.

Atompunk: A retro-futuristic punk genre set in during the Cold War and characterized by atomic nuclear technology, ray guns, robots, hover cars, and interdimensional travel. Atompunk often deals with the themes of nuclear power gone wrong and alternate versions of the Cold War. The most popular example of this would be the Fallout games by Bethesda.

Capepunk: Capepunk is just superhero fiction set in the modern-era world where people have powers. Example would be any superhero story ever. I just think the name’s cool.

Gothicpunk: Gothicpunk is also usually set in the modern-era, but incorporates The Goth. Generally characterized by an underworld of supernatural creatures lying in wait and secretly controlling the workings of our world where humans are but cattle. This is basically dark Urban Fantasy, but it’s popular enough to get a distinction. Anne Rice’s Interview With a Vampire is an okay example. The movies Priest and Daybreakers are much better ones.

Cyberpunk: Cyberpunk, the grandfather of all of the punk genres. Characterized by dystopian and cynical future world in which technology has brought about cultural nihilism and a crap society. Often combined with Film Noir or detective fiction. (Fantastic Noir is a fantasy version of Cyberpunk). Heroes are most prone to be some form of hacker, rebel, or antihero fight against a totalitarian police state or corporate empire oppressing the people. Examples Neuromancer by William Gibson and the movie Blade Runner.

Post-Cyberpunk: This is Cyberpunks chipper, more optimistic sibling. It has all of the vision of a scientifically advanced cyber-culture without the gritty, dark, and edgy world elements. It still share’s the Cyberpunk elements of analyzing how technology interacts and impacts with society, just without such a grimdark view of humanity. Examples would be Agent G by C.T. Phipps and The Peace War by Vernor Vinge.

Biopunk: Biopunk is Cyberpunks genetically engineered half-sibling. This punk centers around organic technology with a healthy smattering of bio-augmentation and biotechnology. Examples include In the Courts of the Crimson Kings by S.M. Stirling, West of Eden by Harry Harrison, and Wolfish Nature by Vladimir Vasilyev.

Nanopunk: Also a subgenre of Cyberpunk with characterized by the use of nanites and nanotechnology as the predominate form of technology. Examples are Tech Heaven by Linda Nagata and Micro by Michael Crichton.

Solarpunk: Solarpunk is a genre characterized by it’s environmentally friendly technology meshed with African and Asian cultures and an emphasis in community, art, and a bright solar future where humanity has found a balance between technology and nature. Can also include many elements of Biopunk, but with a much more optomistic, for-the-future-of-species-and-environment outlook. Example works include Zahrah the Windseeker by Nnedi Okorafor, Maurai by Poul Anderson, and Songs from the Stars by Norman Spinrad.

Apunkalypse: This genre is defined by the collapse of civilization where society is replaced by lawless bands of roving scavenger gangs or cities collapsing into decay or the rise of punks overthrows the rules of the past. Examples include Mad Max and Mortal Engines by Philip Reeves (which is also Steampunk, so it’s a good example of book incorporating more than one punk genre).

Desertpunk: Punk genre characterized by sand. Who doesn't love a good desert planet? Often features roaming tribes, wandering heroes, desert bandits, and sand storms. Can be combined with Cattlepunk, for a Western desert, or Apunkalypse, for an-after-the-end-of-the-world setting. Examples include Dune by Frank Herbert and Railsea by China Mieville.

Oceanpunk: This punk is set on the high seas. Often features floating cities of wood and iron lashed together and mighty nations fighting for dominion of the watery world and may also feature civilizations and cultures below the waves in underwater cities. Sometimes called Pirate Punk, because nothing breed pirate stories like ocean cities and sailing ships. Examples include The Scar by China Mieville, Tranquilium by Andrey Lazarchuk, and Dark Life by Kat Falls.

Did I Miss a Punk? Can you guys think of any other punks to add? Either ones you've thought up, or any you've heard of that I don't have listed. I'd love to keep this list updated. I find it's useful to look through when creating a new world to get the overall feeling of what I'm going for with the story and world-building.

What punk are you writing in for your current WIP?

[muralikesgames]

Thoughts on DD2 Maister Skills on Pawns

I really love the skills themselves, but I wish they would use them more sparingly and situationally. Inclination doesn't seem to affect their times of use, as they'll still choose to spam them or use them first despite better options available in their current kit.

Don't get me wrong, I LOVE the Pawn shenanigans coming from their comical AI. This also never stopped me from hiring said pawns because I would adjust myself around them. Still, I think it deserves some criticism.

⬇️Breakdown of my criticism⬇️

Celestial Paean (Mage): They would use it against a bunch of Phantoms even though a single High Empyrean would clear them immediately. I adore this spell and will never remove it from my mage because it's so good for spamming Wild Furie, but I just want the priority to be switched.

Riotus Fury (Fighter): They would unleash it on a single goblin that could have died in a simple sword swipe. Amazing in bosses and minibosses though.

Heavenly Shot (Archer): See above. Even worse if they miss their target.

Arc of Might (Warrior): See above. Funny enough, that has saved me a few times from a Dullahan grab, but that could still be done after some AI tweaks.

Meteoron & Maelstrom (Sorcerer): See above. Adding to that, they have a habit of canceling their cast if their target is killed.

Formless Feint (Thief): The only Maister skill without an active detriment due to bad AI. Perfect as-is.

⬇️Suggestions⬇️

Bring back pawn knowledge for non-boss enemies. I believe this may have played a part because I don't remember DD1 pawns doing such things as much.

Normal attacks and non-maister skills should be prioritized depending on enemy type, number and their health. Prevent them from using on smaller enemies like goblins and choppers unless they're a certain number of them.

All of these conditionals are technically in the game already, as Pawns can determine flying/grounded/specific enemies to use certain attacks, especially with Pawn badges changing their behavior.

Group and encounter difficulty conditions should technically exist too, as the dynamic OST changes depending on that. For example, Garm + small enemies encounter in Ancient Chambers will always play the Danger variant of the combat song (I'm lvl 99 and it still does). Perhaps this could be applied on Pawns to determine certain actions.

