#Junior Historians

[mariasmemo]

Simplicity

It always amazes me what can catch your eye – even the simplest of things.

After two weeks of our Junior Historians classes – one in July and one in August – our class supply cabinets become a little tired.  There are knots of embroidery thread, shells that have found themselves among beads, a pile of fabric, a jumble of tinsmithing cans.  I love to try and straighten and neaten and organize but I may have met my match in our high school intern (her second summer with us).  She loves organizing and tasked with a huge knot of embroidery thread – this is what she came up with.  She found a few too many needles still in the jumble – which she rescued – but look at this neatness and the colors!  I think William Mitchell would adore this – the colors that is!

JNLF

[theolddivorcedzukka]

a guy just walked into my chem class with a hamilton shirt it’s so OVER

[wileycap]

Things that definitely happened Post-War in ATLA a.k.a. assorted headcanons that really boil down to "wouldn't it be neat/funny if...":

Zuko fought an inordinate amount of Agni Kais, to the point that some of the junior officials ended up thinking that it's custom to fight the Fire Lord every once in a while. He was notable for both never losing, and never seriously injuring his opponent.

Aang and Katara helped with the reformation of Ba Sing Se. They became friends with Joo Dee. Katara helped her regain her own memories, and her own name. Some of the women formerly known as 'Joo Dee' formed a theatre troupe, which produced highly subversive counterculture plays. Their anti-authoritarian nonconformist plays became a huge cultural movement, though they did face a fair amount of criticism from the more traditional groups. Aang loved them, and the patronage of the Avatar definitely helped them grow. They also produced a play on the history of the Air Nomads, at the request of Aang. Aang, of course, helped write it.

Sokka once hit his thumb with a hammer. This led to the invention of the nail gun, powered by pressurized air. Aang spent over four days bending air into canisters and pressurizing them. The invention never saw widespread use. The day after it was complete, Sokka drove a nail through his thumb.

That one old guy who ratted out Haru for being an earthbender stubbed his toe every single day for the rest of his life.

Lieutenant Jee resigned his commission. He requested that Zuko accept his resignation in person, and Zuko was happy to oblige. The moment his resignation was official, he went on a 45-minute tirade attacking the Fire Lord, which was never written down in its' entirety, but was described as "extremely vulgar, even for a sailor" by attendees, and mostly had to do with their time on Zuko's ship.

Toph actually ended up having a great relationship with her mom after a long and harrowing process. She competed in a couple more Earth Rumbles, and her mother was in the audience, cheering. She never really got along with her father, after the whole "hire two guys to kidnap her by any means necessary"-thing.

Momo started several diplomatic incidents. Future historians would forever puzzled by the many mentions of this mysterious 'Momo' in official documents, with the theory that Momo was the Avatar's pet being dismissed by the leading historians. Clearly, Momo was some sort of rebel leader - perhaps a Water Tribe extremist?

[botanphal]

THE VIVIBELLA BIBLE IS HERE AND IT’S QUEER

ENJOY

PREFACE

so you’re probably wondering. What is this weird sapphic tirade of 3K words? Well, this “note bible” was originally something I was going to keep for myself but figured others may want to see it too. This document is similar to a character bible, hence the name, except it’s more of a deep dive into two particular characters, strung out like notes. Please keep in mind that this document does not go into every idea I’ve had about these two but is more or less the basic ideas for the sake of consistency. This goes over canon and non-canon information which are separated so you know what’s true vs my own interpretations, though depending on which version of this post you’re reading, you may notice that there’s only canon information—which is more or less to let you have your own ideas from their purely canon-selves without the inspiration of my own non-canon ideas—the cut version of this document is also considerably smaller (1.7K). If you’re not on the canon cut version, then obviously the previous statement can be ignored. Regardless, I hope you have fun reading!

BOTANPHAL/PALIN’S VIVIBELLA BIBLE

LINKS

Just some links to their actual profiles for ease of access, as well as quotes and their theme music

Goombella:

https://www.mariowiki.com/Goombella

https://www.mariowiki.com/List_of_Goombella_quotes

https://youtu.be/1EmkKFaT7V4?si=erWshNwVBU5sfbo_

Vivian:

https://www.mariowiki.com/Vivian

https://www.mariowiki.com/List_of_Paper_Mario:_The_Thousand-Year_Door_quotes_by_character_(S–Z)

https://youtu.be/6WubRL1mPlQ?si=cY_tWs5TwyKZsr39

ESTABLISHING THE IDIOTS

let’s get down the gist of these sillies!

Goombella:

A junior at the university of Goom majoring in Archeology and seems to also consider herself a historian

- sassy, genuinely seems like she’d bite people’s fingers off sometimes

- nerd (but would backfire if you called her that given the note above)

- confident (of course, there are moments where she loses this but most of the time she seems rather self-actualized about things)

- kind, but does tend to poke fun at others (I can’t believe she called Koops cringe)

- curious

- knowledgeable (though she does make her mistakes regarding things like being fooled by Doopliss)

- excitable (after reading her dialogue over and over she uses a LOT of exclamation points. Girl calm down)

- kind of a hot head at times and jealous type, especially with how Ms. Mowz goes after Mario (Goombella definitely had a crush on him as well) and snaps back a lot though this could just be related to her mentioned sass

- this isn’t so much a character trait but she says “totally” a lot as well as “oh my gosh” which this one may be a catchphrase

Non-canon interpretations:

- has ADHD, needs meds or she loses her mind and becomes scrambled (top of the line “gifted” kid)

- possibly has a fear of heights given her comments at Hooktail’s castle making her nervous

- most Goombas seem to have two prominent fangs so I assume she’s missing one

- half Australian and half Maltese (has slightly an Australian accent but mostly sounds American)

- intersex, given Goombas are based off of mushrooms (and also chestnuts but I digress) and mushrooms are intersex, took estrogen to appear more feminine and identifies as a woman (this still applies to her gijinka, just that her species of demi-human is also all intersex)

- futch (femme/butch, will wear either or-or dress equal)

- has a lot of (unsuccessful) relationship experience which adds to her anxiety about her feelings for Vivian, specifically having dated three other people

- Full name is (Goom)Bellami Alessia Bones (Goom is a family title and not actually required to say, though she prefers to be called Bella than Bellami)

- 21 years old (while she has no confirmed age her being in her early 20s makes the most sense given she’s a Junior at university)

- has an earthy/dirt yet flowery scent

- has a cut on her right eyebrow

- loves savory flavors but occasionally enjoys spicy and sweet (Goombas have a main diet of meat so she tends to eat a lot of that)

- executive dysfunction sometimes causes her to not clean herself, but if someone complains then she will (she tends to carry around a perfume bottle)

- pansexual (possibly a coping lesbian)

- (gijinka) is missing the majority of her right forearm though she has a prosthetic for it (was born like that) and is missing almost all of her left arm aside for the shoulder (incidental)

- swears fairly often

Vivian:

Youngest of the three shadow sirens/sisters with the ability to use fire magic

- shy/somewhat reserved (opens up more later on, still shy but less reserved)

- cutesy (how the fuck did she speak with a heart symbol in one of her quotes)

- graceful

- polite

- sweet/kind (there should be no mistake to how far Vivian’s forgiveness goes considering she’s willing to forgive her own family that abused her for years—Vivian disowning them is not something Vivian herself would do)

- empathetic/sympathetic (I think about her random glitz pit dialogue a lot and how she worries if her and Mario did a bit too much on the enemies. But also she sometimes says “NO MERCY” she’s so silly)

- curious (moreso about most things being new to her due to being sheltered by her sisters for so long)

- submissive, though gains some confidence later on (this is just my own take but I feel like it’d take her longer than it does in-game to be more confident given the severity and length of abuse she experienced)

- struggles with an inferiority complex (this is actually a canon thing and made mention of) at the hands of her sisters abuse

- says “gee whiz” a lot, might be a catchphrase

- tends to stutter when nervous (possibly easy to fluster, especially considering she likely has not received a lot of compliments in her life)

Non-canon interpretations:

- possibly has athazagoraphobia (the fear of being forgotten) or just has general struggles with the concept

- given her trauma (mental/emotional abuse, unsure if there’s ever been physical though in one of the translations of the game Beldam apparently starved her, neglect from Marilyn), she probably would struggle with depression, anxiety and PTSD

- dysphoric, obviously feels better about herself the further into her transitioning (something about Vivian makes me feel like she’d struggle with dysphoria—it’s already a lesser discussed topic among fictional transwomen and given Vivian’s upbringing I think it’d make sense that she particularly has this and would make mention of it)

- she’s autistic and I can’t exactly explain why but someday I will (this very well could be projection uhhh. Anyway she probably doesn’t even know she has it or what it is, has had struggles to learn magic as the ways her sisters were trying to teach her weren’t working for her)

- demisexual-biromantic (I feel like it just makes sense for her to be this way given how she warms up to Mario and the same would apply to Goombella)

- has a beautiful singing voice partially learned from vocal training herself, however she is also called a shadow siren

- a piece of the Shadow Queen, her future

- has no exact ethnicity hc aside for being black as a gijinka, she’s something else entirely and can speak all languages (including sign language and braille) but mainly speaks English and Latin (if she were to be an actual human she’d be Eritrean and Sammarinese)

- femme (specifically loves to wear flowy things like dresses and skirts, the most “masculine” thing she’d wear is a suit)

- Has no full name, simply known as Vivian (if her and Goombella were to marry then she’d be Vivian Bones :flushed:)

- 20 years old

- has a smoldering lavender scent

- (gijinka) actually lost one of her legs while learning to veil, simply conjured up a convincing new one that she can freely remove

- can swear, refuses to do so (she’s too nice and polite the silly thing)

- is a pure-magical being so she requires frequent mana consumption to live, fire flowers are her favorite thing to use for this

- unaffected by fire and heat, can touch it without pain, body temperature is always high, only sweats when she’s sick, it’s very unusual for her to feel cold

- loves sweet, spicy and hot flavored things

- very clean, loves to shower or bathe (sometimes very atmospheric about it with hot water and candles)

- I like to think that she becomes a bookworm and wants to learn more about magic, but also reads up on psychology after the things she’s been put through

- shadow’s eyes are extremely sensitive to light, their hats have magical properties that keep them safe and shadow over them, without it she can only open her eyes in complete pitch-darkness, otherwise she keeps them closed (their gloves also work as buffers for their magic to make spells less intense, they’re sorta limiters in a way, Vivian especially has to wear them due to having fire powers and well… fire is commonly seen as destruction more than life)

- left handed, can use right okay

- knows how to cauterize wounds using her magic

- during new moons her appearance changes to more resemble the Shadow Queen, gaining more shades of purple and little stars speckling all over her, as well as having her eyes always shown

HOW THE FUCK DID WE GET HERE?

vivibella stems from Goombella’s tattle dialogue during the first battle with the three shadow sirens as shown:

note that this dialogue varies from the original GameCube version of the game compared to the Switch remake above:

unfortunate how the dialogue was nerfed compared to the original, making her seem jealous rather than having some kind of sapphic awakening but now I think of it as she’s deflecting what she’s feeling

DYNAMICS

- has a sort of opposites attract kinda thing going on, Goombella being the more open and expressive one while Vivian is the shy and reserved one

- enemies to friends to lovers

- love triangle (for the fact they both had a crush on Mario at one point but Goombella never seemed to be bothered by Vivian’s feelings for him unlike how she’s felt about the other women pining after him, she probably respects Vivian’s feelings for him given what he meant to her)

- the studier (Goombella) and one to be studied (Vivian) idk if there’s an actual name for this dynamic but I went into this concept a bit in this tweet:

- yapper x listener (I don’t think I have to explain who is who)

THAT ITALIAN GUY

Before we get into the meat of vivibella, it must be understood what Mario meant to these two. As it goes in TTYD, Mario for some reason is just a MAGNET for ladies and Goombella and Vivian are no exception to this, most of the female characters seem to express having a crush on him but let’s take a look at them individually:

Goombella particularly seems to fall under having a crush on him but she’s rather dismissive of it/acts like she doesn’t in a teasing way. She expresses jealousy whenever other female characters pursue him (think of Flurrie and Ms. Mowz, even speculates on Lady Bow post-game) but doesn’t with Vivian, likely due to the fact that Vivian doesn’t express her feelings for him around anyone (aside for the finale) considering during Chapter 4 it’s only her and Mario together when she kisses him—we don’t exactly know how Goombella would feel about Vivian’s feelings for Mario, but I think she’d probably be the most respectful to her given the things she’s been through and how Mario helped her open up and improve. During her letter to Mario at the end of the game, she talks about a “secret” which I imagine has to do with her crush on him, but she doesn’t follow through with it likely due to Mario’s pursuit of Peach

Vivian and Mario have a much deeper relationship compared to all the female characters that fall for him. Vivian definitely has a crush on him but also seems to actually be in love with him given the events that transpire; Mario helping her through her trauma and accepting her without question and also being a lending hand to someone in need despite his own troubles at the time of having lost his name, body and trusted companions. Even after realizing who he is and leaving given that he was her enemy at a certain point, she comes back upon realizing what he showed her and valued that over everything else as being the first person to EVER be kind to her. She turned her back on her family for him. During the final battle Vivian attempts to confess to him as well as during the end of the game when he’s leaving, but hesitates again due to the fact that she knows that he’d choose Peach and even thinks that the two would make a great couple. I’m sure it would be hard for Vivian to move on from him, he’s probably the first person she’s ever loved in such a way and again, he’s the first person to show her real kindness