[olderthannetfic]

https://olderthannetfic.tumblr.com/post/738048040266563584/httpsolderthannetfictumblrcompost73791430836#notes "If you think you know more as a Greek you inherently know more about your ancient mythology, just from those facts alone, than a non-ethnic-Greek with a postgraduate degree in studying Greek mythology," You really really had to go for one of the most specific reaches ever. "Ok but do you know as much as a person who paid money to get a degree in knowing about myths tho???" Who said that they know more than someone who studied the myths? Who?

This doesn't even cover the issue talked about that people who grew up in a culture have different emotions and feelings tied to it, than a non-Greek. Someone could have graduated Greek mythology and would still never know or understand the experiences of Greek people who got removed from their own history and myths because they were considered too subhuman to fit the lore of their own history. There's more to understanding something beyond just having a degree. And to no one's surprise, POC Greeks also exist, mixed Greek exist, people who were raised with the Greek culture.

And might I remind people, this started because an Anon asked Greek people from Greek about incest and bestiality in Greek myths. This btw, never excluded any of the previously mentioned groups, it only specified that it was for Greek people from Greece.

Why are you all making it about like blood and soil and ethnonationalism? Are you so afraid that some people have feelings about the culture they themselves simply grew up in you just need to bring in random hypotheticals to claim everyone else is a bad person?

You know someone can study the history of a place, and still never understand how the people from there feel about their own history. It just means you learnt about the stories and myths in more depth than maybe the average person does in an academic space.

Someone completely unrelated who studied this can just be quiet about it, if they weren't Greek it's just an interest they had. They have no deeper ties to it beyond that. Meanwhile a Greek person can't just turn off their actual culture, and their own association with it, unless they want to cut of a part of their identity.

People of certain races and ethnicities and countries and cultures can't just turn off their ties to the cultures they grew up in or with, it's something that shapes you. If you study something as an outsider you probably will never understand that specific feeling. You could study Japanese culture, and you still wouldn't have the same connections to it as someone who lives and is raised in said culture. You're looking at it through an academic lens. Doesn't school teach you that? You're learning the information, not the feelings and emotions. Not being American doesn't make you any less ignorant. You can also be ignorant. Being American also doesn't make someone ignorant. I'm going case by case, you act ignorant, you're ignorant. Fuck whatever place you came from, this wasn't about you, or your hypothetical post-graduates.

And to add on: Stop shitting on Americans as a group. Some Americans act ignorant, call those out. Americans aren't any more of a monolith as the entirety of Europe, Africa, Asia, Oceania, etc. Just like everyone else can be ignorant, you should specifically focus on the actual people acting and being ignorant.

--

[talesofedo]

(Hokusai - Hokusai Manga Vol. 12, Men eating Noodles)

I recently came across the paper "Ancient DNA analysis of food remains in human dental calculus from the Edo period, Japan" by Sawafuji et al. (2020).

Researchers extracted DNA from dental calculus - that's the white stuff that forms on your teeth over time (and is generally removed if you go in for cleanings) - to study what people in the mid- to late-Edo period ate. To do this, they sampled calculus from 13 bodies dating to the 18th and 19th Century: 7 women and 6 men who lived in the city of Edo.

They found that they were unable to identify any type of animal taxon in the samples, so we don't know which fish or meats, if any, were eaten by the sampled individuals. So, not helpful in that regard.

However, they were able to identify the following:

We already know (and the paper points this out as well) that the diet of Edo's townspeople primarily consisted of rice and vegetables, occasionally (or regularly, depending on your means) accompanied by various types of fish.

From the list above, we can then identify a few more of the ingredients these specific people ate: rice, as their main staple, but also soba or udon (made from wheat and barley). An assortment of different vegetables, such as carrots, chestnuts, shiso, and garlic chives. And tea, naturally.

Interestingly, the researchers also found some non-food items, specifically plant matter from the Cupressacea (cypress) family, borneol and tobacco.

Tobacco is perhaps self-explanatory: many people in Edo smoked (pipes, specifically), and it would be fair to say that this left some residue in their dental calculus.

Plant matter from the cypress family is more interesting. There are two types of trees native to Japan from that family, the Japanese cedar and the Japanese arborvitae, the kind of smallish conifer that grows all over Japan. This plant matter is most likely to get into peoples' mouths by using chopsticks and toothpicks made from those trees, but also by using the resin as a painkiller for toothaches.

And the borneol stands out because it comes from a tree called the Borneo camphor, which isn't native to Japan and also won't grow in Japan if you tried. Meaning that the borneol would have to be imported, which it had been for a few hundred years, from China.

People examined in this study most likely came into contact with borneol as a flavoring in tooth powder. Tooth powder at the time was primarily fine sand with added flavoring to, I suppose, improve the experience and set apart different "brands" sold in stores.

You can learn more about tooth powders, tooth brushes, and treating toothaches in the Edo period on the website of the Kanagawa Prefectural Dental Association (in English).

Additionally, borneol was used in many traditional kampo medicines in both Japan and China. I'm not very well versed in kampo medicines, but according to this website, it's used to aid the digestive system by stimulating the production of gastric juices, treat bronchitis, coughs and colds, relieves pain and reduces swelling, and can be taken as a tonic to promote relaxation.

[moetxt]

zhongven and zhongscara for the ship bingo (guess who this is 😏

i see you 👁️

ah, zhongscara...

for me, it started with mine and a friend's determination to have our faves kiss zhongli, but i only got further enabled when someone else pointed out parallels i didn't even see initially. i'm proud to be one of the 13 people who ships it 😁

though, to be honest, i really prefer them in a non-romantic context. in my eyes, they're friends with a compatible worldview and REALLY REALLY compatible kinks. scara would never admit this to his face but he sees zhongli as one of the precious few people in the world competent enough to dom him. meanwhile, on zhongli's side, he enjoys very much how scara lets him do what he does best, to the fullest; most people wouldn't be able to handle it, after all.

i think romance is the one major thing they disagree on. scara with his trust issues cannot COMPREHEND how zhongli is still willing to put his whole heart into loving someone even after getting hurt multiple times in the past.

now... you knew this was coming.