THINKING TOO HARD

Goombella is obviously the one to crush first given her tattle dialogue, she may be kinda sassy about her feelings for her when teased by others but when she’s actually around Vivian she’s more reserved and anxious due to her shy and gentle nature, in some ways I feel like she may fear possibly scaring Vivian away by being too forward and is also afraid of the possible rejection as she’s aware of Vivian’s feelings for Mario despite him eventually not being in the picture (and of course possibly being unaware to the fact that Vivian is bi). Goombella’s probably very likely a girlfail and a fumbler when it comes to flirting but god if she isn’t confident about it and Vivian finds it endearing. I think it makes the most sense for her to confess later on as I’m sure she probably reaches some form of boiling point and just drops all her words out after being unable to hide it anymore (Vivian doesn’t like to assume things about others typically so that’s why I don’t see her confessing first instead)

Goombella falls first but I feel like Vivian would fall harder as the two of them grow closer, Vivian already experienced rejection from Mario so in some ways she probably wasn’t expecting to find successful love anytime soon nor in a more similar way to how Mario was with her. Of course, Goombella isn’t exactly like him at all but the kindness and patience is still there, albeit with some attitude which Vivian doesn’t mind. I think it would take a bit for Vivian to catch onto Goombella and her own feelings given her experience with Mario. This being her second experience with love, she’s definitely very inexperienced regarding all of it which is why she holds back. With my hc of Goombella having been through her own form of transition, a lot of comfort is to be found there for Vivian as they’re somewhat similar due to that. I don’t think Vivian really knows how to flirt but she’d give lots of compliments and do gestures, she’s also a girlfail but in a graceful way and tries not to show it, she’s kinda a secret dork (and I mean. With the fact she stutters when nervous. There isn't anyway this girl isn't also a girlfail of her own like come on now)

Regarding my own lore, I like to think that these two live together in Goombella’s Uni dorm after the events of TTYD. Vivian switches on Fridays to live with her sisters then back with Goombella the following Friday so on and so forth to help rebuild a healthy connection with them while with Goombella she explores herself given she’s been stuck with her sisters for so long. Their situation isn’t helped by the fact that they have to share a bed due to the limitations of Goombella’s Uni dorm size, though it is fancier as it’s more like an apartment with separate rooms, (basically consists of two small bedrooms, the other bedroom being her roommate’s, a living space and kitchen combo as well as a bathroom) still small though

Goombella tends to go to Flurrie for advice regarding her feelings for Vivian, while Vivian goes to Lady Bow after forming a friendship sometime after TTYD’s events. I also like to think that Flurrie and Lady Bow end up coming together to scheme about the two of them (neither are aware of this until they start dating)

Their relationship builds off of living together and Vivian learning about herself, Goombella there to guide her as someone who already knows her own life and the steps she took to get to where she’s at—the two spend a lot of time together obviously and Goombella strives to try and get something out of the two of them than just a friendship given her own growing feelings, even if it takes being more patient

Even on the weeks when Vivian’s living with her sisters Goombella tends to visit her and hang out, sometimes sleeping over as well. Vivian along the way starts to realize how Goombella’s care for her is much deeper than she originally thinks it is—in some ways Vivian already feels inspired by someone like her who is so confident and self assured, she could use someone like her to give her a nudge in the right direction

They probably even go out on adventures together which further strengthens their bond, which of course may stir up trouble and that leaves room for needing to rely on each other or help each other in such times of need (who doesn’t love some hurt and comfort mmmm)

CLOSING STATEMENT

Anyway, that’s really all I have though I have a feeling that even AFTER publishing this I’ll be still tweaking this until the day I die. I love these two very much if that uh….. Isn’t obvious at all. uh huh. I hope you gained some kind of enjoyment and understanding out of all this gay nonsense from these strange little sapphic creatures that have been rotting my brain for months :3

the canon version of this post will come out soon! This just took so long to do I’m going to explode rn

[stari-hun]

No Storm: Time Traveler AU

Isokania (and their horrible no good bad college situationship that forces them both to become separate people)

In my first Ramble, I mentioned how Kakania and Isolde grew up together in a boarding school. Both of their parents are historians, but the Dittarsdorfs have an actual connection to nobility and are still technically noble. Just like the original story, they met through Theopil during the time he was free to introduce the two, and just like the original story, they became instant best friends. Inevitably they were sent to the same catholic school boarding school together. The two of them were very isolated to one another too, as Kakania would struggle to make friends from her quick reputation as a troublemaker, and Isolde held no interest in others outside of Kakania. Since Isolde and her were already close, Kakania didn’t even notice the way she lacked other friends or human interaction. Later after they graduated, Kakania had already heard of the concepts of mental health resources from others, and decided to become a psychiatrist. From there, Kakania heard about Laplace’s education programs, and as an arcanist who would already have ties to the Foundation in the future, she decided to go to them. Isolde, who wanted to stay with Kakania, convinced Mr Dittarsdorf to send her as well for a degree in fine arts when Kakania got a scholarship. (After her first semester, Isolde was also given a full-ride scholarship for her talent).

✰.

Kakania began to struggle in college after seeing the community in Laplace between students and the staff. (Laplace has a separate building for college and the actual research center.) Kakania would struggle because she was friends with Isolde and only Isolde for years, and Isolde never held Kakania to the expectations of a healthy friendship. Isolde had been in love with Kakania since they first locked eyes, so she never held her to the same expectation of care or consideration that Isolde would show her. Isolde saw everything Kakania did under rose tinted glasses to the point that she didn’t care about her being pushy or careless with her. Meanwhile Kakania didn’t even know what area of the campus Isolde took classes in until she had offered to meet her so Kakania could do a mock therapy session for class. Kakania would remember people's birthdays, but she'd never ask about their hobbies or their experiences in life until it was something she was personally interested in. If Isolde got a cat, Kakania wouldn't know until she went into Isolde’s part of the house because she was doing an interview for her psych class. Despite living together, their friendship also matched the way it did when they were kids at opposite ends of the neighborhood. 

Kakania began to struggle more and more socially when people would cut her off from seemingly nowhere according to her. Meanwhile Isolde formed a small group of friends with Tooth Fairy, Jiu, and Windsong before she met Tooth Fairy’s juniors from the SPDM’s Guidance Program: Medicine Pocket and Mesmer Jr. Isolde would always keep a level of distance between them which Tooth Fairy would notice.

✰.

In their second year, Kakania and Isolde began to get closer than ever because of Kakania’s isolation in her program. No person in her classes or even program would consider Kakania a friend, and the inability to keep a friend began to wear on her. She was able to get through her first year while burying her head into her coursework, but by the start of the second it became too much. It all accumulated into the midterm of their first semester when Isolde suggested they celebrate passing midterms together with a platonic date night in their living room. After ordering takeout using Kakania’s accounts so Mr Dittarsdorf wouldn’t catch Isolde having junk foods, they end up making out. Isolde, who had known she was a lesbian since she was a child, was having her dream relationship with the girl she loved since they met at 15. Meanwhile Kakania, upon her first kiss being a woman, had to reevaluate her entire sexuality and outlook on life, or if she even loved Isolde. By the time the break between semesters was about to start, Kakania realized she didn’t love Isolde and decided to break it off before things got too serious. Naturally, Isolde melts down because unlike Kakania thought, she had loved her, and for a while she had resolved herself to simply be friends with Kakania until she could “fix” her. But after their kiss and dating for months before the semester ended, Isolde realized she couldn’t stay friends anymore. 

✰.

Kakania ended up moving into the student dorms while Isolde stayed with Tooth Fairy for a few weeks while ignoring everything from her phone. Her ignoring calls got to the point that Theopil visited her after class one day because she hadn’t contact anyone since the breakup. (He left only after giving her a gift box she later opened to see full of pounds for when she couldn’t use her credit card without Mr Dittarsdorf finding out). Isolde being forced to actually open up to others after showing up at Tooth Fairy’s apartment the evening of the breakup because she couldn’t go home to Kakania. Even though she’s still in a daze during her time at school, she has the talent to match her grades without trying. Isolde starts to form an outer circle of friends, and Tooth Fairy reassured her that people can be safe while helping her not just switch dependencies from Kakania to her. She starts becoming better friends with Jiu and Windsong, and even Mesmer Jr and Medicine Pocket now that she’s not masking over enjoyment whenever they meet. 

✰.

Kakania starts to feel the absence of Isolde in her life even more as she’s left alone. Now that she’s thinking about Isolde actively, she realizes all the unhealthy things she did with her while Kakania didn’t notice. She starts to reflect on the way that she was also dependent on Isolde as her rock to reassure her that her actions were right. Without her, and the way things were going in her social life, Kakania was at a total loss of how to move forward. 

Kakania started the new semester in a daze, but can’t keep up with schoolwork just off of groundbreaking talent. Eventually, her counselor meets with her to tell her how she’s in danger of losing her scholarship and it manages to snap her out of it just enough to go to a tutoring club. With her delusions of grandeur shattered, she meets Blonney, Horropedia, and An-An Lee. Three film majors with two as double majors for mechanical engineering and cultural studies. Kakania, who is quick to make friends but never keeps them, makes fast friends with the study group. But with Blonney, she started getting actual feedback about her treatment of others. Kakania is a lot of things, but she sees the way Blonney is never mean to anyone who hasn’t deserved it. So when Blonney starts checking her for the careless way she treats people, she has no choice but to listen. Even worse, Kakania starts to realize how little she knew about Isolde, despite the decade they knew one another, or the fact the entire campus thought they were the ideal couple during their 2 months of dating.

✰.

After their last semester starts, Kakania wants to see Isolde but realizes she didn’t know where her main classes would be. The only class she does know the location of was a prerequisite from a year ago. As Kakania starts spiraling farther, she realizes how much she didn't know about Isolde. But Tooth Fairy and Jiu are like Medicine Pocket, once they’ve made a friend they know need extra security, they’re a guard dog. Medicine Pocket is the type to bite on sight to harass someone to go away, but Tooth’s disappointment is like a knife to those who upset her. So to someone like Kakania who brushes off aggressive people as without sense meets their match with someone like Tooth Fairy. Kakania can brush off someone like Medicine Pocket even if they have good points purely off of being aggressive out of the gate, but for Tooth Fairy she can’t help but deflate while trying to ask about Isolde’s schedule to meet her. Tooth Fairy barely holding back a fist when she tells Kakania that she needs to reevaluate how good a friend she even was to Isolde because people like Kakania need to heal on their own through feedback from others, but people like Isolde need community support to assure her she isn’t alone in her struggle.

✰.

By the time they graduated, Kakania went back up to full honors, but she knew that while she was smart she had to get there from her own efforts instead of believing she was a genius. One of Kakania’s teacher gives her a recommendation letter for a counselor position in the SPDM, and she accepts. Meanwhile, Isolde was cutting off the Dittarsdorf name. After she opened up to others, one of the first things Windsong recommended was to change her home address to Tooth Fairy’s long before diplomas were sent out.

✰.

Kakania spends the next 5 years working as a counselor for the SPDM and learning how to work with the mental health of teens. While working together with Tooth Fairy for long enough to gain a friendly understanding with, she doesn’t learn about Isolde’s whereabouts even though she knows Blonney and Horropedia are friends with Tooth. Most of the time she gets to know Isolde is ok, and very rarely she’ll learn a tidbit about what she’s doing. When she sees of the Dittarsdorfs’ death in the newspapers, Kakania considers going, but she decides against it because Isolde had never reached out to her to reconnect. Luckily for her, Kakania stayed back just in time to receive a job offer from a famous institute for the research of mental health. 

Isolde was busy with her music and career as a singer. During her time in school she found she enjoyed jazz over opera, so she’d work gigs around town with both, and after Windsong showed her how she started uploading songs online too. 

Then Isolde received news of her father and mother’s death and the date for the funeral alongside it. After talking with her friends she decided to go if only to see Theopil again. She arrived a month before the funeral began to help and sort her business with the house. The month went by quickly as the funeral proceeded with Theopil alongside a few close family friends (Mr Karl barred from entering). Theopil was driving her to the train station home before the crash happened, and Isolde had another funeral to plan. As the last person with the Dittarsdorf name along with being in an accident, Isolde was forced to stay even longer, and with the legal rights to the house she stayed in her childhood home. After Theopil’s funeral ended Isolde still stayed in the house to figure out what to do with it, and before she knew it a year had passed. By then she had sold everything in the house that wasn’t of sentimental value or furniture before turning it over to the city as a historical museum following the Dittarsdorf line. Despite her hiatus from singing in person consistently, Isolde got an invitation to the US to become a singer in a well-respected jazz club, so she decided to begin her story of tomorrow in the States.

✰.

Over the next decade, Kakania worked her way up the corporate ladder in the research institute in the same way Isolde worked her way up to be a household name. While working at the research institute, as people try to get to know her, Kakania begins to have gender and sexuality crisis number two when they try to set her up with other people. Kakania never knew about Isolde’s shift into jazz because she couldn’t bear listening to her songs after realizing how much she had hurt her alongside how she realized she had loved her all this time. By the time she had turned 32, Kakania decided to focus more on children's mental health so that someone like Isolde would never go without help again. She especially focused on getting rid of the stigma that therapy meant there was a problem in order to have more children of affluent families sent to therapy. Before she knew it, Kakania was 35 and considered one of the top therapists in Europe for teens. Then she was invited to a national summit for her expertise in New York planned for right after her 36th birthday.

✰.

When she arrived for the week long convention, Kakania couldn't help but feel homesick. Despite not going home to Vienna for years, there was a difference between being a day’s trip away and being an entire ocean away. After hearing about the chance to find different cultures she could find in New York, she asked around if anyone had heard of a place to get Viennese food. From there she found out about a certain jazz bar nearby that had a live band during dinners, food from all over Austria, and a live singer on weekends who was supposedly the reason many people stayed in the hotel in the first place. The first time Kakania goes she ends up crying the first time she has dinner there after her conference panels from a mix of stress building up and homesickness. Kakania begins to eat there every day for the entire week the summit lasts, even ordering lunch from the bar when she has the chance between meetings. She even decided to stay later in the US, and catch a Saturday morning flight instead of pushing herself by leaving the second the convention ended. As she was enjoying dinner the lights went off as the stage crew announced the jazz club’s performer would be coming on shortly, and as Kakania readied herself to see her first performance in America, she saw someone she never stopped thinking about for the first time in years.

✰.

Fun Facts about them in the story:

Kakania got through the first year and a half of college through her good memory, but she learned in her last semester while struggling that it only works when she’s tuned in. If she doesn’t pay attention to someone’s words, her good memory with them means nothing.

Tooth is in college in order to get another certification, her degree only took 2 years because she was only a part time student in order to continue working at the SPDM.

The entire Dittarsdorf family showed up to Isolde’s graduation, but Evangeline praised her as Trista in front of Windsong and Vila, and Mr Dittarsdorf quickly left early to escort Evangeline out. Theopil stayed for an hour meeting her friends before handing her another chunk of cash “just in case.”

Isolde spent 2 months out of the year she spent back home transcribing Trista and Theopil’s lullaby into music sheets and online recordings of it so they could be played in the house even though they had passed.

Kakania’s therapist scolds her frequently for ignoring her own signs of stress, and the way she pushes herself too far to help others.

[flagbridge]

The Raoul (de Chagny) Navy: An Exploration of the Vicomte's Naval Background:

Our beloved Vicomte, Raoul de Chagny, is a young junior officer in the French Navy ("le Royale"), but this hardly gets much exploration. It's a detail that is often glossed over--I anticipate because Naval historians and Phans often do not have much Venn diagram overlap--until now. Let's just say my username is a Naval reference.

Note: the "Raoul Navy" is not my invention--our hilarious and wise "Phantom Dark Web" friends at Leroux Less Traveled (incl. @box5intern) came up with it, and I love it.

I've started digging into book Raoul and his Naval background and turns out we are missing out a whole lot about Raoul's character background if we don't dig into it. So I'm going to tell you what the book tells us and what that means. I'm going to give you the overall pieces up front, and then explain:

Raoul looks very young and feminine (except for his "little" mustache, which he effectively has grown to prove that he can)--and everyone treats him like a baby

Raoul at this point has already completed three years of Naval training including a world tour, so he is fairly experienced and even worldly for his age. He is described in the French as a "cadet", but he would likely be a sub-lieutenant at this point since he has graduated from the Naval Academy.

He's on a six month leave before going on a very dangerous mission to recover remains of a lost Arctic mission--a mission he himself is unlikely to return from.

And everyone still treats him like he's a baby (especially the old dowager widows), even though he has had quite a bit of life at this point--so he has something to prove.

What we know about Raoul and the Navy (Here is the English):

"He was admirably assisted in this work first by his sisters and afterward by an old aunt, the widow of a naval officer, who lived at Brest and gave young Raoul a taste for the sea. The lad entered the Borda training-ship, finished his course with honors and quietly made his trip round the world. Thanks to powerful influence, he had just been appointed a member of the official expedition on board the Requin, which was to be sent to the Arctic Circle in search of the survivors of the D'Artois expedition, of whom nothing had been heard for three years. Meanwhile, he was enjoying a long furlough which would not be over for six months; and already the dowagers of the Faubourg Saint-Germain were pitying the handsome and apparently delicate stripling for the hard work in store for him."

We also learn in another paragraph that the de Chagnys had admiral in the family, so the Naval connection is likely a family business for second sons. Raoul is a second son, so a career as a military officer would have been a distinguished career for him.

Borda: First ship

Brest is the main port of the French Navy and home of the Ecole Navale (or French Naval Academy. In the 20th Century it moved, but Brest is still, along with Toulon, a major naval base)

According to the French: Le jeune homme entra au Borda, en sortit dans les premiers numéros et accomplit tranquillement son tour du monde (Note that the French calls him a "young man", not a lad)

The Borda is traditionally the training ship of the French Navy, and there have been six of them. This would have been a cadet/midshipman cruise for Raoul. He would have been on the ex-Valmy, an 120-gun ship of the line, which became the Borda training ship in 1864.

The Borda is also the ship of the Ecole Navale (French Naval Academy)—this means that Raoul attended the academy.

The Naval Academy is two years in Brest, and then their third year is the World Tour—so that timing also aligns with where we are in the book. Raoul would have begun at the academy at 18, and he is at the start of the book, 21 years old.

After the Borda, which he completed with honors, he did an uneventful world tour.

This would have been his third year, still as a midshipman.

He could have been assigned to any ship for this training cruise—possibly a cruiser (the d'Estang is pictured below in 1884 in Algiers), which did long range missions. Note: Their max speed was about 15 Knots (which is a very respectable speed that some warships still transit).

This world tour cold have been as far east as what is now Vietnam, or through the Suez--but likely near French colonies.

With influence, he is assigned to the Requin expedition.

French: Grâce à de puissants appuis, il venait d'être désigné pour faire partie de l'expédition officielle du Requin, qui avait mission de rechercher dans les glaces du pôle les survivants de l'expédition du d'Artois, dont on n'avait pas de nouvelles depuis trois ans.

The Requin was a real ship in the Mediterranean fleet, but did not go on its first mission until 1885, which means that this is a deliberate or unintentional oversight of either Leroux himself or his narrator. The Requin was a steel hull—and the Artois was actually a 18th century Royal Navy ship so this piece is a complete fabrication. However, Arctic missions at this time were frequent and tended not to go well.

However, Raoul could also be excited about getting to go on a new steel-hulled ship. The Redoutable was already in commission—commissioned in 1876.  Most of the rest of the fleet at this point were ironclads.

[a-very-tired-jew]

Let's Talk Expertise

This will anger some people, like my age post did, but it also needs to be said and is about something I have been seeing consistently. If you are in your undergrad and taking major courses, you are not an expert on the subject material, let alone the profession itself. You are a student who is just building their foundational knowledge for your chosen field. You have not accumulated enough knowledge on the subject matter to speak from a place of expertise, nor have you learned enough to parse through the nuance of your chosen field or reached any of the milestones to be considered as such. There's a reason why we actually have an expertise system here in the USA that is paired with the legal system and our government employment system. If you go onto a government job site and look at their listings you will see some combination of Degree, Degree + Experience, Degree + Equivalent Experience and Amount of Time. What does this mean? It means that if a job is asking for someone with a Master's degree in a specific field they will consider individuals with the appropriate degree, but they will also consider people with a Bachelor's degree and the equivalent amount of time and/or experience in their field that makes them as knowledgeable as the MS candidate. The reason for the Time/Experience component is that not everyone pursues a graduate degree, but that does not mean they lack the knowledge required. However, there is an equivalency in Time/Experience to those graduate degrees and the special knowledge they impart. This gets even more complicated in higher levels when a position is asking for a PhD + 10 years of experience, that means a BS might be right out unless they have 20+ years of experience and an MS might need 15-20 years alone. In my time as a professor I have seen scores of undergrads present themselves as their major professions when they haven't even finished their junior year. Sometimes it's benign so that they can puff up in mixed company. Other times? Not so much. Several years ago I saw an undergrad present themselves as a psychologist that was "recovering traumatic memories" and got a multitude of people falsely accused of various violent crimes. This culminated in several court cases where the student had to admit they were falsely representing themself as an expert and therefore falsely producing "evidence". In light of the ongoing conflict I have seen a number of blogs on here present themselves as historians/experts on various related subject matter, while openly admitting that they are undergrad students and/or do not work in any capacity relating to the material. The latter can be fine up to a point, but if you are not working in your field and it comes to being an expert according to the GS and/or Daubert Standards, you most likely are not making the cut. The person regularly publishing papers and working as the profession will be considered the expert over you. If all you have is a few papers to your name and no other activities relating to the subject...well it's not a good look to be considered an expert. "AVTP this is elitist! Not everyone can go to college/grad school on *subject matter*" That's right. Not everyone can go to school for psychology, history, ecology, polisci, let alone go and make it their career. These people are not experts then. Plain and simple. You don't get to call yourself an expert because you listen to podcasts or do deep dives on Wikipedia. (And note, this is not about the blogs who are posting about how they did a hyper fixation deep dive on frog naming nomenclature when they were in high school. I am talking about the persons who are presenting themselves as knowledgeable authorities and using phrases like "As a *insert specialist field here*" while they pick courses for their sophomore/junior/senior year.)

[blorbocedes]

From a previous anon that said James wanted to kick logan out of his driver’s program… thats actually not true.

Logan did some testing for Merc (before he was a williams academy driver) and James didn’t want to sign him to the mercedes program.

Logan ended up not signing a merc junior contract and neither party was happy with the tests. A bit later Williams picked him up as their academy driver. This was before James was affiliated with Williams and James has went on the record to say that he was wrong to not sign Logan to a merc program but is happy it worked out so Logan went to Williams.

-signed your favorite logan historian

🤓👆from our resident logie shooter

[camisoledadparis]

THIS DAY IN GAY HISTORY

based on: The White Crane Institute's 'Gay Wisdom', Gay Birthdays, Gay For Today, Famous GLBT, glbt-Gay Encylopedia, Today in Gay History, Wikipedia, and more … January 22

1561 – On this date, the English statesmen, essayist and philosopher Sir Francis Bacon was born in London (d.1626). His influence over the James I, who held Bacon in high favor, inspired resentment or apprehension in many of his peers. He is best known for his philosophical works concerning the acquisition of knowledge and the general "scientific method."

He was also extremely fond of men. As the British scholar Rictor Norton points out that Bacon did not marry until the late age of forty-eight, and that contemporary figures, such as John Aubrey, related that Bacon was by preference homosexual. Aubrey noted "He was a Pederast. His Ganimeds and Favourites tooke Bribes". He was known for his preference for the "young Welsh serving-men" who were in his employ and who Bacon became a patron to. Rictor points out most a "young Tobie Matthew, who was left only a ring to the value of £30, but who had become Sir Tobie through Bacon's efforts, and who was well able to care for himself." Tobie was the inspiration for one of Bacon's most famous essays, "Of Friendship."

Several other authors also believe that despite his marriage Bacon was primarily attracted to the same sex. Professor Forker, for example, has explored the "historically documentable sexual preferences" of both King James and Bacon —and concluded they were both oriented to "masculine love", a contemporary term that "seems to have been used exclusively to refer to the sexual preference of men for members of their own gender." The Jacobean antiquarian, Sir Simonds D'Ewes even implied there had been a question of bringing Bacon to trial for buggery.

Indeed, evidence of Bacon's fondness for "red-cheeked lads from Wales" survives in the form of a letter written by Bacon's own mother, in which she complains about the long list of "servants and envoys" who find their way to his bed. She refers to a gay Spanish envoy as "that bloody Perez and bed companion of my son."

Bacon was knighted in 1603, and created both the Baron Verulam in 1618, and the Viscount St Alban in 1621; as he died without heirs both peerages became extinct upon his death. He famously died of pneumonia contracted while studying the effects of freezing on the preservation of meat.

1788 – Romantic poet George Gordon, Lord Byron was born in London (d.1824). It's funny how Byron comes down to us as the über-heterosexual romantic, but the evidence of his deep same-sex love is very clear (if still denied by homophobic historians).While he was still a child, Lord Grey, a suitor of his mother's, made sexual advances to Byron. Although Byron was a very self-centered individual, it is probable that like most children, he would have been deeply disturbed by these sexual advances. His extreme reaction to seeing his mother flirting outrageously with Lord Grey after the incident suggests this; he did not tell her of Gray's conduct toward him, he simply refused to speak to him again and ignored his mother's commands to be reconciled.

Byron's later proclivity for, and experimentation in, bisexuality may be a result of his being sexually imprinted by both genders at an early age. Leslie Marchand, one of Byron's biographers, controversially theorizes that Lord Grey's advances prompted Byron's later sexual liaisons with young men at Harrow and Cambridge. Another biographer, Fiona MacCarthy, has posited that Byron's true sexual yearnings were for adolescent males.

While at Harrow school, Byron formed a circle of emotional involvements with other Harrow boys, which he recalled with great vividness: "My School friendships were with me passions (for I was always violent)." The most enduring of those was with John FitzGibbon, 2nd Earl of Clare — four years Byron's junior — whom he was to meet unexpectedly many years later in Italy (1821). His nostalgic poems about his Harrow friendships, Childish Recollections (1806), express a prescient "consciousness of sexual differences that may in the end make England untenable to him".