zhongven my BELOVED!!! they've been happily married for 2,000 years. they have an angsty on-again/off-again open relationship thing but neither of them thinks it's enough and also they get jealous. they've been mutually pining for millennia to the point that there is plentiful evidence of how down bad they are for each other in both their countries' mythology/folklore/traditions/ancient artifacts/archaeological sites but they've never once actually admitted they're in love with one another. as gods, they can't love as humans do and as divine manifestations of their elements and ideals, they're natural opposites locked in an eternal stalemate of courtship; can't tie down the wind, can't whisk away the earth. they've divorced at least 300 times. they're bitter exes and ei is the only one left alive who can tell you all about it (she will not).

unlike other ships i've been obsessed with in the past, it's hard for me to remove zhongven from their canon context, or at the very least a context where they are still divine/immortals. the divine opposites thing is just so key to me—they way they shouldn't get along, they shouldn't understand each other, but nonetheless they do. also, exploring edge cases of locality-specific or occupation-specific dual worship that occurs when morax's and barbatos' domains meet. like, how ancient northern liyuens knew to scatter dandelion seeds along with their prayers to make earthquakes during the spring and summer go away because it was probably the geo lord sulking and missing his beloved. or how sailors whisper a prayer or two to the god of wind for safe travels as where rex lapis' domain does not extend, they instead hope for the protection of his "bride" :)

actually, i am writing a whole fic about this! it's an epistolary-styled story filled with outsider accounts of how morax and barbatos just keep popping up, directly or indirectly, in each other's mythology. it's also about zhongli intentionally messing with the historical record in attempt to bring more of this to light because he's sulky about venti not visiting him for 500 years lol.

but yeah, the gods aspect is quite important to me and my view of them is so specific that i tend to be picky when it comes to fics, especially if they are AUs.

finally, as you know, i have more than a couple of crack theories/shipper delusion when it comes to zhongven and wider genshin lore. (descender zhongli and shade of istaroth venti my beloved!!!) namely, that venti warned zhongli about the cataclysm beforehand due to his god of time/celestia connections, but didn't warn the others, and that's why there was a near pantheon wipeout and the tsaritsa hates him now while zhongli carries so much guilt. also, that zhongli retired godhood at least partly due to venti, leaving his country to the humans (just like venti had done all along), and because he regretted how he always prioritized work and didn't treasure what he had until venti disappeared for his 500y coma.

"the end of godhood" is a really fascinating concept to me, as is what their relationship could turn out like in the future. they aren't gods anymore, but they're not exactly humans either, and no one else can really understand them like they understand each other. a lot of the obstacles in the way of them being together are now gone, but they now also carry new scars. i have a fic vaguely drafted centering around this too.

hehe, thanks for giving me the excuse to talk at length about them! 💞

[sag-dab-sar]

Asušunamir

Once upon a time I came across this claim on a mood board

"Asushunamir: Mesopotamian/Assyrian intersex goddex of queers, justice and transformation. Said to be the most beautiful being made of light who wore clothes made of stars."

I had never heard of a deity called Asushunamir, so I went looking.

I did a Google search specifically because it is what a person on Tumblr might do if they wanted more info. So I thought it important to look them up if I'm going to confirm or debunk.

I did find sources on them when I wrote this post originally, a few years ago, that confirmed the above quote; but a search now did not turn up much other than "Non-binary spirit who helped Inanna (or Ishtar/Inanna) escape the underworld" Which the non-binary spirit is accurate; the Inanna part is not accurate. Still better than the non-binary goddex thing. I want to edit and upload this post anyways because sooner or later the claim may spread again.

Note on my spelling: Inanna is Inana; Asushunamir is Asušnamir; Ereshkigal is Ereškigal. I do not change the spelling of direct quotes, if I do it is indicated by brackets.

🔹Asušunamir is not related to Inana🔹

Many websites claim their origin is connected to Inana and Enki or "Ištar/Inana". However, Asušunamir is not Sumerian. Therefore, they have nothing to do with Inana, Enki, or Sumerian culture even if the myth originated from Sumer.

Asušunamir is very specifically Akkadian. This is important because, like many websites state, their only real appearance is in the Descent Myth. That is to say, Istar's Descent not Inana's Descent. Which surprisingly are very different.

In Inana's Descent Enki creates two beings not one.

Here is the excerpt from the direct translation of Inana's Descent from the ETCSL [1] :

“Then Enki answered Nincubura: “What has my daughter done? She has me worried. What has Inana done? She has me worried. What has the mistress of all the lands done? She has me worried. What has the hierodule of An done? She has me worried.” (1 ms. adds 1 line: Thus father Enki helped her in this matter.) He removed some dirt from the tip of his fingernail and created the kur-jara. He removed some dirt from the tip of his other fingernail and created the gala-tura. To the kur-jara he gave the life-giving plant. To the gala-tura he gave the life-giving water.”

This is the translation given in the book "Inanna: Queen of Heaven and Earth" by Wolkenstein and Kramer. Which I heavily dislike and discourage the use of but it may be the version most Mesopotamian Polytheists use for Inana so I will add it [2]:

“Father Enki said. ‘What has happened? What has my daughter done? Inanna! Queen of all the lands! Holy Priestess of heaven! What has happened? I am troubled. I am grieve. From under his fingernail Father Enki brought forth dirt. He fashioned the dirt into a kurgarra, a creature neither male nor female. From under the fingernail of his other hand he brought forth dirt. He fashioned the dirt into galatur, a creature neither male nor female. He gave the food of life to the kurgarra. He gave the water of life to the galatur.”

The book “Dictionary of Ancient Near Eastern Mythology” by Assyriologist Gwendolyn Leick gives us this info [3]:

“from the dirt of his finger nails creates two beings. The kur.gar.ra and the gala.tur.ra (persons who formed part of Inanna’s cult personnel, maybe some sort of transvestites) Enki […] gives them the Plant and Water of life”

Expanding on the cult-personnel bit the Assyriologist Thorkild Jacobsen makes this foot note in his translation [4]:

“What Enki creates is two types of professional mourners […] kurgarû was a member of the cult personnel around Inanna at Uruk.”

In Inana’s Descent Myth they sneak their way through cracks in Kur’s (Underworld) seven gates.

Ereškigal is preforming typical mounring expressions that were common in Mesopotamian cultures. In lines 226-235 & lines 254-262 of the ETCSL entry she is described unflatteringly as laying down and lamenting the death of her unnamed children

The mother who gave birth, Erec-ki-gala, because of her children, was lying there.

In addition lines 236-245 & lines 263-272 she's described as troubled with a painful heart & liver.

They sympathize with her; when she moans “oh my heart,” they join in “You are troubled, oh mistress, oh your heart.” Lamenting with someone was seen as an act of kindness.

Thus after they have sympathized with her she offers them a river full of water or a field full of grain as a thank you. They refuse and request the corpse “hanging on the hook,” which is Inana.

🔹Origin in Ištar's Descent🔹

This is vastly different compared to what Ereškigal is doing in Ištar’s Descent; she is not lamenting. It is also very different then the way Asušunamir’s gets Ištar back. Here is a direct-ish translation by E. A. Speiser [5]:

“Ea in his wise heart conceived an image; and created Asushunamir, an enuch: “Up, Asushunamir, set thy face to the gate to the Land of No Return; the seven gates of the Land of No Retuen shall be opened for thee. Ereshkigal shall see thee and be rejoiced at thy presence. When her heart has calmed, her mood is happy, let her utter the oath of the great gods. (Then) lift up thy head, paying mind to the life-water bag: “Pray, Lady, let them give me the life-water bag. That water therefrom I may drink” (Foot note 89). As soon as Ereshkigal heard this, she smoter her thigh bit her finger: “Thou didst request of me a thing that should not be requested. Come Asushunamir, I will curse thee with a mighty curse! The food of the city’s gutters will be thy food, The sewers of the city shall be thy drink, The shadow of the wall shall be thy station, The threshold shall be thy habitation, the besotted and the thirsty shall smite thy cheek!” Ereshkigal opened her mouth to speak, saying (these) words to Namtar, her vizier: “Up Namtar, knock ar Egaligina, Adorne the thresholds with coral-stone, Bring forth the Annunaki and seat (them) on thrones of gold, sprinkle Ishtar with the water of life and take her from my presence!” [Footnote 89: The scheme evidently suceeds as Ereshkigal, distracted by the beauty of Asušunamir, “His appearance is brilliant,” does not recover until it is too late]”

In this version we see Ea (emphasis that Ea is Akkadian not Sumerian) creates a spirit being of dazzling beauty. They distract and make happy Ereškigal long enough that she agrees to a trap that will give them possession of Ištar (apparently she is the "life water bag"?) so she can escape Kur. These two myths are tremendously different, so any source mixing them up demonstrates a lack of reliability.

Leick gives this information on Asušunamir in the “Ishta’s Descent” dictionary entry, which helps clarify [3]:

“…Ea who creates Asušunamir [...] Having pleased Ereškigal by his presence, he is to demand the ‘waterskin’ hanging on the wall, a metaphor for Ištar’s corpse. Ereškigal gets very angry at the request and curses Asušunamir, making him a social outcast.”

Asušunamir has little information available compared to the two beings in Inana’s myth. I cannot find him in the majority of books I own.

🔹Some digging for real sources🔹

Asušunamir does not have their own entry in “A Dictionary of Ancient Near East Mythology” by Leick; “Illustrated Dictionary Gods, Demons, and Symbols of Ancient Mesopotamia” by Black; "A Handbook of Gods & Goddess of the Ancient Near East" by Stuckey. Suggesting they are not a large figure anywhere in Mesopotamia.

I checked the indexs of 9 different academic books on Mesopotamia, ANE, or Sumerian (outdated or not) and they do not have an index entry in a single one of them.

Books I own which I checked for an index entry:

Treasures of Darkness: A History of Mesopotamian Religion by Thorkild Jacobsen

Religion in Ancient Mesopotamia by Jean Boretto

The Ancient Gods by E.O. James

Babylon: Mesopotamia and the Birth of Civilization by Paul Kriwaczek

The Ancient Near East Volume 1 by Amėlie Kuhrt

Mesopotamia by Gwendolyn Leick

The Sumerians by Samuel Noah Kramer

A History of the Ancient Near East by Wiley Blackwell

Dictionaries of Civilizations: Mesopotamia, Assyrians, Sumerians, Babylonians by Enrico Ascalone

I searched Google Scholar but found them only in relation to Ištar’s Descent Myth.

I searched “Asushunamir” on Google Books, and also found no reliable source that say they are a God. Only more mention of them solely in relation to Ištar’s Descent Myth.

My Search in Google Books turned up the following:

Greek Myths and Mesopotamia by Charles Penglase— The author is described as classical scholar in a journal article book review; otherwise mentioned simply as an “author” elsewhere. The author mentions in a footnote that Asušunamir may be a homosexual or male prostitute.

Parallel Myths by J F Beirlein—The author seems to have no credentials beyond "author." The book gives a retelling that describes him as “making him far more beautiful than any “male” on earth.” Otherwise just a retelling of the myth.

Gay Witchcraft: Empowering the Tribe by Christopher Penczak | Neo-pagan author, I’ve read his books I’m not considering this to be even remotely historical reliable.

Storytelling: An Encyclopedia of Mythology and Folklore by Josepha Sherman— Anthropologist and Folklorist claims Asušunamir means “good looking.” I don’t know Akkadian so can’t confirm or deny.

Queer Spirits: A Gay Man’s Myth Book by Will Roscoe | Author is LGBT Activist with a PhD in the “History of Consciousness.” I also won’t be considered his theories on the meaning of Asušunamir reliable, unless he has heavy citations. However, I do not have access to the full pages so I see only a few lines.

Essentially all books are the myth itself in translation in some form or another; with an occasional comment. None claim they are a god or being of high significance.

Based on Ištar’s myth there is zero indication that Asušunamir is a god. They are never listed as a son of Ea even though they are his creation; a lack of being listed would be due to Asušunamir not being a god. There are no depictions of them with the crown of divinity.

There is zip outside of Ištar’s descent.