"Ah! Sure some stronger impulse vibrates here, Which whispers friendship will be doubly dear To one, who thus for kindred hearts must roam, And seek abroad, the love denied at home."

While a student at Trinity College, Byron fell deeply in love with a fifteen year old choirboy by the name of John Edleston. About his 'protégé' Byron wrote, "He has been my almost constant associate since October, 1805, when I entered Trinity College. His voice first attracted my attention, his countenance fixed it, and his manners attached me to him for ever." Many years later, upon learning of his friend's death, Byron wrote, "I have heard of a death the other day that shocked me more than any, of one whom I loved more than any, of one whom I loved more than I ever loved a living thing, and one who, I believe, loved me to the last." In his memory Byron composed "Thyrza," a series of elegies, in which he changed the pronouns from masculine to feminine so as not to offend sensibilities.

In later years he described the affair as "a violent, though pure love and passion." This statement, however, needs to be read in the context of hardening public attitudes toward homosexuality in England, and the severe sanctions (including public hanging) against convicted or even suspected offenders. The liaison, on the other hand, may well have been 'pure' out of respect for Edleston's innocence, in contrast to the (probably) more sexually overt relations experienced at Harrow School.From 1809 to 1811, Byron went on the Grand Tour then customary for a young nobleman. The Napoleonic Wars forced him to avoid most of Europe, and he instead turned to the Mediterranean. Correspondence among his circle of Cambridge friends also makes clear that a key motive was the hope of homosexual experience. He was successful in this motive, as evidenced by the subject matter of poems like "Childe Harold's Pilgrimage" and other writings from this period.

Ultimately he was to live abroad to escape the censure of British society, where men could be forgiven for sexual misbehavior only up to a point, one which Byron far surpassed.

1893 – German actor Conrad Veidt was born in Berlin (d.1943). He was best known for his roles in "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari," and "Casablanca."

A bisexual himself, Veidt also also holds the distinction of starring in the first motion picture on the subject of homosexuality: 1919's "Anders als die Anderen" (Different from the Others) which was written and produced by German sexologist and early gay-rights champion Magnus Hirschfeld. "Anders als die Anderen" was released in a DVD format a few years back and provides an amazing historical document of the times.

Veidt also appears in Christopher Isherwood's "Berlin Stories."

The Man Who Laughs

His makeup for his title role in The Man Who Laughs is said to have been the inspiration for Bob Kane's The Joker, Batman's arch-enemy.

In late 1916, he was examined by the German Army and deemed unfit for service and given a full discharge in January 1917. Veidt then moved to Berlin to pursue his acting career. From 1916 until his death, he appeared in well over 100 films.

In the twenties, he moved to Hollywood and made a few films in the twenties but the advent of talking pictures and his broken English made him return to Germany.

Veidt fervently opposed the Nazi regime, motivating him to emigrate from Germany in 1933 a week after marrying Illona Prager, a Jewish woman. He settled in the United Kingdom, perfected his English and became a British citizen in 1938.

He continued making films in Britain, notably three with director Michael Powell: The Spy in Black (1939), Contraband (1940) and The Thief of Bagdad (1940).

In the 1940s he moved back to Hollywood, California, and starred in a few films, such as Nazi Agent (1942), in which he had a dual role as a Nazi and as the Nazi's twin brother, but his best remembered role was as Major Heinrich Strasser in Casablanca (1942). He found himself invariably playing the very characters he detested.

He died suddenly of a heart attack in 1943 while playing golf in Los Angeles. In 1998, his ashes were interred at the Golders Green Crematorium in London.

1898 – Sergei Eisenstein (d.1948) was a revolutionary Soviet film director and film theorist noted in particular for his silent films Strike, Battleship Potemkin and Oktober. His work vastly influenced early film makers owing to his innovative use of and writings about montage.

Eisenstein was a pioneer in the use of montage, a specific use of film editing. He believed that editing could be used for more than just expounding a scene or moment, through a 'linkage' of related scenes. Eisenstein felt the 'collision' of shots could be used to manipulate the emotions of the audience and create film metaphors.

In his initial films, Eisenstein did not use professional actors. His narratives eschewed individual characters and addressed broad social issues, especially class conflict. He used stock characters, and the roles were filled with untrained people from the appropriate class backgrounds.

Eisenstein's vision of Communism brought him into conflict with officials in the ruling regime of Joseph Stalin. Like a great many Bolshevik artists, Eisenstein envisioned the new society as one which would subsidize the artist totally, freeing them from the confines of bosses and budgets, thus leaving them absolutely free to create.

Eisenstein's popularity and influence in his own land waxed and waned with the success of his films and the passage of time. The Battleship Potemkin (1925) was acclaimed critically worldwide and popular in the Soviet Union. Acknowledged as his masterpiece, The Battleship Potemkin used editing and the rush of images to attain a greater emotional effect. Shot with the immediacy of a newsreel, this story of the naval revolt in Odessa in 1905 produced some of the most celebrated sequences in twentieth-century art: the Odessa steps scene must be the single most quoted, imitated, and parodied sequence in movie history.

The Odessa Steps sequence (7 mins 21 secs)

But it was mostly his international critical renown which enabled Eisenstein to direct The General Line (aka Old and New), and then Oktober (aka Ten Days That Shook The World) as part of a grand 10th anniversary celebration of the October Revolution of 1917. The critics of the outside world praised them, but at home, Eisenstein's focus in these films brought him under fire within the Soviet film community forcing him to issue public articles of self-criticism and commitments to reform his cinematic visions to conform to socialist realism's increasingly specific doctrines.

Chafing under the constraints of Stalinism, Eisenstein accepted offers to work abroad. Eisenstein returned to the Soviet Union in 1935, where he continued the spiral of falling out of and back into favor with the Stalinist regime. His remaining films - Bezhin Meadow [1937]; Alexander Nevsky [1939]; Ivan the Terrible, Part I [1942]; Ivan the Terrible, Part II: The Boyars' Plot [1946]; and the surviving fragment of Ivan the Terrible, Part III [1947] - were marked with the tensions of the political turmoil in which Eisenstein was embroiled.

Eisenstein's personal life was also chaotic. He married twice in response to political pressure, but his marriages were never consummated. His unexpurgated diaries, published as Immortal Memories, are filled with accounts of his infatuations with many young men, including his assistant, Grigori Alexandrov.

Often his infatuations (as in the case of Alexandrov) were with young heterosexual men, whom he would educate and assist in their careers. His drawings, exhibited during the centenary of his birth, include many illustrations of homosexual activity.

Despite his difficulties with censorship and other problems, Eisenstein created a remarkable legacy. His films reveal his continued commitment to experimentation in form. Alexander Nevsky, his first sound film, contains spectacular scenes, most notably the Battle on the Ice, as well as the incomparably thrilling film score of Sergei Prokofiev.

Ivan the Terrible, an intensely Expressionistic study of political power and corruption, with immense sets, voluminous costumes, and amazingly hyperbolic lighting, represents a contrast to this earlier work. It was not dynamically edited, but relied on extended long takes, in which dialogue, sound effects, and music were crucial. Ivan the Terrible pointed to new operatic possibilities in motion pictures.

From Strike to Ivan, Eisenstein's career always excited controversy - much of his work was either destroyed or confiscated - but he remains one of the most important filmmakers in history, the exemplar of the true intellectual artist.

Eisenstein suffered a hemorrhage and died at the age of 50. An unconfirmed legend in film history states that Russian scientists preserved his brain and it supposedly was much larger than a normal human brain, which the scientists took as a sign of genius.

1942 – Today was the birthday of Mexican director, screenwriter and editor Jaime Humberto Hermosillo (d.2020). Often compared to Spanish director Pedro Almodóvar, Hermosillo's films often explored the hypocrisy of middle-class Mexican values.

He was also openly Gay and has explored such themes in his work. His films include Esmeralda Comes by Night, Forbidden Homework , El Misterio de Los Almendros, and the Gay classic Dona Herlinda and Her Son about a young bachelor doctor who has a love affair with a younger music student, Ramon.

At the time of his death Hermosillo was teaching film-making at the University of Guadalajara and had recently collaborated with his students on several projects. On 13 January 2020, Hermosillo died at the age of 77, 9 days before his 78th birthday.

1969 – Gary Frisch (d.2007) was co-founder of the Gaydar website. He was one of the UK's leading gay businessmen.

Frisch was born in South Africa. He was educated at Boksburg High School and studied computer science at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg while working for De Beers' industrial diamond division. After graduation, he set up a computer software company, Frisoft Software, which he sold to Q Data (now named Business Connection) in 1994. He was a technical director with Q Data until he left South Africa in 1997.

He moved to the UK in 1997 with his boyfriend, Henry Badenhorst, to set up QSoft Consulting, an information technology consultancy firm. After a friend complained that he was too busy to look for a new boyfriend, they launched the Gaydar internet dating website in November 1999 from their home in Twickenham.

The website rapidly became very popular. There had been gay dating sites before, but they were slow and laborious. Gary developed two features which speeded things up: Who's Online told participants who was actually there, and Instant Messaging made immediate contact and chat possible. After its first year, Gaydar had 78,000 registered members. By 2007, Gaydar had more than 3.5 million users in 23 countries. In the UK, it accounts for more than 72 per cent of gay and lesbian traffic on the internet, with more than 1 million members. The Gaydar brand expanded into other areas: Frisch was chairman of GaydarRadio, a digital radio station founded in 2002.

After Gaydar came the digital radio station GaydarRadio and GaydarGirls. Gary and Henry then bought one of their main rivals, Rainbow Network, held GaydarDays at Alton Towers and sponsored pride events, such as the Sydney Mardi Gras.

So successful has Gaydar been that it has been blamed for a downturn in the numbers of men visiting gay bars, clubs and cruising grounds. Some have also blamed it for a rise in unsafe sex. But its reach is so great that the Terrence Higgins Trust now hosts a chatroom, offering sexual health advice, and many police community safety officers have profiles enabling gay men to report homophobic crimes.

Badenhorst and Frisch's personal partnership broke up in 2006, although they remained business partners.

In 2007, Gary Frisch was found dead below the window of his eighth-floor flat in Wandsworth, South London. A verdict of misadventure was recorded by Dr Paul Knapman, the coroner at the inquest. A pathologist, Dr Peter Wilkins, said raised levels of ketamine were found in Mr Frisch's blood and liver.

2009 – On this date a sociologist at an Iranian university presented a study showing high levels of homosexual experiences among the country's population. Iran has strict laws against sex outside marriage and other sexual acts such as masturbation. Adultery and same-sex acts are punishable by death. Startling new research from sociologist Parvaneh Abdul Maleki found that 24% of Iranian women and 16% of Iranian men have had at least one homosexual experience. 73% of men and 26% of women surveyed said they had masturbated.

Ms. Maleki presented her findings at the Third Conference on Well-being in the Family and the story was reported in the Iranian press, albeit as a report on sexual deviance in need of treatment. The report also revealed that more than 75% of those who grew up in a conservative religious environment have watched pornography, 86% have had a heterosexual relationship outside of marriage and just over 4% have had Gay or Lesbian relationships.

Since Iran's Islamic revolution in 1979, human rights groups claim that between 3,000 and 4,000 people have been executed under Sharia law for the crime of homosexuality. In September the President of Iran admitted in an interview that there may be "a few" Gay people in his country, but attacked homosexuality as destructive to society. In an interview with US current affairs TV program Democracy Now, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad also rejected criticism of the execution of children in Iran.

During a visit to the US in 2007 he said in reply to a question posed about homosexuality during his speech at New York's Columbia University: "In Iran we don't have homosexuals like in your country... In Iran we do not have this phenomenon, I don't know who has told you that we have it." In his TV interview in September he condemned American acceptance of Gay people. "It should be of no pride to American society to say they defend something like this," President Ahmadinejad said. "Just because some people want to get votes, they are willing to overlook every morality."

[namakaeggs]

feelings/ pt 1

eren x reader, childhood friends to lovers, mutual pining, drunk confession

you knew eren before you knew him. his mom and your mom were the best of friends in highschool, and a friendship was fated from the start. from family barbecues to birthdays, you two were always together. “inseparable” is what carla describes us. eren always scoffed when mom would say we would get married one day. my eyes would brighten at the mention.

eren was always the outsider growing up, the rebel. he grew his hair to his shoulders, didn’t get along with the popular crowd, got an illegal tattoo at 16, and religiously wore band tees. as we got older, i noticed him more and more. we were around each other so often, so close. when his voice got deeper and his arms became toned, i couldn’t help fighting my feelings. to him, we were friends. to me, he was more. i knew he never saw me the way because he slept around. he smoked and wasn’t afraid to break a few laws. hes the personification of the boys your mom will tell you to watch out for, because their mystery is so alluring that you won’t be able to resist, and that in the end, they will break your heart. mom would never see eren in another light though. nothing other than her best friends adorable, sweet child.

as i’m about to fall asleep, my phone buzzes on my bedside table and reach for it quickly.

R u awake

it’s 2 in the morning and i know what he’s been doing.

what’s up eren?

i wait anxiously.