🔹 All the misinformation seems to come from one place— A modern story written in the 1990s NOT Ancient Mesopotamia.🔹

This story is a creation of Randy Conner not the ancients Mesopotamians

It is found in the book Blossom & Bone, here is the excerpt:

TEXT of the above:

Asushunamir was created by Enki to rescue Inanna from the "Land of No Return." Inanna, Queen of Heaven, was given great gifts by Enki the Wise. Wisdom, justice, love, the sacred women, and the fruit of the vine. The gift that saved her from death Enki fashioned from the dirt beneath his fingernails. A being of light called, Asushunamir. (S)he whose face is radiant, beautiful in countenance; Asushunamir (S)he, clothed in the stars, male & female, companion to Inanna; Asushunamir The spell of Ereshkigal, Queen of the Dead, could not possess this luminescent being. Yet she was charmed by Asushunamir's beauty, moved by (he)r voice, amused by (he)r dance. Ereshkigal called for a great feast to be held in (he)r honor; the best wine, the finest meats, the most sumptuous of fruit. Ereshkigal dreamed of taking this beautiful being to her bed, and of keeping her forever with her in the Land of the Dead.

But Asushunamir was careful to pour the wine upon the floor and to eat no food prepared by the servants of Ereshkigal. When the Queen of the Dead grew careless from the wine, Asushunamir asked if (s)he might taste the water of life, kept locked in the cellar. This was the water of which Enki had spoken when Asushunamir came into the world, the water with which one must be sprinkled to pass through the seven gates of Irkalla, the water to renew one's life on earth. Ereshkigal cried out, "Namtar, bring the jug with the water of life. I shall grant the wish of this charming creature." Later, when Ereshkigal fell into a deep sleep, Asushunamir made (he)r way to the lampless cell where Inanna, captive, lay dying. (S)he sprinkled Inanna with the water of life and, as the drops fell on her inert body, Innana breathed easily as a child might breathe and then awakened. Beautiful and once more flowing with the energy of life, Innana quickly made her way through the seven gates of Irkalla, ascending to earth, causing the flowers to grow and restoring the trees to green. People returned to their planting, their weaving, their making of wine, their love making, and a great feast was held in honor of the return of Inanna.

Asushunamir was not as fortunate. Ereshkigal awoke as (s)he was approaching the seventh gate, and neither (he)r beauty, nor (he)r charm, nor (he)r dancing or songs, could extinguish the passion that had turned to hate. "The food of the gutter shall thou eat," cried Ereshkigal, her every word a curse. The water of the sewer shall be your drink. In the shadows you shall abide, despised and hated by even your own kind." Having pronounced the curse, Ereshkigal banished Asushunamir.

When Inanna learned of the curse placed upon Asushunamir, she wept and spoke softly that no one might here. "The power of Ereshkigal is great. No one dares to defy her. Yet 1 may soften her curse upon you, as spring arrives to banish winter. Those who are like you, my assinnu and kalum and kugarru and kalaturru, lovers of men, kin to my sacred women, shall be strangers in their own homes. Their families will keep them in the shadows and will leave them nothing. The drunken shall smite them, and the mighty shall imprison them. But if you remember me, how you were born from the light of the stars to save me, and through me the earth, from darkness and death, then I shall harbor you and your kind. You shall be my favored children, and I shall make you my priestesses. I shall grant you the gift of prophecy, the wisdom of the earth and the moon and all that they govern, and you shall banish illness from my children, even as you have stolen me from the clutches of Ereshkigal." "And when you dress in my robes, I shall dance in your feet and sing in your throats. No man shall be able to resist your enchantments.

*When the earthen jug is brought from Irkalla, lions shall leap in the deserts, and you shall be freed from the spell of Ereshkigal. Once more you will be called Asushunamir, a being clothed in light. Your kind shall be called Those Whose Faces Are Brilliant, Those Who Have Come to Renew the Light, The Blessed of Inanna."

This isn't even a retelling its just original content that stole some of the Ištar's myth.

First, it uses Inana and Enki instead of Ištar and Ea, which is incorrect. It describes an entire banquet, Ereškigal sleeping, Inana "softening" Ereškigal's curse, somehow connecting Asušunamir to various other non-gendered/binary entities, and claims they are a companion of Inana— literally none of this happens.

This is from the Blossom of the Bone Amazon description:

The first multi-cultural exploration of the sacred experience, roles, and rituals of gay and gender-bending men, from the ancient priests of the goddess to Oscar Wilde and pop music icon Sylvester--a rich tradition of men who have embodied the interrelationship between androgyny, homoeroticism, and the quest for the sacred. Illustrations and photos.

Except the story of Asušunamir presented in the book is a fabrication. Not an actual analysis or "exploration" of Inana or Ištar's cultic servants or priests who could be see at intersex, non-binary, or binary trans. I'm not sure how fabricating history is empowering when you ignore real history that is actually relevant.

🔹Bottom line🔹

Asušunamir is not a god. They are not a part of Ancient Mesopotamian religious cult.

They are in an Akkadian literary myth and that is about it. They are not the most “beautiful being.”

Many Diĝir (Mesopotamian Gods), were described as being the most beautiful, the most powerful, or the most [insert adjective], but it changed from settlment to settlement. The Diĝir of justice is beyond a doubt Utu / Shamash. A Diĝir of queerness in general could be Inana / Ištar and Nanaya. A Diĝir of justice specifically for the disadvantage could be Nanše. For transformation any Diĝir will do, but Enki comes to mind in particular.

🔹Sources for this post🔹

[1] http://etcsl.orinst.ox.ac.uk/section1/tr141.htm

[2] Inanna: Queen of Heaven and Earth by Diana Wolkstein and Samuel Noah Kramer

[3] A Dictionary Of Ancient Mesopotamian Mythology by Gwendolyn Leick

[4] The Harps that Once: Sumerian Poetry in Translation by Thorkild Jacobsen

[5] The Ancient Near East and Anthology of Texts and Pictures edited by James B. Pritchard

As always if you bring me primary literature or solid reliable academic sources—an Assyriologist, relevant historian, archeologists, or other individual with ANE credentials— I will review it and amend my statements.

-dyslexic not audio proof read-

[healingpendulum]

A Dowsing Primer

What is Dowsing?

Dowsing is an ancient type of divination, considered by some practitioners as a kind of "Earth magic", that relies on subtle electromagnetic vibrations. You can read all about it on Wikipedia, so I won't go into the history here, except to say it has a long and storied tradition. 

When modern intuitive healers talk about Dowsing, we're usually referring to the practice of using a pendulum in order to diagnose and treat the patient. The best way to think about the pendulum is as an external tool which guides the practitioner's intuition.  Like any tool, it needs to be taken proper energetic care of, cleared, charged, and programmed before using for any kind of dowsing practice.

Choosing a pendulum

What type of pendulum you use is widely dependent on the kind of dowsing you’d like to do as various metals and stones resonate differently.  If you just want something that is very clear and versatile, I recommend starting out with this brass Karnak pendulum.  Some people like using an amethyst or another healing stone for healing dowsing, but please remember that anything you buy from a seller will need to be energetically cleansed and charged prior to using.  Really, anything can be used as a pendulum as long as it is well suspended and can swing freely, however, keep in mind that you should avoid using jewelry for Dowsing if possible because jewelry will absorb the energy of the wearer and may interfere with your readings.

Types of Dowsing

Medicinal Dowsing

This type of Dowsing uses medicinal charts to ask questions about the patient's condition to figure out the source of the illness and suggest possible treatments. Treatments will most often rely on the practitioner's area of expertise, and will often include nutritional supplements, medicinal baths, and/or other Eastern practices.

Energy Dowsing

This type of Dowsing will usually rely on a chakras or meridians chart to diagnose the presence of imbalances in the energetic flow of the patient's body. An energy healer can use this information to remove any blockages or imbalances to restore proper energy flow and help the patient's body to naturally heal itself.  The chart below is one that I created for my own practice: it’s a pretty basic example of how these types of charts might look.

Transcendental Dowsing

This is a more advanced type of Dowsing that is not recommended for new practitioners because it allows the dowser to actually transform the energy around a specific issue or problem. Transcendental Dowsing is very powerful when used in energetic healing. When I use this technique, I create a void into which I channel the negative energies from my patients, and then I fill the void with positive, healing energies. It's very important to clear the space and set up a shield when using this technique, allowing nothing but light and love in and out.

There are lots more non-medical applications for Dowsing and it's a lot of fun and really is limited only by your imagination. If you're interested in learning more, there are tons of books available, including from your local libraries that can give you a great primer on this fascinating and useful ancient practice.

This book by Dale Olson has lots of useful charts if you'd like to try your hand at it.  It also has blank pages where you can play with creating your own charts.

As always, my inbox is open and I'm happy to answer any questions!

Love & Light,

El

[azems-familiar]

I am This Close to watching the untamed

So if you want to perhaps yell about it or something (since you’ve gotten me into stuff that way before) that could be cool idk

OH MY GOD PLEASE WATCH IT

okay to start with. the live action show is very good and a great place to start but it has some important differences from the novel and the donghua (animated show). i personally prefer a combination of cql (the untamed/the live action, that's the acronym i'll be using for it from now on) and the donghua; the novel suffers a lot of lost in translation effect and whatnot and i personally dislike the way the relationship is built in several places in it as opposed to how the adaptations do it, but it's definitely still worth reading. (dm me on discord if you want a copy of a pretty good fan translation of the novel and also like, a link to a place you can watch the donghua, btw.) other problems with cql: censorship hits the live action the hardest and their budget was i'm pretty sure basically nonexistent (they very clearly spent most of it on the costumes and the props, which you know what, the costumes are fucking stunning so great choice). so they changed the worldbuilding some and like.... the fight scenes? are really not good. they're really not good. also the special effects are universally pretty bad. it can make watching some parts of it difficult to get through, and there are some plot elements that are changed as well that i dislike, and a lot of the moral greyness of the original story had to get removed because again, censorship issues (if you want the most accurate, non-morally-whitewashed take first, you'll want to start with the novel, which is also what has the explicitly gay stuff). it's also not explicitly gay - but the actors played it as gay and there are multiple marriage metaphors and holy fuck like. honestly. there doesn't need to be a kiss or a confession or anything it's REALLY FUCKING GAY.

what cql excels in is its character interactions. the acting is absolutely stunning, the soundtrack is beautiful, and every single scene is just done with so much heart and emotion in it. so definitely keep that in mind going into it. i've watched it all the way through i think 3 or 4 times and i still keep seeing new fun details in the background that i hadn't noticed before.

the donghua, on the other hand, has an absolutely stunning art style, very very good voice acting, the worldbuilding and plot are more accurate to the book, and the magic and combat scenes are much more realistic for a fantasy and the powers they have. however, it, especially specifically the third and final season, is very rushed (and it has its own plot changes to fit how much they had to condense things, mostly just in the second half of season 3) and excludes some details, so it can be confusing if you don't know what you're seeing first. i recommend either watching cql or reading the novel first, then watching the donghua!

in terms of like, actual fandom stuff! so the main character of mdzs is, obviously, Wei Wuxian. i'm not sure how much you know but he's like. an incredibly ADHD man with horrible self-worth issues (despite being arrogant as hell) and a very strong sense of justice who is extremely brilliant and goes through a shitton of tragedy. he is known for inventing a viable form of necromancy, which is considered incredibly heretical and, among other things, gets him killed, and then gets him resurrected, so you know. pros and cons. he does magic by playing the flute. he is a disaster bisexual and also a bit of an alcoholic (okay a lot of an alcoholic) and i love him. his love interest is stoic and serious and incredibly autistic-coded and has been in love with him since they were teenagers and literally wrote him a love song. the two of them get trapped in a cave together and have to kill an ancient corrupted divine monster without weapons. it's very romantic. wei wuxian as a younger teenager is basically the epitome of a child pulling a girl's pigtails because he has a crush and is desperate for attention.

anyway, i'm not sure how much you know about the plot, but there's two timelines going on - the present and the past. the present is after wei wuxian is resurrected, and he and lan wangji (the love interest, in case you haven't picked up on the names yet - everyone has like two or three names and it can be hard to tell them apart at first) are basically going on a fun little murder mystery quest while also babysitting a bunch of teenagers which then abruptly devolves into politics, murder, more politics, and more murder. the past on the other hand goes from a high school definitely-not-a-romance to a goddamn war drama to politics and back to. hm. not exactly a war drama anymore but i'm really not sure how to describe everything that happens after a certain event. it's all very much a tragedy and the real "villain" of the story (which is less obvious in cql, again because of moral whitewashing due to censorship, though honestly i feel like they did a pretty good job of staying as true to the source material as they could all things considered, a whole lot of the scenes were word for word from the novel just slightly edited to fit the adjusted worldbuilding or plot changes) is the mob mentality, rumors and gossip and hearsay, and society itself!