Im sorru it’s so latew but can u pick me up from Jean’s please?

i immediately get up and throw on a zip up hoodie. i grab my keys and hurry out of my window. god, the things i do for this boy.

the first time i felt something for him was 6th grade. for a while, he had been trying to slum it with the popular boys, reiner, jean, flock, and zeke, in our class. it didn’t work. he was a puzzle piece that didn’t fit, but he tried and i watched. i watched him try biking every day after-school with them when i knew he preferred to go skating with me. i watched him try to salvage his failing math grade from constantly attempting to meet the demands of these boys, their constant hangouts that eren didn’t really look forward too, telling me how unfunny he thought their jokes were. i watched eren and the popular boys talk to the popular girls. seeing eren laughing with historian reiss made me fume. who was she to even speak to him? she doesn’t know him like that? she doesn’t know him like i do!

it was all jealousy. historia was beautiful, popular, and i knew eren thought so too, because i would see them drinking slurpees at the quick zip every friday after school. i fumed even more. there were rumors that they had even kissed. stupid me thought and dreamed that maybe he secretly wanted me, and maybe he secretly wanted me to be his first kiss. hearing the rumor crushed me. i was heartbroken, but i could never be mad at eren over some dream that would never come true.

but suddenly eren withdrew. historia and him never hung out on fridays and the popular boys treated eren like he were a plague. jean still spoke to him though, even with their bitter rivalry that he would never tell me stemmed from what. me and him were already attached at the hip by that point, but he stuck by me like glue from then on. i didn’t question it. i didn’t care too because that he wanted to spend time with me, me.

we spent the rest of our middle school and high-school years together. always turning around to make sure the other one was behind. always picking the same classes to take so that we’d be together. always going back to my place after school, sitting on my bed to talk about everything the world has to offer over and over again. i would always help him with math, and he would always defend me against the popular guys that pursued me, warning me that he knew their motives. that they didn’t want me for the right reasons. i understood and i kept away. but they didn’t.

junior year, after our AP physics class, the ringleader of the group, zeke, cornered me in the stairwell and confessed how long he had been wanting me. how much he needed me, and that i should come over sometime with his friends. and from that, i already had an idea that this was what eren was talking about. i tried to get out, but he wouldn’t let me. eren pushed him to the wall and fought him. jean and armin had to pull eren off of him. eren got suspended because he broke zekes nose, and he had to get surgery to fix the damage.

during erens suspension, we spoke.

“i don’t like how the guys are,” he starts, fixing the pink pillow under his head,” they get me so fucking mad.” he’s been staying at my house ever since he got suspended. his parents are mad.

i look up from the book i was reading. “it was only zeke who really pushed it? why are you so pissed about the whole group?”

erens eyebrows furrow. “y/n, they’re guys. i’m a guy, and you’re not. i know how guys like them are!” he suddenly looks uncomfortable. “it’s disgusting.” he mutters, “and i don’t like that zeke wanted you to come over.”

“but still?” i argue, “just because you have something against zeke doesn’t mean you should hate the whole group with a passion. i know they’re obnoxious, but don’t let them get to you.”

“of course i have something against zeke and his friends! he forced you into the corner and told you how bad he wanted to fuck you!”

i cringe at the honesty. “i meant that you’ve hated him since middle school. like.. obsessively hate.”

eren lets out a laugh at the idiocracy. “first of all, i am not obsessed with zeke fritz.” he takes a deep breath like he’s preparing for the finale of a grand speech. “and second of all, he’s always pissed me off.”

“even when you hung out with him and his friends?” i tease.

eren grows silent. “i don’t want to talk about it.” and i dropped the conversation.

i pull into the round-about where jean lives. i’ve had to pick eren up a few times from here, but lately, the only reason he’s been here is to get drunk at jeans college parties. jeans parents are loaded, lawyers who travel for work, which leaves him at home with way too much freedom.

the music is vibrating the ground from here. i wonder when the police are gonna show up to shut down this party for the noise disturbance. i need to find eren, soon. i open the front door and see people leaning on the walls with drinks, talking, joking, some making out. i look away and try to find eren. i don’t see him anywhere.

after scanning the entire first floor, eren jeager is no where to be found. i head towards the stairs and start walking up, hoping to find him upstairs.

where are you? i text.

as i’m walking down the hallway, i hear a familiar voice.

“In here!”

i walk toward the sound of his voice, the last door of the hallway that has the name “jean” written in bright blue letters. i open the door and see the unexpected.

well, not fully unexpected. i see eren, his almost- shoulder length hair pulled back into a bun and his body adorning grey sweatpants and a navy hoodie, who i was expecting to see, laying down on jeans bed, smiling at the ceiling like a weirdo. yep, he’s one drink away from blacking out. but what i didn’t expect to see was historia reiss, sitting at the end of the bed, picking at her split ends and chewing her gum with her mouth open. my stomach turns at the scene, but i force down my feelings.

“hey!” i say. historia turns to me with a look of disappointment on her face and eren lifts his head and laughs drunkly when he sees me.

“uh,” i suddenly become uncomfortable under historias arrogant stare, “sorry i didn’t knock, i’m here to get eren.”

she looks at eren and then looks at me, saying, “okay..” condescendingly and walks into jeans bathroom. she wasn’t wearing any shoes. erens not wearing any either.

“heyyyy,” eren slurs as i walk over to him. “i didn’t know you partied!” he jokes before bursting out laughing

“you texted me. how much did you have to drink?”

he looks dumbfounded at the simple question “what?”

“i said, how much did you have to drink?” i repeat. i can barely hear my own voice over the booming music.

“uhhhhh-,” he replies after a few seconds, “i don’t know.”

“okay, cmon. get up eren. we’re going.”

“yes ma’am.” he says, giving a military salute. surprisingly, he can stand just fine despite how drunk he seems. i make sure he has everything

and we leave jeans house. we walk over to my parked car and i put eren in the backseat incase he pukes all over my dashboard again. i don’t want a repeat of the last time i picked him up.

“there’s a plastic bag in the right pocket if you need to puke, eren, just letting you know.” i mention as i pull out of the round-a- bout.

“okay, mom, thanks” he scoffs.

i pull unto the main road, stopping at the red light.

“so,” i start,” historia, huh?” my voice filling the silence.

“huh, what’re you talking about?” he says in a genuine, drunk confusion. “did something happen”

“i just didn’t know you guys were really friends.” i reply. and i murmur, “obviously more than that though.”

you’re eyes are fixed on the road, but erens eyes are dead fixed on you after that snide comment that he definitely heard.

“yeah,” he rolls his eyes, sarcasm and the presence of alcohol in his tone, “we had so much fun, y/n. you don’t even know.”

i look at him through the dash cam window and he’s staring at me with a smirk and an indepipherable look in his eyes, testing me. i grip the stealing wheel and drive faster. i know he’s joking, but i can’t tell if he’s hinting at the truth or just telling a lie to get a reaction out of me.i just want this conversation i started to be over with.

“uh, so, how’s jean?” i change the conversation.

“what, you like him or something?”

“what! no!” i deny. “i never said that, eren?”

eren leans back into the seat, head resting on the head rest as he looks up. “whatever.”

unlike eren, there’s no alcohol in my system, but i’m feeling bold today. “what do you mean whatever, eren? you think i like jean?”

“uhhh, haven’t you always?” he states like it’s the obvious. “i saw the way he looked at you in art class.”

“just because he looked at me once or twice doesn’t mean i want him to fuck me or something.”

erens eyes narrow and his brows furrow, lifting his head in interest. “what the fuck did you just say?”

“what the fuck are you saying?” i fight back. “i ask you how jean is and you act like i’m begging on my knees for him. god damn.”

now he’s fully attentive, elbows on his knees and leaning in as if he’ll learn more by his upright posture. “i don’t like the idea of you liking jean,” he states, the slurring of his words still audible , “aaand i don’t like the idea of jean liking you.”

my heart races. “why?”

“maybe it’s the same reason you don’t like seeing me with historia.” and suddenly, he sounds sober.

my heart stops. he heard the comment i made under my breath.

“eren, i don’t care who you see.” the lie is evident in my tone, but eren is so drunk that i don’t bother to hide it. “you can hook up with historia for all i care. have fun with mouth herpes.”

“see, this is what i don’t like,” he slurs out, “did it really not bother you when you saw me and historia in the same bed?”

“why would it bother me? we’re just friends.”

“is that what you want to believe?”

“is that what i shouldn’t believe, eren?”

eren sighs and leans back again. “you remember when i hung out with zeke, flock, reiner, and jean like way back?”

“yeah.”

“that entire time. all they talked about is who would get you first. who would be the first to- fuck. fuck!” he slurs “i never wanted to tell you that!”

my mouth is to the floor. “seriously? that is so- why woudlnt you tell me?”

he looks out the window, “because i was scared that if i told you they liked you, you’d like the attention and shit, and then you wouldn’t be mine.”

my heart is beating out of my chest. “my god, you’re so drunk. eren, you’re speaking nonesense.”

“i’ve been in love with you since the 6th grade.”

“eren, stop.” tears brim my eyes. in the morning, when he’s sober and remembers this, he’ll regret his drunken lies and i’ll have to pretend like this drunk, fake confession didn’t mean the world to me.

“i left the digusting group for that. i hated that me and those annoying dogs had something in common, wanting you.”

“you never wanted me, eren!” i snap, “ you would fake a gag every time our moms shipped us together! and what about historia, huh? don’t act like you two haven’t been sleeping together since highschool. oh, and what about mikasa? you and her-”

“i don’t care about them! all i want is you y/n! i thought you already knew how bad i had it for you” he cuts me off.

“fucking lies.”

he grows quiet for a while.

“i pretended they were you everytime,” he admits,” they didn’t turn me on. i had to pretend they were you, ” he leans in, “and honestly? i still do.”

his words send butteflies rushing to your stomach, but you know better. “eren. you’re drunk”

he pulls his hair out of his messy bun and puts his hood on. “drunken. words. are sober. thoughts!” he enunciates before laughing.

we pull into his house driveway.

“i’m sorry for teasing you about me and historia tonight.” he apologies, and i smell beer from his breath. “im really sorry.”

“i thought drunk words were sober thoughts?” you retaliate with hurt in your tone. you didn’t want to argue, but you didn’t want to not stand your ground.

“i just- wanted to make you jealous. im sorry, y/n” he hugs me, arms wrapping around me tightly as he fits his head into the crook of my neck and sniffs. “god, you smell so good..”

“eren.” you warn.

“your perfume. it drives me insane.” he whines and starts peppering kisses down your neck.

you blush and your heart stops before you push him off of you. he stumbles back, having to regain his balance due to the alchohal in his system. he’s drunk, he’s drunk and he’s so fucking drunk.

the look in his eyes are nothing short of hurt. “y/n..”

“we’ll talk in the morning” you breath out. “go sleep this off.”

“i’ve already tried,” he replies as he walks up the stairs to his room, “why do you think i get so drunk all the damn time. seeing historias face sober every weekend makes me remember that she isn’t you.” he gets to the top step and disappears behind the wall.

[jeannereames]

Hello, Dr. Reames!

I absolutely love your work—it’s such a beautiful academic space, AND the fact that you’re so passionate about not Alexander the Great but also Hephaestion adds a special touch. Reading some of your posts and, of course, your duology (which I adore—I’m eagerly awaiting the third installment!), a question came to mind:

I remember there’s a source that describes Hephaestion’s beauty (though I can’t recall which historian mentions this. I have a vague suspicion it was Quintus Curtius Rufus or maybe Diodorus Siculus, but my memory is falling me). It recounts how Alexander praises Hephaestion’s youth and beauty, even when a younger man is presente to him; I think it was during their time at the Persian court (the young man wasn’t Bagoas but had a different name). Alexander compares two, but despite this, Hephaestion Stands out even more than the younger man.

I wanted to ask if you’re familiar with this passage and, if so, did it inspire any of the descriptions of Hephaestion in your work? I ask because your portrayals are exquisite, and I’ve always imagined Hephaestion as a strikingly handsome young man, pretty boy. Thank you so much for taking the time to read this—sending you a warm hug! 😊

Hephaistion and Euxenippos

Thank you! And I think you’re referring to the comparison between Hephaistion and a young officer named Euxenippos, although it’s not Alexander who makes it. Here’s the passage from Curtius (7.9.19). It involves receiving the submission of the Sacae Scythians who he’d just defeated.

So [Alexander] received the Sacae delegation courteously and gave them Euxenippus as their companion for the return journey. Euxenippus was still very young and a favorite of Alexander’s because he was in the prime of his youth, but though he rivaled Hephaistion in good looks he could not match him in charm, since his was rather effeminate. (Yardley, trans.)

I should note that the Latin used there for favorite has strong sexual overtones. But while this passage would appear to be flattering for Hephaistion, it’s actually not. It’s part of the “slide” down into Evil Eastern Debauchery that Curtius paints for Alexander. Romans had mixed feelings about “Greek love.” Here, by comparing Hephaistion to the king’s current “pretty young thing,” he gives a wink-wink-nudge-nudge about Hephaistion’s former status, with a sly insinuation that it might still be going on (horrors!). The latter would be an out-and-out insult to a man in his late 20s/early 30s and a top-ranked officer.