lastly, because i am trying not to overwhelm you here, i am going to link you a couple great amvs i've found on youtube that will probably not make a lot of sense without context but will at least hopefully intrigue you?

and

and

the other one i really want to link i cannot because it definitely will make absolutely no sense without having watched the show and so you have to come talk to me when you've finished it so i can give it to you. also hey please feel free to come dm me on discord i Will ramble at length about this. especially about wwx he is my BLORBO and currently taking up residence in my brain. and also i need your live reactions if/when you start watching things oh my god

be glad it's almost 2 am and i'm still recovering from my covid booster or this would be even longer

[ruminativerabbi]

Like a Letter Left Unread

The whole eclipse thing earlier this week made a big impression on me, but not (maybe) for the reason you’d think.

It all started when I mentioned to one of my grandchildren that I hope it will be a clear, non-cloudy day when the sun goes into eclipse. This was met with the kind of equanimity only a child can muster up effortlessly: “Me too, Saba. But if it’s so cloudy you can’t see anything, the next eclipse is in just twenty years and we can see it then.” Well, okay, I thought, and just how old will I be on August 23, 2044? You see where we’re going here: I surely do hope to be somewhere in the summer of 2044 looking up through safety sunglasses at a clear, cloudless sky as the moon passes before the sun and hides it totally from view for a few minutes. But suddenly the whole discussion made me feel mortal—not fragile especially, just more aware of where I am actuarially than I generally enjoy being. Of course, it could have been way worse: she could have reminded me that Halley’s comet is due back in the summer of 2061.

How to relate to a total eclipse of the sun is a different matter entirely, however. For most moderns, it’s just a thing—something that happens every so often and creates a dramatic effect for a few minutes, then stops happening. Not good or bad, not something overly to focus on and certainly nothing to fear. But our sages in ancient times were less certain: possessed of the conviction that the Creator at least occasionally speaks through the medium of Creation itself, they sought meaning in all sorts of natural phenomena that moderns tend to wave away. Nor is this solely a rabbinic thing—the biblical story of Noah ends with God’s observation that rainbows are not just natural phenomena that sometimes occur, but signs from God that there will never again be a flood that wipes out humanity as was the case in the days of Noah and his ark. And it’s for just that reason that tradition dictates that we recite a short prayer—just a few words acknowledging the rainbow as a symbol of optimism and hope—when we see a rainbow. How often does this happen? Often enough! Joan and I saw the most beautiful rainbow in Niagara Falls, New York, just last week on our drive to Toronto. And, yes, I said the blessing.

But the rabbis were less sure about eclipses. There’s a semi-famous passage in the Talmud (at Sukkah 29a) that declares that any solar eclipse should be taken as a bad sign for the world, for example. And the text then goes on to flesh that thought out with an elucidatory parable: a solar eclipse, they taught, is God behaving roughly in the manner of an earthly king who prepares a giant banquet for all of his servants, perhaps as a way of thanking them for their loyal service. But then, suddenly, the king becomes aware of some specific way in which his servants have conspired to do him ill. So what does he do? He can’t cancel the banquet entirely—that would be (I’m guessing) bad form—but what he can do is instruct his personal valet to remove the torches that had been illuminating the banquet hall. And that, according to the parable, is what a solar eclipse is like: suddenly aware of some way in which humanity has failed to behave honorably or decorously but not quite prepared to wipe clean the slate as in Noah’s day (and which God had promised never again to do anyway), God simply darkens the sun as a way of expression divine displeasure.

Other sages, however, took a more nuanced view. Rabbi Meir, for example, agreed that both solar and lunar eclipses are bad omens, but solely for the Jewish people not for the entire world. And he too had a parable to back up his lesson. The situation that pertains during an eclipse, he taught, bodes poorly for the Jewish people only because they are m’lummadin b’makkoteihem. That’s not that easy an expression to translate, which even Rabbi Meir apparently thought might be the case. And so he too offered up a parable to make his point a bit clearer. A solar or lunar eclipse, he taught, is like when a teacher comes into the classroom and he is already holding a giant razor strop, the kind that was apparently used in Rabbi Meir’s day to punish school children for their poor behavior. Who gets the most jumpy upon noticing the strop in the teacher’s hand, Rabbi Meir asked rhetorically. And he then answered his own question: the student who is beaten with it the most often gets the most nervous—because that student supposes that the teacher is intending to beat him again. And that is what it means to be m’lummadin b’makkoteihem, as above: Jewish people are so used to suffering and being again and again beaten down, must not it be they specifically who are being prompted to fear the worst when the sun disappears and the world is plunged into darkness? (The words literally mean “well-versed in their own beatings” or something like that.)

Still other rabbis took an even more nuanced approach. Solar eclipses, they opined, are bad news for everybody, whereas eclipses of the moon are meant specifically to augur bad times for the Jewish people. And the rationale behind this approach has its own logic to it: the Gentile nations, who use a solar calendar to count off their years of their lives, are addressed through the solar event, whereas Jews, who maintain a mostly lunar calendar, God admonishes by making the moon disappear briefly from the nighttime sky. And then they go on to discuss solar eclipses, discussing the specific significance of the location of the sun in the sky when the eclipse takes place and assigning specific meaning in terms of the disaster soon to ensue to the hue the sun in eclipse takes on.

And then, as if all this weren’t enough, the Talmud goes on to quote an ancient source that lists the specific sins for which a solar eclipse may reasonably be taken as the divine response. That thought—including the peculiarly modern-sounding horror of people in an urban setting simply ignoring a woman calling out for help in fending off a would-be rapist—founders, though, on the fact that it isn’t correct: people fail to show proper respect for deceased community leaders all the time (another sin on the list) and yet the sun does not go into instant eclipse as a response!

Is there anything to any of this? We moderns understand what eclipses are and why they occur, and we also understand that they are fully naturally phenomena that are not related to, much less triggered by, the behavior of Jewish or non-Jewish terrestrials. As a result, our natural response is to turn away from tradition and make a kind of smug virtue out of feeling grateful that we know better. The Talmud, after all, is filled with ancient ideas about all sorts of things that we moderns, who understand that epilepsy is a disease and not a function of the circumstances under which the epileptic individual was conceived, can only smile at. And, indeed, the Talmud is filled with all sorts of medical observations that no one today considers even remotely to be scientific truths. So it would be more than reasonable just to wave all this away. But I have a different idea I’d like to propose, one a bit less literalist and more fanciful, but also, I think, reasonable.

In a long, fascinating passage towards the end of the talmudic tractate Berakhot, the Talmud offers up a detailed lesson regarding the correct way to interpret dreams. It’s a long passage filled with lots of theories about the meaning of dreams, but the basic principle set forward is that the importance of dreams depends fully on their interpretation. In other words, nothing in a dream means anything at all until the dream is ably interpreted by the kind of oneirocritic trained to offer up that kind of interpretation. So the dream contains solely the meaning we find embedded in it, a principle later to serve as the foundation of Freudian dream analysis. When the Talmud says that a dream left uninterpreted is like a letter left unread, it means precisely that: leaving a dream uninterpreted deprives it of the chance of having any impact on the dreamer at all, just as an unread letter has no potential to affect the person to whom it was addressed at all.

Maybe we should apply that kind of thinking to eclipses. I was in Glen Cove last Monday at 3:18 PM and, looking up at the sky through the special glasses, I saw almost all of the sun disappear behind the moon. As the sky darkened and the temperature fell, I felt the trappings of civilization falling away as I stood there under the sky and watched the sun that defines our lives here in earth darken. I felt small and fully insignificant as the planet on which I was standing and the sun it orbits and the moon that orbits it began their brief cosmic dance. My interpretation of the whole event, therefore, had to do with humility. And with resolve: more than I do usually, I felt the presence of the Earth, alive and not alive at the same time, sturdy yet fragile, immeasurably big yet also cosmically insignificant. And I felt a renewed sense of responsibility for the planet, for its climate and its ozone layer, for its air and its water, for its wellbeing and security. My interpretation of the eclipse, therefore, is that the sun and the moon teamed up to remind us that we are, at best, stewards of this world we inhabit. And that the degree to which we shuck off that feeling of insignificance that the eclipse did its best to instill in us—that will also be the degree to which we have left this rare celestial phenomenon as a letter left unread, as a dream left uninterpreted.

[goetzjpvis]

2/28/24 "Double Suicide" JPT3391

I can't lie- the reading for this was tough. It was a retelling of the story essentially, script and all, but I felt like the analysis was lacking, hidden in between the lines, giving insight upon specific lines and feelings in the moment.

However, the movie, I really liked! But I'm not sure if it was because I was eating yummy food while watching it, or if it was just good... I found a multitude of scenes in this movie really telling, unique, and worth commenting on. I'll go over the camerawork, societal commentary, and also give my own opinions on what I saw.

Firstly, this was the first time I saw "shadowed figures" being used as a narration device! They were used throughout the movie in order to explain things to the reader which they would otherwise not know. These were used during scenes involving non-visible letters and moving parts, and involved essentially *pausing* the movie in order to show these things to the reader. I thought that it was really creative, and was a unique use of practical effects!

Now... what does this movie say societally? To put it bluntly... don't be a simp. This man is the edo version of a guy who spends his life savings on pokimane but simultaneously forgets to buy his wife a christmas present. It was a hard watch! Especially because she was what they considered, at the time, an ideal wife. She conformed to ancient Japan's very unique beauty standards for him, painting her teeth black and removing her eyebrows. His wife, in essence, became a faceless, emotionless doll, only for him to abandon her for a woman that he loves more. What was particularly distubing about this too was that his wife didn't neglect him at all in the sense of wifely duties. She defended him from his family, shouldering the blame, nearly never yelling at him, saying that she loved him and even wanted to have sex with him, providing him food and taking care of his children and business, only for him to not care! The woman that he loved more did none of those things. In a way I guess, this might show that no matter how much of a perfect person you might force yourself to be, you cannot make your way into a man's heart if he simply does not love you. This could be a commentary on Japanese society's gender roles at the time, ridiculing the family unit and its constitutents as the movie is calling the entire structure and those it deems 'perfect' hoopla..

Also, shame on the MC? He does not cry because he cheated on his wife, but rather because he was lied to by a prostitute. He then goes on to dehumanize and villainize the prostitute when the wife herself had to shoulder his neglect alone. Yet, for the first time, when he is wronged, he complains to his wife about it. Typical!!!!!!!!

Lastly, I would love to see Osan and Koharu kiss. I think they'd make a great couple, no joke.

JUMPSCARE!!!!!!!

This camera shot did a great job because it really faces the watcher and just goes "can you see what I have to deal with?". It wordlessly provides great commentary.

[femenaces]

Not ignoring your point, I’m disagreeing with it. I think there is a biological factor to male violence. I’m not saying that’s the only factor, not even that it’s the largest factor—I believe socialization serves as a magnifying effect. But yes, I do believe there is some biological component to male behavior. I think people get freaked out by the suggestion that biology could influence any human behavior at all because they associate it with men making shit up about women and then saying “it’s biological” so they can’t be challenged on it. That doesn’t mean the entire idea that biology could influence some aspects of behavior is wrong, it just means men’s specific self-serving ideas about it are wrong. In my view, humans are animals and while we certainly have much more complex cultural construction abilities compared to other animals, that doesn’t mean we are somehow completely removed from biological factors. To think otherwise is a form of “human exceptionalism,” an ancient and egocentric concept that is taking more and more blows the more research is conducted.

As far as the argument of “but there have been some non-patriarchal cultures,” I don’t think that disproves the idea of there being a biological component to male behavior. Here is what I’ve said before:

After all, like we have both said, humans construct elaborate cultural practices that can significantly influence behavior, even “against the grain” in the right circumstances. But the relative extreme scarcity of any examples of these supposed non-patriarchal, non-misogynistic societies (side note: do you have any sources and examples of these that you can share with me? Genuine request) speaks volumes.

idk how any woman can come out of an anthropology degree without having grown a new third eye about male nature