So, figuring out what Curtius means to imply here is easy enough. The real question is what—if anything—lay behind it, and how might the Macedonians have understood it? While some historians may prefer not to tackle that, as we lack anything remotely like good evidence, I’m a little more inclined to play ball. Yet there is a very limited amount that we can say. I do consider it part of my reasoning for why I think Alexander and Hephaistion were lovers, at least at some point. This could still be true even if Curtius employs it to throw negative aspersions on Hephaistion (and Alexander). Also, I think it’s potential evidence that Alexander, like other Macedonian kings, pursued romantic entanglements with his Pages, which suggests that, yes, he was comfortably bisexual and expressed that in what would have been, for ancient Greece and Macedonia, culturally appropriate ways. When Curtius (and Kleitarchos?) say “very young,” they don’t mean a boy, but someone in late teens/early 20s. In fact, this assignment might have been a “farewell” gift from the king: a nice little promotion assignment to mark the close of the affair as he’d probably be gone a while. So he may have been a highborn Macedonian just “graduating” out of the Pages to junior officer status.

Now, as for did this passage contribute to my description of Hephaistion in the novels…sorta. It’s part of a larger tradition (although much lifted out of Curtius) that Hephaistion was attractive.

But in Dancing with the Lion, wanted to do something else with it. So if you’re curious, go here:

Hephaistion, Virtue, and Beauty

(all the way back from 2019)

[mariasmemo]

We Are Open – Season 2024

It is that time of year again!  The Mitchell House – and all the MMA’s museum sites and the Aquarium – are open for the season!  We have welcomed back approximately thirty-five college interns – and will soon welcome our high school interns and even more volunteers. 

This summer, the Mitchell House intern is Talia Idelson, who will be a senior at the University of Chicago this fall.  Talia has been working to learn all about the Mitchell House, Maria Mitchell, and her family in preparation for providing tours to you and our visitors, as well as the children who participate in our Junior Historians. Talia will also be working on conservation projects in the Mitchell House, assisting with other public outreach for both the Mitchell House and the MMA, and working on some research projects while she is here – all while learning how a historic house runs and all the pieces that make it what it is.  And, as we all know, the Mitchell House is an especially wonderful house!

So, please plan to come for a visit this summer – whether it will be your first or your 100th – there is always something new to learn!

JNLF

[themoonweaversden]

Messeges that were found so far: STOD EHT TCENNOC (spoilers)

This is just to collect all the codes that you can type in in thisisnotawebsitedotcom.com and their effects only (please click images for better quality)

I am so sorry if the transcripts in these are't the best, it's A LOT and my mind doesn't understand what's writing anymore

Masterpost with all messeges / codes

Transcript:

"LESSER KNOWN AMERICAN CULTS

Have you ever heard of Orchard Lake, Kansas? Chances are you haven’t. It was erased from every map, book, and historical record, and the US Government’s official position on it is “stop calling us or we’ll send a drone to your house.” (I learned this the hard way.) But if you drive to the exact latitude and longitude of [REDACTED] you’ll see bullet casings, faded billboards, and bow ties strewn across the desert sands.

That’s because Orchard Lake had another name before it was wiped off the record: BillVille.

CHAPTER 3: BillVille The First Cult In History That Was Right

[image]

FIG A: A tumbillweed

As a historian of esoteric religions, I thought I’d discovered the strangest sects America had yet to offer (see “Chapter 3: Kevin’s Gate”) but that all changed when I found the following items tucked away in an old trunk in an estate sale on the outskirts of Bootstrap, Missouri."

Transcript:

"LESSER KNOWN AMERICAN CULTS

"3/24/1957

Mother, I have the most wonderful news! Remember when you said I should stop being “such a follower” and finally think for myself? Well—turns out you were right! I’ve decided to stop following Elvis’ tour bus from state to state and instead I’ve made the exciting life decision to sell all my possessions to buy a one-way ticket to [REDACTED] and marry 138 of my new best friends! We’ve discovered the eternal secrets of the Universe, and golly it feels keen! For the first time in my life, I am happy!

Remember reality is an illusion, the Universe is a hologram, buy gold, and bye forever!

Your daughter, Shelter Martha Jones Starshine Cipherwife

P.S. You’ve just gotta check out this neato pamphlet!"

FIG B: Letter and pamphlet advertising “Ciphertology.” Was found along with pins, buttons, ephemera. Smells like formaldehyde."

Transcript:

"LESSER KNOWN AMERICAN CULTS

After reading this pamphlet, I became obsessed. Who were the Ciphertologists?

It seems in 1952 a failed travelling snake oil salesman “Silas Birchtree” was hiding from creditors when he choked on a coin he was flipping and died. Then, remarkably, the next day, he was seen alive. His posture, his smile, the pallor of his skin had all changed. It was as if another man entirely was wearing Silas like a suit. Whatever caused this transformation, the new Silas hit Orchard Lake, Kansas like a comet.

[TRANSCRIPT, FIRST AUDIO RECORDING FOUND OF SILAS BIRCHTREE GIVING A SPEECH IN THE TOWN SQUARE OF ORCHARD LAKE, KANSAS]

“Say, folks, gather round, thank you ma’am, spit out that gum, junior. My names Silas Birchtree, and I was just passing through when I noticed a very pressing problem: This town only has three wells! Well, well, well, that won’t hold water! (townsfolk laugh) But seriously plasma bags, if you’re dim enough to laugh at that tripe then you’re going to love what I’m about to shove down your throats: The secrets of the universe! I may look like an meat automoton but I was recently granted otherworldly insight into the nature of reality by an all-seeing eye named Bill Cipher. You have primal needs for chaos that are being repressed! Destroying is a form of creating! Assert your will in defiance of entropy! Punch through the throats of your oppressors and baptize yourself in their blood! Doesn’t that sound swell? Yes I said swell, and that rhymes with L, and that stands for “Let me Marry All Your Wives!”

-Silas Birchtree, 1952

It didn’t seem to matter what Silas said, folks were mesmerized by his rambling stream of consciousness diatribes. It wasn’t long before he became local news."

Treanscript:

"THE ORCHARD LAKE CORNHUSK "A suitable distraction from your toils." June 18, 1952 | 5 CENTS

CULT COMES TO TOWN Fans of Cults Pleased, Cult Skeptics Skeptical

Two things are on the rise this week in Orchard Lake! The sweet, sweet corn-bread cooling in Mrs. Butternubbins windowsill, and the terrifying cult that threatens to tear our town asunder. And asunder is one of the worst things you can be torn! Springing forth seemingly overnight, these bow-tie wearing brainwashees call themselves the Ciphertologists, and they answer to one man, the charismatic and extremely jaundiced Silas BirchTree. Town sentiment is divided as to whether this new religion can be trusted, but all agree this seems to be the most significant event in our town since a bat fell in the deep fryer at the waffle house. We spoke to townsfolk to gauge the local sentiment.

...WHAT THE PEOPLE SAY...

Darla Laudanum, Housewife: "Well, I don’t see what the big fuss is! Everyone’s entitled to their opinions, and Silas is no different. Why, I remember when everyone was worried that “Hula Hoops” were going to turn our children into Communists. But we only had to report 3 children!"

Gus Gunderson, Painter: "I ‘spose he’s got a funny way of talkin’, shore ‘nuff, but he promised me I’d live forever on my own moon, which beats my current job at the paint store. He also said he’d teach me to explode people with my mind. My mother ‘n law had better watch out!"

Madeline Dixon, Teenager: "He’s fine, I guess. It’s not like I replaced the picture of James Dean in my locket with him or anything. What? No you can’t look inside the locket, this is a personal locket!"

Emmaline Butternubbins, Spoilsport: "I’m telling you! He’s a human corpse puppeteered by a space triangle and he’s come to build an unholy astral pyramid from mortal realm beyond mortal understanding! Gather up your swords and arrows, let us slay the beast in mans form before he slays us!"

Can You "Dig It?" Hey Daddio! Are you hoppin mad about the piles of youth that are buckling your Chevy’s pad to the winner? Dig this jive! A keen new shovel that all the hep cats are using to flip those big Ricks right out of the sock hop! Man, you know what it is called!

“HIPPADDY RENZADDY’S SUPER-KEENHOOT SCOOP!”

It’s me, “Hip Daddy” Renzaddy! 50 years ago my great grandpappy Renzaddy toppled a pile of stones to death to avenge his death! The eternal war on man’s sin rages on!

5 CENTS OFF!

Teen Accused of "Rocking Around the Clock," Faces Trial ... (PG 3) Joseph McCarthy Arrests Suspicious Pez Dispenser (PG 5)"

Trascript:

"PAGE 2 THE ORCHARD LAKE CORNHUSK, JUNE 18, 1952 INTERVIEW WITH A PROPHET

Our lead reporter Welton Danforth sat down with the enigmatic leader to gain some insight into his holy mission. When they sat down to speak, the controversial religious leader was staring at his hands laughing as he wiggled his fingers.

Silas: Fingers! Wow, there’s just so many of these things! How do you keep track? Hey could someone get me a swig of formaldehyde?

Welton: Good evening. I have never seen a man open his eyes as wide as yours before. What exactly is going on with your face?

Silas: My face is normal! Next question!

Welton: (laughing) Well there’s that charm I’ve heard so much about. Move over, Johnny Carson! Tell me, how do you respond to accusations that the Ciphertologists are a cult?

Silas: Yes!

Welton: So you don’t deny it?

Silas: Look slick, everyone believes in something they can’t prove. Football players believe in “points.” Cops believe in “laws.” Priests believe in “sin.” But show me a law, a point, a sin. You can’t, they’re just ideas. So if you’re going to follow something invisible, why not follow the invisible Triangle that will give you your own planet and crush your enemies into a small screaming cube.

Welton: You’re awfully quick with a turn of phrase, but many others with silver tongues have claimed to be the messiah. What makes you any different?

Silas: Fair point! You know, you’re very perceptive. Has your wife told you that lately?

Welton: (pause) No. No… Janet has not. We are… going through a rough patch.

Silas: Must be hard. All those long nights on the couch, wondering what went wrong.

Welton: Yes… but, how did you know all that?

Silas: I know lots of things, Jack! And I know that when you die at 72 from a goose crashing into your head on a roller coaster, your last thought is gonna be that you wasted your life interviewing hick farmers instead of becoming that great novelist you always dreamed of being! That unfinished novel in your desk drawer…

Welton: …The Reporter Who Went To Mars?

Silas: It could be the greatest book of all time. But you’ll need someone to help you reach your full potential. I think I know a guy! By the way, I’ll need 1,000 dollars immediately.

Welton: Can I give you my watch as a down payment?

Silas: Fine, but only because I like you. Anyway, where were we? Oh right! I was interviewing you. Tell me, how long have you been a Ciphertologist?

Welton: Well, I suppose as of 5 seconds ago, but it already feels like much longer, Mr. Birchtree.

Silas: Please, call me “My Lord And Master.”

Welton: Yes, My Lord and Master. Do you have anything else to add before you go?

Silas: Only this, and I mean it sincerely: HAHAHA-HAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHHAHAHA (cont’d)"

Transcript:

"LESSER KNOWN AMERICAN CULTS

[2 images]

Within a month, The Ciphertologists had taken City Hall, renamed Orchard Lake "BillVille" and began stockpiling weapons, human teeth, and multi-colored ball-pit balls from burger restaurants. Townsfolk began shaving their heads and inhaling helium to match the pitch of their leader's shrill charismatic voice, and would participate in "Dream-Ins" inviting Silas's muse "Bill Cipher" to "possess" of up to 30 of them at once, at which point they would often laugh in unison for hours. Construction began of the "Very Normal Giant Metal Portal" in the desert. Travel was banned coming in and out, even for medical emergencies since, as Silas explained, "pain is hilarious!" They began to expand, knocking on doors to spread "The Bad News."

[image]

FIG C: It was pretty easy to spot a Ciphertologist. Can you see what makes them stand out? That's right - their enthusiastic smiles!

[image]

FIG D: The "Golden Bastard" apple, grown only by Ciphertologists, reportedly "screamed" when you ate it."

Transcript: (this one is really weird to trascribe, so sorry if it's difficult to understand)

"THERE’S ONE “EYE” IN TEAM! Can you find it?

In Ciphertology, we encourage you to express your individuality, just like Silas does! That means strict conformity to his exact wardrobe, or else being sent to “The Hole.” You won’t like the hole!

KEEP AN EYE OPEN!

SHAVE A SPOT FOR BILL TO ENTER!

POSTURE

TUCK YOUR SHIRT IN! Order is a Trojan horse for chaos!

GREASE YOUR SHOES! Are you done? ADD MORE GREASE! And MORE!

(Image of two people in matching outfits doing Ciphertologist poses)

Pocket full of yummy glass!

Not pictured - The hot brand we will sear into your flesh. Which part of your body will we brand? It’s weirder than you think!

Did you know?: Therapy is a scam to keep you from the truth. Lean into your natural born mental illness to unlock your true potential!

GO DOOR TO DOOR! SPREAD THE JOY LIKE A DISEASE!

Follow this script to convert the non-billievers!

Hi! Do you have one minute to talk about the triangle who lives in your brain and has seen you naked? . YES → GOOD! The old gods are dead, and BILL ATE THEM! Dig it? . NO → Stare at them until they start crying.

Are you ready to accept him into your mind? . YES → (Continue script) . NO → Eat one of your own fingers in front of them. Don’t break eye contact.

Raise your arms and shriek a perfect E note in the 8th octave at 5,243 Hz. Their skull will shatter. Like a wine glass!

Great! Your new name is: ________________(SEE GUIDE TO CHOOSING CIPHERTOLOGY NAME PG 6) What size robe are you? __________________SEE YOU AT THE WAFFLE HOUSE! (Do Cipher Handshake, devour pamphlet, crawl away upside down)

WEIRDMEGEDDON IS COMING. WEIRDMEGEDDON IS COMING. WEIRDMEGEDDON IS COMING.

CIPHERTOLIGIST'S GUIDE TO DELIGHTSOMENESS, 1952"

Transcript:

"LESSER KNOWN AMERICAN CULTS

[image]

ABOVE: The Ciphertology “Brain Seismograph” or “BS” Meter had dials for “gullibility,” “financial liquidity,” “celebrity influence,” “herbs,” and “spices.”

The cult surged in popularity and influence. Silas’s motto “embrace today as if your town is going to be hit by a tornado in exactly 3 & a half years!” was infectious, and he immediately ended all crime by declaring that “everything is legal now!”

[image]

Soon the only unconverted local was unmarried town nag Emmaline Butternubbins. She was convinced there was something “not right” about the mysterious megalomaniacal cult leader. Her protests escalated to her distributing these home-made warning pamphlets to very annoyed children.

[image]

“Most people rejected Emmaline’s message. They hated her because she told the truth” —Emmaline, to her cat Bonbon."

Transcript:

"LESSER KNOWN AMERICAN CULTS

Conflict became inevitable. When Silas hijacked a local TV station to read an “erotic tale of two trapezoids,” Elk Glen filed a complaint with the FCC. Cipherologists retaliated by pouring 600 gallons of bubble solution in their drinking water. Soon the law became involved.

“Blrbl bll Tbllbl Ciphertobblblblblb” - Hurk Durnsley, Oak Glen City Council

The Cipherologists were ordered to return City Hall, dismantle the “Portal” they were building out of scrap metal and car parts, or face the full force of the Kansas State Troopers. The standoff lasted 13 days, with Silas and his die hard followers holed up in a waffle house chanting “TEETH” over and over again for reasons unknown. Silas was becoming increasingly agitated and erratic, blocking all radio and TV signals into town and ordering his followers to hurry construction of his mysterious metallic project. His body was also looking increasingly pale and desiccated, which he ascribed to his “fantastic diet” of eating nothing but “solid chunks of chlorine and ants.”

BILLVILLE DAILY NEWS June Billeteeth, Billtee-Fifty-Bill PORTAL NEARLY COMPLETE EVERYONE THRILLED, EVEN THE GOVERNMENT! (DO NOT TURN ON YOUR TELEVISION)"

Transcript:

"Finally Emmaline Butternubbins, enraged that no one liked her pamphlets, hurled a torch into the CipherTologists HQ, igniting the helium tanks, blasting out the windows and destroying Silas’s machine. Troopers opened fire as Silas’s followers held hands and began singing “WE’LL MEET AGAIN” in defiance. Silas, riddled with bullet holes, grabbed a megaphone, leapt atop the inferno, grinning wildly as he was engulfed in flame.

“YOU CAN’T KILL A MAN WHO’S ALREADY DEAD! IF YOU TAKE ME DOWN, I’LL BE BACK, MORE POWERFUL AND MORE ANNOYING THAN YOU CAN POSSIBLY IMAGINE! REMMEBER- REALITY-”

At this point, Silas Birch Tree’s head fell off, flies swarmed from his mouth and he collapsed into a grey husk. A coroner declared Silas BirchTree dead for a second time. Black helicopters evacuated the site and the city was erased from all official records. Mrs Butternubbins was awarded the Medal of Honor, which she used as an ashtray.

On the Lighter Side “QUIRKY NEWS!” CULT DISBANDED, 9 DEAD Slow news day? Well we gotta fill these pages somehow! In an oddball story that’s definitely out there a remote Orchard Lake’s homespun cult committed a laundry list of heinous crimes. Trashed walls, buildings, and tank-wielding federal agents stormed the “Cipherologists” headquarters. The panic escalated as the “Cipherologists” leader offered everyone a bag of candy and destroyed the stockade on a rented lemon- but just gave everyone you love from the ability to express their emotions. We are out of terrible diarrhea. It is unclear if this was his intention or not. We are out of things to say in this piece, no one really cares what happens in Kansas."

Transcript:

"ONLY KNOWN PHOTO OF SILAS'S BODY, 1952"

Transcript: "LESSER KNOWN AMERICAN CULTS

Although BillVille has faded into urban legend, hidden remnants remain for those who know where to look. It is even said that there are straggling members out there, still holding out hope for Silas’s return.

(RIGHT: IRONIC T-SHIRT SOLD ONLINE)

In cults, this is a common phenomenon. Human beings are so hungry for a confident voice to guide them in an uncertain world, that they’ll follow anyone, even a madman, wherever he goes. Usually off a cliff.

But there was something different about Silas Birchtree. The more I research, the more of his predictions I’ve seen coming true. Recently I was going through old records when I found Silas’s final words, tucked away in a lost letter he wrote before the standoff, a message unseen until now.

His message was:

“At least this will make a fun chapter of your book, Donna!”

My name is Donna Rutherford. Yesterday, I was a Lutheran. As of today, I am a Ciphertologist.

[CODE]"

Code decoded: "YOUCANTKILLANIDEA"

[whencyclopedia]

Emperor Wuzong of Tang

Wuzong of Tang (also Wu-Tsung, formerly Li Yan) reigned as emperor of China from 840 to 846 CE. He is best remembered today for his persecution of Buddhists, the worst such attack in all of China's history, and his early death by insanity from drug abuse. Wuzong, nevertheless, did manage to steer the Tang Dynasty clear of the excessive political in-fighting and eunuch dominance which had plagued the courts of his predecessors.

Political Achievements

Wuzong was born in 814 CE, the fifth son of Emperor Muzong (r. 820-824 CE). He was the younger brother of his predecessor, Emperor Wenzong (aka Wen-tsung, r. 827-840 CE) and held the title Prince of Ying before his succession. He gained the throne because Wenzong's own son had died in mysterious circumstances in 838 CE. Wuzong also had the full support of the court eunuchs, the powerful group who dominated Chinese politics. His character and style of rule is here summarised by the historian M. T. Dalby,

...the emperor was brash, quick-tempered and stubborn. But, unlike his elder brother Wen-tsung, he was also shrewd and decisive. Like a number of his predecessors, religion gripped him as much as politics. To the family weakness for alchemical experimentation in search of immortality, he added a genuine interest in Taoism.

(Twitchett, 663).

The emperor found another able ally in his chief minister Li Deyu (787-850 CE). Deyu had been briefly exiled in a previous reign and he would be exiled in a future one but Wuzong seemed to appreciate his talents. Together they were able to reduce the political factionalism which had long beset the Tang court and even to reduce, bit by bit, the influence of the eunuchs who had long abused their privileged position within the palace, controlling who had access to the emperor and profiting from it.

Deyu's strategy of government was to reduce the involvement of all chief ministers, who had been notoriously argumentative in discussions of policy under the previous emperor. Instead Deyu took all major decisions himself in consultation with the emperor and removed the debates and consequent factions which had traditionally been a part of Tang government. As he put it himself, government decisions should “issue forth from a single gate” (Twitchett, 661). Deyu did make some of his own loyal followers aides with junior positions but he also resisted the usual purge of the court which followed every new succession. Another feature of the new regime was the meticulous keeping of public records for all official communications, meetings and decisions.

Continue reading...

[qs63]

Amestris Military Training

This is the fourth of my series of long posts about the Amestrian Military. This is the speculative part of this meta. Little is known about the training the Amestrian soldiers receive, the most we have seen about it comes from the OVA “Another man's battlefield” and a few scenes in the manga. However, as we have seen through this series of posts, Arakawa took a lot of inspiration from the real world. The Imperial Japan military training seems to match a lot of what we see in FMA. Brace yourself, this is long and history heavy. 

Once again, I'm not a historian and I'm not fluent in Japanese. Please let me know if there's anything I missed or got wrong.

To see the rest of this meta series check out the Main Post.

First a little background about the Empire of Japan. It was the Japanese nation-state that existed from the Meiji Restoration in 1868 until the enactment of the reformed Constitution of Japan in 1947. Its history is divided in three periods named after the emperors that presided over them: Meiji (1868-1912), Taishō (1912-1926) and Shōwa (1926-1947).

This is a period of transformation for Japan, where they opened to the world and tried to modernize themselves and catch up with the western nations… by copying them. Meiji Japan is almost a pseudo European country. Their laws, government organization, education, etc. was reformed and modeled after the contemporary European nations and the United States of America. The influence of the third French Republic was especially strong in the early Meiji period, with it getting revised and remodeled in favor of other systems — mostly German as the relationship with the USA and its allies soured — throughout the years.

This is also the case in their military education. 

Officers training  During the early Meiji, the military cadets (meaning candidates to become officers) received a French style training which was later changed to a German style cadet system. The main difference between the two systems is that the German style required for the cadets to gain experience as Non-commissioned officers before graduation, while the French one didn't. 

Based on what we see in Fullmetal Alchemist they follow the German style system that lasted from 1887 to the American intervention in 1945. The main indication of this is that we see Riza Hawkeye in Ishval as a NCO.[1] She would've never been there under the French system. The time frame of the German style training also matches what we see in FMA. I'll explain this a bit later. 

For now let's concentrate on who and how someone could enter the Imperial Japan Army Officers Academy.

Three types of students could enter the academy: graduates of the Army's Children School, graduates of  Junior high school (both these schools covered ages 12 to 16), and selected active Non-commissioned officers who applied for officer training. 

The graduates of the army's children school didn't need to pass any exam to enter the academy, but only the best were selected. They had to compete for positions with the external candidates, those aged 16 to 19 who passed the recruitment exam (which required at least a junior high school education). Both of these students would enter the academy as cadets.

While the program was revised many times, the longest standing program was the 2 courses 4 years system. 

In this system the cadets would first take a two year military officer preparatory course that was equivalent to regular higher education. They were taught science, history, geography, etc. by civilian teachers. Their rank (the equivalent of private first class), military branch, and unit were designated upon graduating the preparatory course. 

After graduation the cadets would serve in their designated unit for six months (during which time they were promoted to corporal), afterwards they would be given the rank of sergeant upon entering the main military officers course. 

The main course was 1 year and 10 months long, and it was where the actual military training happened. The cadets would be taught tactics, military history, military system, weaponry, marksmanship, etc. they would also receive training in camp duty, shooting, swordsmanship, gymnastics, horsemanship, etc. in addition field trips were also conducted. 

Upon graduating they would become Apprentice Officers (a rank equivalent to Sergeant Major, the highest of the NCO ranks) for a trial period of about six months. Afterwards they would be officially appointed as 2nd Lieutenant (the lowest of the officers ranks) on the recommendation of their original troop's officer corps.

Now you might be wondering why I think Arakawa used this system (or rather one inspired by it) in Fullmetal Alchemist. I have a few reasons.

The first is the characters' ages. We know Roy and Hughes are 18 in “Another man's battlefield”, and we see them training in marksmanship and military tactics. We also see they have upperclassmen which implies the course is longer than one year.[2] We also know that Roy is 20 years old when he graduates the academy and visits the Hawkeye family, thanks to brotherhood giving us the date of Berthold's death.[3]

This all matches with the imperial Japan German style cadet system, where the majority of students would enter the preparatory course at 16 upon graduating from junior high school or the military school, they would then be 18 at the time of starting the main course, and 20 upon graduating from the academy. The ages of the characters and what we see on screen matches the system’s time frame.

Riza Hawkeye is yet another example three years after her father's death and conversation with Mustang, during the Ishval war, she is yet to graduate from the academy.[1][3][4] Either the Amestris academy lasts more than the two years we see Roy and Hughes go through, or she waited about two years to enter the military Academy (otherwise she would have already graduated by Ishval). I don't think it makes sense for her to wait so long to join the academy, specially if it has an age cap (of 19 in Imperial Japan). So assuming she entered right after her father died, that would put her in the last year of the German style system by the time we see her in Ishval, perfect for getting pulled into a war with her already assigned unit. 

This brings me to my second reason for believing Arakawa is using this system: the ranks.

I mentioned before that the cadets in FMA don't seem to have a rank, this makes sense when you consider that in imperial Japan they were given ranks that do not exist in FMA. Instead of adding ranks or messing up with the system Arakawa might have just completely skipped them (much like she seems to have done with the military police). 

I also mentioned that graduates (the so called Apprentice Officers) are assigned a temporary rank of Sergeant Major. In FMA we know that you graduate with a rank of Warrant Officer[1][3][4]. But hold on, that's not the same… well not in name, but yes in practice. Sergeant Major was the highest NCO rank in Imperial Japan. It's not in FMA, that's Warrant Officer. So technically they're equal ranks. Furthermore, It doesn't make sense for a graduate of the OFFICER school to be officially assigned an NCO rank, unless that's for a trial period like in the German style cadet system. For reference, the French style system assigned graduates the rank of Second Lieutenant (the lowest officer rank) upon graduation, since it didn't require the cadets to gain NCO experience. The fact that we are shown both newly graduated Riza and Roy with the rank of Warrant Officer can only mean there is also a trial period in Amestris.

Further proof of this is that within a year of us seeing the freshly graduated Warrant Officers Riza Hawkeye in 1909[1][3], she's already a full fledged 2nd Lieutenant by the time we see her in Resembool in 1910[5], and again she's a 1st Lieutenant a year later when Ed becomes a State Alchemist[5]. Riza is good, but that's a lot of promotions in a short time. It makes more sense if you think that she was officially assigned her 2nd Lieutenant rank after completing her 6 months trial period, and then she was promoted around the same time as Roy got his Colonel promotion, perhaps for her work in Ishval + whatever cases they worked together. Now, that seems a lot more reasonable than Riza averaging a promotion per year in her early military days.

Another hint towards this system is the number of 2nd Lieutenants we meet: Havoc, Breda, Ross, Catalina, Henschel, Darius, Heinkel, Jerso, and Zampano. This is the rank we see the most of, and it makes sense if they all got it by going through the Officers Academy. We know this to be true for at least Havoc and Breda.

Havoc's and Breda’s graduation.[6]

Now you might notice I haven't mentioned the third type of student, the active non-commissioned officers (aka Second Lieutenant candidates). This is because while they go through the academy too, they're very different from the cadets:

They must be under the age of 38 and pass the Army Preliminary Course recruitment examination, which is different from the cadets exam.

They do NOT live on campus.

Their training only lasts 1 year (during peacetime), unlike the cadets 4 years. 

Because they are older than the cadets at the time they become officers, their promotion ceiling is lower as they hit the active duty retirement age before achieving high ranks.

Falman would fall into this category as he was a Warrant Officer for more than six months and clearly looks older than the rest of team Mustang. However, a year does not pass between him getting appointed to the North and him getting his promotion. My explanation for that is that the North has a shorter program for Second Lieutenant Candidates. In imperial Japan not only was the program shorter during war time (10-2 months), but the time also depended on which branch, region, and school you enrolled in. Since the North is quite hostile and is technically in a cold war with Drachma, it makes sense their Second Lieutenant Candidate program is short. The other explanation is that Falman started the program before being transferred. 

That more or less covers the Officers military training and education. Feel free to ask me if you want a more day to day explanation of the cadets’ life at the academy. You can also check this article. There's at least one documentary about it, available on Amazon Prime Japan.

Non-commissioned officers training  NCO’s training in Imperial Japan was first performed by the training corps (1871–1899), then by each unit (1899-1927), then after a decline in quality it was done at a training school (1927-1938), and finally back to the training corps until the American intervention. It's impossible for me to know if Arakawa used this system for the NCOs, and which period she chose to use, given how little information we have about the NCO characters. I still mentioned it in case anyone was curious about Fuery’s training. The training school lasted just one year and it was focused on general education, military education, and technical training.

The military police To end this, I will mention that the military police had their own academy separate from the officers’. They also had their own ranks equivalent to those of the army, i.e. Police First Lieutenant. It is possible this is the case in FMA. They're at the very least not trained together with the military personnel.

Thank you so much for reading all the way to the end. I hope you enjoyed reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it. Please don't hesitate to reach to ask questions or just rant about this. I love discussing FMA.

Source Fullmetal Alchemist Manga

Chapter 24: Fullmetal Alchemist [5]

Chapter 58: footsteps of ruin [4]

Chapter 59: the immoral alchemist [1]

Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood

Episode 30: The Ishvalan war of extermination [3]

OVA: Another man's battlefield [2]

The complete art of Fullmetal Alchemist [6]

[wonder-worker]

Theophano?

Hi! I'm not sure what you mean to ask, so I'm just going take it as an opportunity to talk about Theophano and her life.

Theophano was a Byzantine empress in the second half of the 10th century. She was the daughter-in-law of Constantine VII; wife of Romanos II and Nikephoros II Phokas; lover of John I Tzimiskes; and mother of Basil II and Constantine VIII.

She was famed for her extraordinary beauty, with chronicles hailing her as a "miracle of nature" who surpassed all other women of her age.

She was born to a family of reportedly low birth, with Skylitzes and Leo the Deacon both emphasizing her obscure origins. The former also claimed that Theophano's father was an innkeeper, and while we don't know if this is true or exaggerated, given the background of some former empresses (eg: Theodora), it's certainly plausible. We know next to nothing about her childhood, although she was probably close to her mother, who she may have brought to the palace and who was later exiled along with, although separately from, her daughter.

Theophano met Romanos, the heir of Emperor Constantine VII, as a teenager. The young prince seems to have become infatuated by her and decided to marry her in around 956, accordingly forcing a fait accompli on his family. It's possible that the imperial dynasty may have attempted to invent a noble lineage for Theophano to circumvent the controversy.

Theophano adopted her name after her marriage, having previously been known as Anastaso. She was trained in her duties as a member of the royal family, serving her apprenticeship as junior Augusta under the tutelage of her experienced mother-in-law Helena Lekapena. Both empresses were prominent in imperial ceremonies during Constantine’s reign, particularly during the reception of Olga of Kiev.

Romanos II came to the throne on November 959. At least one chronicle accused him and Theophano of conspiring together to poison her father-in-law Constantine and hasten their own ascent to power, although no evidence suggests that the former emperor died of poison or any kind of foul play.

During Romanos's very brief reign, he seems to have played little role in governance but instead entrusted administration to the eunuch Joseph Bringas. Most historians believe that Theophano was very influential during that time, with Romanos relying on her for advice and support. She certainly participated in political intrigue, supplanting the much more established and well-connected dowager empress, and successfully convinced Romanos to forcibly exile all his sisters to convents. This may suggest that she had less-then-cordial relations with her in-laws. More strikingly, it demonstrates that despite her youth and origins, Theophano succeeded in removing any other candidate of potential influence around Romanos, establishing herself as the dominant force at court. It's tempting to speculate what further role she might have played had her husband lived longer, but I suppose we’ll never know.

During their marriage, she and Romanos had four known children together: Helena, Basil, Constantine and Anna.

Romanos died prematurely in 963, after a short reign of less than three-and-a-half years. Theophano was once again rumored to have poisoned him, although this is extremely unlikely: as a favored and influential young empress, she had nothing to gain everything to lose from such an action. Moreover, she had given birth to her youngest child just a few days prior and was still in confinement, making it logistically improbable for her to have orchestrated such a conspiracy, with all the variables it entailed.

During her sons’ minority, Theophano was appointed as regent to the throne on the authority of the senate and patriarch. During that time, Skylitzes claimed that she was responsible for poisoning Stephen, son of Romanos Lekapenos, a possible contender for the throne who had been in exile and died suddenly on Easter Sunday. If this is true, it would have been a political act to secure her sons’ positions against possible threats, although the veracity of the accusation is unknown.

Unfortunately, Theophano’s regency was destined to be a short one. While one source asserted that she was capable of handling political affairs herself, and that she may not have wished to remarry, circumstances seemed to have forced/enabled her to choose otherwise.

At the time of Romanos's death, there was bad blood between Bringas, who remained administer of the empire, and Nikephoros Phokas, a renowned general of the army. The latter decided to seize the throne, probably due to the persuasion of his supporters rather than his own inclination. He was proclaimed Emperor by the army and was bound by an oath not to conspire against the rule of the young emperors. However, Bringas relentlessly plotted against him, attempting to deprive him of the position and offering the crown to someone else of his choosing.

During this factional struggle, Theophano decided to back Nikephoros, probably recognizing that the local and military support he possessed would be beneficial for her sons. She provided him with required legitimacy and was instrumental in his ascension to power: according to Zonaras, it was on her orders that he came to Constantipole to celebrate his triumph in April 963. Skylitzes even reports that they were lovers, and that Nikephoros desired the throne due to his infatuation with the beautiful young empress. Although it’s plausible the pair were in close communication with each other and may have decided to marry, an extra-marital actual affair is out of question given what we know of Nikephoros’s reticent and ascetical character. This was probably yet another way for chronicles to try and malign Theophano.

The situation was complicated by the fact that Nikephoros was godfather to one or both of Theophano’s sons, which would technically make the marriage uncanonical. In particular, the patriarch Polyeuktos was apparently very opposed to it. However, Nikephoros refused to be separated from Theophano, and the situation was resolved with the (probably invented) explanation that it was actually Nikephoros’s father, Bardas Phokas, who had been the young emperors’ godfather.

Theophano was a very influential empress during Nikephoros’s reign, with Leo the Deacon noting with disapproval that he “habitually granted Theophano more favours than were proper”. She was given profitable estates, was an active intercessor, and witnessed her two sons living in splendor and comfort in the palace. Considering what we know about her later life, she seems to have cultivated excellent relations with them.

However, relations between the imperial couple may have deteriorated, primarily from Theophano’s perspective, though chronicles aren’t unanimous on the details. Zonaros claimed that Nikephoros kept away from her due to his disinterest in sexual relations (though he appears to have still been devoted to her and honored her as an empress), while Skylitzes records that Theophano was the distancing partner. Some sources believed that Theophano may have grown concerned for the future and safety of her children, either at Nikephoros or his brother Leo’s hands.

All sources agree that Theophano and John Tzimiskes, the handsome and charismatic nephew of Nikephoros, became lovers in the late 1960s. Together, they conspired together to depose Nikephoros and place John on the throne, almost definitely with Theophano as empress. This was planned clandestinely in John’s home, and according to Leo the Deacon, Theophano received several warriors who she kept in a secret room near her quarters to enact the plan.

The Emperor’s assassination was eventually enacted on 10th December 969. Reportedly, Theophano pretended that she was heading out to instruct the Bulgarian princesses who had recently arrived as brides for her sons, and told Nikephoros to leave the bedchamber door open for her as she would close it when she returned. He did as she asked, making his customary devotions and falling asleep, which allowed the attackers to strike him unaware. John played a crucial role in the actual murder, striking Nikephoros on the head with his sword, though the coup de grace was delivered by one of the other conspirators, Leo Abalantes. While Theophano certainly played a vital role in the conspiracy, her direct participation in the murder itself is unknown. Later sources would dramatize her involvement: for example, Matthew of Edessa claimed that Theophano was the one who actually handed John the sword in order to carry out the murder.

Whatever her exact motivations, it’s clear that Theophano intended to orchestrate/support a new transfer of power just as she had with Nikephoros, becoming Empress for a third time. This was unprecedented across Byzantine history till that point, making her a singular figure.

However, things didn’t go as planned. John does seem to have intended to marry Theophano, and, after promising to ensure the safety and status of Romanos’ young sons as co-emperors, gained local support. However, when he went to St Sophia to be crowned, the patriarch refused him entry and presented him with three conditions: Theophano had to be banished from the palace and Constantinople, the murderer of Nikephoros had to be dealt with, and the measures taken against the church by Nikephoros had to be revoked. John, who keen to establish his own position and absolve himself from any blame, agreed or was forced to agree to these demands.

Theophano was thus sentenced to exile to the island of Prote or Prokonnesos. She didn’t accept her fate quietly: according to Skylitzes, she actually managed to escape from Prokonnesos and reappeared in the capital Constantipole, seeking refuge in the Hagia Sophia. However, she was forcibly removed by Basil the Nothos, who sent her to a newly created monastery of Damideia in distant Armenia. Before this, she was granted the request of an audience with the Emperor and her former lover John, which was not peaceful. Theophano reportedly “insulted first the emperor and then Basil [her son], calling him a Scythian and barbarian and hitting him on the jaw with her fists”. Her activities during her years-long exile are otherwise unknown.

After John’s death in January 1976, Theophano’s sons recalled their mother to the palace. She resumed her rightful position as empress, and since her elder son Basil never married, she would have remained the senior Augusta and most important imperial woman throughout her life.

Georgian sources indicate that Theophano also resumed her role as a prominent political figure, directing negotiations to broker an alliance with the Georgian overlord David of Taiq to counter a revolt by the general Bardas Skleros against her sons. She was also a generous patron and seems to have been partially responsible for supporting the foundation of the ‘Iviron’ monastery on Mt Athos reserved for monks of Georgian nationality.

However, Theophano vanishes from historical records after 978. It’s unknown if she died, retired, or if evidence for her activities has simply been lost across time.

All in all, Theophano seems to have been a fascinating woman who lived a full and sensational life. In many ways, she still remains a question mark, as very few primary sources survive to document the reigns of Romanos, Nikephoros, or the early years of her sons in detail. The majority of her daily activities, motivations, and even her ultimate fate, all remain unknown. But while this could have enhanced the effect of intrigue that already surrounds her, it seems to have had the opposite effect. Despite her controversial career, colourful romantic life, recorded influence over the court and affairs of state, and undeniable impact on the trajectory of the Byzantine Empire, Theophano remains a frustratingly unknown and often forgotten figure in most general histories of the dynasty.

She is also one of the most viciously maligned women in Byzantine history, vilified and scapegoated by contemporaries and historians as a wicked seductress, decadent intriguer, and violent murderess. Ultimately, we'll never know if Theophano was motivated by survival, desire, ambition, a combination of the above, or something else altogether. What we do know, however, is that she seems to have been a particularly strong-willed individual capable of navigating manifold realms of power despite not being born into it, and surviving the turbulent reigns of no less than six emperors. We can also appreciate how, in many ways, it was Theophano who seems to have gotten the last laugh: she outlived all her opponents and played a vital role in safeguarding the rights of her eldest son Basil II, who would go on to become the longest-ruling Roman Emperor.

In conclusion - she was fantastic and I love her.

References:

Lynda Garland, Byzantine Empresses: Women and Power in Byzantium, AD: 527-1204

Anthony Kaldellis, Streams of Gold, Rivers of Blood: The Rise and Fall of Byzantium, 955 A.D. to the First Crusade

John Ash, A Byzantine Journey